I fell for a stupid article and turned off my home PC last night. The article says that Americans who leave computers on overnight are wasting $2.8 billion on energy costs per year.
It ignores the cost of turning computers off — and having to turn them on again the next morning. Let’s say that process takes five minutes per day, and one does it 250 days per year. That’s 1,250 minutes, or more than 20 hours per person per year.
Assume the average computer user’s wage is $21 per hour, and take the old estimate that time is valued at one-third of the wage. So each person’s time per year turning his/her computer off and on is worth 20 x $7 = $140. I’m being conservative and assuming only 50 million U.S. computer users. That gives a cost of turning computers off/on of 50,000,000 x $140 = $7 billion, which is 2.5 times the alleged savings from turning computers off. Even if people’s time were valued at only $3 per hour (less than half the minimum wage), leaving computers on would still make sense.
This story is yet another example of environmental savings uber alles — that saving $1 in environmental damage is worth much greater costs incurred along other dimensions. These stories assume explicitly — or, more usually, implicitly — that people’s time has no value.
But time has value because it has an opportunity cost. Stories like this and exhortations for environmental do-goodism hurt the environmental movement, because in the end, people realize that heeding these exhortations would actually waste resources (even though some, like me, take a day to catch on!).
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Well, that’s silly, and your tone suggests a bias. The time needed to turn a computer off is almost nothing. Why should I mind getting coffee while my computer starts up? The fact is, I do not mind because I value the savings in electricity, pollution, and dollars, and I don’t feel that my time getting coffee is at all wasted. Can your limited economic model account for me?
It takes me maybe a minute to turn on my computer; about 10 seconds to turn it off.
Do you really sit and stare at your computer while it turns on and do nothing else? Also, restarting your computer is inevitable since continuous use without flushing out the ram will decrease your productivity inevitably – so you might as well start fresh each day.
Turn off your computer when you leave. When you plan to start work, go turn it on, then make coffee, tidy up, or do any of the other countless tasks you will be doing later while your computer is running and you are not working.
You’re counting that time as wasted, which is not. I usually come into my office, turn on my computer (takes about 5 seconds) and then go get water for coffee; by the time I’m done preparing coffee, my computer is on. Again, while my computer turns off, I’m preparing my things to go, so the net ‘waste’ is about 10 seconds
Weren’t you the same one who says we should drive instead of walk because of the calories of milk we might consume on account of walking, thus raising our carbon footprint?
This is, as the first post suggested, silly. Your opportunity cost is not as high as you suggest. high. Besides, you could turn your computer on, then do something else while that is happening.
Actually you can set up your computer to turn off and wake up in the morning. Mine does as a signal that it is bed time and to save power
I have to agree with Lucy; I never sit around for 2.5 minutes staring at my computer screen waiting for it to boot up in the morning, and another 2.5 minutes to shut down at night. In the morning, I’m off getting coffee or clearing off my desk, or doing any number of other morning routines in my office. At night, I simply tell my computer to shut down, and it does it with no further intervention; I don’t need to sit and wait for the process to complete.
Environmentalism has nothing to do with it; it’s a cost-saving measure for my company, just like turning off my office lights at lunch, and when I go home at night.
I expect more than this from the freakonomics blog. This is inherently unscientific.
First, the assumption that it takes 5 minutes to turn a computer on and off per day is suspect. It takes my computer at home about 1 minute to boot up and 0 minutes to shut down (considering I can just select shut down and press the monitor button.)
Second, the assumption that people would spend that time otherwise waiting for their computer to boot up working on their computer is probably the most suspect assumption. Because people don’t do anything else in the morning? No one ever gets coffee? People dont pick up anything after getting in the office? No phone messages?
This is a blatantly political post that really has no actual backing in any sort of scientific analysis.