No, buying that new dual-processing iMac with the 20-inch screen isn't going to send you to environmentalist hell. Still, as microprocessors, personal computers and servers get faster and stronger, their demand for power grows as well. But while computing potency has been leaping and bounding, efficiency has been dawdling.

For big organizations that depend on big computing power – banks, universities, the government, Google – fueling those racks and racks of servers puts a sizable strain on the bottom line. According to ComputerWorld magazine, powering a large data center can cost $1 million per year. What's more, every watt of computing power consumed costs an additional watt for cooling, power distribution and other overhead.

Now, a few of the leading information technology companies – IBM, Hewlett Packard, and AMD, among other – have teamed up to create the Green Grid, a nonprofit association for IT folks interested in upping efficiency standards for all things computorial. You can read the (very business-speak heavy) press release PDF, if you're into that sort of thing, but the gist of the Green Grid is a sort of high-concept chatroom, an online forum to discuss energy management and solutions to overburdened data centers.

More power to them.

Image credit: Linux.org