Cost is a good first order proxy for energy used, so this is not negligible if you want to take into account all the energy used by the developer (including home activities).
As for any other product, this is a trade-off between fixed and variable cost: want to do some quick processing on an hourly basis? Just write a quick python script with a Cron. Want to compute something billions of time? Use C or something more modern that compiles. Need even more savings? Build an ASIC doing the job.
As for any other product, this is a trade-off between fixed and variable cost: want to do some quick processing on an hourly basis? Just write a quick python script with a Cron. Want to compute something billions of time? Use C or something more modern that compiles. Need even more savings? Build an ASIC doing the job.