How green is folding

[Gandalf]

I'm not too convinced about the Global Warming thing, but more concerned with the consumption of (limited) resources.
I don't have much folding atm.

the sooner we use up those resources the sooner those boffins will get fusion sorted :yahoo:

do your bit, drive an American Muscle Car today

[Cadaver]

Assuming it's on 24/7: in the UK a rough estimate of electricity cost is £1 per watt per year.

How much power does a PC use?  500watt power supply would be the same as 5 100watt bulbs in your house.

Off the top of my head I can't remember what that equates to in money spent and eco 'un' friendliness.

[kregoron]

How much power does a PC use?  500watt power supply would be the same as 5 100watt bulbs in your house.

Off the top of my head I can't remember what that equates to in money spent and eco 'un' friendliness.

well thats the way the big bad politicians do the power consumption maths of a PC...

BUT just because you got a 500w PSU in your comp, doesnt mean it pulls 500w from the grid..

i for an example got a 1Kw PSU in my rig, and it doesnt really draw more then 484W. and thats with 10% overhead.

[delanvital]

I know we have been over this and I took some heat last time - but I still believe focusing on a better way to produce energy, rather than reducing the use of it, will have a better chance of environmental success. The energy requirements globally are growing annually as they always have, with fx China building primitive, and dirty, coal-fired plants to keep up with demand, making a discussion of the increased power consumption from making an idle PC fold to find cures for diseases, rather irrelevant.

I am merely being pragmatic - of course we should keep an eye on our consumption of energy, fx. no need for lights to be on in elevator shafts when no one is there (contrast to the US) but also keep in mind, that while we do this, the battle for reducing CO2 is practically lost when nations like US, India and China care seriously less. Instead, we should advance technology which has promise to provide us with the needed energy, without damaging our planet, and focus on making that competitive in every aspect.

[Gandalf]

I know we have been over this and I took some heat last time - but I still believe focusing on a better way to produce energy, rather than reducing the use of it, will have a better chance of environmental success. The energy requirements globally are growing annually as they always have, with fx China building primitive, and dirty, coal-fired plants to keep up with demand, making a discussion of the increased power consumption from making an idle PC fold to find cures for diseases, rather irrelevant.

I am merely being pragmatic - of course we should keep an eye on our consumption of energy, fx. no need for lights to be on in elevator shafts when no one is there (contrast to the US) but also keep in mind, that while we do this, the battle for reducing CO2 is practically lost when nations like US, India and China care seriously less. Instead, we should advance technology which has promise to provide us with the needed energy, without damaging our planet, and focus on making that competitive in every aspect.

:withstupid: QFT

[OldBloke]

Folding will, eventually, save lives ... which means more people so that needs to be factored in too :whistle:

[suicidal_monkey]

I know we have been over this
...
and focus on making that competitive in every aspect.

Indeed:withstupid:. More efficient generation of energy, but also more efficient use of energy. The fact that something uses only a fraction of the total energy/resource or creates only a fraction of the CO2/etc is no excuse for it being inefficient! Worry about heating (your house, your food, your heatsinks, that open window there) as this is probably where you can make the biggest saving through more efficient heating, better insulation, etc.

What we really need is technology that can efficiently capture and then convert waste, like CO2 (methane etc too as they're even "worse") into something we can use. Photosynthesis may be a good place to start - I believe there is research going on to develop "organic" solar cells. Then we need it to be cheap/profitable/competitive.

/wrt folding.../
If the pc is normally on (i.e. it'd be on anyway for whatever reason) folding is not going to make a huge difference to your electricity usage. You could limit the cpu use to like 80-90% etc as the last few percent probably produces the most heat at the sink. More efficient psu's and components would be something to think about (i.e. modern components in general perform far better per watt)

[delankster]

Folding will, eventually, save lives ... which means more people so that needs to be factored in too :whistle:

:g: my heads starting to hurt

[kregoron]

/wrt folding.../
If the pc is normally on (i.e. it'd be on anyway for whatever reason) folding is not going to make a huge difference to your electricity usage. You could limit the cpu use to like 80-90% etc as the last few percent probably produces the most heat at the sink. More efficient psu's and components would be something to think about (i.e. modern components in general perform far better per watt)

Within the next few years we are gonna see the long anticipated OLED monitors starting the hit the streets, these generated a lot better colours/picture and use ALOT less power then the current LCD panels going the right way

Another frontier of where the PC's friendliness to the great enviroment is the components themselves.
The amount of natural resources spent manufacturing a PC in the 90's were tromendous, and now in the year 2009 they are almost down to 20% of what they used then Certain companies actually started making cases of natural components, ACER i think made a laptop case of bamboo.

What we can do as consumer, is to be aware of what we buy.. a PSU is a awsome place to start, the difference of the effectiveness is rather great.
You can get a cheap noname PSU everywhere, but with an effectiveness range from 60-80% they arent really that great, these numbers is the amount of the power drawn from the power socket which is actually available to the gear in your puter, rest is just turned into heat..
where as a good PSU effectiveness can reach 98-99% tho they get expensive.. but in my oppinion, its worth it