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The Insatiable Power Hunger of Home Electronics
An anonymous reader writes "A Wall Street Journal columnist recently got his hand on a power meter and decided to write about his findings, the resulting article being discussed here on Slashdot. That author concluded that gadgets are getting a bad rap, and are relatively insignificant power consumers in the grand scheme of things. A rebuttal has appeared, arguing that not only are modern electronics significant power consumers already, while everything else is becoming more efficient, home electronics seem to be getting worse. This echoes the Department of Energy's assertion that 'Electricity consumption for home electronics, particularly for color TVs and computer equipment, is also forecast to grow significantly over the next two decades.' Are gadgets unfairly maligned, or getting an unearned pardon?"
I think it's more regional than anything else. The current definition of National household electricity consumption is, in effect, an average of household electricity consumption in different regions across the United States and is affected by many factors. However, hot summers increase the amount of electricity used for air conditioning and other space cooling, so households in southern States will tend to use more electricity. Similarly, cold winters increase the amount of energy used for space heating. Although U.S. households more frequently rely on natural gas than on electricity for heating, in the South the reverse is true, meaning that households in southern States will tend to have a peak of electricity use in winter as well as in summer.
Humidity is another climate-related factor that affects electricity consumption. Households in more humid regions tend to use air-conditioners and dehumidifiers to remove humidity. Households in arid regions, such as the Mountain States, are able to use evaporative coolers instead of air-conditioning for space cooling.
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So, where exactly in the world are you, that you get 125 volts in the wall but pay your bill in pounds?
He's absolutely right. Ignoring AC costs, IMO its house size that is causing the increase in usage, and its changes in how houses are lit. 20 years ago houses were lit typically with a single fixture in a room, and lamps. (Or, if you're in the northeast US, typically just lamps, although I couldn't tell you why that is...)
These days lighting design is all the rage, and its common to have 4 or more fixtures in a room, often R30 can lights at 65w each projecting downward so you need 4 or more to light a room. The room I'm in right now visiting my parents has 4 can lights, a light with 4 60 watt bulbs in it, and two recessed spot lights of unknown power. Ignoring those, its still 500 watts to light this room.
My house is 60+ years old, but was renovated six years ago -- most of it is can lit as well. It has 24 65 watt R30 can lights in it, among all the other lights.
I saw a nearly $30 a month drop in my electric bill switching the entire house to CFL. Dimmable R30 bulbs are pricey, $12+ each, but they will have payed themselves off in a year. I typically am facist about keeping lights off, too... I'm sure the savings would be double that if I had kids leaving them on all the time.
On a geek note, I also got a $30 savings a month by making changes in the data center in the basement. An old HP rack server was replaced with a much less power hungry desktop box which was faster... that saved 75% of the electricity it used to use. Three other desktop boxes which were slower were replaced with two free laptops with broken screens I got from friends who tend to break their laptops. The upside as well is that one small UPS can power everything for almost an hour.
When we first got a TV (1988), the TV had a power switch, five channels and definitely no remote. So, whenever we didn't need the TV, we just switched off the power and turned it on when we needed it.
When 1999 dawned, the TV was a flat screen 25" with a remote. And lo, we would turn off the power for the TV only when we left the house (locked up) or at night. And that was just because my house was on the very top of a hill and power lines were often hit by lightning (yeah, I had my modem explode once).
And finally, now in 2006 (in a different city), I have six things plugged in - from DVD player to the TV itself. And it is such a big mess that nobody ever unplugs anything at all - just use the remote to turn it on & off. That sleep mode does take a fair bit of power (well, tens of watts) which is just going to an absolute waste (well, heating the room).
It is these un-noticed devices which suck a constant, but econonomically neglible drain - which could be avoided. The things you can fix aren't always the biggest consumers (water heaters, refrigerator) but small things like these - in a global level.
It is not just such permanently on stuff that you have - the average geek still has more connectors than you'd think. I realized this when I was in the high himalayas - and we were charging stuff before we left human habitation. (Oh, took the laptop to 18,000 feet).
