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Japan Striving For Energy Efficiency
diamond writes "The NYT has an article on how Japan is squeezing to get the most out of the costly fuel. 'The government recently introduced a national campaign, urging the Japanese to replace their older appliances and buy hybrid vehicles, all part of a patriotic effort to save energy and fight global warming.'"
Hopefully this starts a global trend
Hey! Maybe they'll make up for Australia and the USA not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol!
Or not. You never know.
It's extremely impressive, though, that they could manage to triple the output of their industrial sector for the same energy consumption - makes me feel guilty about doing nothing at all about climate change in my own home.
--- Egads, I glow in the dark!
In addition to other energy conservation techniques, they've asked Godzilla to take fewer showers. That guy, like, he uses a lot of water, man.
I admit I just skimmed TFA, but what qualifies as a "national campaign?" Is it just adverts on TV, or are there tax breaks involved as well? During the Carter administration in the US, there were numerous tax breaks for individuals who did things like convert their houses to solar power. The percentage of solar powered houses (whether for electricty or water heating) in Japan greatly outpaces that of the US, but do they get tax rebates from it, or is it just regular Japanese environmentalism?
Sono koro, bokura wa, sore ga sekai no shinjitsu da to shinjite ita.
... that means they got to trade in all their Intel x86 chips for AMD ones, right? ;)
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
let's not forget that,
Japan is a leading car manufacturer (especially when it comes to "green" vehicles) so this would also benefit their economy.
TODO: 753) write sig.
After all, Japan always had to import 100% of their petroleum needs, hence the reason why they've always emphasized high energy efficiency. That's why Japan has such excellent public transportation and why Toyota embarked on that research project in the early 1990's that resulted in the groundbreaking Prius hybrid drivetrain vehicle.
Also, because of Japan's very high population density and its huge demands on water, it's also the country where much of today's water-efficient plumbing originated. After all, it was the Japanese plumbing fixture company TOTO that helped originate the concept of not only low-flush toilets, but also toilets where you can choose the amount of water to use per flush for even higher water efficiency.
The easiest way to encourage people to use less energy is to tax energy consumption heavily.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
I can't open the article (link down?), but I would not be surprised if this is yet another shady deal between the Japanese government and major manufacturers to keep people buying new products.
The compulsory registration fees already make it expensive enough to run a car here, and suspect this is more of the same - "keep people purchasing, and keep the economy afloat." After all, it has worked for the last 50 years here.
As a geek, I love clever solutions. Japan has a great track record at applying technology to day to day problems. But a lot of Japan's creative energy has gone into miniaturization, which makes sense for a gregarious people who also happen to live on an island. But there's only so far you can go with that.Also, for us Americans, diminishing returns with diminishing gadget size comes a lot sooner than it does for the Japanese.
I also don't think as a country you can look to Americans to develop much in the way in efficiency technologies. Our mentality when faced with shortage is to go out and find or create some more. But efficiency is just as valid a sphere for creativity as production, and it works just as well I think; better in some scenarios.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I live in Japan and I haven't seen any national campaign. Besides, it's not like anyone keeps anything for more than 2 years here anyway. People are already replacing their old stuff with new stuff too frequently. As much as Japan loves to say how energy efficient they are, I have to wonder what all this facination with new products ends up costing energy-wise.
And it's not like the newer products have any reason to exist sometimes. I just got done fighting with my oven for an hour because my idea of an oven (a box that gets hot into which you put raw food and remove it when it's cooked) is very different from what the Toshiba marketing department came up with (a box with a million digital buttons on the front that ultimately control a big heating coil and a frickin' timer--but does so in the most circuitous and bizarre manner possible, so you know it's advanced).
I'm sure the oil industry has already produced several reports showing that hybrid vehicles don't help in reducing pollution. Just like the tobacco industry used to publish reports showing that smoking and lung cancer are not related.
The owls are not what they seem
In Sweden, experimental 0-liter houses (without heating at all except inhabitants and appliances) have already been built (sorry, Swedish only). Sweden is a bit colder than Germany (have lived in both countries so I have own experience about that one). Go figure. Or maybe we Swedes just tend to be more nerdy and more often have our own Beowulf clusters as heaters. :P
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
By underclocking their computers in order to save electricity and slow global warming.
