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40% of All Electricity is consumed by devices which are not in use...

nytimes.com — The Department of Energy estimates that in the average home, 40 percent of all electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. Add that all up, and it equals the annual output of 17 power plants, the government says.

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  • netburnr, on 10/11/2007, -31/+899% of all stats are made up

    //including that one.
    • pogfreak, on 10/11/2007, -25/+3Well I think its clear that its time for government to step in, this is unacceptable by any standards. What a disgrace.
    • neiltc13, on 10/11/2007, -11/+4Which "Department of Energy"?
    • Pseudorious, on 10/11/2007, -2/+54From Article:

      "40 percent of all electricity USED TO POWER HOME ELECTRONICS is consumed while the products are turned off."

      This is not the same as, "40% of all electricity is consumed by devices which are not in in use."

      Either the submitter cannot read or believes nothing but home electronics use electricity.

      Inaccurate.
    • halleyscomet, on 10/11/2007, -2/+19@netburnr and the rest.

      This is a real issue. One of the problems is that wall warts like the charger for a cell phone still draw power even when a cell pone isn't even plugged in. It turns out none of the manufacturers bother to put limiters in the adapters that would cut off power usage when nothing is plugged in. About 60% of the electricity used by your cell phone charger is wasted in this manner.

      I know you don't like the prospect of this being true, but almost everything you plug into the wall draws power, even when you think of it as "off."

      If you unplug your laptop from its power cable, the brick on the power cable is still drawing power.

      The charger for your electric toothbrush is still drawing power, even when the toothbrush is elsewhere.

      If your printer has a separate brick on the poser cable, then that brick is still drawing power, even if you turn the printer off.

      Most the surge suppressors in my home have an "off" switch. When I'm done with my devices for the night, I flip these switches, cutting power to all the adapters, chargers and what have you plugged into the strip.
    • tehpwnrate, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6@Pseudorious
      That explains why I found this statement odd, at best:
      "Add that all up, and it equals the annual output of 17 power plants, the government says."
      I thought, "Doesn't that imply that there are only 40 power plants in the nation?"
    • asdmalol, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Not all the electricity is consumed by home devices, so I suppose there are more than 40 power plants?
  • unangst, on 10/11/2007, -17/+840% of Americans don't care.
  • Pitfan, on 10/11/2007, -15/+9but I don't have to wait as long for my tv to warm up this way. We have a lot of coal, it'll be okay. :)
    • Rukaribe, on 10/11/2007, -1/+16Fusion Power FTW
    • 0xbaadf00d, on 10/11/2007, -5/+27"Fusion Power FTW"

      Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman are working on that right now. In the meantime why not use the clean, safe fission power we already have mastered.
    • Terr01, on 10/11/2007, -15/+2If it's that clean, I'm sure you have no problems whatsoever if I ask you to take all the waste and guard it in perpetuity in your basement so long as you and your descendants shall live.
    • 0xbaadf00d, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12If you give me as much money as was spent on Yucca Mountain, I will take all the waste which is sealed in impenetrable containers and bury it somewhere where none of my descendants will ever care.
    • tehpwnrate, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6@terr01
      Let's not forget that modern nuclear reactor technology lets us use what used to be "nuclear waste" over again, reducing the half life of the actual waste to a very managable time.
    • egrumling, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1@tehpwnrate

      Except that in the US, we aren't permitted to reprocess/recycle spent fuel rods due to the extraction of plutonium in the process. With any luck we'll be able to get the politics out of nuclear energy production, but as long as the vocal public refuses to believe in it, we're stuck.
  • ButterBuddha, on 10/11/2007, -18/+5"The iMac, according to Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, is optimized for energy savings"... Steven P. Jobs?????

    His name is Steve Jobs.. Everyone in the ***** universe calls him that...this LARRY MAGID is a ***** moron.....
  • DevilsLeftHand, on 10/11/2007, -7/+6That's why I never turn anything off.......to lower that percentage.

