
Building a 30 million kWh Social Power Array using Facebook, PC Power Management - sameet
http://creativeriot.com/the-social-power-array/
======
ynniv
"Install our [untrusted native code] and make the world a better* place!"

(* assuming that your old, inefficient, Windows desktop computer, and monitor
are on 24/7 and you don't have power saving enabled, and you tell a lot of
your friends)

"If even 0.1% of all users on Facebook (300,000 users) install Enpower"

This reminds me of a recent article pointing out the fact that there are
numbers less than 1 (or 1/10 in this case) [
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090928/1101596338.shtml> ].

"The Nellis Solar Power System generates 30 million kWH annually"

I have a different perspective for you - 30 million kWH is also about 3
million gallons of gasoline (as burned in internal combustion engines), which
is about as much gasoline as this country consumes in 10 minutes. So, not
really that much.

EDIT: toned down the vocab, it was too judgemental

~~~
noelsequeira
We've stated explicitly that these are "INCREMENTAL" savings. We do not assume
that your PC is on 24x7. If it's on all the time, you'd stand to save much
more.

Why don't you sign up and have a look at how much users are saving? We've had
36 downloads over the last week - friends in our immediate network. They're
your average joe user - none of them leave their PCs on at night. Enpower
kicks in when they forget to power down, and you'd be surprised to learn how
often that is.

Please don't call an app from a startup spyware. It's unlikely we'll ever have
the resources to do what it takes to look "squeaky clean" from your lofty
perspective.

Green Facebook apps have seen much more adoption than we aspire to achieve.
Little Green Patch, a social gardening game has 1,889,557 active monthly
users.
([http://www.facebook.com/applications/%28Lil%29_Green_Patch/7...](http://www.facebook.com/applications/%28Lil%29_Green_Patch/7629233915))
They state their advertisers will donate towards reforestation if you exchange
"packets of seeds" with your friends. I think our effort could be just as
meaningful, if not more. I do admit that a download is a significant barrier
and we're not aiming to reach magical numbers within a week. It'll be slow,
and we're ready for it.

And finally, if 30 million kWH means so little, why spend a 100 million
dollars of taxpayers' money
([http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Nellis-Solar-
Powe...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Nellis-Solar-Power-System-
Tour-Nellis-Air-Force-Base-Las-Vegas-NV/)) to pump that amount of clean energy
into the grid? Surely, the Government must know better.

~~~
ynniv
> Please don't call an app from a startup spyware. It's unlikely we'll ever
> have the resources to do what it takes to look "squeaky clean" from your
> lofty perspective.

Sorry, you're right. I've edited my original comment to be less damning.

> Why don't you sign up and have a look at how much users are saving?

For one, it doesn't look compatible with MacOSX. Additionally, I have little
trust of 3rd party native code.

> Little Green Patch, a social gardening game has 1,889,557 active monthly
> users

My opinion of Facebook apps is that they are useless, but also (some privacy
aside) harmless.

> And finally, if 30 million kWH means so little, why spend a 100 million
> dollars of taxpayers' money
> (<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Nellis-Solar-Powe...>) to pump
> that amount of clean energy into the grid?

100 million was spent to build a facility, not purchase a years worth of
output. Solar panels should last at least 10 years, so divide that 100 million
by at least 10. Additionally, funding solar installations is viewed as an
indirect means of funding solar panel research, and not as a simple purchase
of energy.

> Surely, the Government must know better.

I think that we all have an intuition for how government contracts are
awarded, and knowledge isn't on that list.

------
jcdreads
This is a very cool idea, but when folks express power savings in units of
kWh/year it makes my head spin. So...

100 kWh / year == 100,000 W / (years/hour) == 17.1 W.

so we save 17 W per computer. This is good, though less impressive-sounding.

Another way of looking at it is that a kWh of electricity costs something like
$0.10. Saving 100 of those a year is ten bucks per computer. $10 per PC per
year is nothing to sneeze at if you have a lot of computers.

~~~
sameet
Absolutely! And 100 kWh /year is a very conservative estimate, almost
pessimistic. Most of the studies claim savings in the range of 600 kWh - so
60$ per computer per year. For those who have the habit of keeping their PC on
all night, savings would be much higher - more so for organizations with large
networks.