What does this button do...
Whatever happens with Kyoto, I think it's great to see a few governments here and there finally leading by example, and getting involved in encouraging and providing incentives for saving energy. Hopefully it'll get some power saving technologies and industries much more established than they were before, and some people might actually begin to realise that there are more benefits to being efficient than possibly reducing the effects that power generation might have on the environment. Some of it may even carry over into countries that initially didn't sign on to Kyoto.
In New Zealand, where I am, finding ways to save energy has almost become a necessity, albeit one that the general population is noticing very slowly. (The main theme at the moment is everyone wanting to build more power stations, but nobody wanting them in their back yard.) Call it lack of planning if you like, but the power situation here is at the state where we're presently on the edge of getting brown-outs.
The geographic isolation makes it necessary to be entirely self-reliant with power generation, and saving energy becomes a definite alternative to generating more. (Not all the time, but certainly much of the time.) Being someone who's quite enthusiastic about reducing light pollution, it's helpful to finally have some government bodies to deal with whose actual purpose revolves around finding new ways to save energy, such as this one.
My understanding, from having spoken to people there, is that the US Federal government is comparably hopeless at implementing energy efficiency schemes, for whatever reason. (That'd mean less jobs for all those americans in the power generation industry, right?) Apparently it's a much healthier economy when a few billions of dollars extra are circulating, even if it is for energy that's not actually necessary... but whatever.
If you happen to have an interest in energy efficiency, though, I've heard that state governments and more local authorities in general are often a lot more receptive about promoting it. I presume that it's probably much easier in states that buy more energy from neighbouring states than they sell. eg. Calgary (okay, that's Canada but it's in the same direction as the US from here) recently went through a programme of replacing every one of their street lights. It's expected to pay off entirely within six to seven years, through operating costs of the lights alone.
Has anyone done research on how much fossil fuel is used to produce the electricity to charge these vehicles.
Well, that's easy. They burn gasoline. They just use it in a way that allows them to manage the energy produced in a slightly different way. So you're in effect asking if they get better mileage than an internal combustion car.
I personally have my doubts that at its current stage of development hybrid technology is an improvement, at least compared with the best that internal combustion vehicles can achieve. However it's remarkable that it can hold its own given how new it is. It isn't necessarily an immediate solution to energy efficiency or global pollution, but it is a good spot solution to the issue of localized pollution.
I think it's also a good bridge technology to a future all electric vehicle. As petroleum becomes more scarce and batteries get cheaper and better, a the experience, technology and infrastructure used to design and service hybrid vehicles may stand us in good stead.
How much harm is done by disposing of the batteries that are no longer of use?
Current hybrids, IIRC use lithium ion technology and contain no heavy metals or other hazardous materials that can't be disposed of in a municipal landfill. Some small run all-electric cars use lead acid batteries to keep costs down, which are a huge environmental issue, not only for disposal, but from the mining of the lead through every intermediate engineering process. But this is not an issue for the hybrids on the market. PbSO2 batteries are just too heavy to acheive the performance and range they need to compete.
You raise an important issue though. So far as I know, manufacturers have made no commitment to recycling the batteries. At this stage it doesn't matter; throwing away a hybrid battery pack is probably not as environmentally bad as throwing away a car transmission. And there are far fewer of them at this point.
However, if they don't start recycling batteries sooner or later, it would be too bad. I personally think that rather than selling and warrantying a battery pack, they should at some point start leasing the battery packs and refurbishing them.
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I'd be more worried about how much energy would be needed to produce a new car. I've read that this takes more energy than the car will consume in its lifetime.
What are you, marketing department for one of the big oil companies? Hybrids aren't perfect but you're talking out of your *arse*.
_ release.html?id=20040623
The batteries used in hybrids last as long as the vehicle, 150,000 - 200,000 miles at least and are guaranteed for at least 8 years. The batteries are NiMH, not lead acid or Nicad.
e.g.
http://pressroom.toyota.com/photo_library/display
Deleted
Is that China uses 11.5x the energy of Japan for the same industrial output. (I'm assuming that means equal in $). Are factories in China that much less efficient than their Japanese counterparts? Or is it the type of manufacturing currently done in China is in general more energy hungry than the manufacturing done in Japan?