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
What particularly bugs me is that when I bought a new LCD TV last year, I discovered it had no power switch. It has a standby button, but the only way of turning it off is at the wall/powerstrip. On a related note, decidedly unhappy with the Wii's 24-hour on mode; I'd be more accepting if it wasn't required for things like Mii transfer to work, but there's no way of telling it to do network maintenance when it's first turned on each day.
I admit it, I now have more gadgets drawing current than I did five years ago. I have also reduced power consumption in the past five years. Five years ago, my typical electric bill was US $125 a month, it is now in the $75 range. None of the changes have caused any hardships or reduction in quality of life.
1. Replaced heat pump with a more efficient model and installed set back thermostat. I lucked out, the compressor crapped out and I had a service policy. The impact on quality of life is nil, I had to learn the new thermostat.
2. Replaced refrigerator with a more efficient model. It was expensive but the old refrigerator was about 30 years old and was reaching the end of it's service life. It is a nicer refrigerator than the old one and it is quieter.
3. Replaced commonly used light bulbs with compact fluorescent. This was an inexpensive change and it had the most impact on quality of life. The color and light quality of the new compact fluorescents compares to the old lights but they take a few minutes to produce full light output. They remind me of a tube type radio warming up.
I think that the most interesting replacements were the night lights. I replaced the 6 night lights that used to draw about 4 watts each with LEDs. I connected a wall wart to an unused wire pair in my home telephone wiring and I use the phone wiring to transport power to my night light LEDs. I had the wall wart, LEDs, and other parts in my junk box -- and they work great.
The light conversion is both saving power used for lighting and reducing the summer air conditioning load. Someday I might even figure out how long it will take to save any money by replacing those lights. The main light in the living room was a 300 watt halogen torchiere which I replaced with three fluorescent flood lights which cost $35 for a new floor lamp and bulbs, rated power consumption went from 300 watts down to about 75 watts; and I frequently don't turn on all three of the bulbs. This summer I noticed that the living room was much cooler with the new lights. The kitchen is saving a similar amount of watts but the lights in the kitchen are not used very often.
OK, here are the numbers for a mac mini (no monitor - just the cpu.)
Powered off: 0.035A
Booting: 0.250A - 0.320A
On, but idle: 0.180A - 0.250A
Sleep mode: 0.050A
Unplugged: 0.0A
So booting isn't that much more power than idle, and it's for a short period of time.
I find it interesting that powered off isn't really powered off, so you are better off using the switch on your power strip than relying on the mac "off" mode, which isn't a whole lot better than sleep.
Someone who wants to play with math more than me can figure out the break-even points, but it's clear that you are far better off unplugging your mac and rebooting overnight than leaving it in sleep mode. It's a no-brainer for a week. This basically says, unplug all your crap when you go on vacation, because with modern electronics, off isn't off.
Grins.
When My younger brother was about 5 my mother was rewiring a plug to a vacuum cleaner.
She turned around to do something else leaving the plug in parts. For those of you who have no experience with British plugs most of them can be unscrewed and reconnected by hand. the fully molded ones that are common in the US have only started to show up on British equipment in the last 15 years or so.
So my little brother ever the curios little brat picked up the separate prongs.
He was smart enough to work out that if he inserted the ground prong (we call it earth in the uk) the slot opened for the other two prongs.
so he industriously inserted the other 2 prongs and was thrown across the room.
He came out of it with nothing more the a few bruises and lots of crying. And if I am honest he was lucky to survive.
But 20 years later it is funny to look back on.
I was 9 at the time and came in just in time to see all the lights go out and my little brother flying across the room.
As for the size of our plugs. They were designed at a time when the average electrical device was the size of a small washing machine. And as such the size was not an issue.
And given the fact that we have a much higher voltage and current possibility from our standard system then the US. A better comparison is not US to US plug but US to the US plugs used for washing machines and ovens. you know those big 3 phase ones that use the save voltage as British houses have all over.
