Saving Power in your Home Office

cweditor writes "Rob Mitchell shows how he measured energy use of all his home office equipment, and then targeted the energy pigs for replacement. With better equipment choices, he'd save $90/year. If you've got more than a couple of computers and printers at home (and if you're a Slashdot reader, you probably do), the savings would be a lot higher. Includes detailed formulas as well as a spreadsheet on monitor energy usage."

Saving elsewhere

[luvirini]

A typical slashdotter will likely save way more both nature and money in a year by just not buying one of the gadgets..

Ofcourse saving electricity is good, but often the total enviromental cost of disposing of the previous thing and the making of the new more energy efficient thing is way above any savings made by the new one..

Re:90 whole dollars

[eln]

How much money does it cost to save that much energy as well? I kind of scanned the article, but one thing I did notice was that $200 was spent on a new LCD monitor to replace the CRT. If we assume 100% of the energy savings came from that one purchase (which it didn't), it will take more than 2 years to recoup the money spent on that one purchase, and there was no indication that there was anything wrong with the older monitor other than that it used too much energy.

I would advocate buying newer more energy efficient equipment as your old equipment dies, but I would not advocate going out and replacing perfectly good equipment with more energy efficient (and more expensive) alternatives. It will not only cost you a lot of money, but will also mean more waste from throwing out perfectly good equipment that will likely end up in a landfill.

Re:love to see more of this

[pinkocommie]

Craigs List? Or any other classifieds variants. You're making the presumption that both of those are going to waste when in both cases you'll be passing them on to someone else who would've gotten them from another source otherwise (which could be new or used)

Kill-A-Watt

[keithjr]

I've got one of these little guys on hand, and I swear by it myself. Much easier than trying to use an amp-clamp to find your AC current usage. Anybody interested in monitoring home energy usages should invest in one.

$90? Cost of new gadgets?

[IBBoard]

Okay, so it saved him $90 when he replaced some items, but how much extra would you spend on the new items that you wouldn't otherwise spend?

One great way to cut down your computer's power is to replace all of the big power-hungry graphics and processors with all these cheap and efficient ones like WalMart or whoever have been selling recently. Who volunteers to replace their nVidia 8800 with an on-board graphics card to save a hundred watts or so?

It's a good idea, but it's either expensive in gadgets or will often need to cripple what you have. (Yes I know there are more efficient graphics cards now, but the general trend is more power hungry)

Old and Power Hungry

[rueger]

Not a bad article, but really his primary problem was that he was running some pretty old gear - a big CRT monitor and an old Laserjet. Once he dumped those the pickings were pretty slim.

It's like those folks that hang onto a twenty year old fridge, keeping it in the basement for beer. Just because it's "free" doesn't mean it's doing you any favors.

Re:90 whole dollars

[Spy der Mann]

How much money does it cost to save that much energy as well? I kind of scanned the article, but one thing I did notice was that $200 was spent on a new LCD monitor to replace the CRT. If we assume 100% of the energy savings came from that one purchase (which it didn't), it will take more than 2 years to recoup the money spent on that one purchase

And for this reason, the government must subsidize energy-efficient monitors and TV's (like LCD's) so the change is viable for the consumer (and subsidizing the newest LED light bulbs wouldn't be a bad idea, either).

Energy efficient != good technology

[RandoX]

If my old Commodore64 used less power than my Pentium IV I should switch back? What about if a CRT uses less power than my new HDTV of similar size? Sometimes there are other reasons to choose a product than simply power consumption.

Re:Only $90/year????

[mdalal97]

Why not do both? It is not that hard to reduce your consumption. Turn off your computers at night, unplug unused power bricks (for cell phones, cameras, chargers, etc...). It is easy. Just because it appears to be a relatively small benefit, it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

I thought the article was OK, but it did seem like he we dwelling on the 'sacrifices' he had to make... really, how hard it is to turn off your computers when you are done for the day. It is not difficult to make the changes needed to reduce consumption.

