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Game Consoles Are Multi-Million Dollar Energy Wasters?
GamesIndustry.biz has details from a UK government report on energy wasted by consoles in standby mode. The information comes from a larger study by the government on energy wasted by consumer electronic devices, and confirms statistics gather here in the states. From the article: "Last month, a group of bloggers in the United States reported that while the original PlayStation leaked just 0.2W - accounting for some 1.752kWh wasted each year - the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 both leak a massive 2W, or 17.52kWh each year. The energy review proposes a number of measures to minimize energy waste, including working with electronics companies to phase out costly standby routines that drain energy while the device is not in use." The Gamers with Jobs site has some insightful commentary on the issue.
I wonder what this means for the Nintendo Wii, which has that 24-hours always-connected crap that we really don't need. Anyone know what the stats are supposed to be for the Wii's power leakage? If you can call it a leakage.
just what are the consols doing in standby that requires so much power? surely the little lights on them cant be using up that much juice.
The Wii, on the other hand, is actually technically "on" 24 hours a day-- there's that WiiConnect24 thing, remember? Of course, Nintendo actually knows something about power consumption, so it may be that despite this they'll leak less power when in standby mode.
the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 both leak a massive 2W
Shhhh...Don't let them know how much juice their light bulbs suck down when they're left on...
The tubes are clogged and I'm not getting my internets. Now the consoles stole all my power and stood by wasting!
This isn't the first time power being wasted has been an issue, but at least these consoles have a stand-by mode, because people don't like turning them off. Looking here, I have a laptop running right beside me just for aim, tell me that isn't a waste of power and a second monitor that I use right now just to shove itunes onto. The biggest way to conserve power is to convince people that power needs to be conserved, otherwise I'll just keep wasting it. I've never had an issue with not getting enough power, just keep paying the bills and it keeps flowing. And as far as cost, the numbers are really low when it comes down individually, you have to multiply by populations to get the numbers to a size that makes you go wow. A couple cents to a dollar a month, why do I care about that wastage from my console?
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I bet they wasted more energy blogging this stupid report.
There is absolutely no reason that computers should waste power when they aren't doing anything (they also shouldn't be doing ANYTHING unless we are using them). A computer should function more like a data pump/pipe. When there is input (user input), then there is output. When there isn't input, there is no output and no power used at all. This would also be aided by new display technologies that don't use power until their pixels change. (ie. the image is held like a photograph until new data comes in). I think developments like that would wind up saving lots of power and the environment.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Cable Boxes, DVR/Tivos boxes, DVD players, Amplifiers, battery rechargers, and probably more.
It's only wastage if you don't play it 24/7.
If people don't want to be sufficiently hardcore, that's their own problem.
Standby is for the weak
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
I believe there is some known problem with the design of power supplies where if you leave them plugged in, there is a certain amount of leakage. Standby isn't even the issue- most appliances use small amounts of power just by being plugged in.
how about shutting down the millions of PCs that are sucking 150 watts each when idle. How about Xerox machines that keep the lamp hot, etc.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
then yes, I suppose they are. Assuming 20c/kwh, you would waste a whopping $3.50 a year by keeping your PS2 plugged in all the time.
I thought that even when it's accompanying device is turned off, most AC to DC converters will use energy from your power circuit. So it's not just consoles, it's cell phones being charged, electric razors, TVs, computers, pretty much anything that doesn't run directly off AC power. It just happens, though, that this generation of consoles are power hogs and have huge power converters (Xbox 360 in particular).
If the Mob (read:people like you) would care more about wasting "a couple cents to a dollar a month", then the cost of power would *go down* buy *a couple of dollars a KW a month*, because we wouldn't be in such a power crisis.
As in, if everyone cared about saving their 10 cents a month, they would end up actually saving tens of dollars a month(or more).
But good luck getting everyone to care.
Maybe all these consoles should be folding@home when not in use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding_at_home
Ok, so we have aircon, satellite / cable systems, television, hi-fi, lights, heating, washing machines, dishwashers, toasters, kettles and all manner of other household goods that suck power in standby and otherwise... ...but somehow games consoles get singled out? Honestly wtf is that all about. Would have been more meaningful if they'd grabbed a bunch of other gear and compared to see just how much power these things waste in comparison.
People that believe in their opinions don't post AC.
