Finally, somebody speaks logically and with credibility about how little actions have no practical effect on energy use or carbon output. Like he said, if you eat hot-cooked and/or refrigerated food, drive to work, and are socially acceptably clean, then frankly you use a ton of electricity. Disconnecting your phone charger does nothing.
Hopefully the mass media will report on this in the US.
I was surprised to learn that current nuclear technologies don't have the throughput to handle a lot of our energy needs in the long-term. Hopefully the new fission technologies (or even better, fusion!) get developed and put into practice.
I agree - it's overdue for someone numerate to analyze the options. I've downloaded the book and will read it this weekend. It's always astonished me that most mainstream journalists focus on stuff like not leaving your TV on standby, but never suggest turning the heating down a bit (or turning the A/C off for any of you lucky enough to live somewhere warmer than where I live)
I'd imagine it's because anyone who's paid a gas or electric bill in both summer and winter for the same dwelling knows how much heating and A/C cost. Thus, individual expenditure of comfort-related energy depends not on awareness but on willingness; and a TV news item certainly isn't going to make me turn off the A/C at night and wake up every morning with sweat-soaked sheets and a parched throat.
Devices that drain power while doing nothing useful, on the other hand, are an awareness problem. If a news platform can inform people of small power drains that are avoidable at nearly nil personal cost, the aggregate effect could easily be greater than a moral harangue about the social inequity of refrigerated food.
a TV on standby can actually use 40W of power. This is really an issue of product design that we should be demanding the manufacturers fix. While 40W may be small compared with the bigger picture, it is still energy that is completely wasted, and if you add up the savings from everyone in USA turning the TV off all the way, the energy adds up, and Americans just got a lot more exercise from getting up from the couch and walking to the TV.
Phone chargers and many other electronic devices are using less than 1W when unused but plugged in. Again, this is an issue that should be solved with better product design.
>While 40W may be small compared with the bigger picture, it is still energy that is completely wasted
The bigger picture is all that ever matters when we're discussing fungible goods such as power. The concept of an "order of magnitude" is fundamental to engineering discussions. 40W is just not significant when talking about the power consumption of an average American. Because of this, when you multiply 40W times the number of Americans and compare it to the total power used by all Americans, it is still insignificant on the important scale. It does not matter that if we all unplugged our TV sets when we're not watching them that we'd save enough electricity to power 10k households, because 10k households is insignificant when compared to the number of households in America.
>and Americans just got a lot more exercise from getting up from the couch and walking to the TV.
No, they didn't. A lot of Americans just got a tiny bit of exercise each. They're still all fat and out of shape (1). You're playing with the third decimal place here, or worse.
>Again, this is an issue that should be solved with better product design.
Due attention to the concept of orders of magnitude directs us to work on the things that matter, not the things that are marginal. This helps us overcome the all-too-natural urge to moralize over every trivial action. In point of fact, this issue _should_not_ be solved with better product design if that effort is better spent on things that really matter. If you could decrease power transmission losses by 50% over high tension lines, for example, you'd swamp the contribution of eliminating appliance standby power consumption many times over (I would guess).
Finally, this principle effects every aspect of one's life and is probably a very good indicator of the kind of person who would succeed in a startup environment. If the "We Must Do Everything We Can" principle invades you or your startup, you will be doomed to failure. You will not have a reliable way to sort out the important from the unimportant, the central from the peripheral, nor the vital from the irrelevant. You cannot afford to be fiddle-f@#king with trivial layout issues when you really need to be getting a product out the door, for example.
(1)This is just a bit of rhetorical license. Not all Americans are fat, nor out of shape.
These small savings do matter, because they are low hanging fruit.
Convincing people to turn a television off all the way (or better yet, making it automatic) has no downside with respect to quality of life. Not taking a bath on the other hand certainly affects the quality of life of those around you.
Being able to turn off one entire power station because soft standby has been disabled is a small step, but as the cost is insignificant why do you care that the step is only small?
