1. Good topic. One must always use tolerance in reading blogs and
responses, and try not to get offended too easily. It really helps maintain
focus on the important issues rather than getting distracted or angry, and
polarized.

2. Watts are units of power. Watt-hours are units of energy, that is, power
used for a given amount of time. It is incorrect to say "Watts per hour"
because power is an "instantaneous" quantity. The problem is often that
people say power but mean energy, e.g. "It takes a lot of power to run a
gadget". Well, if the gadget uses 100 W, it uses ten times more energy than a
10 W device, per hour. But if you only use the 100 W device for one hour,
and leave the 10 W device on overnight (say 10 hours), the energy use is the
same.

OK, two more comments:

Leaving devices on all the time can really add up energy usage, but if a 7 W
modem has trouble reconnecting to the ISP every time it may not be worth
turning it off. If it is no trouble, why not turn it off? I try to get everyone to
turn off lights when they leave the room too.

I try to imagine myself in a post-modern world, where I had to generate all of
the electrical power I use. At about 500 W max pedal power, I’d have to put
in a lot of time on the bicycle-powered generator to satisfy my energy
appetite for refrigeration, lighting, heating, not to mention computing!
Darn right I’d be using solar and wind energy, even if
they were only partially able to meet my needs.

As I said, what I would like to know is how much power an individual router uses per hour. An _estimate_ of national power-consumption for _all_ standby devices just doesn’t tell me if turning off my router is worth it.

I did find this article
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-2.html
It compares power-consumption of different AV equipment. A wireless router is listed as needing 7 watts (I assume per hour). Page 2 of the article has a large table of power-usage for different TVs. The difference in standby power usage is amazing. From 0.71 watts to over 50 watts! I guess there might be a lot of variation in how much power wireless routers use as well. I hope the 7 watts per hour figure is accurate, but I don’t know if it is.

7 watts per hour is much less then standard lightbulbs use (about 60 to 120 watts). Leaving a router on all night (8 hours) uses less then half as much power as my overhead lamp uses in half an hour. I can see with my overhead lamp off during the day, but it’s uncomfortably dark (building design flaw), so I leave it on. And I don’t consider that wasteful because I get something out of it.

I also get something out of having 24/7 internet access without having to wait for a router to boot up. I don’t think it’s automatically a "waste" if the computer or router is on while a person isn’t in front of the screen. The whole point of a computer is for it to do something instead of a person.

I agree that both water and electricity are a resource. But I think there is a difference between consumption and waste.

Speaking of water, I wonder how many people take "navy showers". The water savings are huge (1 estimate 15,000 US gallons per year per person), but they are less comfortable.

The point was, though, that for many people it is possible to turn off routers
and other devices. (I didn’t mention printers, but they can use much more
than routers in standby mode; I didn’t even go into actual computers, and lots
of people don’t bother to power them down.)

Kirk

As for "waste", why is wasting electricity any different than, say, wasting water?
Would you leave your faucet dripping all day?

Kirk

You said: "Well, this isn’t based on emotion and propaganda."
I’m sorry but for that not to be true, you need to disprove it by providing hard figures for exactly what you are talking about — individual router power usage. Not for other devices. Articles in French don’t count; sorry but not enough readers can understand them. Exactly how many watts/night does an individual’s a router use? Without that specific fact, a good discussion is not possible.

There is a proverb: small bargains break the bank.

If you got up 2 minutes earlier every day, you would have one "extra day" per year (12 more waking hours). Two minutes of sleep won’t make that big of a deal, right? So why don’t we do this all the time? Because at some point we have to draw a line, otherwise we would keep staying up another 2 minutes, and never get any sleep. Each decision to trade two minutes for one day sounds rational, but it isn’t. That’s because you can’t weight cumulative gain (one extra day) against individual cost ("only two minutes").

And that’s basically why your suggestion isn’t as reasonable as it may sound to you. The fact is, it doesn’t save an individual that much money. But it is trouble for them, and it does mean that they don’t have 24/7 internet access, and it does mean that they couldn’t get an important voip call late at night if they needed to. Enough "little things" add up to "a lot of things" — and that’s more then most people are willing to do. If you could get someone to do one little thing differently every day, would it be turning off a router, or do you think there is something else that could make a bigger difference?

I think paying 29 Euros each year to have always-on internet access is reasonable. In this day and age there are enough hotspots in metropolitan areas that you could just take your laptop to one whenever you needed to go online, and never have to pay. (This I can say from experience). The reason people pay for internet access at home is so they can have the convenience of always-on internet. Asking them to shut it off is asking them to give up exactly what they are paying for.

Finally, you used loaded judgmental language, so I’m not surprised that some of the replies were flames. "I thought how much power that wastes…" Who are you to say it is a waste? Rob obviously get something out of it.
"I feel that these people are aggressive in their attitude of entitlement"
That kind of tone rubs people the wrong way. I don’t feel that you are in a position to pass judgment on my lifestyle. Especially when you do not provide hard figures to back up your case.

While I can absolutely see your point, I think the main issue here is the
laziness of humans at this time. I know I certainly count in that populus — I
would much rather leave something running than bother shutting it off and
restarting it next day.

However, there are more aspects to the issue at the same time.