I must disagree with the "insightful commentary". "Off" should mean "off". If there are useful tasks a console can perform while in standby mode, incorporate a "standby mode" state into the machine's design, separate from "off". Currently "off" really means "stand by", with a true "off" state completely absent. This is unfortunate. Of course there's a workaround, i.e. unplugging the machine from the wall, but that's unnecessarily burdensome for the consumer.
I'm all for making the consoles more efficient. Wasting energy is no good.
But as long as we're talking about wasting energy... Let's talk television. I have a hundred channels, and nothing is on worth watching. Unless I have erectile dysfunction, in which case I get tons of relevant programming in the form of commercials.
Seriously, TV, with the exception of RARE broadcasting from Discovery, History, and PBS, is mostly garbage. I'd hope that people would choose to exercise their minds via playing games rather than watch TV any day, even if it means we have to burn a little more midnight oil to get there.
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
2W consumed 24/7. Yeah, that sounds like a lot. 336 watt-hours per week, to be precise.
Unless you consider, say, the typical 60W incandescent hall light that is on for four hours each night. 1,680 watt-hours per week.
I'd venture to guess that the majority of families have at least one light of this sort that is turned on between the time the sun goes down and the time the family goes to sleep, and probably more than one (porches, foyers, outdoor sconces, et cetera). So there you have it, folks: throw out five PS2s... or use one less lightbulb.
Yes, I can see how this is a horribly pressing problem.
Take a look at the specs of your TV/VCR, I bet they consume 5-15W while on standby.
How much do you think your ATX tower consumes? It is a fat 5-7W when "turned off". AT towers have been perfect. They had a mechanical switch and there was no "standby mode". My ATX tower has an external switch to be sure it's really off (my definition of "off" is 0W).
Something that never gets mentioned is that energy doesn't just disappear. All the energy that enters your house is eventually turned into heat. So this is only really "wasted energy" when it's hot outside. People with electric heating could leave all their lights and appliances on all winter (or summer for our friends down under) long and the only effect would be the heater kicking in less often.
I think people focus on this a lot, or I just notice this more then other things. But it is highly overstated. There are far worse devices then a console. Check this out. Look at the listed items (the list is a bit old, consoles still showing at 1.1 W): Digital Cable Box - 23 Watts. A regular one is still over 15 W in idle. I would be far more concerned with those then I would be consoles. (I am pretty sure there are more cable boxes in the US and Worldwide then game consoles that are actually plugged in, not counting those dust collecting NES and Atari).
Actually, let us take a look at the soon to be average (if we ever get converted to digital) TV setup. Digital TV = 8.8W, Digital Cable Box = 23W, and DVD Player (don't most people have these?) 4.4W. Now, idling that is 36.2W of power usage. This is for something that is very likely more common then a console is. Power "leakage" (such a horrible word) is bad, but it is a sympton of two things:
1) Instant Gratification: Devices receiving power constantly are that much closer to being instant-on, allowing you to get to enjoying your DVDs and television programming faster. They have to keep certain things in standby modes to keep load times down.
2) Features and Adv. Functionality: You know, being able to power on devices with the remote, having time-of-day clock setups (there are a few devices that really do not need them), and external displays with time and other information on them at all times.
I am sure there are other reasons related to technology needed certain power requirements, but I really believe some of the great increases in idle power usage (cause that really is what "leakage" is) are not necessity. I am sure governments will attempt to regulate this a bit better, but we all know what a joke government regulations can turn into.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
I've spent a bunch of time working with and thinking about lower cost lights.
In general the fluorescent bulb light is crap - yellow, green, blue - anything but white light. The light from my halogen lamp is either white or red (as it dims) With incendescent, I can have full brightness, off, and any amount of light in between.
Some issues:
CF bulbs are too big to fit in the ceiling fixtures I have - should I go buy new fixtures?
The CF bulb takes a couple of seconds to come on - incandescents come on immediately.
I had a ballast fail in a 4' fixture last weekend - it burned out a couple of bulbs before I realized the root cause. What a pain to replace the fixture!
I had a 4' fluorescent bulb fall from a fixture and smash in my laundry room last weekend. A month or so ago, my kids knocked over a lamp with a CF bulb. Now I've got a hazmat spill in my HOME!
My grandfather replaced his outside lights with fluorescent bulbs long ago to save money. Sure, but the lights don't work when it's cold, and they are too dim.
You "Americans are wasteful and foolish" folks don't get it. I'd like to play in a more energy-efficient sandbox, but the trade offs are too great. The rest of the expensive CF bulbs I have are going in to closets and the attic where there's little good light anyway.