Monstar L
Atmospheric pollution is allot harder to deal with than disposal of batteries.
they can be contained , atmospheric pollution can't.
Hell we could blast the batteries to the moon and leave them there , we cant just vacuum up the atmosphere
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
-Unbelievable that this little piece of junk could be such a big problem. NO wonder this circuit failed. It says, 'Made in Japan'.
-What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan.
-Unbelievable.
You can't handle the truth.
FWIW, australia's state level governments (such as the Victorian Bracks government) are all imposing tough emissions controls in line with the kyoto protocol.
The reason why australia didn't ratify kyoto is because kyoto also counts all forest fires as emissions of CO2, because, well, they are emissions of CO2.
Australia has forest fires larger than engliand in the western australian forests every year. If australia ratified kyoto and got on the emissions trading scheme, australia would be economically crippled by having to buy emissions credits all the time. So Howard looked after the bottom line and refused to sign.
Now, if only we could find a way to prevent forest fires. I have a friend who is trying to get a job as a postgraduate research assistant at the Victorian Fire Prevention Center with her very good botany degree... maybe she can help.
If the car runs on ordinary petrol then 100% of its energy input comes from fossil fuels - for electricity production in Japan a significant amount comes from other sources (mostly nuclear). Add to this the fact that a large power-station has certain economies of scale allowing it to burn more efficiently than a car's internal combustion engine and it becomes aparant that this is very likely to produce some improvement - though perhaps not as large a one as might initialy be assumed.
James P. Barrett
I remember reading some research done by Audi in the late 1970's that showed it's actually more fuel efficient to run the air conditioner than to open the window of your car if you drive faster than 70 km/h (43.5 mph). That's because open windows on a car cause considerable aerodynamic drag at high speeds, which can severely cut into fuel efficiency. Besides, today's automotive air conditioners are far more efficient in design, so they impose far less a drag on the engine than in the past.
I am not aligned with the oil industry. I'm aligned with the electric car and bicycle industry. I have been personally promoting the idea of hybrid cars since the 1970s, although I do not currently own a car at all, because I am "anti" oil industry.
As they exist today electrics and hybrids do not help in reducing overall pollution or save energy, although they could be a great boon to cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo for local reductions. That simply means that the pollution goes where there is less of it now though.
And they're not as much of a boon as bicycles. In LA it is usually sunny and pleasantly warm; and the last time I looked up the statistics 90% of the population lived within 5 miles of work.
It takes 20 minutes to drive to work, and 15 to bicycle. Thank God for modern time saving devices that threaten our lives and effectively bankrupt us pursasing, maintaining, fueling and insuring ourselves against the damage we're going to do with them. What would we do without them?
KFG
Noticed when you buy something now you can choose whether to pay the recycling tax now, or wait until the end-of-life in the hope it will be cheaper then? PET bottles in our area have to be returned to convenience stores and can't go in our trash. We also have to sort our trash into into abotu 6 categories. A fried down south has to sort into 12 categories. The ubiquitous water pot now uses up to 70% less electricity than models 3 years ago. All white goods have to carry efficiency ratings. 30% of the flat surface of new buildings must be grassed, including the roof. There's less wrapping on gifts at department stores now. Thermostats in government offices have been increased from 25 to 28 or 29 C for the summer. Government employees are being encouraged to stop wearing jackets and ties from June to September. Trucks and buses are encouraged not to idle when stationary. I dunno, maybe you don't watch Japanese TV.
It's real. Just about all major Japanese firms are taking serious steps to reduce environmental impact and also to comply with personal information protection act, all the way down to rewriting their articles of incorporation. The former is part due to the government and part due to pr benefits. The government is serious about it mainly I would expect because their claim to fame on the global stage, i.e. the proof they are fit to get a permanent seat on the security council, is their ability to lead Asia and be a diplomatic power.. the result of the Kyoto accord however is that it is very hard to live up to their promise. As it happens the Chairman of Toyota is also the head of the federal industry organization, and is located in Nagoya which is where the World Expo is currently running, neither of which hurt. Not versed in what other incentives may be provided though. Environmental programs are extremely visible in all parts of Japanese companies now, including product R&D, sales, advertising, etc. For example there is an air conditioner out now (EcoCute) that uses carbon dioxide as a refrigerant, and uses a heat pump to pull heat from the air and use only nighttime electricity for a 300% efficiency gain IIRC.
