4 ms·
And here in Norway, where it's cold most of the year so we have indoor heating, the power used from computers is saved from heating.
by maaaats 13y ago
And here in Norway, where it's cold most of the year so we have indoor heating, the power used from computers is saved from heating.
- rhino369 13y agoNot nearly as efficiently as your regular heater does though. So there is some cost.
- wyager 13y ago>Not nearly as efficiently as your regular heater does though. What do you mean? It's basically 100% efficient. Where else would the energy go? Through the ethernet port?
- praptak 13y ago> It's 100% efficient. Probably above 99.99% but not 100%. The light from the power LED might escape through the window and there's some electromagnetic emissions in the parts of the spectrum that might also go through walls, same goes for the sound of the fan.
- sampo 13y agoThe sound will be absorbed by the walls of the room, turning into heat.
- Crito 13y agoBasically, the computer will be very nearly as efficient as a regular resistive electric space heater, but the building is almost certainly not being heated that way. Heat pumps are far more efficient than resistive heating. http://physics.stackexchange.com/a/1494 http://physics.stackexchange.com/a/1494 (The building may also be on district steam heating, fuel oil, possibly even coal, any of which could be cheaper than electricity, depending on location.)
- joosters 13y agoDepends on what is powering the heating system. In many countries, the price of electricity (per kWh) is much higher than natural gas. So generating heat via a CPU will work out more expensive than via a gas boiler.
- tych0 13y agoPresumably he means efficiency in terms on monetary cost. Producing 1 BTU via electricity is about twice as expensive as producing 1 BTU via natural gas. In places like Norway, they're almost certainly using natural gas, so this is a real cost.
- maaaats 13y agoActually gas is a bit uncommon here. We get cheap electricity from water running down the mountains.
- dannypgh 13y agoI don't think it's a question of how much of the energy is converted to heat (which is clearly going to be near-100%), but rather what you're heating. If you're dumping energy into the room until you reach some temperature obviously it doesn't matter much what you're heating or how, but if your goal is merely to have the room feel comfortable to humans, heating up the whole volume to do so is not particularly efficient. That said, I doubt that matters much for the average office space. A far more important factor - especially for those in cold climates - is that the "regular heater" is almost certainly not powered by the electric grid, but rather local combustion. I heat my home with gas, not electricity.
- schmichael 13y agoMy guess is that heating-by-CPU is less cost effective than baseboard electrical heating which is already one of the least cost effective heating methods: http://www.efficiencymaine.com/at-home/home-energy-savings-program/compare-heating-options/ http://www.efficiencymaine.com/at-home/home-energy-savings-p... Also, depending on the setup of your HVAC system, it may be possible to cause a lab to overheat and trigger the cooling system in the middle of winter. Many datacenters vent excess heat year-round. The absolute pittance of bitcoins you'll mine using CPUs won't begin to make up for these inefficiencies. Edit: s/efficient/cost effective/g
- sliverstorm 13y agoBaseboard electrical heating is low on cost effectiveness, but it is very efficient :)
- schmichael 13y agoFixed my wording.
- MartinCron 13y agoI used to keep my home servers in a coat closet and whenever I went to put my coat on, it was already pleasantly warm.