Let's say the software solves some problem, call it P. We want to know the total energy cost for humanity to solve P. The people who are designing the software

Let's say the software solves some problem, call it P. We want to know the total energy cost for humanity to solve P. The people who are designing the software are using energy while they work on solving P. We need to include that energy usage in our total. If two different implementations use the same amount of compute, but one took 10 times longer to design and ship, then it is a less efficient solution, no? Those people (and their energy usage) could have been working towards solving some other problem or doing something else worthwhile.