Completely random fact, but the TV show Mythbusters tested this and found that (at around 55mph) open windows is .7mpg more efficient.
So far as I know, manufacturers have made no commitment to recycling the batteries.
Toyota certainly has. And they are NiMH, not Li Ion.
You forgot to mention that the second article describes a house that is not without heating per se, but rather, describes a house that uses heating/cooling/electricity so efficiently that it is designed to survive off-grid (and still have today's expected standards with AC, lighting, heating etc) -- it's built to be self-sufficient energy-wise.
Quite a step forward from just "not having heating". Especially considered it's not a residential house, but a business conference center.
And Japan will succeed. Meanwhile, here in America, our government and big bisiness seem to be each others' ally as their policies still encourage heavy dependence on foreign oil and the use of fuel-inefficient vehicles! No wonder the best selling cars are Japanese.
It seems all the so called American innovation is no where to be seen. I'd like to know in which field America is leading the world.
We fly the oldest fleet of passenger aircraft among the industrialised countries,
All our electronics are Asian imports,
We are outsourcing our industrial base to the extent that the home grown textile industry is under seige,
I hear with the present policies, almost one-half of our defense hardware will be manufactured by foreign companies by 2018!
Briliant academicians now rather to to Scandinavia than come to USA,
Our healthcare system is the worst performer in the G7, even Cuba beats us in some cases, and on and on and on.
I pitty the generations to come.
Even though it may not reduce overall pollution, it centralises it to one power plant. It's far easier and cheaper to scrub emissions from one power plant than it is to scrub emissions from 100,000 exhausts.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
None of the 100,000 exhausts has adequate legal representation. The one power plant has teams of lawyers and all the congressmen they can buy, which is a lot of congressmen since they have a lot of money.
You are assuming the playing field is level. It is not.
KFG
Call that a fire?
This is a fire.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
This is working out quite well, I must admit. If we get Japan and other countries to decrease their energy usage and drop their demand for oil, we'll get cheaper oil if the production does not slow down!
With that, I will finally be able to get a Ford Excursion or a Hummer (H2, not the pussy H3 version) a good gas-loving asphalt-ripping sports car and cheap gas that I can pump on a daily basis without destroying my wallet.
Ok, let's make a reality check here. I drive a Nissan XTerra 6cyl. (medium sized SUV) Why? Becuase I can tow boats/jet skis, carry 6 people, camp inside of it, carry luggage on top, and have a kid or two in the back playing around. I tend to do these fairly regularly. You couldn't do this in two of your 4 bangers, or at least not down here. Not without over-heating the engine (pulling all of that). I actually make use of my SUV, unlike many others. But if you want to discuss who is going to make use of it, you might as well start putting restrictions on other things: Food (we don't need that unhealthy junk food... too many people litter anyways), batteries (oh come on, you haven't gone to rechargables yet? they only take 15 minutes to recharge), games (some of these games are 'eevil'). I have seen the soccer mom with the Excretion.. err, I mean Excursion. On the other than, soccer mom sometimes takes 8 kids with her. For Japan or New York, it's pointless and stupid -- but for Texas, it's not. Now, if they did have a descent SUV (that wasn't dog ass slow getting on the highway) that was energy effecient, I would get one in a heartbeat. In a side note, the Kyoto Protocol was stupid to being with. Do you realize that it would have *destroyed* our economy? (ours as well as Australias). It would have made getting oil financially impossible (or so low of profit, it's not worth it) and would have put allot of people out of a job.
"Do or do not. There is no try." -- Master Yoda (Half man, half muppet)
Two suggestions for Japan if they would like to save energy.
1) Start using daylight savings time -- right now, Japan uses the standard time all year.
2) Join an appropriate time zone in the first place. Tokyo is in the same zone (UTC+9) as Korea.
As a result of this, in Tokyo during summer, it starts getting light out before 4AM, and the actual sunrise is before 4:30. I live in Tokyo and can tell you this is almost as traumatic as the summer humidity.
