Community Newsletter: Q&A: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics
- 1/30/08 12:54 AM
Environment impact of consumer electronics
by saintpio - 1/19/08 7:05 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hope I'm not to off base with my opinion. In this world of I want it NOW,I don't think consumers even think about the impact on the environment. They want what they want and they want it NOW! Then there are those consumers who have no knowledge of how much energy it takes to fullfill NOW! If every consumer took responsibility for whatever, we would see this planet looking a lot different.
Consider your overall energy use
by Proshootercom - 1/19/08 7:19 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
When deciding to what degree you should reduce your personal energy use you should consider several things. First is why. It's easy to say that everyone should try to reduce their personal carbon footprint and if we all do so then the world will be a better place or perhaps you may not feel that you as an individual can or should carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. A simpler way to look at it is from an economic stand point. Energy equals money. Save energy; save money. Using this approach actually makes it easier to decide how to reduce your energy use and allows you to measure your savings in direct dollars and "sense".
Start by making an energy use audit. To do this simply find your last year or two of electric bills. You may also want to include your gas bills as well as gasoline too. If you don't have a year or two's worth, don't worry you can start with even a few months worth. Now using a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel (I use Office 2003, but many spreadsheet programs are available for free, try Google Spreadsheets in Google Docs) input your data. You will need your total bill amount for each period plus the total energy used, and finally the cost per unit in case that changes over time. By using a spreadsheet you can compute your average costs over time. You can also sort your energy using appliances by their energy use as you will see below.
Now to measure the energy use of your individual appliances, including your computers and printers you will need a small device called a KillAWatt or similar. This device goes between the wall socket and the plug of the device you are measuring. This device records total energy used along with several other measures. Read the instructions that come with it to get the most useable data. You will want to monitor the energy use of each appliance in your home including your refrigerator, television, space heater, clock radios, coffee maker, toaster, microwave, etc. If you measure everything that plugs in then the balance should be your wall wired lights (plus maybe the garbage disposal). Measure each for a regular, consistent amount of time, probably a week and add the results to your spreadsheet. Obviously this may take a few months. But once you've recorded the energy use for all of your major appliances including your computer you'll have a better idea of what each is actually costing you.
Now that you have some data you can start saving money. You will see that some appliances use a lot of power for short periods of time including laser printers and your toaster. Others don't use much power but are drawing it continuously like your computer. By using your KillAWatt you can start measuring your attempts to save energy (and money) to find the most efficient places to save. You may for instance plug the KillAWatt into your laser printer and then for the week decide to print 2 pages reduced on each page you print from the internet. You may find the articles you print are smaller and harder to read but perhaps you didn’t need all 16 pages after all. You savings may amount to nearly 50%, but that may only amount to a couple cents a week on your spreadsheet. Next you may find that your 20 year old refrigerator is perhaps set a bit colder than it needs to be. Plug in your KillAWatt and dial the temperature setting a couple of degrees (you may want to also put a thermometer in your refrigerator to get an accurate reading). After a week you may find that this saves you big bucks, like 25cents a week. You may even consider buying a newer, more energy efficient fridge and save even more energy (offset for a time of course by the cost of the new fridge). Just be sure not more that old fridge into the garage and continue using it to chill beer. Refrigerators by the way are hugely inefficient when used in garages which can have huge temperature swings.
Now, what about that computer? After measuring its energy use for a week you should have a baseline and know where it fits in your overall energy use. You can setup Windows to shut the computer off each night after you normally stop using it, say before you go to bed. When you get up in the morning you can boot up before you use the bathroom, make coffee, or what ever. No need to sit there and watch it boot up every morning. This has allowed the computer to power down for maybe 8+ hours every night. Has it saved a significant amount of energy (money)? Perhaps you need to also shut down the monitor, printer, and external devices as well? You might consider using a timer on a power strip, but be careful about how some of your devices behave having the power suddenly cutoff. You don't want to loose data on an external drive. You may be surprised to find that the computer doesn’t use that much power when it’s idle, that it is fact all of the peripherals including those 2 20” monitors you use. You may find that setting energy controls in Windows to power down the monitor and hardrive make enough of a difference without completely shutting down your system. But every system and every user is different so measure the data and make an informed decision.
