Latest in an irregular series, some of whose previous entries were Edge.org and the Girl Scouts...
I examine the Folding@home distributed computing project with reference to the costs (electricity resulting in air pollution causing deaths) and benefits (some papers): http://www.gwern.net/Charity is not about helping. Additional data on either side of the cost-benefit is welcome.
(I also recently split out my essay describing things I have changed my mind on.)
Does my computer really use less energy when it's running System Idle Process instead of Folding@home?
Yes, but to be clear it is using more power then when it is off. There's a decent argument that when one works out the marginal power use it makes sense to run Folding@home or some similar program.