I'll stick with my wasteful bulbs. Those wasters provide great, bright light, are dimmable, are cheap to buy, work in every fixture, work when it's 0F or 100F, and when they break, I sweep up the glass - which is the biggest risk - no threat of poisoning, just getting cut.
Call me when the technology is better.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
...of why energey should not be privitized.
There are certain things that are natural monopolies - water, electricity, sewage - things that, over the long term, a company can not both reasonably make a profit on *and* serve the public's best interests.
...Both of the two parties that exist exclusively in the US.
Krusty Brand (TM) Republic: "Two's not just good, its good enough."
-End rage.
The real energy waste is the human work here. Why lose billions of dollars, ask for people to buy costy machines and raise the price of games for experiences that could be as fun on current PCs. Apart for Wii, "next gen" consoles are a waste of energy, true.
So let's say that your TV couldn't be turned on by remote control (because it's energy efficient and off means off), thus requiring that you walk all the way over to the set, extend your arm, push the button, retract your arm, and walk back to the sofa. For the sake of argument, let's say that on average, this activity requires approximately one calorie per day per household in the US. So per household, that's 365 calories per year. Since I'm just making shit up, let's also assume that there are 150 million television-bearing households.
The amount of energy required then to manually turn on the television in the US alone is 54.75 BILLION calories.
In the US we pretty much only eat hamburgers. A single 1/4 pound lean beef patty contains 290 calories. So the number of beef patties required to power US citizens for the sole task of turning the television on and off by hand is 188,793,103.
Folks, that's almost 189 MILLION quarter pound beef patties. That's 47.25 MILLION pounds of beef.
Using my keen powers of google, I've determined that the average amount of beef we get from a single cow is just about 500 pounds. Hold on to your buns, because this is going make your mustard: the number of cows required to power US humans for an entire year of turning the TV on and off without the assistance of a remote control is 94,500.
Nintey four thousand five hundred cows.
Now prepare to be exagerated into oblivion. I'm about as knowledgable about ranching as you are about energy production, but from what I'm able to google, it looks like a single cow is probably going to eat from 4 to 10 acres of grass per year. Now cows do have a tendancy to grow before reaching maturity, and little cows probably don't eat as much as big cows, but it does look like beef cows get to live for just about two years. We also have to consider that we need to maintain one heffer per calf until cloning technology becomes more advanced. So I think we can safely say that for each cow, we're going to require 10 acres of grass per year.
That's 945,000 acres of grass per year required to turn our televisions on and off the old fashioned way.
That's a lot of grass. 1,476 square miles to be precise. People, that's the entire state of Rhode Island. Enough land for over 1,000,000 people to live and play.
Now it should be clear to everyone that if we figure out how much nitrogen and water and other various stuff is required per grazing acre, we'll end up with some really big numbers. Let's just say the numbers are definately going to be in the millions, and that's definately not small.
So, I think I've made my point. The next time you think about those 2 watts of wasted energy here and there and decide to multiply that number until it's a really big number, try to also think about the cows.
Just ask anyone who has had to repair monitors from the 90-es and AT Computer cases. If the switch is purely mechanical, turning it off will cause a discharge from the capacitive/inductive charge in the device. This discharge will slowly eat into the switch contacts until they break.
Your advice is a decade out of date, doesn't apply to todays computers, as well as being just plain wrong even back in the 80's, never mind the '90s.
Televisions from the old days had higher capacitive/inductive charges, and the on-off button didn't "get eaten" (there were no remotes in those days).
I've been using the same power bar for over a decade - that switch hasn't "been eaten" either.
Come to think of it, neither have any of the light switches here (and the're all several decades old).
The simple fact is that the switches you claim were "eaten" were cheap. There's no reason for an on/off switch not to last for 10,000 to 10,00,000 cycles... heck, even todays hard drives are made to power on/off 10,000 - 20,000 times. Studies by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (quoted below) prove today's computers last longer if you turn them off when not in use.
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/ climate-change/take_action/12_steps
url:httpwwwrecyclingadvocatesorgnewslettermay2002h tm
Holy Cow! :)
Just powering the giant non-LCD screens on your old boxen.
Heck, if you want to count watts, just look at your light bulbs - average US household uses more than 2000 watts with standard bulbs - if you swapped those for compact flourescents you'd be using 200-300 watts, saving more than 1700 watts, which is a much higher amount than 2 watts, or even 20 watts.
