Sleeping eMac?

[Ken Barber]

On Tuesday 04 January 2005 6:52 am, a monkey wrote:
> How can I get my eMac to "sleep" like in the old Mac OS X days? You
> know, have the monitor and fan shut off, etc. I want to leave my eMac on
> all night, but I'm not willing to waste so much power. If I could get my
> eMac to "sleep", it would be very helpful to me.

This is not a permanent solution, but if you're in the Northern Hemisphere and 
heating with electricity, you're not saving ANY power by having your computer 
go to sleep.  At least not during the heating season.

Every watt of electricity consumed produces 3.2 BTUs of heat energy, 
regardless of how it was used:  light bulbs, motors, refrigerators, or space 
heat.  Doesn't matter.  Every watt consumed produces 3.2 BTUs, and (as long 
as it's consumed there) this heat ends up in your living space.

So all of the power used by your computer will be exactly offset by the 
reduced power NOT used by your heating system to put the exact same amount of 
heat into your living space.

Of course, if it's summer where you are, none of this helps.  And if you're 
heating with something other than electricity, then you have to calculate the 
cost per BTU of electricity vs. whatever you're heating with to see what the 
tradeoffs are.

So there are many places where this doesn't apply.  But for zillions of people 
around the world, the idea that power management saves energy is a sham -- at 
least for about half of the year.

Ken