Energy conservation hysteria

[Caydr]

I just read somewhere a guy advocating, completely in earnest, unplugging everything you're not actively using at that moment. He included in the example unscrewing lightbulbs, which if you're not a certifiable dumbass, you will realize are already completely and 100% disconnected from receiving electricity by the magic we call a lightswitch. Switches in general do this actually, and they're quite good at it.

If you want to save electricity, the whales, the forest, and the icecaps too, do this: buy stuff that's more efficient. Replace things that are 10+ years old with newer models and buy with efficiency as a higher priority in your mind rather than the usual factors.

The very real and rapidly measurable savings from doing this will far outweigh things like turning things "really off" as opposed to leaving them "1% still on". Electronic devices are designed to give you the best experience by taking advantage of drawing a little bit of idle power - they will, for example, be able to start faster, or do little background things that the manufacturer understands a lot better than eco-tards.

Easy steps to reduce your monthly bills immediately:
1) Cook with a toaster oven when possible instead of your full-size oven.
2) Replace your regular light bulbs with the swirly ones if you haven't already, and turn them off if you're not in the room.
3) Turn your temperature in summer up one degree and your temperature in winter down one degree. Clothes, people.

Medium:
1) Catalog your major electronics and find out how much electricity they use on a daily basis, then compare this to appliances that are available today in your price range. Gradually replace the worst offenders as you're able.
2) Buy (and install) a newer graphics card which is energy-efficient. Cheap, used Radeon 4890s are beginning to flood the market and used very little power at idle especially. The entire 5xxx series is highly efficient. NV's new GPUs will reportedly run extremely hot and top out at 280 watts so they might not qualify here, but hopefully they will implement a low-power mode as ATI has done.

Hard:
1) Re-evaluate how you clock your CPU to see if you can hit a similar clock with slightly less voltage. Even a 0.1v drop makes a huge difference when it's the biggest energy-burner in your PC much of the time.

Pro:
1) Buy a more efficient power supply. Look for the power rating first but remember that marketing claims without certification or testing are worthless. This is why the 80 Plus certification system was created, it's an independent certification with some teeth and growing respect among enthusiasts. "80 Plus" by itself means it runs with 80% efficiency as a minimum, "80+ Bronze" is a little better, "80+ Silver" is really good, and "80+ Gold" means the PSU achieves a staggering 90% or better efficiency at all times during normal operation. I got one of these (Seasonic 750w) for about $170 and it makes such a difference to my computer's noise level, internal and room temperature, and my level of confidence in my computer itself. I can't go back to a regular PSU now, it's that good.

Worthless:
1) Save a few cents every month by unplugging crap and congratulate yourself because if you and all your neighbors do this every day for the next 10 years, you'll have saved enough electricity to power Kenya for a day.
2) Suicide. My comprehensive research has determined that by just killing yourself (as soon as possible to maximize the savings) you will, over the span of what might have been your natural lifespan, save far more than even you would have by making sure all your stuff is "really, really off".

[Mav]

If you want to save electricity, the whales, the forest, and the icecaps too, do this: buy stuff that's more efficient. Replace things that are 10+ years old with newer models and buy with efficiency as a higher priority in your mind rather than the usual factors.

Unless they're really, really bad offenders, I'm actually against buying new stuff that's more efficient. The main reason is that manufacturing just about anything is hugely energy intensive. Lots of metal is melted, pressed, formed, etc. Glass is almost as bad. It requires lots and lots of energy to do this. And then the product has to be shipped to a local store, requiring even more energy. Then you drive and pick it up. If it's something big like an A/C unit, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to install it.

The other solutions are pretty good. In general, use less electricity by turning stuff off/down/up and you're doing good.

And yeah, the light bulb thing was pretty dumb. Switches are about as close to 100% efficiency as you can make something.

[AF]

I want my light bulbs to light the room, not waste an additional 95 watts heating the surrounding 4mm of air to boiling temperatures

[Forboding Angel]

Oh for christ's sake people, give it a rest.

Here I have a great idea! Why don't you spend the rest of your lives freaking out about everything that you can't control, and the rest of us will live and be happy. Sound good? Okiedoke!

/thread

[Master-Athmos]

2) Buy (and install) a newer graphics card which is energy-efficient. Cheap, used Radeon 4890s are beginning to flood the market and used very little power at idle especially.

Actually all of the 48xx cards were bad at idle power consumption. You still could do something about it by using software which makes them use even lower clocks but still the results weren't that good. That then was one of the improvements of the new 5000 series which does a great job at this...

[AF]

But we CAN control it, and its cheaper, energy saving light bulbs ftw

[PicassoCT]

play moar on your pc, always remind yourself, every thing you use in the real world for entertaiment or just travelling uses energy to manufacture, to be kept waiting for you coming along and again to get rid of once its broken.
Virtual need for speed, need for riches and need for war is betta then living out those desires in real world. Thank you for not breaking the fasting,
the Abbot of the monastry.

[Forboding Angel]

But we CAN control it, and its cheaper, energy saving light bulbs ftw

You honestly think that humans can control the earth's climate? Good luck with that one.

