My guess (and it is a guess) is that the extra heat / electricity consumption is pretty negligible compared to the amount of energy and raw materials needed to manufacture and distribute a new computer.

It's smaller, but not actually negligible. An old but oft-cited 2002 study said a laptop with a three year lifecycle took about twice the energy to manufacture as operate. Silicon is much more energy intensive than other materials, with fab energy consumption apparently relatively steady over time on the order of 1 kwh/cm^2 of silicon processed.

So, there is a high bar for replacing a computer with a new one to actually save net resources, but an actual 10x reduction in power consumption like replacing a P4 desktop with an RPi is big enough to pay off reasonably quickly.

Quite interesting, thank you!

I am even more interested in how the formula works out if you buy one professional laptop (say, Lenovo X13) with a Ryzen CPU -- because they consume less power -- and I am looking forward to reading such an analysis sometime in the future.

Interesting - thanks for providing data to contrast with my hunch!

There are ALSO a lot of old cell phones and raspberry Pis and things around. These computers use very little power and are still quite capable. There's NOTHING preventing them from being useful for a wide range of tasks except for software bloat, or closed platforms. It would not be hard conceptually to build computers to prioritize power consumption, it's simply just not a priority.

I would love to see and use such machines but as you said, the software isn't there. Sadly nobody is paying to write or improve it.

True, but as I said in another sibling comment -- the machines get manufactured anyway (since the production capacity is mostly optimized around the needs of big customers) so I might as well get a much greener machine now and hold on to it for 10+ years because I will burn less CO2 while I am using it.

That logic makes the "re-use" part of "reduce, re-use, recycle" redundant. You're part of a society that, when acting roughly in tandem, can make large-scale chages. If everyone followed your logic nothing would ever change and, if I'm honest, it sounds more like a rationalisation for indulging in new tech (an impulse which I share!)

I believe you're frustrated with the world's stance towards ecology -- for good reason. I am too. Almost nobody who can make a true difference gives a f_ck. But I am looking at it historically and holistically while you seem to want to argue theoreticals that don't have basis in our current reality.

Let me be 100% clear here: I am sharing your stance in general but there are complications I am forced to consider and act accordingly with:

- Software gets slower with time, so I have to upgrade. Me upgrading only once 7-8 years is, I think, a fairly heroic effort on my side. I've seen businesses that blindly upgrade everyone's laptops every 3 years, zero questions asked.

- You and I have no recourse whatsoever against the big players who make disposable tech. You think I don't want them fined all the way to bankruptcy and even jail? I would love that. But we can't make it happen.

- My "logic" is simply of a family man with a ton of responsibilities and a pretty demanding job. Please don't make me the villain because I am doing my very best just to function and have a few precious relaxing hours per day. Most of the common folk will never be willing to sacrifice the little "me time" they have just so they free some ecological bandwidth... which will be quickly consumed and re-balanced (in the wrong direction) by those who create huge and environmentally disastrous manufacturing facilities.

- I love to indulge in a new tech but I have mostly tamed this wrong impulse. Doesn't mean I have to hold on to inadequate machines until they fall apart in my hands however.

---

Again, I get where you are coming from but please don't vent on me for doing the best that I can without sacrificing all the comfort and free time that I already don't have much of.

There are much bigger villains out there that deserve your frustration more than I do.

I'm sorry that came across as a vent - it certainly wasn't intended that way. I'm not trying to make you the villain, I'm trying to gently point out that the logic you're using on the surface would excuse a lot of people just not trying. Now you've expanded on that I agree with much of what you say - everyone needs to take things at the page they can handle - and my life sounds similar to yours, so I totally get the lack of bandwidth.

There's a podcast that my wife listens to quite a bit call Outrage and Optimism about the climate crisis, and it's essentially my approach - I am angry about the lack of leadership by governments, but I also feel like people need to be optimistic about what we can achieve together, including pushing governments to act.