The sun never almost never sets later than 7:00 and seemingly everyone here stays up under lots of electric light pollution until the last train rush around 11:30-12.
So additional ways for Japan to save energy and be less reliant on imported oil do present themselves imho.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
So, it's news that Japan is pushing for more efficient poweruse, but Slashdot have never mentioned how the Bush Energy Plan promotes the use of high efficiency appliances, such as no-power standby devices which don't consume power to maintain a ready state. In spite of the obstruction from members of Congress, Bush has already allocated some $77 million for research and development of high efficiency appliances like waterheaters that use a heat pump to efficiently warm water instead of a wasteful heating element (the element also corrodes and taints water).
I have a live, and can't be here to pimp the President's energy policy 24/7. It's disconcerting to see that Slashdot goes all the way to Japan for a story taking place in their own back yard.
Did you actually see that difference in your energy bill, or did you create it with hand-waving?
The rating of a PSU is a maximum. Your system is going to use the same amount of power no matter what PSU you have in it. Your hard drive does not all of the sudden become more energy efficient because you swapped a 400w for a 250w. You've merely limited the capacity of your system.
Futhermore, by using an older power supply, you may actually be using more energy. However, I do not know the efficiency comparisons between old and new PSUs. The assumption would be that newer PSUs are more efficient, but this is not always true.
Just drop it in the crusher... with him still at the wheel.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
From BBC news: "Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is leading the way A wave of informality is due to sweep through Japan with a government campaign to persuade office workers to abandon their jackets and ties."
8 329.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/459
Even if it was correct (CATO's impartiality is doubtful), it is four years out of date. Less than two years later Toyota was reporting per-vehicle profits on the Prius. Batteries and the like have only gotten cheaper since then, and it's not like Toyota has to offer incentives to move them!
If you are talking about constant-speed cruise on flat highways, you'd be right; a car with only those features and no hybrid hardware would be lighter and get even better mileage (as long as it didn't have to climb hills). But that isn't "where the rubber meets the road"; hybrid drivetrains pay off big due to:- Regenerative braking in traffic.
- Reduced engine friction due to smaller engine.
- Reduced throttling losses, ditto.
- Idling losses reduced or eliminated under many operating conditions.
Then there are the people putting bigger batteries in their Priuses and running off grid electricity for short trips. They may or may not be saving energy, but it's a fact that the juice is not coming from petroleum and it has the potential to come from non-polluting sources either now or in the future. That's going to be the next big thing.Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
we cant just vacuum up the atmosphere
I'm sure Mega Maid would have something to say about that!
You were correct to recieve flak for that idea - it would completely destroy the internal economy of the US. Consider how much of the inter-state commerce of this country is transferred via single drivers in semi-trucks, and you can see how this idea fails even the most casual reality check.
Of course, a search on "car manufacture energy consumption" would have turned up this page which shows that manufacture accounts for about 10% of life-cycle energy; fuel accounts for nearly 75%.
(I can't believe someone rated you "Insightful".)
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
There's no real evidence that hybrids are more efficient than a similar gas powered car would be
h tml
A Prius, or a hybrid Accord, or a hybrid Odyssey, isn't intended to be the most fuel efficient vehicle possible - it is intended to be the most fuel efficient for that particular size and category of car. Of course you can buy a largely unusable micro-car and get close to the same fuel economy, but that's sort of missing the point.
Regarding evidence - this isn't some mysterious dark science, and it's remarkably easy to measure the fuel efficiency of a vehicle. The Accord hybrid isn't the most fuel efficient car on the planet, but you get the power and comfort of a high-power car with the fuel efficiency of a small 4-cylinder. Pretty much a win/win.
http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/modelselector/mpg.
Do you know how a hybrid works?
.,
Why yes, yes I do. I'm currently working on HP/electric hybrid vehicles myself, eliminating the internal combustion engine entirely from the equation.
It works by recapturing energy that would have been dissipated as heat on the brake pads.
No it does not. It works by combining elements of both combustion and electric motors, hence the term hybrid. Regenerative braking is a feature that may be included in any vehicle which uses an electric motor for propulsion, but is not in any way innate to such a system and many electrics and hybrids do not use regenerative braking.