Let's put things in perspective here, people. Your air conditioning for the current global-warming-induced heat waves uses many times the power consumption of your game consoles.
Now, if we just bough LED lights, we'd use even less power.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
a wee bit of power. I mean, even if it's 2 watts, that's one-50th the energy usage of a standard incandescent lightbulb, and still four to eight times as much as a compact flourescent lightbulb.
...
What, I should sit in the dark while playing games?
Heck, the TV set you view it on uses a lot more than a lightbulb
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
OTOH, it's rarely doing anything productive while it's on, so you could say it wastes 100% of the energy that it uses.
That's where I read the headline and thought "Well, yeah. That's the whole point."
I have yet to see an instant-on, but I'll let that one go.
I still can't fit the blasted CF bulbs I have into my fixtures, and you're recommending larger ones?
What about the hazmat issue? I have 4 little kids, and.... things break. Should I risk exposure to mercury to save a few pennies?
What about being able to choose how much light I need based on the task at hand?
I still can't use them in exterior fixtures in the winter because of low temperatures, and because of the lack of light output.
I put in new brighter/whiter 4' bulbs and those are fine for loading the washer and such, but for general purpose fluorescent bulbs aren't "there yet."
I'm glad you're happy with yours. My point is that they are not yet a "like for like" replacement which is energy saving. I agree completely with the energy saving part, but the down sides are too big yet.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
use it.
That energy is only wasted if you have no desire to heat the room the console is in.
Otherwise you have a nice little heater with a COP equal to 1.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Segata Sanshiro will break the necks of all those wasting energy by not playing enough Sega Games.
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Modern CRT televisions don't turn all the way off when you hit the power button. That's because the gas in the cathode ray tube is kept charged so that the device turns on quickly at the flip of the switch. This isn't necessary for TVs to work - it's done so that people don't have to wait so long to start watching.
Fit four adult players comfortably around one PC monitor of median size and I'll believe you. Otherwise, you're buying one PC and one monitor per family member, which is "costy". Find PC games that allow for the use of four joysticks, one to control each player in the arena (as in Bomberman or Gauntlet or Smash Bros.), and I'll believe you.
Such "no desire" is highly likely. In the majority of the developed world, this Slashdot article was posted in the summer. (South America, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia are far from the majority.) In summer, you want to remove heat from the environment, either through semi-active cooling (fans) or through heat pumping (air conditioning).
Wow - I'm the one who started the thread by posting the "requires X power just to be powered off" comment that was "off by three orders of magnitude" in my kilowatts-to-barrels conversion. I almost feel enabled. Must be careful not to let this go to my head ...
Everyone i know doesn't just use the front power button, we turn the powersupply of our ps2 off as well (switch on the back of the console). The red light that is on while the ps2 is on standby makes me feel odd. Not to mention that a ton of ps2's have broken and are replacements. I'll bet there is nowhere near the 100million shipped plugged in and in standbye mode. Also i get about 10-11 cents per kwh post taxes =P. So that's have the cost the grandparent used.
Hmmm... Pie...
Who's fit to judge what constitutes a "waste"? I'm a gamer, and I don't consider the use of energy to be wasteful.
Many PCs still being sold, especially those with integrated graphics, don't have a TV output. Even in families that own a PC with TV out, either they don't know about it, or they do know about it but choose not to use it because the family PC isn't kept in the same room with the gaming TV, and a second PC for that room is significantly more expensive than a dedicated game console.
Serious Sam and what army? If there is just one or a handful of titles, that's not enough to get people to buy a second PC for the room with the gaming TV. Which other big-name Windows games, especially games that aren't rated 17+, support split-screen or shared-view play with four USB joypads?
Say I buy an N64 Game Pak. It'd be cheaper to buy a used N64 than to buy a cartridge dumper so that I can use my N64 game on a PC. (Besides, most N64 cartridge dumpers require an N64 anyway.) Legit emulation is more an advantage for the Wii, which supports something akin to the iTunes Music Store, than for the PC.
All these gadgets sucking power, where does it go?
Heat.
So if you live somewhere cold enough that you have to heat your place, the energy isn't waste, it just makes your heating click off quicker. I.e. extra cost on your electricity bill decreases your heating bill. When calculating the heating requirements of (for example) an office building, computers and people are all factored in as ~250W.