iffy numbers.
In National Geogrpahic's new "green" mag.
"A typical desktop computer uses 300W, so that means 7.2kWh per day".
why iffy? well, firstly, that pre-supposes that the computer is on 24/7. Most aren't. Even office ones are only likely to be on in office hours. Servers and so on tend to stay up full time, it's true, but they probably don't use 300W.
My box upstairs has several HDDs and 2 case fans and a fair-to-middlin' graphics card. Idling with the monitor off and just running seti and the other thing (I forget which, might be malaria control) distributed computing projects, it uses about 100W, maybe a tad more. Power up the monitor and it goes up to about 145W, and if the sounds system is on and the game controller and it's running something intensive like iRacing it probably gets to 200W or so, maybe even as much as 220W once it starts actively cooling the graphics card.
Now, that's not cutting edge - especially, the graphics card and the board/chip are out of date - but in electronics, out of date usually means using MORE power, not less. The new 22" monitor has a 2W standby mode, for example, where the old 19" CRT took about 7W on standby.
So my computer uses about 40% on average what they're saying, and moreover, it's off for about 8 hours in 24, during the night, so actually, it's only 2/3 of 40% which is gonna be something around 27% I guess. so instead of 7.2kWh per day, it's going to be more like 3kWh per day.
I's expect on average, nationwide, desktop computers probably use a bit less even than that. Most office ones, provided they're turned off at night, will only be operating for about 8 hours a day, for example. Lot of people, too, use laptops now which use less power.
Now, it might look like nitpicking and to an extent it is. But there's a more serious issue: I happen to know that this particular figure is bunk, because I have the knowledge and the data (my setup runs on a power-metering plug). I don't have the knowledge or the data to know if all the other figures in the mag are equally iffy - I rely on the writers etc. to make reasonable effort to get it right, in what styles itself as a serious, factual publication.
Perhaps I'll write and tell then this...
"A typical desktop computer uses 300W, so that means 7.2kWh per day".
why iffy? well, firstly, that pre-supposes that the computer is on 24/7. Most aren't. Even office ones are only likely to be on in office hours. Servers and so on tend to stay up full time, it's true, but they probably don't use 300W.
My box upstairs has several HDDs and 2 case fans and a fair-to-middlin' graphics card. Idling with the monitor off and just running seti and the other thing (I forget which, might be malaria control) distributed computing projects, it uses about 100W, maybe a tad more. Power up the monitor and it goes up to about 145W, and if the sounds system is on and the game controller and it's running something intensive like iRacing it probably gets to 200W or so, maybe even as much as 220W once it starts actively cooling the graphics card.
Now, that's not cutting edge - especially, the graphics card and the board/chip are out of date - but in electronics, out of date usually means using MORE power, not less. The new 22" monitor has a 2W standby mode, for example, where the old 19" CRT took about 7W on standby.
So my computer uses about 40% on average what they're saying, and moreover, it's off for about 8 hours in 24, during the night, so actually, it's only 2/3 of 40% which is gonna be something around 27% I guess. so instead of 7.2kWh per day, it's going to be more like 3kWh per day.
I's expect on average, nationwide, desktop computers probably use a bit less even than that. Most office ones, provided they're turned off at night, will only be operating for about 8 hours a day, for example. Lot of people, too, use laptops now which use less power.
Now, it might look like nitpicking and to an extent it is. But there's a more serious issue: I happen to know that this particular figure is bunk, because I have the knowledge and the data (my setup runs on a power-metering plug). I don't have the knowledge or the data to know if all the other figures in the mag are equally iffy - I rely on the writers etc. to make reasonable effort to get it right, in what styles itself as a serious, factual publication.
Perhaps I'll write and tell then this...