Curbing Energy Use In Appliances That Are Off

KarmaOverDogma writes "The New York Times has an interesting piece on the slow but steady movement to reduce the power drain for appliances that are never truly turned off when they are powered down. In the typical house that's enough to light a 100-watt light bulb 24/7, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, a research arm of the Energy Department. In the United States alone, over $1 billion per year is spent powering devices such as TV's VCR's, Computers and Chargers while they are 'off.' Called 'vampires' and 'wall-warts' by Energy Experts, there has been growing support of their recommendations to adopt industry-wide standards, which would require manufacturers to build appliances with significantly lower consumption when not in use."

Comments

Maybe...

[Pao|o]

People should unplug their appliances? Switch the main circuit breakers for a total stop of consumption...

Heck maybe they should buy Macs with better performance per watt. ;)

I'm doing my part

[Rufus88]

I unplug all my clocks when I'm not using them.

Re:Wall Wart Pet Peeve

[digitaldc]

Mine are that they hire illegal aliens, lock them in the stores at night, and don't provide good benefits...oh wait, you said Wall Warts.

Never mind, my mistake.

Translated in human language

[SysKoll]

Quoteth the NYTese: In the typical house that's enough to light a 100-watt light bulb 24/7

Translated in human language: In the typical house that's 100 W.

By definition, watts are independant of time. Joules are a quantity of energy, and 1 watt = 1 Joule per second.

It's sad to see that the tech section of one of the US's largest newspaper feels the need to dumb down its writing, or maybe just hires incompetent writers. Drool-proof paper cannot be far.

On the plus side, no units in the article were compared to a football field or a the Library of Congress, for once. That's progress, I suppose.