Riddle me this…what do UHN andGermanyhave in common?

  1. Both create fine beverages concocted through the fermentation of barley, hops and other grains.
  2. With the opening of “House of Wurst” at TWH, you’re never far from a good sausage.
  3. Both have a lot of computers.
  4. The answer is 3, but if 1 and 2 were true, it wouldn’t be so bad.

Okay, well maybe UHN doesn’t have as many computers as Germany, but we do have a quite a few…and as this one-minute way-cool video shows using Germany as an example, a lot of computers not shut-off at night and weekends, even if they’re new, energy efficient ones, adds up to a lot of unnecessary energy use.

 At UHN we did some number crunching of our own and figured that if we had 1,000 computers (a very low-ball “if”) and if all of those 1,000 computers were new, energy efficient ones (an iffy “if”) and if they were all set to go into power-save mode (a very big “if”), then we’d still be spending $30,000 more than per year than if those computers had been turned completely off during nights and weekends, not to mention, unnecessarily using around 300,000 kWh per year, which could be put to better use…such as powering my house…for 40 years!!

 So be it for clean air, saving money or just not wanting to waste electricity, it’s definitely worth it, and it’s definitely easy, to take that extra minute and turn off your computer and monitor when heading home for the day.

 And to that, I say prost!

-ed