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Address the dirtiest sources and the largest sinks, not the symbolic tiny sinks. Your laptop using 6 watts of idle power is not going to make a meaningful diffe
by zbrozek 5y ago
Address the dirtiest sources and the largest sinks, not the symbolic tiny sinks. Your laptop using 6 watts of idle power is not going to make a meaningful difference.
- oofbey 5y agoSure one laptop doesn’t matter. But if everybody in the country has one it does matter. 300 million laptops each drawing 6 watts 24/7 adds up to 15 terawatt*hrs per year, which is real power. That’s pushing 1% of all the coal-powered electricity in the country. A handful of policies like that, each of which just feels like a minor annoyance and thus pointless, but it adds up and starts to make a real difference.
- zbrozek 5y agoThat's an unrealistically pessimistic assumption though. Many laptops are off, not failing to sleep. The great majority of people aren't buying these niche devices. And the source should be cleaned up since that is a vastly bigger lever impacting all loads. This is just limiting consumer choice for a largely symbolic gesture. I would also be really surprised if the rule is kept up to date and relevant, vs left in the codebase to rot.