Wanted: a "Save energy, be more secure" howto

[David Curry]

bill wrote:

> M. Fioretti wrote:
>
>> 1) are there any exhaustive statistics on how many Watts a current
>>   computer (say P4 with 7200 rpm drive + energy star monitor) really
>>   dissipates when idle? Not peak figures, the actual electricity
>>   adsorbed when it's on but doing nothing, just waiting for somebody
>>   to hit the keyboard
>>  
>
> A regular CRT monitor consumes more electricity than the PC its 
> connected to. So, turning off the tube will save you quite a bit on 
> electricity. Newer LCD panels consume much less than a CRT, and the 
> ones I'm familiar with are in the neighborhood of 35W. I had a 20" CRT 
> that heated the room it was in, consuming over 200W.
>
I applaud the idea of energy efficiency and steps to monitor energy 
useage so no criticism is intended in saying that examination of energy 
consumption by idle pcs (I hope) will just be the first step in a 
multi-faceted effort. 

Bill's point about a CRT heating the room is double edged.  In warm 
weather the heat generated by pc useage increases the amount of energy 
used to cool while in colder weather that same heat source reduces the 
amount of energy consumed by heating systems to maintain facility 
termperatures.

The point here is that the net energy savings from shutting down pcs 
when they are not is use is not a linear function of energy consumed by 
pc devices alone.  The same is true of electric lights.  To illustrate, 
with outdoor termperatures near zero (fahrenheit) I once lost heat in a 
home relying on a fuel oil heat system and an above ground oil storage 
tank.  A small amount of water in a fuel oil delivery had found its way 
into the tank-furnace line and froze.  Temperature in the house had 
dropped into the mid-to-upper thirties before I thought about heat from 
electric lighting.  Turning on every light, TV and radio in the house 
raised the inside temperature to the mid-50s and maintained it there 
until the fuel oil service could restore our home heating.