reflex wrote:Leaving my machine on for an extra 16 hours per day will waste over 432 kWh in a year.
about the same as one full tank of gas. a plane flying from london to stockholm uses maybe 1000 times more, let's say 10 times per passenger, one way. again, all energy saved is energy saved, but perspective is always interesting.
That's almost half a megawatt, people!
...for one hour. it's a gigawatt for 4 seconds. imagine that.
I agree with Reflex. Peak oil, people -- time to wake up and smell the upcoming return to the 13th century.
When all our energy is coming from small solar panels on the roof of our SUV - we will be living in them btw, the Mobile Home of the Future - we will grow accustomed to greater inconveniences than the slow boot time of our PCs and Macs...
reflex wrote:Leaving my machine on for an extra 16 hours per day will waste over 432 kWh in a year.
about the same as one full tank of gas.
Yes. And how many millions of people around the world leave their computers on all the time? That's a lot of wasted gas. ;)
You're absolutely correct that the standby consumption of a notebook will be significantly less than most desktops. Mine is a mid-range Dell, so it's reasonable to assume that the performance of its no-name power supply is fairly typical.
...for one hour. it's a gigawatt for 4 seconds. imagine that.
And consumption is usually referred to in Wh, kWh, MWh, GWh and so on. What's your point?
aj wrote:There is no connection. If millions of people were saving on daily power usage it would make a considerable difference in needed on-line power in the electricity grid.
well, you're the one who suggested that we put our equipment in deep sleep, and i'm the one who pointed out that you're wasting energy that way. the plane remark was just to put it in perspective.
/matt
The logic was:
people have their computers on all day because booting takes too long.
I say use clever stand-by mode and save energy.
Stand-by uses far less energy.
There is no further perspective (needed). Most understand proportions by themselves.
aj wrote:I say use clever stand-by mode and save energy.
Stand-by uses far less energy.
and i say shut them off and you save even more. i have a really hard time understanding what's hard to grasp about that. perhaps the fact that you're aware of the fact that i don't like you make you a bit hostile? ;-)
reflex wrote:consumption is usually referred to in Wh, kWh, MWh, GWh and so on. What's your point?
that 450kwh is not half a megawatt. it's half a megawatt hour. it's a unit for energy, like calories or joules, watt is a unit for effect, and depending on during how long this effect is taken out different amounts of energy is needed.
reflex wrote:consumption is usually referred to in Wh, kWh, MWh, GWh and so on. What's your point?
that 450kwh is not half a megawatt. it's half a megawatt hour. it's a unit for energy, like calories or joules, watt is a unit for effect, and depending on during how long this effect is taken out different amounts of energy is needed.
You obviously have the technical understanding to grasp what I was attempting to communicate, even with my glaring error. now don't forget to turn off your computer when you're done. ;)
If I'm leaving the machine for more than 15 minutes, it goes off.
When I was running on Amigas, this was totally pain-free (28 second boot time, and power down by hitting the switch.)
When I was running PCs, this was a total pain-in-the-a@@ (3 minute boots, interminable shutdowns.
Now that I run Macs, it's in between. (Boots in about 40 seconds, shutdown in about 5.)
I have no need to either use up the electricity or shorten the usable lifespan of the components in my machines. Like some others, I have had -BAD- things happen to electronic equipment that is left on all the time (how about those exploding capacitors on my Pentium III motherboard!) You never know what might happen when you aren't there.
Plus, if you leave the machines on, you are trusting your power company to ALWAYS deliver perfectly clean 110/220 and NEVER have a brownout, or a surge, or anything untowards. Surge protectors on your gear only do so much... and they can't stop lightning. In electrical storms, I pull the plug.
The plane analogy is a good one but it DOES save fuel on a per capita basis with more people using a SINGLE plane...only if the plane is overbooked and a second plane is required would it actually "cost" more fuel, etc. for that single marginal user. Just like public transit buses. It makes no difference if 1 or 100 people ride the bus but the 101st rider causes another bus to be used. So, if you have a choice to put one LESS car on the road and use some ALREADY available service, then you CAN make a big impact on reducing energy usage.
As for the electricity, electricity at night is not typically a problem since peak load generally comes during the daytime in my part of the world. The nighttime power consumption is simply baseload and if we are talking about hydropower, the electricity would be wasted in a sense that its there and cannot be stored for use during the day when it is needed most.
In otherwords, turning the computer on and off at night really does nothing other than A: using marginally more fossil based energy to produce electricity unless it it produced by a hydroelectric dam, and B: makes YOUR electric bills higher for the nighttime metering rates - no long term economic decisions on electric power would be based on nighttime baseload anyway...peak daytime use is the most worriesome. Of course, things might be slightly different in the lands that have the 20-hour nights. My perspective is California based.
Now, using your computer during the day and turning it off when not using it, en masse, would make a difference since peak loads could be reduced and these electricity sources are typically from higher priced natural gas fired cogeneration units that are fired on demand. Hence the high cost in terms of environmental GHGs and fossil fuel use.
End of electricity usage 101.
My website - check it out...
http://super8man.filmshooting.com/
super8man wrote:In otherwords, turning the computer on and off at night really does nothing...
About 20% of PG&E's power is hydro and a whopping 42% is produced by burning natural gas. And don't forget that hydro output is highly seasonal, so those numbers may shift adversely depending on water levels.
It's possible that they choose to favor hydro over gas at night, but there are reasons not to - line losses (which are typically over 7% in the USA) and peak demand locations might cause them to favour a local plant, for instance.
Your argument that we should just leave all the lights on at night doesn't really hold water. ;)
Then at least your computer is doing something other than sitting....
Peak oil is for chumps. Read books from 50 years ago. They were saying that we had hit peak oil back then. Peak oil is simply a way for the companies to inflate prices.