The whole climate deal is what this is about. For myself, imo if you want to recycle, then hell yes, be energy effecient, fuck yeah good on ya! But don't try to force everyone else into it as well.

[AF]

I dont use energy saving light bulbs to save the planet

I use them because they're cheaper to run and they last a heck of a lot longer, theyre good economy

I recycle because its good, we're at a stage where landfill is starting to become an attractive prospect for mining of materials like gold copper and steel, why raise the price of these materials by using landfill when I can recycle and save the cost in higher council tax due to larger landfill costs?

[PicassoCT]

Forb, the goverment is allowed to force you and your children away from drugs, and cheap energy could be considered one of them. So why not get a little forced? After all you want to force your opinion upon other people too, they shall deal with what ever dump of a plant you leave behind for them.

[AF]

This stuff is good to use, not for some climate related business.

I thought you'd have realised by now that all this stuff that's being done is still worth doing even if climate change is a load of tosh. It is a solution to a lot of very real and very big problems.

Trash and garbage and refuse in particular is a prime example, nevermind oil extraction and the political problems, or the growing power needs of the west coupled with worldwide expectations that there will be a global return of brownouts as demand surpasses capacity after 2015

[Forboding Angel]

After all you want to force your opinion upon other people too, they shall deal with what ever dump of a plant you leave behind for them.

How is me stating my opinion forcing it upon you? In what world does that make sense?

I dont use energy saving light bulbs to save the planet

I use them because they're cheaper to run and they last a heck of a lot longer, theyre good economy

They're also hazardous waste, or did you not know that? They contain mercury, meaning that if one breaks in your house, you need to call hazmat (I'm not kidding, that's what is recommended by the government).

The issue is that the current means of being "energy efficient" isn't "efficient" at all.

[Forboding Angel]

This stuff is good to use, not for some climate related business.

I thought you'd have realised by now that all this stuff that's being done is still worth doing even if climate change is a load of tosh. It is a solution to a lot of very real and very big problems.

Trash and garbage and refuse in particular is a prime example, nevermind oil extraction and the political problems, or the growing power needs of the west coupled with worldwide expectations that there will be a global return of brownouts as demand surpasses capacity after 2015

Just don't force it by taxation (which is what the US government is trying to do currently). That tactic will not work in the long run. Better to educate and let people do it on their own of their own free will. Nothing good comes from forced compliance on something that is so potentially damaging to individual liberties.

Forb, the goverment is allowed to force you and your children away from drugs...

That is a state by state issue and therefore voted in by the people. Taxation attempting to force people into doing this stuff is NOT voted on by the people, it is rammed home by congress, population be damned.

Sidenote: If a fat chick falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, do the trees laugh?

[Auswaschbar]

Hard:
1) Re-evaluate how you clock your CPU to see if you can hit a similar clock with slightly less voltage. Even a 0.1v drop makes a huge difference when it's the biggest energy-burner in your PC much of the time.

Most modern desktop CPUs have power manamgement, so when CPU usage is low, the will clock and power down by themself, saving energy.

Worthless:
1) Save a few cents every month by unplugging crap and congratulate yourself because if you and all your neighbors do this every day for the next 10 years, you'll have saved enough electricity to power Kenya for a day.

That is not generally true. Especially old and cheap devices can use considerable amounts of energy when in stand-by-mode. And turning off your outlet strip when your pc is off isn't hard work, in fact its easier to turn that off than to turn off printer, monitor and speakers seperately.

[Umbra]

Thought that this thread would contain something about laws of thermodynamics and the heat death of the universe. To say the least, i'm thoroughly disappointed.

[PicassoCT]

Sun im dissapoint

[BrainDamage]

Thought that this thread would contain something about laws of thermodynamics and the heat death of the universe. To say the least, i'm thoroughly disappointed.

this

also, a rough power calculation for your cpu is: voltage * clock_frequency^2 ( voltage * clock_frequency^3 for the most scaled techs )

in short, if you want to save power, make sure your cpu underclocks when idle first

[Auswaschbar]

Since conservation of energy applies, all the energy wasted in your devices can be used to heat up your room, so when its cold outside it doesn't matter how much energy your CPU uses.
On a closer look, energy conversion efficiency for turbines is < 1, so it would still be better to heat using central / district heating instead.

[JohannesH]

Since conservation of energy applies, all the energy wasted in your devices can be used to heat up your room, so when its cold outside it doesn't matter how much energy your CPU uses.
On a closer look, energy conversion efficiency for turbines is < 1, so it would still be better to heat using central / district heating instead.

Depends what your house is warmed by.

[Pxtl]

To be fair, the amount of energy wasted by AC adaptors is disgusting. I just keep all my recharging doodads on a single power-strip and turn it off if nothing's charging.

Also, it's worth looking into when you're buying a new computer. I remember I was choosing between a fast slow quad-core and a fast dual-core.... and somehow, the quad core actually drew about 2x as much power as the dual-core. That was the clincher for me.