I took part in the initial Extinction rebellion protest in London, and although I don't think it achieved much in immediate concrete terms, and I feel like the organisation is going backwards now, I do think it galvanized a lot of people into believing there are enough people out there who want meaningful action that speaking up is worth it. I was handing out leaflets to people from all walks of life - from a guy in a sharp business suit to a local building foreman who runs a vegan group - and only got one person out of hundreds who thought it was pointless. Most were actively enthusiastic and felt glad that there were lots of other people who shared their concerns.

Yeah, I don't disagree with you at all. Truth is, people would use anything that sounds like logic to them to excuse themselves from not helping even a little. Sad fact of life.

It's really cool that spreading awareness works! I just wish we collectively as a civilization finally move to the next stage after it because ever since I exist (I am 41 y/o) people were mostly only spreading awareness. Guess I am getting old and jaded because I'd like to see some action on these extremely important topics one day.

I would add that it's okay (or, at minimum, better) to recognize that you personally upgrade more often than you should, while also realizing we should maintain support for older hardware so everyone else isn't also forced to upgrade too often.

Agreed on that. People who can't upgrade often shouldn't be ignored. Slack and Teams should work non-intrusively on laptops with 4GB of RAM.

Teams doesn't consistently work well on my machine with 64GB of RAM, so it's not simply a memory problem. Slack I've for some reason never had a problem with, even on a laptop with 4 GB of RAM. But to be fair I'm only on a handful of fairly low volume slack channels.

You save more (money and ressources) by not buying a new engine.

You assume that my goal is to spend the absolute minimum sum on tech over my entire life.

That's not it. My goal is to spend the minimum realistic sum for tech that enables me to do my job well and long-term so I am financially free and help the businesses that hire me, and keep improving my craft (for which I have love ever since a pre-teen).

That doesn't equal holding on to a MacBook Pro 2012 until 2030. It equals keeping an old machine around to check if the code in the final version of my current PR is well-optimized -- but I work on a much stronger machine because stuff like LSP and re-running tests is crucial for productivity. And we all know that most dev tooling is generally extremely demanding.

Many of those older computers are the first computer of someone around the globe still, at least as long as they keep working.

Sure, not contesting this, but I meant my comment more along the lines of:

If I am to gauge my app's speed on an anemic hardware I'd prefer running it on a modern Atom or Celeron because (a) indeed they're anemic but (b) at least are more eco-friendly.

Why does the eco-friendliness of the processor you're testing on matter at all? I can guarantee you that your users are not going to go out and purchase less power-efficient CPUs themselves just because you tested on a power-inefficient CPU yourself.

And, the amount of electricity that you, the developer, spend testing your code will almost always be eclipsed by that of your users if more than a dozen others use your tool.

So, again: why does it matter how power-efficient the CPU you're testing on is, as long as it's slow (to produce the proper throttling effect)?

You are right, they aren't related per se.

I was alluding to replacing the idea of holding on to a Pentium 4 with buying a modern, more eco-friendly, but ultimately just as anemic, CPU.

Not a perfectly representative test, sure, I just felt that it was a good compromise between "test your code on weak machines" and "be environmentally responsible".

So yep, I did conflate weak CPU with low-wattage CPU, you are right.

If you're going that route, I'd focus on small & cheap SBCs. A bare, credit card sized ARM computer is probably going to be more ecological (both in manufacture and operation) than an Intel PC.

Yes, and I do just that where I can. One of my home servers is exactly an ARM SBC and I am very happy to see it idle at <5W.

(Also pondering moving my NAS to an ARM SBC as well but not sure it's worth the hassle since the mini Intel i3 PC idles at 10W.)

For work however, a programmer just can't do with those underpowered machines if they want to be productive and not wait 3 minutes for incremental compilation after each change they make (which an LSP server does, and even if it didn't, re-running tests does the same anyway).

