[nerd_stuff]

He lived in Arizona which is hot and a school full of space-heaters (humans) will probably run AC more often than heat.

What grandparent commenter showed was the school district's numbers are plausible. I doubt the district entered into a legal battle without first consulting an engineer or two about the electric costs.

[Natsu]

Speaking only for myself, in Phoenix we barely ever turn on heat, even in winter, whereas the AC is currently running and will be for another month or two yet.

[ArkyBeagle]

I wonder if anybody even so much as plugged a typical computer used into a Kill A Watt and compared with/without SETI running.

[holyoly]

I have. I tested 3 models of HP that we had on campus which are kind of aging. Here's my results in Watts:

HP 6000 Pro SFF - Core2Duo E8400 @ 3GHz - 100% CPU: 70, Idle: 26, Sleep: 2-3, Off: 0-1,

HP 6200 Pro SFF - Core i5 3470 @ 3.2GHz - 100% CPU: 83, Idle: 31, Sleep: 2-3, Off: 0-1,

HP 6300 Pro SFF - Core i5 2400 @ 3.1GHz - 100% CPU: 100, Idle: 30, Sleep: 2-3, Off: 0-1,

It's been a few months now, and I can't remember what I used to max out the CPU. It wasn't SETI @ Home, but it should give you a pretty good approximation. When it was off, it had Wake on LAN enabled, so it still drew some power. But it would fluctuate between 0 and 1.

[ArkyBeagle]

Neat! Thanks for that. That definitely supports the estimate of cost from running SETI. You wouldn't think it'd be that much, would you?