Follow the 'turn it off' advice and save, on average, $75 a year. (Source: Julo at Wikimedia Commons)
The average personal computer is a real energy guzzler. Only about half of the power it
uses makes videogames run, or music play, or run office software. The other half goes
up in wasted heat. Shawn Allee found out there are energy-saving PCs, but maybe using
the computer correctly can save the most power and money:
Transcript
The average personal computer is a real energy guzzler. Only about half of the power it
uses makes videogames run, or music play, or run office software. The other half goes
up in wasted heat. Shawn Allee found out there are energy-saving PCs, but maybe using
the computer correctly can save the most power and money:
I want a peek at some energy-saving PCs, so I head to a Best Buy electronics store.
“We’re heading to the computers.”
“Yes.”
I’m with a store manager. He wants me to use his first name, Tim.
Shawn: “When people come to the store, what’s usually the thing they’re asking
about or looking for in their PC?”
Tim: “First thing they look for is memory and hard drive space, that’s pretty much
it, and price.”
Shawn: “So it’s like, what can this thing do, and how much is this gonna cost me?”
Tim: “Exactly.”
Shawn: “How often is it the case someone comes in and says, Tim, which one saves
the most energy?”
Tim: “I have never heard that question asked.”
Shawn: “How long you been doing this?”
Tim: “I’ve been with Best Buy for five years.”
And you know, when I ask shoppers about energy consumption and computers, I just get
blank stares.
Well, Tim’s got several computers that have thumb-sized Energy Star labels.
Energy Star rated computers cut energy use by a third, and they usually cost the same as
comparable models.
This can save an average user maybe $25 a year in energy costs.
There are people who say that’s not enough.
You can actually save three times that by using PCs right.
One guy making this case is Pat Tiernan. He directs the Climate Savers Computing
Initiative, a computer industry group.
Tiernan says no matter how you get a PC – new or hand-me down …
“Make sure power management settings are aggressively set.”
Those are in the computer’s control panel settings.
Tiernan wants people to give power-settings the once-over, just to make certain the
computer can detect when you’re not using it.
“It puts it into a lower energy state like sleep mode.”
That’s if you don’t use the computer for fifteen minutes.
That’s the biggest energy saver.
Tiernan’s next tip is to simply turn off the machine when you’re not using it.
“It’s funny to me, people don’t just leave their cars on when they’re done with them,
right? They don’t leave them running in the garage or on the street. Yet, most
people in the U.S. leave their devices on in one form or another.”
Now, Tiernan says, there’s turning off a machine and there’s really turning off a machine.
“Even though you’ve turned many devices off on your household doesn’t mean
they’re not using power.”
Tiernan says computers always sip a little electricity out of your wall socket.
Printers, computer speakers and monitors can, too.
“Put your devices on a power strip. Flip that switch off and you’ll be doing yourself
and the environment a benefit.”
Now, there are critics of turning off your PC.
Shawn: “I have heard in the past that turning your desktop on and off again is hard
on your hard drive, though.”
Tiernan: “Well, a hard drive is and spinning up and spinning down throughout its
entire use. Does it put added wear on your hard drive? It really depends. Depending
on what you have loaded on it, your disk may be spinning up and down anyway, so
there’s a good argument to be made that turning it shutting it down for 8 hours that
you sleep may be better.”
So, what’s the bottom line if you follow Tiernan’s ‘turn it off’ advice for your PC?
On average, you could save $75 a year.
You can save even more if you use an Energy Star model.
But Tiernan says cutting power doesn’t just help your bottom line.
He says there’re more than a billion PCs on the market.
Cutting their power use can take a bite out of climate change.
For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.