I am happy to work on a more ecological machine if somebody optimizes the dev tooling and my programming languages' of choice compilers and linkers. I'd absolutely love it if all my machines idled at 5W and peaked at 35W. But if I am to support my family, that stance isn't easily achievable today. Yet.

Meanwhile, my Starlink dish is idling at 100 watts, which works out to be about eight percent of my electrical bill.

Do you include the cost of manufacturing in your calculations? There is a point where newer and more efficient is better, but in general it’s better to hold on devices for longer.

I don't, mostly because the manufacturers are far disconnected from the needs of the end users of computing -- they mostly serve big businesses. So the machines end up manufactured anyway.

On this lane of thought, I'd say better to buy a laptop today (that's much greener than everything before it) that you can hold on to for 10+ years than holding on to another that has long passed its expiration date. But I am aware that this is not always a popular opinion.

> the manufacturers are far disconnected from the needs of the end users of computing -- they mostly serve big businesses

Same goes for power. They're not going to burn one less lump of coal because your laptop uses 100W instead of 300W

That's true if one only talks about one person using an extra 200W. But it matters when it's about millions of people using an additional 200W.

Even then, such big organizations react slowly to change.

Even when we collectively manage to reduce our energy usage they'll likely divert the extra energy to another power substation for storage and redundancy.

So don't think that me and others are defeatist. It's just that the entire grid is well planned for so that any difference we can make, even as 100_000 people, is still not as big. So this whole thing will take a while, likely decades.

In the meantime I was very happy when I replaced a fridge with 43kW monthly expense with a 19kW one, about two years ago.

> Even when we collectively manage to reduce our energy usage they'll likely divert the extra energy to another power substation for storage and redundancy.

That's not how it works. On the electric grid, generation must always be precisely matched with consumption, otherwise things can literally burn up. Any excess of generation will cause an increase in voltage and frequency, any lack of generation will cause a drop in voltage and frequency. That's why the generation always follow the consumption; all generators sense changes in consumption (by measuring the system frequency), and adjust their input to match (for instance, by adjusting the fuel intake). When they don't (usually because the change was too fast, like when large blocks of generators or consumers drop suddenly from the grid), protective systems will disconnect the generators and/or consumers until the grid is balanced again. Storage (which is still uncommon) only does a temporal shift of the consumption and/or generation, it doesn't change the amount (other than the inevitable losses).

That is, if you use 200W less, the generators will adjust to generate 200W less power (actually a bit more than 200W, because of losses). If millions of people use 200W less, the generators will adjust to generate hundreds of megawatts less power.

In that case -- great! I happily stand corrected.

Big businesses are the end users of computing. But that doesn't change anything. Why do big businesses have to upgrade their computers every few years?

That I don't know. I personally wouldn't. I've seen big companies where 100+ people who just do Zoom / Excel / Jira all day have MacBook Pros, which is insanity.

I was simply mentioning that the machines get manufactured anyway so I definitely refuse to be guilt-tripped into "it's your fault that those machines exist!" extremist stance. No, it's not my fault. The machines are manufactured regardless of what I do so every 7-8 years I evaluate the market and upgrade.

Reasons are simple -- most modern software gets slower all the time and I still need to work and support my family. I would hold onto my machines for a lifetime but it's not the reality we live in and I wish the downvoters stopped being so tunnel-visioned and were aware of that.

> do Zoom / Excel / Jira all day have MacBook Pros, which is insanity.

Agreed. A base MacBook Pro isn't nearly powerful enough for all 3 of those at once.

LOL! You have a good point. :D

We can run those inefficient machines on electricity from renewable sources. Reduce > Reuse > Recycle applies: Building a new computer will almost always be worse than keeping the old one, whose production cost has already been paid.

We can, but do we really? I am fully behind your idea but sadly the whole "let's move to renewables" thing just takes so damn long. :(

Yeah, it does. But in the meantime you can purchase renewable credits to offset your consumption and help push adoption.

Agreed, and I do that. During that meantime I can't work on an RPi however.