What If We Actually Check the Math?

So in this article, the author talks about how shutting off computers at night saves energy. So, outside of his outright Algorism, he gives a statistic to appeal to people like me, those who actually have a brain and choose to use it. He says,

If you run a company with 1,000 PCs left on overnight, you can save about
$28,000 a year if they are turned off after hours. That's not chump change.

Okay, let's break that down. That means for one computer, you would save $28 a year in electricity ($28,000/1000). Okay, well, what is that in perspective. Time to go back to the article. The guy also says,

I leave my laptop running overnight because I know it'll take five minutes or
more to get things going in the morning -- not just booting up, but launching
the various apps I start the day with, downloading my overnight email, filtering
out the spam, and otherwise "getting settled."

Okay, 5 minutes eh? Let's assume that is true. (My laptop running Vista takes a heckuva lot longer, but let's call 5 minutes a conservative estimate.) So, how time is that in a year? Well, there are about 260 working days in a year. So that 5 minutes per day for 260 days is ...dun da dun... 1300 minutes, or 21.67 hours. Hmm...more than 20 hours per year wasted in booting up a computer? How much time does that cost? Well, I don't remember what the racist minimum wage is these days, but assume $10 an hour for a nice easy number (and one that is pretty dang close to accurate).

Time for the big reveal. So, shutting off one computer saves $28 a year in energy. But...but! Starting up that computer each morning costs the firm $216 dollars a year in wasted time on the clock. Yeah, something tells me leaving it on is better for the company.

(Now reading the comments, a few people mentioned that they used that wasted time to get coffee, which I won't discount. But remember, we are talking $28 vs. $216. And, that assumes everybody gets coffee. What about those who don't drink that stuff?)

Oh yeah and point number two to remember, at least for companies that would have 1000+ computers. Where I work, overnight is when the IT staff runs updates and installs new programs/security patches. So, yeah, actually, it is better for our computers to be left on overnight. Then again, something tells me that level of detail is beneath this author. (And, for those of you complaining about anecdotal evidence, where do you think the 5 minutes comes from? It is the author's anecdotal time. I just used it because I didn't have an accurate figure and I wanted to stay close to what this idiot's math would have been had he performed the same math that I did.)

Finally, remember that this author is essentially parroting the religious line about anything we can do to save the planet is worth it. Brain power and actual analysis is a sin in that religion, mainly because they are following their Pope, Algore.