单选题
Telecommuting, Internet shopping and online meetings
may save energy as compared with in-person alternatives, but as the digital age
moves on, its green reputation is turning a lot browner. Last year, E-mailing
consumed as much as 1.5 percent of the nation's electricity-half of which comes
from coal. In 2005 the computers of the world ate up 123
billion kilo-watt hours of energy. As a result, the power bill to run a computer
over its lifetime will surpass the cost of buying the machine in the first
place-giving Internet and computer companies a business reason to cut energy
costs, as well as an environmental one. One of the biggest energy sinks comes
not from the computers themselves but from the air-conditioning needed to keep
them from overheating. For every kilowatt-hour of energy used for computing in a
data center, another kilowatt-hour is required to cool the furnace like racks of
servers. For Internet giant Google, this reality has driven
efforts such as the installation of a solar array that can provide 30 percent of
the peak power needs of its headquarters as well as increasing purchases of
renewable energy. But to deliver Web pages within seconds, the firm must
maintain hundreds of thousands of computer servers in cavernous buildings.
"We are actively working to maximize the efficiency of our data centers, which
account for most of the energy Google consumes worldwide." remarks Google's
green energy czar Bill Weihl. Google will funnel some of its profits into a new
effort, dubbed RE＜C (for renewable energy cheaper than coal, as Google
translates it) to make sources such as solar-thermal, highaltitude wind and
geothermal cheaper than coal "within years, not decades," according to
Weihl. In the meantime, the industry as a whole has employed a
few tricks to save watts. Efforts include rearranging the stacks of servers and
the mechanics of their cooling, and using software to create multiple "virtual"
computers, rather than having to deploy several real ones. Such virtualization
has allowed computer maker Hewlett-Packard to consolidate 86 data centers spread
throughout the world to just three, with three backups, says Pat Tiernan, the
firm's vice president of social and environmental responsibility.
The industry is also tackling the energy issue at the computer-chip
level. Chipmakers such as Intel and AMD have shifted to so-called multi-core
technology, which packs multiple processors into one circuit rather than
separating them. "When we moved to multi-core and throttled down
microprocessors, the energy savings were pretty substantial," says Allyson
Klein, Intel's marketing manager. Chipmakers continue to shrink circuits on the
nanoscale as well, which "means a chip needs less electricity" to deliver
the same performance, she adds.
单选题
The sentence "its green reputation is turning a lot browner" (Lines
2-3, Paragraph 1) shows that the digital industry
A. does not help save energy any more.
B. is not so environmental friendly as before.
C. consumes most of the nation's electricity.
D. has ruined its own green reputation.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】
单选题
One of the biggest energy sinks comes from the air-conditioning in that
A. one kilowatt-hour is needed by air-conditioning to cool the
computers.
B. air-conditioning costs a large stun of money.
C. air-conditioning is needed to prevent computers from overheating.
D. a data center needs air-conditioning desperately.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】
单选题
We learn from the third paragraph that in the near future Google will
A. install solar array panels at its headquarters.
B. purchase the energy which could be renewed.
C. make renewable energy cheaper than coal.
D. channel some of its profits into purchases of energy.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】
单选题
By citing the example of computer maker Hewlett-Packard, the author
intends to show that
A. effort has been made by the digital industry to save energy.
B. virtualization could help the company to save energy.
C. HP has managed to consolidate 86 data centers to just three.
D. HP has employed software to create multiple "virtual"
computers.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】
单选题
Which of the following is true of changes at the computer-chip level?
A. The multi-core technology helps separate the multiple processors.
B. The multi-core technology helps save the energy substantially.
C. Circuits on the nanoscale could save energy by sacrificing
performance.
D. Circuits have been shrunk on the nanoscale in order to be
lighter.