Saturday, April 28, 2007
The power of good Habits
September 11, 2006
Energy tip #10: remove wall warts and slay electricity vampires
by orrin
Are you plugged in? If you have ever left rechargers or unused appliances
plugged into the electrical outlet, you may be in for a bit of a shock. The
U.S. Department of Energy tells us that not only do appliances continue to
draw electricity while the products are turned off, but in the average home
nearly 75% of all electricty used to power electronics is consumed by
products that are switched off.
VCRs, televisions, stereos, computers, and kitchen appliances all use energy
while not in use. You may have noticed how a cell phone recharger can be
warm even when not attached to a phone. The best way to prevent unnecessary
energy expenditures is to do a clean sweep of your home. Here at the office,
we’ve gotten into the routine of unplugging our water cooler at night. The
process is a bit of a hassle at first, but hassle quickly turns into
painless habit.
(Bonus question for engineers: can anyone explain why products can’t be
designed to prevent this sort of passive energy use? Is it simply laziness
on the part of the manufacturers, or is there a real design constraint at
work?)
The good folks over at Ideal Bite have previously tackled this issue and
suggest the following:
Use power strips to turn off TVs and stereos. You’ll save the energy
equivalent of a 100-watt light bulb that is always on.
Unplug chargers (think cell phones and iPods) when not in use. Only 5% of
the power drawn by a cell phone charger is used to charge the phone. The
other 95% is wasted when it is left plugged into the wall.
Let’s runs the sums:
Rough equivalent: 100 W light bulb @ 8760 hrs/year
Electricity: $.10/kWh
Total energy cost: $87.60
Cost of power strip: $4.00
Total energy savings: $83.60
Total CO2 savings: 1217 lbs.
Will you be unplugging your rechargers and turning off unnecessary
electronics for the next two weeks?
Yes
No
We took a week off to launch our new Expedia partnership as well as Home and
Dorm TerraPasses. The extra time allowed us to garner some additional votes
on the duct fix (Tip #9). 22 people have said ‘Yes’ to getting their home’s
ducts inspected. If 50% go ahead with the project, we can expect about
41,800 lbs of CO2 being reduced, or about 6.3 tons of waste recycled instead
of landfilled.
Send this to 5 persons and you will have luck
Send this to 10 persons and you will be blessed
Send this to 20 persons and above, your life will be successful in your life
and see drastic changes to your surroundings
If you do not send this and break the chain, I don't know what will happen
to you but seriously it is better to raise awareness of this important
message to others.
Energy tip #10: remove wall warts and slay electricity vampires
by orrin
Are you plugged in? If you have ever left rechargers or unused appliances
plugged into the electrical outlet, you may be in for a bit of a shock. The
U.S. Department of Energy tells us that not only do appliances continue to
draw electricity while the products are turned off, but in the average home
nearly 75% of all electricty used to power electronics is consumed by
products that are switched off.
VCRs, televisions, stereos, computers, and kitchen appliances all use energy
while not in use. You may have noticed how a cell phone recharger can be
warm even when not attached to a phone. The best way to prevent unnecessary
energy expenditures is to do a clean sweep of your home. Here at the office,
we’ve gotten into the routine of unplugging our water cooler at night. The
process is a bit of a hassle at first, but hassle quickly turns into
painless habit.
(Bonus question for engineers: can anyone explain why products can’t be
designed to prevent this sort of passive energy use? Is it simply laziness
on the part of the manufacturers, or is there a real design constraint at
work?)
The good folks over at Ideal Bite have previously tackled this issue and
suggest the following:
Use power strips to turn off TVs and stereos. You’ll save the energy
equivalent of a 100-watt light bulb that is always on.
Unplug chargers (think cell phones and iPods) when not in use. Only 5% of
the power drawn by a cell phone charger is used to charge the phone. The
other 95% is wasted when it is left plugged into the wall.
Let’s runs the sums:
Rough equivalent: 100 W light bulb @ 8760 hrs/year
Electricity: $.10/kWh
Total energy cost: $87.60
Cost of power strip: $4.00
Total energy savings: $83.60
Total CO2 savings: 1217 lbs.
Will you be unplugging your rechargers and turning off unnecessary
electronics for the next two weeks?
Yes
No
We took a week off to launch our new Expedia partnership as well as Home and
Dorm TerraPasses. The extra time allowed us to garner some additional votes
on the duct fix (Tip #9). 22 people have said ‘Yes’ to getting their home’s
ducts inspected. If 50% go ahead with the project, we can expect about
41,800 lbs of CO2 being reduced, or about 6.3 tons of waste recycled instead
of landfilled.
Send this to 5 persons and you will have luck
Send this to 10 persons and you will be blessed
Send this to 20 persons and above, your life will be successful in your life
and see drastic changes to your surroundings
If you do not send this and break the chain, I don't know what will happen
to you but seriously it is better to raise awareness of this important
message to others.
# posted by mingz : 9:01 AM