After a few months you'll have a much better idea of where you can save energy the most efficiently. You may well be surprised to find which appliances are the real power hogs. Next you may even consider such cutting edge options like adding solar or wind power to you home. It would be great to sell power back to the power company right? I found for where I live (Michigan) that with current energy costs, the cost of solar or wind equipment and current government benefit programs that to recoup my initial investment would take about 45 years, assuming energy costs don't rise, which is unlikely, but even so 45 years doesn't make financial "cents" for this option for my situation. See what makes the most sense for you.
If you're using Windows, the computer part is easy...
by rbsjrx - 1/19/08 7:20 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
http://www.localcooling.com/
LocalCooling (a pun on global warming) supplies a configurable application that helps manage you PC's power usage. Even for a machine that essentially stays on all the time (like my primary Windows machine), it can squeeze out some savings. It also tracks your usage and provides a web site where you can compare your numbers to other LocalCooling users to see how you're doing, expressing your savings in terms of kW, barrels of oil, and trees.
I know this doesn't help with the other energy hungry devices, and I can't run it on my Linux machines, but it's a start.
Get Real..Global Warming
by jimkeeling - 1/19/08 7:21 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
You have fallen pray to the envir. wackos who try to build their worth and job with scare tatics. The aver. temp that has risen is.o2 of a degree..that is everyone in the world turning on all their heat and hairdryers at once,do your homework befor letting someone control your thoughts...facts
As real as it gets
by rbsjrx - 1/19/08 8:24 AM In reply to: Get Real..Global Warming by jimkeelingI have one advantage over many C|Net users in that I have age and perspective. Being 60 years old, I've been watching environmental damage for years as it's progressed and it's not a pretty sight. I also have the advantage of having spent my entire career as a working scientist and engineer and so can evaluate the claims from all sides.
OK, let's start with what we do know... Global temperatures are rising and they are leading to a host of unpleasant side effects (e.g. Katrina). While most environmentalists will argue that it's all humankind's fault, there's certainly a natural component (solar cycles) that can't be dismissed.
We also know that human activities have changed the environment in fundamental ways that we're still struggling to understand. How much does burning of fossil fuels affect all this? Given the amount of fossil fuels burned, it has to have some effect, but how much? The honest answer is we don't really know. There's also a huge human component beyond simply how many fossil fuels we burn. Land use, forestry, and agriculture have a tremendous and highly visible impact, but what's the bottom line? The simple truth is we're still struggling to come up with computer models that accurately reflect what's happening in the real world. The alarming thing is that the computer models we do have have consistently underestimate future problems. A great example was this past week when temperatures in Antarctica were found to be trending upward much faster than the models had predicted.
This brings us to the key point - what are the agendas of those on both sides of the debate? Is each side determined to direct our thinking? Of course, that applies equally to both sides. I'm not totally convinced of all the claims of the environmentalists, but neither am I convinced by the claims offered up by their antagonists.
And that's where the agenda comes in... environmentalists tend to be True Believers or anti-corporate activists spurred on by essentially religious zeal. If you trace the associations of the opposing forces, the trail always leads back to corporate money coming from companies with a financial stake in maintaining the status quo. Whether these antagonists are scientists funded by corporations, puppet groups, or even media who shill for the corporations (e.g. Fox news) is irrelevent. Follow the money and the agenda becomes clear.
So, who do you believe - religious zealots or the equivalent of tobacco company scientists telling you everything is OK?
I don't fully believe either side, but my years of observation have convinced me that something bad is going on. Who or what is at fault? Know knows and who cares! The real point is that if we can make a difference, we have an obligation to our planet and our children (and their children) to do what we can.