As a Britt living in the US. I can assure you I get more annoyed by having to straiten out bent pins and stuff then you do by the rare occasions that carrying a large plug from one location to another is needed.
But I do remember standing on the odd plug myself in the past. Think of it as a British right of passage. you really haven't lived there until you have spent a few mins hopping around on one foot screaming.
It might, it might not. I have an old dual pentium-133 server (two CPUs), and it only draws 45-50 watts from the wall. I also have a 650 Mhz Pentium 3 that only draws 60 or so watts from the wall, and it has a couple more disks.
About a half of a year ago, I measured some Athlon64 3200+ desktops in order to size out UPS systems. These measurements included the 19" LCD panel, which alone uses about 40 watts during use. The systems used Abit motherboards, stock AMD coolers, and GeForce 6200TC video cards. Through booting, using, and shutting down the systems, I found that an average draw during usage was about 100 watts - which included 40 watts for the monitor, putting draw from the wall at around 60 watts. Peak draw never got above 143 watts during those trials.
I didn't even bother measuring the Pentium-D systems that we had - the amount of heat alone that those things pumped out told me all that I needed to know.
Of course, the laptop that I'm typing on right now has a 1.8 GHz dual-core chip (Core Duo), and has a "measly" 65-watt power adapter. The 65 watts (which is what it draws from the wall, I measured) is enough to run both cores at a pretty good load, the 12" display, and burn a DVD at the same time - and still have a little power left over to charge the battery. That's a bit unfair, as it's an extremely power-optimized system, but it shows what can be achieved.
As an interesting side-note, I have a couple of Via's C3 systems, which are supposed to be low-power setups. Measuring power draw from the wall, I get 55-70 watts being pulled, depending on the machine. While the CPU is very low-power, system fans and hard drives still take power, and the cheap power supplies in them are extremely inefficient.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Manufacturing costs: you get economy of scale on the power supply circuits.
Liability: if the power supply blows up, *you* didn't design or build it. Also, users of the circuit can't be directly exposed to 120VAC.
Size: yes, the circuit can be smaller, and the extra parts are out of the way on a floor or wall.
The problem with many wall wart bricks is that their transformer's primary winding is energized all the time and thus drawing power. The "power" switch on the device only switches the low-voltage side. Whereas, if the circuit is built into the device, the power switch often switches the high-voltage side. What we need is a better power brick - one that doesn't stay on all of the time but checks if there's a closed circuit between one of the outputs and a "switch" line maybe 1x/sec and only turns on if there is. You'd still need to draw a bit of power in pulses, or maybe you could run the testing circuitry off a backup capacitor internal to the 'wart.
-b.
With the move to HD, one of the proposed solutions was HAVi over Firewire. Basically, each device would have a firewire port (well, two so you daisy chain), you run the daisy chain between the devices, and they provide their interface via Java.
The studios HATED it, because it meant their content was moving around the network digitally (in MPEG-2), which was the point. Want to record something to D-VHS or AVHDD, just choose to record it. The devices tell everyone that they record. No more PVR, or if you got a PVR, it's just software, and can dump to an AVHDD system. The whole thing was encrypted for DRM purposes, but the studios hated it. They loved Component/DVI because nobody could make a direct digital copy (too much space needed, would need to compress). The consumer electronics companies hated it, because it meant you'd have a single MPEG-2 decoder in your television (or receiver, then run Component/DVI to the monitor which would have no knowledge), and everyone else made cheap stuff. There is no room for a "better" DVD player if all the DVD player does is read the MPEG-2 stream and send it over firewire.
So instead, we are in a digital domain, we have lots of codecs, and everyone needs to do D/A conversions (to support components). The problems people have with HDMI are short-term (hopefully), but the CE companies know that if all they do is serve the bits off the disc, and don't do anything to make the picture better (quality digital/analog conversions mattering in DVD/component land, but not in DVD/HDMI land), there is no room for higher end models. Moving digital bits around is unimpressive, and there are only two parts of the system that convert to "analog," the receiver (for audio to go out to speakers), and the monitor... and now most of the high end monitors are "digital" devices, so no D/A to upgrade, but how they process the signal matters, because eventually YOU are looking at the analog (light wave) output of your digital set.