The problem implicit: no value for the individual

[skoda]

The author spent $200 to buy an LCD monitor to replace a 19" CRT, saving $18 / yr electricity: more than a five year payoff. And he's putting a CRT into a landfill somewhere. There's no economic incentive to buy an LCD; savings are pocket change and doesn't realistically pay for itself. And the environmental cost could be a wash, since the reduced carbon footprint is weighed against a CRT dumped in the trash.

This article is fun, and I might play a similar game at home. But people chasing $90 in electricity is nearly trite compared to the real energy users: home heating and cooling and clothes washers and dryers. Globally, this is spitting in the ocean compared to the real change that's (presumably) neeeded.

It's reported that eliminating coal-mine fires (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/from-bagels-to-coal-fires-an-unorthodox-economist-keeps-pushing-for-change/) would reduce CO2 emissions annually equivalent to that produced by all cars and light-trucks in the US. There's little value in individuals replacing 3 W cable modems for 2 W versions when the "easy" targets are still ignored.

Re:Saving elsewhere

[Otter]

Sincere question -- why on earth does any one person need more than a laptop, a desktop computer with monitor and one printer at home? (OK, I'll throw in a "media center", also.) Not that one necessarily needs even that, but I'm always baffled by these comments here about home networks that sound more like 15 person businesses.

Presumably there's an answer, but cross-platform development is the only one I can come up with, and are there really so many people compiling on VMS at home?

Re:Saving elsewhere

[timeOday]

If consumer prices more accurately reflected long-term environmental costs, you could answer this question simply by determining whether it made financial sense to replace the gadget. People thinking of dumping their car to get something more fuel efficient in order to save money make this calculation all the time: how much gas $$/mo will I save, how long would that take to pay off the difference between car X and car Y (though the high price of gas is due to scarcity and politics instead of reflecting long-term costs such as the environment). Correcting the fact that pricing does not reflect environmental impact in general is the #1 environmental step we could take IMHO. Granted, this would allow rich people to continue polluting all they want, but at least they'd have an incentive to clean up their factories. And yes, I think we could and should extend this to imported goods.

Re:love to see more of this

[MightyYar]

Parent is very insightful. Also, make sure your old items are recycled, which will at least partially offset the need to mine or pump new materials from the ground.

When considering cars, there are other things besides CO2 to take into consideration. Older cars tend to emit more smog pollutants than newer cars, so local air quality should also be taken into consideration. Despite the current hype, CO2 is not the only type of pollution in this world. That's why I'm a little bit dubious of Gore when he seems to think that it is okay for his house to use so much energy simply because he buys carbon credits... What about strip-mining credits, mercury credits, sulfur credits, etc.?

Then again, I still use some of those really inefficient halogen touchier lamps. I use CFL bulbs in the light fixtures that don't dim, but there's something really nice about being able to vary the light from intense and white for reading to warm and dim for movies or dinner.

Re:love to see more of this

[hankwang]

But that new car, even if it gets twice the MPG, costs energy to make--would an extra 20mpg offset the energy cost of making the car, and if so, how long would it take? Money aside, I don't know whether to keep the beater (which gets about 20mpg) or get a newer car.

Get the newer car. The CO2 emission for manufacturing a new car in the UK is 0.7 tonnes as of 2006, [green-car-guide.com] which is roughly 250 kg (300 liters = 75 gallons) of fuel. This is all thanks to the extensive recycling of cars. I don't know about the situation in the US, though.

Re:Saving elsewhere

[plague3106]

Hell, why do you need your own house? Surely an apartment is good enough for you? Even that's wasteful, why not just live in a building with shared bathrooms and beds. Who needs lights at night anyway, or a TV for that matter? Surely not buying a washing machine would be more efficent too, just do your dishes in the sink. Its also a waste to travel, so lets live at where ever we are employed. And you get one plate to call your own. Who needs more than that?

Hand down that old CRT rather than tossing it.

[adminstring]

You make a good point about heating and cooling being bigger offenders than office electronics, and focusing on them first. Adding insulation and replacing (or at least caulking) leaky windows is another good move which could save you hundreds of dollars in energy each year.