    It works that way, right?
  • amirbd, on 10/11/2007, -6/+1The DoE probably overestimated or rounded-up for ever single item which they considered. Which is fine, I suppose.
  • evilelf2407, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5how much of this do you think is from devices charging?
    • halleyscomet, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Well, about 60% of the electricity used by a cell phone charger is in the form of power drawn by the charger when no phone is plugged into it.
    • halleyscomet, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1@cdnyny

      It's good that you don't leave your cable plugged into the wall when the cell phone isn't charging. Most people pick a spot, plug in the charger and leave the end of the cable sitting there waiting for them to plug in the phone. The simple act you perform of unplugging the charger from the wall saves about 60% of the electricity most people consume as part of charging a cell phone.
    • mrx23, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Actually, many newer cell phone wall chargers are switch-mode power supplies, instead of having old and inefficient linear transformers. Switch mode psu's do not waste energy into heat as much as the old transformers when left plugged in. You can tell by touching it when its plugged in and not in use, it will be cool to the touch. The old transformers are usually warm or even hot, meaning they are wasting electricity producing heat. I leave my cell phone psu plugged in all the time, and it stays cool when my cell phone is not plugged in. If there is no heat, there is little to none of wasted energy.
  • nakeddave, on 10/11/2007, -6/+3can you just have a switch that cuts the power to the device?
  • FireStalker, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5*turns off his wii,xbox,radio,TV*
  • ijib, on 10/11/2007, -2/+14The title of this post is very misleading (actually it's completely wrong). It's 40% of electricity consumed by consumer electronics, not "40% of all electricity" which would be much more significant.
  • xShad0w, on 10/11/2007, -5/+3Thats really true for me, i leave my computer on while i go to school and sleep so it sits 250+watts for 15+ hours but considering its 250 watts i dont care, if it was around 500+ i would turn it off
  • Anth, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6I went through my entire house, all the electronics got their power consumption inventoried - off state, sleep/standby, on and on under load (if applicable). Got the Kill-a-Watt from newegg for 20.

    The biggest offender was my computer, using about 150W at idle, 220W under load and 65W for the 24" LCD. I've been good about turning it off at night and turning it back on when I get home after work.

    What was surprising is how little power my MacBook uses. My estimated monthly usage for my macbook is about 13kWh, whereas its 120kWh with my workstation and monitor. At 12c/kWh, its significant.
    • blapierre, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2What isn't so surprising is that a desktop is much more powerful than a macbook.
  • Message75, on 10/11/2007, -4/+10I would like to see legislature passed that requires businesses to turn off signs and lights with the exception of those required for security when the businesses are not open for business. Do I really need to see the sign for an auto dealership at 1:00 AM in the morning?
    • geminitojanus, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4"Do I really need to see the sign for an auto dealership at 1:00 AM in the morning?"

      No, but I sure bet that car dealership wants you to. And since they're the ones paying for that power, why not?

      Reduce your own usage and set an example for others to follow. And get your legislator to pass smarter electronics laws (like ones that require deep power down states for all devices and low-power battery or capacitor backed clocks).
    • BeLogical, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4good idea...(NOT)

      the government can solve everything... (ha)

      maybe the government should come into your house and also put water like restrictions on your TV.

      right now i can only water my grass on saturday because of the lack of rain. the earth is 2/3 water! water literally falls from the sky!

      and... we aren't running out of electricity... if you use it, pay for it...
    • jerbaker, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2If water is so plentiful that it "falls from the sky" why do you need to manually transport it onto your lawn, is there a roof over it?

      You can bet your ass we're going to have to pick up the tab for the consequences of people and businesses wasting power, so that makes a reason to get involved. I don't believe any person or company has the right to force me into cleaning up messes they've made.
  • HexeL, on 10/11/2007, -7/+8As you bury this statement, have the intellectual honesty to consider objectively the argument you disagree with.

    Pollution is the problem, not Global warming.

    Life on this planet flourished in the age of the volcano, when thousands upon thousands of them were heavily active and contributed far more CO2 than any human activity ever has. CO2 is the life blood of vegetation. Detach yourselves from the emotional grip of earthly devastation and look into the science.

    Should we cut down on fossil fuel use? Of course. But we should do this only because it would curtail pollution, not because of some propagandist end of days proclamation from dishonest and interested international institutions.
    • halleyscomet, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6@HexeL

      Don't forget that reducing the use of fossil fuels such as oil will reduce the economic power of OPEC, and thus the political power wielded by its member nations. We have a lot of political reasons to reduce fossil fuel use that have nothing to do with hippies and Al Gore.
    • dynamitehacker, on 10/11/2007, -5/+5Although I can't find the "age of the volcano" in any science book, it sounds kinda like the Siberian Traps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Traps), which roughly coincided with the largest extinction event in history. But let's not let the facts get in the way, your claim that "Life on this planet flourished" sounds much better.
    • HexeL, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4@halleyscomet

      I agree. But we could do that today if we wanted to. We have enough coal in America to power the whole world for a few centuries out. And it's no more polluting than oil is.