One thing you see from incrimental programming is that waiting for the 'final answer' doesn't work, but a large number of small steps does. It's the same in all things.
Exactly. There are few places where we can get free energy. Making TVs more energy efficient is one of them, so we may as well do it since it is such an easy task.
If you do the math (40W * 24h * 365 * .09 $/kWh)
You end up with a savings of $30 a year
At 5 seconds to turn off the TV properly you are at $60/hour. Most people would think this is a good rate for their work.
Maybe if I try and generalize this to something that it doesn't really apply to by using abstract principles with no math behind them I can get more up votes...
Up next, on Scary News at 10: is cancer causing, radiation emitting nuclear power the answer to our energy problems? We'll interview several anti-nuclear activists masquerading as scientists to find out the answer. We'll also pluck the heartstrings by showing a mother and daughter who are dying of cancer, and vaguely suggest it's because of nuclear power without actually saying so.
And later: a miracle died you can use that lets you eat whatever you want, sit on your ass all day and still lose weight! Don't change the channel or you'll miss it.
I don't think nuclear is coming to the US any time soon.
Clarification: The upside of nuclear is obvious, but Joe sixpack is afraid of the China Syndrome, Three Mile Island scenarios and fears it being anywhere near them. Nuclear is far more environmentally safe and less life-threatening than any other form of energy production we have. The only referents we have of nuclear deaths we have are intentional (WWII) or communist idoicy (Chernobyl).
Agreed. Most of the little actions are pieties, designed to make people feel and look virtuous. Many of them aren't thought through.
e.g. Leaving a light on at night is a good idea. You're less likely to trip and fall. Breaking a pelvis (common with elderly ladies) and going to hospital is an environmental cost.
e.g. Leaving power adapters plugged in is convenient. Drudgery takes time away from our productive and recreational activities, which make life better for everyone and improve our environment. Also, in wintertime, the heat generated by adapters warms the house.
A lightbulb wastes watts, idle power adaptors waste milliwatts.
You can still save a few <currency> on your annual bill by switching the lights off when you don't need them and using energy-saving bulbs. OK, so that's probably in the order of 1% of your bill, but still, 1% for something that takes virtually no effort at all.
What he's shown is that not all energy-saving tips are equal. Unplugging your power adaptor isn't really worth the effort. Turning your thermostat down half a degree, using a colder washing machine cycle, driving 5mph slower or more evenly or without air conditioning and not reboiling the kettle when it's still hot are all little actions that can have a significant effect on your energy usage.
1% for something that takes virtually no effort at all
For any resource, including electricity, there will be an optimum level of wastage. Perhaps you would place it 0.1%? Attempting to reduce the wastage below this point, wherever it lies, will defeat the purposes that drive consumption in the first place: to live and enjoy a good life.
It's worth remembering that the reason greenies want to squeeze electricity are environmental rather than financial. Pages and pages of our media are filled with pious discussion of small lifestyle changes. This is wasted effort too!
I am not sure that there is a new idea, or that this guy is saying anything I didn't hear one of my engineering professors say 5 years ago.
However, the problem with these calculations is that they cannot take into account new technology that will be created in the next 30 years.
To fufill our energy needs, we only need to tap into 5% of the Sun's energy that reaches earth. So while discussions using current technology are important, lets make clear that the long-term goal is sustainable, low pollution (and radiation) energy, and that it can be achieved.
I agree about active reduction - not worth the effort.
However, I still like passive reduction efforts, like those newer monitors that don't draw any current when on standby. (I can't find a link at the moment.) Stuff like that can result in huge savings when adopted, because the tiny savings is multiplied over a huge number of devices.
we are desperately in need of nuclear energy. burning coal is just not acceptable and I'd like to see the anti-nuclear people sing the same tune after looking at the total output of a coal plant vs a nuclear plant.
Hopefully the mass media will report on this in the US.
I was surprised to learn that current nuclear technologies don't have the throughput to handle a lot of our energy needs in the long-term. Hopefully the new fission technologies (or even better, fusion!) get developed and put into practice.