"The Green Penguin" is a new blog devoted to ‘green’ IT related to Linux (though at times loosely). This week´s topic is about Google and General Electric´s recently announced plan to promote a ‘smart’ electric power grid and thus encourage greater use of renewable energy.

Over the past few months, the concept of green computing has become all the rage. But the undeniable fact is that often times with this low impact approach to computing, we end up sacrificing actual computing power, which makes this a tough sell for many. Frankly, to me it just feels like a marketing ploy. Could this perception be felt by others as well?

There is more to "green" computing than turning things off when you're not using them-- Juliet Kemp exposes the total energy cost of computing, from manufacturing to disposal.

Going green doesn't mean joining some radical organization, using pig waste to power your data center or flying the ecology flag at your place of business. It does mean doing your part to save electricity, fossil fuel and your own money.

Recently Products Editor, James Gray, caught up with IBM's Inna Kuznetsova, Worldwide Director for IBM's Linux strategy. They discuss IBM's Big Green Linux intiative and IBM's own power-saving move to Linux on its own data center.

Green IT is one of the hottest of today's technology trends, and the GNU/Linux community has risen to the challenge. Along with several corporate partners, the GNU/Linux operating system provides solutions for dealing with power consumption, carbon emissions, and e-waste.

You can do your part to help tackle such global issues as disease control and climate prediction simply by volunteering your computer's resources to solve complex computational problems.

"The Linux Foundation has formed a Green Linux initiative to focus on reducing the open source operating system's power consumption."

Penguin Computing, a company that provides high-performance computing resources to researchers, scientists and engineers, has begun offering its services in the cloud. Penguin On Demand (POD) became available on Tuesday. The company said the service is intended for those who need HPC capabilities without having to acquire the clustered infrastructure required for that level of computing.