The power savings of new computers are not relevant if compared with the energy that is needed to build them. University of Edinburgh (2016) found that by extending the lifetime of a single computer and monitor from four years to six
years, approximately 190 kgCO2e of carbon emissions are avoided (I doubt anyone is using their devices even 4 years nowadays). Report is here: https://edwebcontent.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/atoms/file...
You can see it straight from the horse's mouth, too. On pages 13 and 14 [1], they estimate that between 9 and 23% of the total lifetime emissions for a Mac mini come from using it. The rest is manufacturing and distribution.
According to the fine print, the lifecycle of the computer is determined by some ISO standards and I spent a good 10 minutes searching the web to determine a ballpark figure for this (3 years? 5 years? 10 years?) and came up completely empty.
The nice thing is that all those new x86 laptops are going to keep being slower than my 2020 M1 mini unless they're high spec, so software/websites are still built with that in mind.
Comments
The power savings of new computers are not relevant if compared with the energy that is needed to build them. University of Edinburgh (2016) found that by extending the lifetime of a single computer and monitor from four years to six years, approximately 190 kgCO2e of carbon emissions are avoided (I doubt anyone is using their devices even 4 years nowadays). Report is here: https://edwebcontent.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/atoms/file...
You can see it straight from the horse's mouth, too. On pages 13 and 14 [1], they estimate that between 9 and 23% of the total lifetime emissions for a Mac mini come from using it. The rest is manufacturing and distribution.
According to the fine print, the lifecycle of the computer is determined by some ISO standards and I spent a good 10 minutes searching the web to determine a ballpark figure for this (3 years? 5 years? 10 years?) and came up completely empty.
[1] https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/desktops/Mac_...
The nice thing is that all those new x86 laptops are going to keep being slower than my 2020 M1 mini unless they're high spec, so software/websites are still built with that in mind.