      I'd rather we found ways to exploit the least polluting energies, however, but I highly disagree with the propaganda being used to push the issue forward.
    • HexeL, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3@dynamitehacker

      I know the epoch you chose is of convenience to your panic science, but any fair minded person would correlate my argument to the age of dinosaurs and the massive amounts of vegetation that flourished in that era. Which lasted over 100 millions years, mind you.
    • dynamitehacker, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4@HexeL

      You said specifically "the age of the volcano". Please provide some evidence that volcanoes were much more active during the age of the dinosaurs. Just because movies and cartoons depict it that way doesn't make it true.
    • HexeL, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3@dynamitehacker

      Is it really a stretch to call the age of dinosaurs, the age of the volcano? Both epochs crossed paths for over 100 million years. That is a matter of scientific fact.

      Since it is common scientific fact that dinosaurs coexisted with thousands of heavily active volcanoes, it is up to you to refute the claim with science that proves otherwise.
    • jerbaker, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1I don't think you understand critical thinking or the scientific method at all, but that's all beside the point. Nobody is claiming that global warming is bad for dinosaurs. What is being claimed is that global warming is bad for the animals alive NOW, not to mention all of the infrastructure us humans have built around the current climate.
  • cuoops, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Reminds me of a neighbor who was turning off everything in his camp house for a couple of months. He thought he unplugged everything but the electric meter was still barely running. It turned out his gas stove had a cord just for the clock the run.
  • captainpete, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8"My PC was continuously drawing 134 watts all night."

    No *****, it's on.
  • Hercules, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2Is this the same Government who that that by changing Daylight Savings, and making companies spend millions of dollars in manhours and lost production time, now making the claim that devices that are turned off use a lot of energy?

    Needless to say, I'll wait for a second opinion.
    • jdoublehcubed, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Lost production time? Are you kidding? They have exactly the same production time. The idea is that instead of (at the beginning of daylight savings time) that production time starting while its still dark out, and thus requiring all of the lights in the factory or office or whatever to be turned on, by moving everything back an hour, its light outside by the time people are getting to work. That way, lights don't have to be used.

      So actually, they're saving companies millions of dollars in electricity and not changing production time. I guess if you consider that they don't have to turn on lights when they get there, they're saving man hours too.

      Only Microsoft, Apple, etc. lost man hours because they had to write software patches so computers, PDAs, etc. would display the correct time.

      Needless to say, I'll wait for an opinion other than yours.
    • Catchpen, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1"by moving everything back an hour, its light outside by the time people are getting to work. That way, lights don't have to be used."
      That's true but when you get off work, go home, there is less daylight left since you technically started work later, you will then have to turn your lights on when you get there instead of opening curtains for light. . Same amount of power used.
  • Leviathan777, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Wow, if you read those stats the way they are written, you might think there were only about 40-45 power plants in the USA.

    Phhht.
    • Catchpen, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Some power plants are 1/2 a Megawatt net output and some are 4000. It's called averaging sheesh.
  • Digitalfilm43, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2The highest draw from any charger plugged in (not charging) I have is 2 watts. 2 watts over 30 days = 1.4 kwh. I'm paying ~$0.15/kwh so leaving my charger plugged in costs me $0.21 a month. Maybe if it were $5.00 I'd worry. I do shut off my computers and electronics when not in use though.
    • Buelldozer, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2Now multiply your ***** by 75,000,000 to cover the OTHER households in the United States. If your maths skills are up to the challenge I think you'll quickly see the problem.

      Here's a hint 150,000,000 Watts per DAY is a lot.
  • ochimaru, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3"My PC alone was contributing 2,000 pounds of CO2 annually."

    The article seems to blame households the most for usage, yet companies in every town in the world leave their computers on 24/7. My company has at least 150 computers, and maybe 5-10 of them are set for hibernation mode. They sit at screensaver/login. That would make 300,000 pounds (150 tons) of CO2 annually. In fact... the energy savings alone should get me a raise if I propose it eh? That is... if the usual bureaucracy doesn't get in the way.
    • egrumling, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Yep. Desktop PCs are REQUIRED to be left on 24/7 at my company. Just so they can d/l patches once a month. It would be nice if they could teach users to click on an icon once in a while (or better yet, make a login script that checks for patches), but hey, good IT people cost money...
  • BeLogical, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2good idea...(NOT)

    the government can solve everything... (ha)

    maybe the government should come into your house and also put water like restrictions on your TV.

    right now i can only water my grass on saturday because of the lack of rain. the earth is 2/3 water! water literally falls from the sky!

