being a responsible techie
I’m not talking about always closing your database connections, or commenting your code. I’m talking about something a lot more fundamental. Electricity usage.
Our location has four computers, three of which run pretty much 24/7. The biggest machine we have uses about 260 watts, and it trails off from there. So we probably have 650-700 watts of computer running 24 hours a day. I’m no die-hard environmentalist, but that’s significant. On a monthly basis, that tallies up to about 500 Kilowatt/hours on our electricity bill. Ouch! So, today we went out and bought enough CF bulbs — those little Compact Flourescent bulbs where the flourescent tube is in a little coil attached to a normal light bulb base.
We spent about $175 on 39 light bulbs.
CF bulbs run on much lower wattage for a comparably bright incandescent bulb. The 100-watt equivalent bulbs we got only actually use 23-watts. The 60-watt equivalent bulbs only use 13-watts, and so on. That’s where the majoirty of the savings comes from.
If we had all of the lights on that we were replacing at the same time with the old bulbs, they would have been using 2,270 watts. After replacing the bulbs, we would only be using 513 watts! That’s a savings of 1,757 watts whenever all of the lights are on! The other significant detail about a CF bulb is that they last 8,000 hours (the brand we got), as opposed to 750 hours or so for a standard incandescent bulb. Together, that means a savings of 14,056 kilowatt-hours over the lifetime of these bulbs. Yes, that’s correct: more than 14 megawatt-hours.
SAVINGS #1: 39 incandescent bulbs costs around $50, by my estimation. CF bulbs last 10.6 times as long — or $530 worth of incandescent bulbs. That’s a savings right there of over $355.
SAVINGS #2: At a savings of 1,757 watts for 8,000 hours, at our current electricity costs of $0.073 (7.3 cents) per kilowatt/hour, that comes out to savings of about $1,026 over the lifetime of these bulbs.
So not only are we helping to save the environment by reducing our electricity consumption by over 14 megawatt-hours, but we’re pocketing nearly $1,400 in total savings. Why doesn’t everyone do this?
My point is this: most developers and tech companies have a lot of technology in their lives. Our power consumption is greater than most. So do your part, and try to overtake that balance. It doesn’t take a whole lot of effort, or money, to offset your extra power consumption, and your pocketbook will be heavier in the long run.