Saltpeter Brewing up - Taming PC's

Saltpeter brewing up – Taming PC's

Heading West Virginia

“She is calmer than ever now, back in her seat behind the glass,” I thought to myself as I drove Deanna back to her house from the City Council.  This day stood out in my memory as the saddest day in my life, I had worked for over two days to get this final vote and we had won, but I had got shouted at for being myself, it really was a sad day.

The next day, I went to the car dealer to sell my Dodge V8,

he was a slick old wily man, and told me I wouldn’t get more than “a thousand for this old hag,” this town was doing me no good now, I knew the moment she had shouted at me in the city council, something had changed within me.  There was “Saltpeter” blowing up in my mind and I would find it almost uncontrollable to handle my own temper, for the next week I stayed away from Deanna.

Ten days and I was back, away from Reno and Deanna, wondering if I had lost the game of life, either ways the design of things was becoming clearer to me.” I am a gambler and I m not in the habit of losing.  And I have never seen a woman I thought was more man than me.  I don’t care if I can get it up for her or not, but I must win no matter what,” this thought kept me busy all the way to New York airport, I was heading home to a new job, a new lifestyle and a life away from these broken dreams of hers.

In New York, Frank had asked me, “Why didn’t you tell her to bugger off there itself?” the bartender had got us two Jack Daniels neat and I had quickly slithered mine into my mouth and he did the same, the only thing this time around, his drink was down his throat while mine was still in my cheek and I showed it to him smiling.

I had held back and everybody in the country knew about it, the reasons were becoming evident enough to anybody and my mind sang, “A bee in her butt, a burr in her bloomers, Get her goat, bug her till she comes apart,” I thought wildly but had still hung back.  It was happening all wildly but certainly not to me, I was still at the same place safe and sound.

The chief had been sure,”I know I have made the right decision.

Taming the Shrew

All equipment has a base load that adds up when they are not switched off, that red light that glows in the dark while you are sleeping, the TV or Home Theatre doesn’t go to sleep when you do, is adding up to this base load.

My two PC’s used up 270 Watts of electricity while they were ON.  Realising this and understanding that these very a lot of watts, I decided to put my two PCs on hibernation while I went to sleep and suddenly realised that the power I was saving was close to 1780 kWhrs every year, that’s 3560 lbs of green house gas and a dollar $178 per year.  The computers use zero power while hibernating and come out of it in a few seconds or do they?

 Cost Estimate:

Cost was two power strips -- $20 -- they also provide some surge protection.

Dollar Saving:
I measured the power levels:
Everything turned on (2 PC's, printers, ...):   297 watts (174 downstairs PC + 123 upstairs PC) -- this is measured after everything settles down.

With PC's in hibernate, but other other peripherals on:  59 watts (54 downstairs + 8 upstairs)

Saving is: 
Power strips for night:   (297 w)(10hr)(365 day/yr)(1/1000) = 1084 KWH!

Hibernate after 15 min in daytime: (297w-59w)(8 hr)(365 day/yr)(1/1000) = 695 KWH!
Where 8 hours is the estimated time in hibernation during the day.

This adds up to 1779 KWH per year for a $178 saving at 10 cents a KWH.

Conclusion

And all I did was put my computers on hibernation, they stopped right where they were using zero power and started back from the same spot without any problem.  In conclusion, this was the best thing I had ever done for my home.  More on energy efficiency in other posts, at least I know what the readers want now.