    and... we aren't running out of electricity... if you use it, pay for it...
  • fixedcoma, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2My bill each month is about 60 dollars. I unplug anything with a light on it, if i hadn't used it within an hour. Except my Entertainment center. that is the only exception, too much power surges of on and off could wear circuitry! and i raise the A/C above four or five degrees when i leave , therefore it's not sweltering when i get home and the A/C hasn't been running non stop while i'm not there! I still would mind getting a wind or solar generator!
    • dacheetah, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Turning OTHER appliances on and off while your Entertainment centre is plugged in is going to cause more damage than turning the Entertainment centre on and off itself. And if your entertainment system doesn't have bits in the power supply that smooths the incoming power to a point where these "surges" simply don't matter, then you're probably also getting alot of line noise on any analog circuits.
    • jerbaker, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3I can tell you that if I unplug my DishNetwork box when it's not used, half of my channels won't work when I plug it back in. As soon as I leave it plugged in for about a week it all works fine.
    • 0crabby0, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1If you have an electric water heater - you can save even more by flipping off it's circuit breaker when you leave the home. And then turning it on again when you return home.

      This also saves on you heating electrodes(less scale and deposits).

      I save anywhere from 30 to 60 dollars a month, just by doing this.
    • egrumling, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1http://www.amazon.com/Intermatic-WH40-Little-Gray-Timer/dp/B00004W4XI

      However, you'd likely do better with a thick insulation blanket. Even better with an "instant" water heater if you have access to natural gas.

      I did both with mine (cheap rental-class water heater), hoping to save about $4-5/month. But I didn't pay that much for the switch. Blanket was $14.99 at Ace hardware.
  • BT1000101, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2More environmentalist / conservationist FUD!
    • jerbaker, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1I think the fear, uncertainty, and doubt is actually from the opposite camp.
    • egrumling, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Why is it that conservation is a bad thing? Most Republicans call themselves conservative, yet the Republican party does everything in it's power to discourage saving resources. Isn't the root word conserve?

      Personally, I'd much rather have the extra buck or two in my wallet instead of the power companies. It has almost nothing to do with global warming, saving the environment or the other hippie crap that makes Al Gore fans swoon. Every buck I save is a buck closer to retirement and living the way I want. Remember dad yelling at you for leaving lights on? (if he didn't, I feel sorry for you) He was on to something.
  • GyroLC, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5One thing I would like to see is companies turn off most of their lights in the parking lots when they aren't open, or at least have a 50% power option if security is necessary. Petsmart does not need 10 daylighters going at 3 am.
  • onelove, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2This title is very misleading "40% of All Electricity is consumed by devices which are not in use"

    1st_its 40% of all consumer electronics-not all electricity which would be much more significant, this only covers electronics, which is why companies like intel and google are mentioned to helping the problem

    2nd_Please actually try and read the article before you post

    3rd_I was hoping the article would have covered about how much of you total power consumption, was taking up by these wasteful electronics. Or wasteful people. Or did i just miss that part.
  • jerbaker, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3
  • mrx23, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1This statement could easily be true. I see many people in my neighboorhood that leave their exterior lights on all night. They are not using them, because they are sleeping. So the energy is wasted. How about light activated streetlights that are set to come on 2 hours before they are needed. They waste a lot of energy. Many people leave their computers on for 24/7. No way they are sitting at their desk using it 24 hours in a day. My college library leaves all of their workstation computers on all the time. Same for every big business out there. The radio station i work at has lots of gear plugged in at all time but only rarely used. Especially in production studios, where the guy works 8 hours a day, but leaves every piece of gear turned on.
  • AARGH2K, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I found it amusing that he is upset over the power the DVR's/Tivo uses. Dude, it's recording ALL THE TIME, otherwise you wouldn't have that nice 30 minute buffer.
    • jerbaker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Errr, even when it's switched off? That's a quick way to burn out a hard drive.
  • dmmoreland, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Wrestling with power saving software can help, but to me the easiest approach is to use power strips for all the devices that consume power when not being used...computers, printers, monitors, TVs, stereos, cell phone chargers, etc. Then, when I'm finished in each area for the day, I turn off the single switch on the power strip. Most of the time, I turn them off by 11:00pm and don't turn them back on until 7pm the next day. Voila, I've eliminated about 85% of the waste, and it is easier than turning the devices off individually.

    www.energy-guru.blogspot.com
  • Gmasterfluffy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I work at a convenience store and. we leave all of our hot plates,computer and screen, refrigerator's, lights ( including the bathroom), Slurpee, hot dog ... machines on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. the problem is not every things in use. it just seems like such a waste.
  • InvestWise, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Had that "Hibernation" feature been better in Win XP (home edition), I would be doing that regularly. Everytime the PC comes out of hibernation, some applications will have issues .. So I have been keeping the PC running ...

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