Oops. Apparently all the computers in the US that are rarely, if ever, shut down at night account for almost $3 billion in wasted energy costs and “may emit up to 20 million tons of carbon dioxide.”
According to Scientific American:
“A study released last week puts a finer point on this assertion, reporting that U.S. workers waste $2.8 billion annually in energy costs by failing to shut off their PCs at the end of the work day. What’s more, machines left on during off hours may emit up to 20 million tons of carbon dioxide (C02) this year alone, roughly the equivalent impact of four million cars.”
Apparently about 50% of people leave their computers on overnight for various reasons including forgetting to turn them off, not wanting to wait for them to shut down, and so they can receive software updates. Responses were collected “from 4,743 U.S. computer users over the age of 18, about half of whom were employed.” The study also found that Germany could save $1.2 billion and the UK could save $400 million by turning off their computers.
Me, I’m a standby man myself. I always thought that the boot-up process used more energy than letting the computer sit idle for a while.
[via The Raw Feed]
On the other hand, how many are running Folding@Home?
/raises hand (twice)
But if I don’t leave my computer on at night, my screensaver fish wouldn’t get any food or exercise.
Or, more to the point, leaving work machines on for remote access.
Wake-on-LAN capability (where it’s built in and internally wired) can be used for out-of-hours group policy driven software and security updates, etc. But I know of very few companies that have implemented this successfully in large deployments.