An objective view of the science doesn't provide any irrefutable guidance. However, a fundamental analysis of the science reveals that there are time constants in the systems that are measured in decades, centuries, and sometimes millennia. We can also see from the fossil record that these systems exhibit tipping points - points of no return - where change becomes both rapid and inevitable. The arguments of the anti-environmentalists all reduce to "Let's do nothing but keep an eye on it". Given the nature of the problem, by the time all our doubts and questions are answered, it will be too late for us to have any effect.
Which brings us back to a really simple fundamental issue... We are the shepherds of this planet. If we're good shepherds, we'll conserve rather than squander its resources. Global warming and human contributions to it are nothing more than a potential gun to our head prompting us to do the right thing which we should have already been doing.
Actually I have to disagree...
by whizkid454 - 1/19/08 7:22 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Many companies have been spending years making their products more environmentally friendly. For example, the processor, we still crave the extreme performance for them yet Intel and AMD have strived to get people's attention in the efficiency area. AMD claims the best performance with respect to power efficiency while Intel has dropped their power requirements significantly in the last 4 years from Pentium 4 to Core 2 today. Both see that the limit in processing speed is approaching so they must find ways to make their products better in some way, and what better way then decreasing the amount of energy needed to power them and saving the environment one step at a time.
Manufacturers of hard drives and monitors also have various energy efficient options. For example, Western Digital's ECO-friendly hard drives consume less power (and are made with less damaging materials) yet put out nearly the same performance. So I believe the computer is well on it's way to being eco-friendly, it's just a matter of time. As we know, it won't take a year to clean up the environment, it could take centuries. Every step is important though.
Around the house, little things such as replacing your light bulbs with fluorescent and other eco-friendly bulbs cuts down on energy and costs (both are very much welcome.) Trying to keep the TVs off when they're not being used is also a good idea. The problem is that most of the time, energy efficiency is not on people's minds while at the store. They go for what fits their needs best whether it be a power hog or a power sipper. Those things hardly matter to people which is why:
I also believe it is up to the people to do their part. Most consumers should know that saving energy is a necessity. Manufacturers produce the products yet it's up to the people to buy those products. Of course educating the masses about the environment is important, yet it's up to those people to actually make it happen.
environment impact
by geishagirl - 1/19/08 7:57 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi rebecca,
I too care about the environment and understand your concerns and your question. However I do feel that sometimes we look too much at things in isolation instead of as a whole. Why do i say this, well for instance the extra power is needed for us to do all the things on the PC , however the offset in carbon is that we dont use as much paper, we dont physically collect CD's , so less manufacturing, we are able to work from home so less pollution for a start , and
I'm sure if i did a real analysis, I could find other things, such as web conference globally etc and supplying recylcled PC's to the third world reduces manaufacturing somewhere.
However there are probably as many things that could also help albeit small. My latest TV does not have an off button at all - just sleep mode and my kettle has a bulb that is red when on but blue when off!!!. So in short, I guess I think that the problem is too complex to answer but it should still be raised, and the government should think about taxing the packaging more than the product, which is generally where more unnecessary waste comes from in my opinion. Obviously I am no expert in all of this, but somewhere somehow we have to find a joined up way of thinking , but not in turn prevent moving forward. Where would the world be if we stopped innovation, not forgetting the jobs it all provides to whomever in what country as we become more and more a global economy all dependent on whomever has the strongest economy of the moment.
Regards
Gloria
An excellent point
by rbsjrx - 1/19/08 8:41 AM In reply to: environment impact by geishagirlAll too often people in this debate do tend to look at things in isolation. Your examples are all excellent and the list could easily be extended.
Even my recommendation of LocalCooling has to be qualified. I buy all of my household's electricity from a company that provides 100% wind power, so my carbon footprint is essentially zero regardless of how high my monthly electricity bill may be.
So, I guess that's my other recommendation for anyone concerned about how much power their electronics are using. If renewable energy is available from a utility company in your areas, use it.
