Get your info right
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| NoCaDrummer May 14, 2007 1:12 PM EDT |
Obviously, the article was written by someone who either has no concept of basic electrical principles, or fails to review her work before hitting the "submit" button. Unless one is able to use one's computer as a space heater, turning it off will not save 1200kW of power. That 1200KW is 1.2 megawatts - enough to heat a pretty good sized apartment complex. Perhaps the author meant 1200kWH (kilowatt-hours), which is the product of power (in kilowats) and time (in hours). Nevertheless, with 8760 hours/year, 1.2kWH would work out to a full-time computer drawing about 137 watts. Gamer's machines probably draw more, as might servers. Still, I'd think her figures assume that folks keep their computers on 24 hours/day, 7 days a week, rather than shut them off after 8 hours of use. By shutting off the computers at the end of a workday (and on weekends), it IS possible to save significant amounts of power. The same is true for other appliances at home and work - turn off lights in rooms when there's no one there, turn off televisions which are not being watched, close off vents and doors to rooms which are never occupied, open & close windows to help regulate temperature (instead of using air conditioners and heaters) and reduce the hot water tank's temperature to less than 140 degrees. Every little bit helps, it's not difficult to do, and it hardly makes a difference in one's lifestyle, but makes a substantial change in our use of resources. |
| dinotrac May 14, 2007 1:42 PM EDT |
>Every little bit helps, it's not difficult to do, and it hardly makes a difference in one's lifestyle, but makes a substantial change in our use of resources. I've been intrigued with this idea for a little while now, but from the opposite perspective -- the green effects of a computer that you keep on all of the time. Good old-fashioned un-sexy client/server and thin-client models give us the potential to do save a little energy by off-loading heavy lifting (and, maybe, scheduling) to one somewhat powerful backend that stays on all the time, and lightweight little frontends that start right up when you turn them on and go happily to bed when you turn them off. The thing that has got me thinking is MythTV, which uses a frontend/backend model. You always need the backend running, because it kicks in to record shows that you want to watch. But... one backend can serve every television (or monitor, as the case may be) in your house. They can use fairly low-powered frontends, and they can be switched off without losing any recording schedule. I wonder how many other things work that way? Maybe a central home computer that wakes things up as needed? Start the stove, make the coffeer? turn on the (now clockless) radio -- er -- audio playback unit? |
| Sander_Marechal May 14, 2007 2:55 PM EDT |
Quoting:The thing that has got me thinking is MythTV, which uses a frontend/backend model. From an environmental perspective MythTV is the wrong way around. The power-hungry back end needs to run 24/7 and the light front-end is powered off. It would be better for the 24/7 component to be light and only use the power suckers when needed. A similar thing with your client/server example: It's only better for the environment if the workload is high enough. If the workload is light, a bunch of fat clients that are turned on occasionally will use less power than a 24/7 power hungry server and low power thin clients. It's only when the workload increases that it becomes (environmentally) efficient to replace the fat-clients by thin clients and add a server. |
| dinotrac May 15, 2007 6:01 AM EDT |
>From an environmental perspective MythTV is the wrong way around. Ummm...As in most things environmental, you need to think a little more deeply than that. It's like calling an electric car emissions-free because you conveniently ignore power-generation. And that doesn't even touch the environmental impact of all those batteries. Or calling an SUV wasteful and a Prius environmentally-friendly. It's all in what you do with it. A full SUV may be easier on the environment than one person in a Prius. Just like commuter trains reduce fuel use, even though they GOBBLE diesel. In the case of MythTV (or, I imagine, a household control center), only one machine is needed to do the things that require constant operation. It can host 2 or 3 or 4 tuners if you want. It can be a relatively low power box like a Turion X2 or Core Duo. It can slow down when it's not busy, going full burst only when transcoding for commercial deletion or some such thing. It can run headless. Yes. The more powerful box runs all the time. But, if it lets you use 2-3 low power units that you turn on and off as you need them, it will save you power. |
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