LCD's cut energy costs

I'm Justine Nguyen, director of desktop support here at CNETNetworks. It has been a really hot summer at our headquarters in San Franciscoand the mayor has asked all businesses in the city to see if they can cutenergy cost. I did some math and found that LCDs actually do cut energy costand I'm going to show you how.

The biggest problem/argument against having LCDs replaceCRTs is that an LCD costs more than a CRT. For every LCD you buy, you can gettwo CRTs. Let me just run you through the numbers on that. A 19-inch CRTmonitor will cost a $165, a 19-inch LCD monitor costs $325. That's asignificant difference.

But if you calculate out the energy costs over the course ofthe year to power each of these, you will see $36 versus $12. That's threetimes as much to power it. So when you do your total cost of ownershipcalculations, a CRT costs $356 over the course of five years, as opposed to anLCD, which costs $386. It's a $30 difference over five years.

It's not as bad as initially it seemed, but that made methink are there any other benefits or costs that could be associated with thesedevices, so of course there are. The first benefit is employee morale.Everybody loves new hardware. They love getting the space back on their desk,so it has been a very popular initiative here at CNET.

The second benefit is reduced Workmen's Comp claims. A CRTmonitor weighs 60% of what an LCD weighs. When you're moving something likethat, there's a higher risk of injury. So, you're going to have fewer injurieson the job as opposed to moving a CRT.

And the last benefit, yet to be proven, is a longerlifespan. All indications are that your LCD is going to last beyond thefive-year usage that a CRT normally has. So, that is a benefit that most peopleare not taking into consideration. So, I think I've shown you how LCDs do cutenergy costs, at least here at CNET and when you're ready to do your own math,you can follow this link and do your own calculations.