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Although people seldom think about it, the Internet is run by servers all over the world, each using a significant amount of electricity. Various estimates have been made on the power consumption of Internet servers and data centers; most exceed 168,300,000,000 kWh - more electricity than is used by the countries of Jamaica, Guyana, Belize, Ireland, Albania, Peru, Uganda, Lesotho, Singapore, New Zealand, Iceland, Bangladesh, and Turkmenistan combined! Such energy consumption furthers the depletion of natural resources, extinction of animal species, and release of pollution into the environment.
What accounts for this rapidly rising power consumption? For the most part, it is the World Wide Web's increasingly demanding and inefficient pages, filled with Flash based content, unnecessary code, and graphical advertisements. It also stems from the increase in uncompressed files and other large items being transferred via email and websites. The proliferation of high-speed Internet connections and ultra-fast computer processors has led many designers and programmers to ignore the importance of efficiency.
The AEIN offers an alternative to this. The highly efficient system significantly minimizes the server equipment dedicated to its operation and limits the amount of work server hard drives must do. Our system also makes it possible to access its services with almost any PC compatible and any Internet connection, without major delays or restrictions. All software, e-books, and templates are downloaded in compressed ZIP files to save time and electricity.
In addition to reducing power consumption at the server level, the AEIN saves electricity in the individual computers its members use. It reads and writes to the hard drive far less often than web browsers do, so the drive uses less power. Some older computers (such as 286/386 desktops and 486 laptops) use significantly less power than newer models; these computers are much more capable of accessing the AEIN than the Web. Being able to complete online tasks more quickly also conserves power.
Members with CRT monitors will save electricity because of the AEIN's eye-friendly dark background colors. Using a wattage meter, we found that CRT power consumption decreases by about 10-12% when using such colors. While this won't make a major difference in your electric bill, every step helps to reduce pollution and prevent the depletion of natural resources.
The AEIN provides people with a solution which allows them to enjoy many of the benefits found elsewhere on the Internet - forums, weather forecasts, user-to-user messaging, encyclopedia entries, software downloads, e-books, food recipes, etc - with much less environmental impact. It also eliminates the constant pressure upon individuals to upgrade their computers and Internet connections.