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

[Brian Mury]

On Mon, 2005-07-03 at 13:43 -0500, Charles E Taylor IV wrote:
> It'll always be a net waste of electricity to leave the lights/CRT on  -
> even in winter.  Unless, that is, your building's heating system is less
> efficient at generating heat than your CRT/lights are.

I disagree.

What happens to all the energy being used by my computer? It has to go
somewhere. It ends up as heat. Your light example is an easy one - a
lightbulb generates heat and light. The light gets absorbed by objects
(mostly the dark coloured ones) as heat. My motor in my hard drive is
using just enough energy to replace that which is lost to friction -
which generates heat. The energy used to move electrons inside a circuit
ends up as heat.

An electric heater is about the only thing that is 100% efficient. If
you are heating with electricity, and turn on any electric device, you
should, in theory, break even. If you are heating with anything else,
turning on any electric device means you are, in theory, actually using
less energy (of course, the cost will depend on the relative costs of
electricity and whatever you use for heat).