[yellowapple]

> So, throw out $480 as an energy number for our $1000. That means old hardware that's less energy efficient to the tune of $40 a month will out-impact the manufacturing cost of the new machine in a year.

That seems like an obscenely high difference in monthly energy cost (if we're going for an apples-to-apples comparison, in contrast with the article's posed comparison of a desktop workstation v. a consumer laptop). For reference, I run multiple desktops, multiple laptops, a full-size fridge, lights, fans, and an Echo, all mostly 24/7, and per PG&E my total monthly power bill (near SF) is less than that (and most of my hardware is on the older side).

We're more realistically talking (from my experience, running a lot of the sorts of older desktops the article mentions) a difference closer to $4 than $40. Even $10 (which would still be a pretty high estimate) would extend your estimate to 4 years until break-even.

[wwweston]

Of the several objections to my comment people have registered, this seems like the best one: on reflection it seems likely that an 85W laptop's daily use is likely to be around 1 kWh (maybe 2 kWh if driven near capacity 24 hrs), which is on the order of $5-$10/mo. So for things to come out something like I'd speculated, either older workstations would need to use much more power (5-10kWh) or the manufacture of something new would have to involve much less energy than I'd guessed.