It seems not too long ago, I wrote about laptop batteries and their lives.  Based on the previous article, my laptop battery should be nearing less than 50% of it's capacity.

Well, I am sad to say I think it is closer to zero.

Just the other day, while out on a consulting job, I decided to show a client some examples of some websites in an effort to give them some ideas.  Turning on my laptop, I booted up windows and was ready to show them the samples... and then...

"Battery low, change battery or plug in immediately"

Needless to say, I got about five minutes of power out of it.

That sucks.

So, off to find a replacement battery.  I will let you all know what kind of prices and places I was able to find a replacement.

Till then,

Take care. 

To be honest, most people wouldn't consider the amount of power there computers use, rather, just like appliances, most of us consider them to be a necessary cost of life.  But I thought it would be interesting to know how much it costs me to have my laptop on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  So I did a little experiment.

I went over to my local hardware store to purchase a energy meter.  This device just plugs into any wall outlet an measures the amount of power that passes through it.  You can also set the rate that you pay for each kWh (kilowatt hour) from your utility company to figure out the cost of running the device.

After setting up the program to run for a few days I came up with the following result:

My laptop uses an average of 30 watts per hour.

Now, with all the concern regarding greenhouse gas emissions, I went online to find some calculators to find out how much carbon dioxide is a result of me having my laptop on all the time.

Using my laptop results in about 350 pounds of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year.

Feeling a little guilty (I am killing the world for my children) I checked into what I could do to offset these carbon emissions.  I came across one site that stated that a tree can absorb about 48 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.  So to make up for the carbon emissions my laptop generates, I would have to plant about eight trees.

In conclusion, I urge you to think about what effect you and your computer use has on the environment.  Chances are in our lifetimes we won't have to deal with the consequences of our actions but our children will.

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