The article didn't mention him putting the CRT in a landfill - I suspect he ended up donating it or giving it away. There are a number of charities out there which take obsolete computer equipment, test it, and give it to nonprofits or low-income people. Or you could give it to Goodwill or post it on Craigslist, where it will end up with someone who needs a monitor and might have otherwise bought a new one. If it exists in your town, you could even freecycle it. This is a great way to keep things out of the landfill - it's a lot more efficient than donating to a thrift shop for specialty items. When someone needs something in particular, they don't have to go to a dozen thrift shops looking for it, they just do a computer search or post a request.

What I'm looking for is...

[FellowConspirator]

Two things, really. A power supply where the individual outputs are switchable via USB (go to sleep, printers, USB hubs, etc shut off) -- at the very least that cuts power to all outputs when one output's load drops (i.e., the computer turning off cuts power to everything else plugged into the switch). The other thing I'm looking for is a single higher-efficiency power adapter that would replace the multitudinous little bricks with a multi-output brick.

Put those things together and you could easily drop power consumption 30-50% in a setup like that.

Re:Saving elsewhere

[Ngarrang]

If we had more nuclear power plants, we wouldn't have to worry about saving electricity. Give me more electricity!

Stop spending money to make moisture evaporate

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest power sucking appliance in most houses: the clothes dryer. These puppies can suck down 4000 watts or more.

The secret that appliance companies don't want you to know: clothes dry themselves. It's true!

I went out and bought a $28 drying rack, which is big enough to dry one load of clothes. Even when the weather is cool, heavy clothes only take a day or so to dry. I haven't used a clothes dryer in over a year.

If it's 10c per kW*h (I don't know the exact price offhand), and I do 1 load of laundry a week, I'm saving 4 kW*h = $0.40/week or $20/year. (Actually, I recently moved into an apartment complex where the dryers cost $1.00 to use, so I'm saving $1.00/week.) It look like my drying rack has already paid for itself.

Re:Watts vs. VA

[Smidge204]

In an AC circuit with inductive or capacitive loads, Volt-Amps does NOT equal Watts.

To use the common Beer analogy:

Volt-amps drawn by the device is the size of a beer mug. Watts used by the device is the amount of beer in the mug. VAR (reactive VA) as the amount of foam in the mug. Your Power factor is therefore the percentage of beer in the mug. Problem is, you pay for beer by the mug (1 pint each, say). If you want 3 pints of beer but each mug is 35% foam (PF = 0.65), you pay for 4.6 mugs.

So, if you have two devices that take the same number of "Watts" then PF=0.65 device is costing you 1 watt but delivering 0.65 watts of performance. If you only need 0.65 watts of performance you can replace it with a theoretical PF=1.00 device that costs 0.65 watts.

In other words, the two devices in your question must have different outputs (same 1 watt input and different PF) and are therefore not equivalent.
=Smidge=

Re:90 whole dollars

[falconwolf]

And for this reason, the government must subsidize energy-efficient monitors and TV's (like LCD's) so the change is viable for the consumer (and subsidizing the newest LED light bulbs wouldn't be a bad idea, either).

Instead of just subsidizing energy efficient appliances I'd rather see energy users pay for what they use, not let power generators pass Externalities or external costs [wikipedia.org] to others. This would raise prices but would encourage efficiency. This brings up what Australia has done and what California is going to do, outlaw incandescent lights. Some companies are working on energy efficient incandescent lights however these laws discourage research into them. Making users pay more will encourage more research. Research may be able to develop an incandescent light more efficient than CFLs.

Falcon

Re:Saving elsewhere

[Achromatic1978]

Now if you asked are they in use all the time then Hell Yes - Folding at Home on all of them and every system is as energy saving as possible.

One part of this sentence is incompatible with the other. Hint: All those CPUs, not idling, and energy saving, but instead hammering 100% 24/7.

Re:Time is money

[turing_m]

"my time is worth a hell of a lot more than my money."

And... you're posting on slashdot? On a subject you really couldn't care less about? Something's not adding up here.