Not easy being green with electronic gadgets always on
In the days before Caller ID I got some mileage and out of prank calls such as, “Is your refrigerator running?” “Yes.” “Then you’d better go catch it.” Eventually this hilarity got old. These days, refrigerators are running on 45% less energy than in 1990. Trouble is, there are more electronic devices sapping the power grid all the time, and many of them are just sitting there, siphoning from the socket, waiting to spring into action, or not.
Nerdery Green Team leader Jon Pettersson did the math on how our company could save money by being green. Said Jon (in a staff email):
“The Nerdery used 29,615 kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity during the month of July; this cost us $2,742. If everyone in the Nerdery turned off their computers at night, we’d save $480 a month. What can you get for $480? Let’s put it in perspective: 1 Keg-o-rator; 2 Beatles Rock Band sets; 12 24packs of Vitamin Water; 32 8” ice cream cakes from Dairy Queen; 43 lbs of Peace Coffee; or, 48 puzzles of cats with hats doing funny things.”
Meanwhile, this just in from yesterday’s New York Times:
“We have entered this new era where essentially everything is on all the time,” said Alan Meier, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a leading expert on energy efficiency.
The biggest offender is the flat-screen television. As liquid crystal displays and plasma technologies replace the old cathode ray tubes, and as screen sizes increase, the new televisions need more power than older models do. And with all those gorgeous new televisions in their living rooms, Americans are spending more time than ever watching TV, averaging five hours a day. The result is a surge in electricity use by TVs, which can draw more power in a year than some refrigerators now on the market.
Energy experts say that manufacturers have paid too little attention to the power consumption of televisions, in part because of the absence of federal regulation. Another power drain is the video game console, which is found in 40 percent of American households. Energy experts — and many frustrated parents — say that since saving games is difficult, children often keep the consoles switched on so they can pick up where they left off.
Noah Horowitz, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, calculated that the nation’s gaming consoles, like the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and the Sony PlayStation 3, now use about the same amount of electricity each year as San Diego, the ninth-largest city in country.
Mandatory efficiency standards for electronic devices would force manufacturers to redesign their products, or spend money adding components that better control power use.
Experts like Dan W. Reicher, who directs Google’s energy efforts, argue that the United States must do better, setting an example for the rest of the world.
“If we can’t improve the efficiency of simple appliances and get them into greater use,” Mr. Reicher said, “it’s hard to believe that we’ll succeed with difficult things like cleaning up coal-fired power plants.”
Meanwhile back at Nerdery Nation, we pass along these tips from our green guru Jon:
1. Turn off your computer at night.
2. Turn off your computer over the weekend.
3. Change your anti-virus settings so they run over lunch (so that you can do 1 and/or 2 without complaints from Tech Services).
4. Optimize your computer settings (turn off monitors, hard drives, etc after 5-10 minutes of in-activity).
5. Don’t use a screen saver. Have the monitor turn off instead (your computer uses just as much energy with a screen saver as when you are actively using it).