Part of the reason that we're seeing a massive drop in CE prices is that there is a decreasing benefit to quality systems. If you look at projectors, Panasonic is playing with smoothing technologies to gain an edge, because the convention edge is somewhat neutralized when digital data comes in and then powers an LCD (or DLP) system. Regarding the devices talking, Firewire was the correct technology. What's PATHETIC is that we carry SO MUCH data on the HDMI cable (up to 1080p video, up to 8 channels of 24-bit audio), but no control information. If you want automation, you're stuck with IR blasters (retarded), macro'ing remotes (slow and annoying), or a central automation control that runs RS-232 cables for serial control. The other option is a DC "trigger" where we have the fancy, high tech solution of sending a small amount of energy from device A to B, and B does "something."
On the plus side with HDMI, and cheaper analog to digital converters, we're seeing more receivers that can "upconvert" old RCA Video, S-Video, and Component signals into digital easily. While videophiles may not want their receiver doing video conversion (on the believe that the monitor should... and high end display devices probably do a better job of handling the signal), we're AT LEAST at the point that if you set the receiver to the right input, the "television" is truly a monitor only needing one input, and the trigger to turn it on and off can work. If you want to avoid the receiver based solution, there are plenty of component video switchers (that also switch digital audio, coax or toslink), that autosense what device is on. My dad used to use a receiver with multiple sourcing because he could record a DVD to audio cassette for the car, while running a VCR through the system for the television/stereo, but I don't know of anyone that does that any more, few people convert to analog sources, and they normally do their copying on the computer, not in the AV cabinet with the asinine inter
No, that computer isn't *remotely* power effecient.
The ridiculously high 130+watt idle numbers are probably due to the S2K Bus Disconnect bug/issue AMD had before the switch to 64bit CPUs. Running a program like VCool or FVcool would likely reduce that number by 20-60 watts.
The trend in CPUs (still the biggest single power drain in modern computers) is for MUCH more power-effecient models (especially when idle). A newer CPU and motherboard would be using significantly less power than that old Athlon, despite vastly outperforming the older chip.
The recomendations are probably due to the ridiculous power consumption of Pentium 4 CPUs (which are thankfully behind us now) and $5 "500w" PSUs, which can't possibly deliver half the power advertised. Stay away from those two issues, and a 300W power supply is more than enough for modern systems.
Additionally, 80% effecient power supplies like Seasonic's units are becomming more common, and more widely available, helping to significantly reduce power consumption as well.
With all of this, many people are putting together new towers that use less power than their notebooks.
That's not a fair comparison. Those 19" CRTs probably have a "viewable" size of 17.9".
Besides that, a jump of approx 50% power savings is still huge, and better than you'd get trading-in your old refridgerator for a new one... And with other improvements on the horizon, I predict computer displays will continue to out-pace refrigerator effeciency gains for many years to come.
I fail to see how a DC motor is inherently more effecient than an AC motor. For one thing, it comes into your house as AC to begin with.
I sincerely doubt most people watch TV with a surround-sound amplifier on, 40 hours a week.
I don't see the majority of TV programming (things like news, game shows, soap operas, etc.) getting any more exciting when played over 6 speakers instead of the two built-in to the TV.
I don't know why anyone would leave their TV on to listen to digital music channels for hours a day, when it has already been established that the person in question is using a seperate amplifier for their TV viewing already...
But that didn't stop him from using this in his calculations, not to mention claiming that he's trying to save the earth...
No, it isn't. As I've repeated on /. many times before:
"An electric heater will be a purely resistive load, giving you a nearly perfect power factor of 1.0, whereas your VCR probably has a cheap power supply with a power factor as low as 0.4. So the VCR is causing a lot more power loss [line losses], even though it's the same 5watts."
No doubt this test was done on the same 32-bit AMD Athlon system (without S2K Bus Disconnect enabled) WHICH DOESN'T IDLE P
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