My brother works evenings/nights, my dad works early mornings, I work
mid-day and go to school and my mom is in and out all the time. This
produces a household which uses computers/internet at all hours of the day.
It may be far fetched to make a claim based on just this my experience, but it
is possible that there are many more with the same position and it would not
be at all reasonable to be constantly turning off and on the systems for
different peoples’ usage shifts.

Also, I do often receive calls at night, and I know that many of my friends do
also. So if our phone runs through VOIP, it is necessary to have the modems
and routers blazing.

Next up, there is a large community of back-end scientists (or assistants at
least) who donate their computers at night to network processing. You can
download from many institutions or organizations programs that will
download a project, say for example a simulated protien fold, and process
through the night as part of a collective network of independent CPU’s. This
has proved in many cases to be very valuable, and performs the job of
voluntary collective information processing, each person giving by
preference, and not by taxes, as they wish. This method is often used to
process simulations for cures on such diseases as cancer and AIDS.

I must admit that I am both among the lazy and the skeptical and am very
stubborn. I prefer to leave my computer running at night for various
purposes, including at times the pleasure of avoiding boot sequences. I
realize my point of view may appear snobbish and perhaps unreasonable, but
I believe that my preference is mine to choose. That said, I welcome
suggestions, requests, comments and fascinating/educational posts such as
yours above – I believe that these things are essential to human growth and
cooperation, and I think that making flaming comments and rude remarks
against such posts is unacceptable and imbecilic. Disagreements should be
made in a proper and professional manner, and if they are not, they must be
disregarded.

But here is my final note: whenever one makes a comment or suggestion he
or she believes will better this place for everyone, he/she must also take into
consideration that such comments and suggestions will always draw
some negativity, occasionally from those of us who attempt to think
rationally, and always from those who refuse to consider anything except
their own point of view. It seemed to me that I read some hurt and a great
deal of justification in your post here. I exhort you to continue to attempt to
better this world, as I see you wish to do, but I also submit that you may want
to consider carefully what is commented back to you, and if necessary,
discard it as unreasonable and move on without an emotional response of
justification. Every good writer and smart thinker must deal with the masses
of idiots that surround them, but they need not bow to the call of justification
from those who wish only to tear down others.

What most posters DID try to point out is that the inconvenience of turning
the router off outweighs the benefits as far as they are concerned. Of course
we SHOULD all stop doing anything that uses energy yet is only for
convenience, but in reality we all balance our own convenience against our
social responsibilities. To be accused of being socially iresponsible as a result
is a bit much I think.

In my own case, I do what I can to save energy; low energy light bulbs, turn
off anything I can rather than put it into standby, buy energy efficient
products in preference to others, turn the heating down, etc etc etc. In fact I
also run a company selling an energy efficient alternative to air conditioning.
BUT, I do live in an afluant western economy (the UK), and don’t appologise
for taking advantage of the benefits that offers, so long as I do that
responsibly!

In all honesty, I think you made a mistake in relating your poll to leaving the
router on all night. I think if you’d asked about turning the actual computer/s
and other hardware off, such as printers, you’d have got a much more
simpathetic response.

I don’t hold with the "its such a tiny energy user there’s no point" argument,
as I agree with you that it all adds up to something huge, but do also feel that
people shouldn’t be lambasted for using energy when they can see a real
benefit,
even if only a small benefit. That just gets their backs up.

It’s a little bit like cars vs public transport. Of course we should all use public
transport all the time, but the plain fact is that for many of us the
inconvenience is simply too great. It’d be far more productive to argue for
more convenient public transport (or more energy efficient routers?) than to
harangue people for driving their cars (leaving thier routers on).

Slightly related (you mentioned that in France 70% of your electricity is
nuclear), I think that illustrates the problem with these types of arguments.
20 or more years ago there was a huge resistance to nuclear energy in this
country (while France just got on with it!), mostly for environmental reasons.
The net result – we stuck with fossil fuels mostly, and now are paying the
environmental and political price! The answer is never as black and white as it
appears.

Mark

I support your stance. I have a feeling the aggressive reaction by the commenters you mention has something to do with Mac users’ common boast of how OS X is so stable, you don’t need to switch your Macs off.

I used to be one of those boasters. In fact, that was one boast I’d repeat every so often when trying to "sell" the Mac to a non-Mac user. And then one day I came across a similar article to yours, in which the author pointed out the simple fact that even if sleeping Macs only consume 5-10 watts, if 10 million Mac users leave their Macs in that state overnight (8 hours), then the total energy requirement every night would be equivalent to the usage in a small village.

Enough power to light a small village. That’s every single night. That’s not even taking into consideration the environmental damage needed to provide what is, essentially, needless power needs.

And it’s not taking into consideration that many of us have more than one device operating on standby, each of which sips a little more juice, juice that is not necessary at all.

So today I have completely rethought my lighting system (all low-energy bulbs, localised lighting), and I make it a point to switch off all non-functioning devices. It is an inconvenience, I admit, but when you think of the wider consequence, it’s a hassle that I’m willing to endure.

This is why I also think asking readers to think of the individual cost savings is not a viable call to action. It’s the same with cigarette smokers: if you tell them to stop smoking because then they’d have more money in their pockets, the amount actually saved would be too small to give them much pause.

But mention how big the collective waste amounts to — a small village every night! — and the bigger picture gives you a far more urgent reason to do it.