[wxsig] Trvia comment on 5 dollars a month computer operating cost.

[Andrew Burgess]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 07:42:35 -0800, Rasputin Novgorod  
<priapulus at yahoo.com> wrote:

> In the winter, I figure most of the electricity consumed
> by the electronics is thrown off as heat, reducing my
> heating bill, (so the electronics is running for free?).

Reducing, yes. Free? Only if you use electric resistance heat
for the rest of your house. Gas is about 1/3 the price of electricity
around here per BTU produced (this varies of course and assumes 100%  
efficiency,
modern furnaces are in the 90 percentile for efficiency).
Electric heat pumps are as efficient as gas (with a COP (coefficient of  
performance)
of 3.0)

So if you heat with gas/heat pump you save 2/3 of every dollar that
you reduce your computers energy bill in the heating season,
100% of every dollar in spring/fall and more than a dollar if you have
to air condition/ventilate to remove the heat in the summer.

Sorry, getting pretty far off topic...