Seeing as how Slate just posted week 6 of the green challenge, I guess I ought to write up week 5 already.
Week 5 is about electricity. Kind of a weird category, considering they already dealt with heating, air conditioning, and laundry machines. But at least now I understand why they didn't talk about refrigerators in the "food" challenge.
I continue to be frustrated by the lack of references or details backing up the claims they make in this series. This week they state that "40 percent of all household electricity is used to power electronics while they are turned off." Really? I'm no expert (duh) but that doesn't seem possible. Unless they mean only electricity used by appliances, and aren't including things like the heat and air conditioning. But they say "all household electricity," which certainly sounds like they mean all household electricity. I really wish they would be more clear, or better yet link to the sources for their information.
In any case, whether 40% or not, I still could do a lot to cut down on electricity wasted by household appliances. For instance I didn't know that battery chargers for the iPod, cell phone, camera battery etc. draw power whether the device is charging or not. I went around and unplugged all my chargers, and will leave them unplugged when not in use. I'm also thinking about getting a second power strip for the TV. That way we could leave the DVR on all the time, which we need to record shows, but turn everything else -- TV, DVD and VCR -- off when not in use.
The computers are a problem, because I almost never turn them off. I use them both for work and often leave files open overnight. I guess I can try to start turning them off overnight. Well, the desktop. The laptop takes so long to start up, it would waste half my morning.
This week includes a "what the ??" empty gesture, just like last week: they recommend replacing your cordless phone with an energy star model. Savings: 13 pounds of C02 per year. Or, the equivalent of my car driving 20 miles. Just driving to the store to get the new phone would burn up the first year's savings!
I was also disappointed at the small savings from an efficient refrigerator: 50 pounds of CO2 per person per year. I think we'd see more improvement than that if we replaced our fridge, because the thingie that spits out ice cubes is broken and cold air leaks out. We stuffed foam into it to try and stop the leak, but I still occasionally see steam coming out it.
1 Comments
The statement that "40% of all household electricity is used to power electronics when they are turned off" is absolute nonsense. Most household electronic devices use little or no electricity when they are turned off. Those which operate by remote control must have enough of the circuitry awake to recognize the signal sent from the remote to turn them on, but this uses minimal power. Plug-in or wall wart power supplies use very little power when they are not being used, i.e. when the charger is not recharging something or when the device being powered is itself not turned on. It's a good idea not to overcharge rechargeable batteries by leaving them in a plugged-in charger, i.e. the ones in Ipods etc, because this will shortened their lives, although modern rechargeable batteries are much better in this respect than they used to be. Smart chargers sense when a battery is fully charged and then reduce the charging current to a minimal "topping off" amount, but because of cost these are rarely included in mass market consumer electronics. Unplugging wall warts when they are not in use won't save much electricity, i.e. much less than say replacing a 100 watt incandescent light bulb by an 18 watt compact fluorescent. I have heard of wall warts developing internal short circuits and causing fires when left plugged in, but this is a rare occurrence. If you do want to disconnect them when they are not in use, I recommend using a power strip. Apart from the surge protection these provide, you can now get them with some of the sockets far enough apart that a wall wart doesn't cover up two sockets at once and they all come with on and off switches so that you don't have to unplug and plug back in the wall warts if you want to disconnect them. If you are really interested in measuring how much electricity your household electrical devices consume, www.ccrane.com sells a meter (for about $50 I think) that does this.