Take your basic diesel/electric locomotive, for instance (hybrids aren't even vaguely "new" technology and go back to the late 1800s in automotive use).
In any case you are falling prey to the narrow focus point of view. You see energy being saved in one area and simply assume that that equates and an overall savings of energy.
What, do you suppose, is the energy cost of creating such a system?
I'm not talking about "gas milage." I'm talking about true, overall savings of energy. Current hybrids do not save energy. They obtain their "savings" by stealing it from some some other point in the chain not immediately obvious to the "consumer" who owns and operates one.
For instance, the manufacture, disposal and recycling of batteries for the electric motor.
Just because an engineering tradeoff has been hidden from your view doesn't mean that it hasn't been made, and may even represent an overall energy loss to give you your feeling of a gain, represented by slightly better gas milage.
One of the reasons hybrids are so expensive is because they are not mass produced in the sense that an Escort is mass produced. .
But the main reason is because you, as the consumer, is paying for those energy costs up front, instead of dribbling it out every time you fill the tank.
If somebody were so bold as to actually build a hybrid on a proper foundation (which relies strictly on the electric motors to provide drive, the combustion engine being there merely to turn a generator) things might improve somewhat, but the public does not seem ready to adandon the idea that a combustion engine is necessary somehow to provide drive.
KFG
...and least here in Californistan, we already pay that fine in the form of a 58cent surtax on fuel.
Fine... but what is the U.S.'s alternative plan to fight global warming? As far as I can tell, the current plan is to deny that the problem exists, and hope it will go away.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The consequences of polluting with Greenhouse gases are bad, regardless of any agreement accepted or denied. Japan might meet only a large percentage of their Kyoto obligations. What are the consequences? Less bad than ignoring Kyoto. And their economy is far from failing as a result of majority compliance. While there's little, if any, consequences from the treaty itself for less than total compliance.
While in the US, we've ignored Kyoto, pumped more pollution into the Greenhouse, and so continue to face the damaging consequences. A little bit less, thanks to Japan's participation (and the rest of the participants). But, by the same token, the world is still facing the Greenhouse, because the huge US contribution continues unabated. We're getting a "free ride to hell". When we could be saving our own necks, and everyone else's, with any degree of compliance.
How about our own declaration, less than the limits of Kyoto, but still mandated to have impact here? We'd be independent, we'd set our own model that works best for our unique situation, and we'd actually reduce the threat of disaster. Rather than the "all-or-nothing" rejection of Kyoto, so convenient for so many rich, powerful polluters, and so threatening for all of our lives.
--
make install -not war
A Toyota Prius or Honda Civic Hybrid model that I could plug into a wall outlet for the night to reduce fuel consumption even further. It's a pity they can't recharge like that.
Even better, a _diesel_ Toyota Prius that can recharge the same way. That thing would get 50mpg from the engine alone, plus synergy drive would probably drive fuel consumption down even further.
Biodiesel is great for reciprocating-piston engines such as used in cars, trucks, many ships, etc.
However, how would it function in turbine engines, such as those used in helicopters, jet aircraft, etc.? Is it possible to refine vegeteble oil so that it can be used in these types of engines?
As for being a "net importer" of many things, that's true. I don't know if the US is a net importer of food, however...I seem to recall the US having the capacity to produce vast amounts of grain and other staple foods, quite a bit of which is donated to international food programs.
Everyone keeps talking about "outsourcing this" and "outsourcing that"...but I still note that, what, 95% of people in the US are employed? People are able to have a roof over their head, electricity, running water, a car, 50% in the US have computers, internet access, and so forth.
While I agree that moving to a "service-based" economy is silly, it still is able to employ a bunch of people, produce enough goods, and provide enough services to the point where the US economy is growing. Whether or not the economy is gong to be sustainable is a matter for the economists to work on. I'll stick with hard science, thank you.
Devices on standby power consume 30% of all power.
.150 mAh. Now mutiply that by every adapter you have plugged in at home and at work, then by 320 million people using electricity in the US, and you come up with a few terawatt hours of electric power that we can reclaim.
150 ma of idle current is a tad high, by the way. It's closer to
If you can pull your head from your rectum long enough, you might find that there is this concept known as "common ground", and while you'd rather be bashing Bush, you should be working with him.