Slog - The Stranger's Blog

Line Out

The Music Blog

« Pardon My French | Talk is Dangerous »

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Unplug It, Turn It Off

Posted by on July 12 at 15:04 PM

Turns out our appliances are wasting energy even when they’re not in use. According to NW Current, power-sucking “vampires” (microwaves, computers, TVs, home stereos, etc) use as much electricity as 25 average-size power plants (some 52 billion kilowatt-hours annually), costing the average American household about $100 a year. According to the article, “if everyone in the United States were to start using more-efficient Energy Star appliances and devices, they could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 billion pounds of carbon dioxide annually — the equivalent of taking 3 million cars off the road.”

Read more about it here.


CommentsRSS icon

Interesting stuff. The only appliance I keep plugged in aside from the fridge is the microwave and it's a cheap little model. I unplug my laptop after each use and I do turn off my desktop computer, rather than leave it on like many people do.

I learned quickly how to conserve power, as in Vegas power bills often went through the roof. Here, they don't as much, though I received a couple of $110 bills a while back and that was enough to redouble my efforts.

Riding a bike and not using electricity makes you more moral than other people. If everyone would just unplug their computer, it'd be like taking a million cars off the road.

I unplug my espresso machine and turn off almost all lights and monitors when I go to work, even turning off computers and laptops.

Besides, since I walk to work (got drenched this morning in a fine rain, kind of fun), I figure I live like I was in Europe, in terms of actual usage.

Those quick-boiling water heaters use a lot less energy than microwaves, by the way.

Tivo, one of the worst offenders, on 24 x 7 and consumes almost as much energy as a refridgerator.

sigh.

i've got a bike, you can ride it if you'd like. i'd give it to you if i could but i borrowed it.

Syd lives.

I'm curious where this info that a Tivo uses as much electricity as a refrigerator comes from. Seems a bit ... not true. Source?

If only people would drive with their headlights off at night, it would take WAY more than 3 million cars off the road.
.

When businesses turn off the lights at night in their multi-story buildings and no longer air condition huge shopping malls at 2 am, then I'll unplug my DVD machine and it's little red light. And my clock radio when I'm not using it. Let's get some perspective here, people.

I wish it were practical to unplug most electronic devices between uses. But then you've got to reprogram the clocks, settings, etc. etc. It just isn't practical with a lot of electronic devices. Needs to be a design issue.

Anthony, it's probably just hard for you to believe. TiVo's never needed to specify the power their devices use because the subject has never come up, nor has anyone brought it up (well, until now).

well, at least some of the office buildings are replacing the incandescent lights they leave on 24/7 with compact flourescent lightbulbs.

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).