News - The University of Montana

Lately there has been some discussion about saving energy by shutting down computers at night. Some have said that computers go into “Sleep Mode” or “Hibernation” and thereby save lots of energy. This is a good thing right? That depends upon whom you ask. According to a website called greendaily.com, if every device was left in sleep mode it would still be a huge drain of wasted energy. Millions of devices on standby, ready at a moment’s notice to jump into action when needed sounds like a good thing no longer. I personally have several devices at home that are in “standby” mode, things such as the battery charger for my 18 volt power saw, the charger for the AAA batteries for my wireless mouse and digital camera. I once had a set of under counter lights that even when shut off would still have a very warm transformer, hours later. It could only shut off if it was unplugged. Wasted electricity and more coal burned to keep that transformer at the ready.

Green Daily goes on to say that by the year 2010, 20% of every American’s electricity bill will go towards paying for this wasted energy.  Let’s see, if I could pay 20 percent less to the power company, I might be able to afford that trip to Finland next year to see those relatives I’ve never met, but number into the hundreds. And Finland is an expensive place to visit.

So by all means, turn off those computers and monitors when you leave work (unless they are University servers: Don’t touch that switch!). Turn off anything that has an LED light still glowing and isnt’ being used except for a little bit each day. Or even better, unplug the device completely if the glowing eye won’t shut off. It actually takes less energy to start them up again next morning than leaving them on all night in “Sleep Mode”.

But there is debate about how much to shut off and if it takes too long to catch up to all those updates that take place on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. But first thing, turn it on and go get a cuppa joe or catch up with your buds and before you know it, your machine will be ready to tackle the day.