Of course, every other week some other energy company will try to get you to switch with claims of humongous savings, but resist the urge. I've been with my my current energy company for years and have had the opportunity to compare bills with friends and family who are constantly shopping for some new energy company promising savings. What I've seen is that while my bills are never the lowest at any given time, over time they average out as quite competitive. That's because they're not subject to fuel surcharges which vary with the current price of crude oil or natural gas. For me, a clear conscience without a significant economic penalty make the decision a no-brainer.
Wind power is not zero carbon
by guywayne - 1/26/08 9:14 AM In reply to: An excellent point by rbsjrxIf you use electricity, no matter how it is generated, yo have a carbon footprint. I'm not saying that wind is bad, just that we need to conserve energy no matter what the source. The generators that are used to make wind energy weigh many tons, all of that steel, copper and other material is mined and transported, refined and transported, machined and transported, assembled and transported, and then put into service. And rather than make the equipment here, we purchase much of it from abroad and transport it thousands, instead of hundreds of miles. So, yes, wind is good, and renewable. But lets not be fooled into thinking that it is carbon-free.
Environmental impact of computer devices
by netbob30 - 1/19/08 9:06 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
We live in New Zealand where electricity is considerably more expensive than in the USA (about double). We generally turn off anything not in use (I write this as I leave the TV on). There is some coal in NZ, a little natural gas, some geothermal, but no nuclear power. Windmills are becoming increasingly important since there is usually some kind of wind - about 90% of the time. In our case, I can look out the living room window and if the windmills are not turning we try to turn everything off that is not necessary. This morning they are all turning as usual so I'm not too concerned about the TV. Rather than using a regular light when I work on the computer, I have one of those little lights that clip onto the top of the screen. I find it sufficient for typing. It is easy to use more power to light the computer than it is to run the computer. When I bought a new TV I made sure it was an LCD, not plasma. We have replaced most incadescent light bulbs with the small curly fluorescent ones. I understand that this is going to be the law in Australia.
Just thought I'd send some input from the other side of the world.
No good deed goes unpunished
by Critic-at-Arms - 1/19/08 9:10 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Rebecca, the fact of the matter is that the first Energy Star-compliant devices were computer monitors and computers. In the 1980s, computers had two modes, OFF and ON. Energy Star-aware design brought us monitors which go to sleep when not used, computers which can hibernate and come right back to where you we working, and disc drives which go into idle and only spool up when needed.
Energy Star doesn't mean that one device uses less power than another, it means that it uses less power than it would if it weren't "smart." It is up to us as consumers to be as smart as what we buy. If you are worried about "global warming," then it is up to you to buy the smaller TV, the smaller monitor, the smaller refrigerator and the smaller car. Energy awareness isn't just a sticker -- it has to come from YOU, because you're the one who decides how much energy you will use.
Brief technical answer to think about
by channelv - 1/19/08 9:32 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Rebecca, actually going green is a huge trend nowadays (as you can see from the latest CES in Las Vegas), and new technologies for the most part actually do use less wattage/elecricity. For example as CPUs and video cards and other components become more advanced, the die size is shrunk so they actually run cooler and on less wattage (although as the processing power increases, it offsets this, but from an efficiency standpoint at least computing power increases without a hit in energy usage). Also, yes large plasmas suck up energy just as bad as old TVs - but LCD TVs are becoming more and more popular and they use much less energy. In addition all computer monitors are LCD now, using maybe 1/3 less than their old CRT monitor counterparts. So if it helps, the problem at least isn't getting worse. Also when you think about dumps etc, newer electronics such as LCDs are WAY more environmentally friendly than old tube TVs and monitors.
Actually..
by unquenchablefire - 1/19/08 10:11 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Newer devices, for the most part, take less power, in some cases, a lot less. LCD computer monitors use a fraction of the electricity that the ancient CRT monitors sucked up, and don't have 12 pounds of lead in them. Newer computers also take up less power - if you've been following computing advancements lately, you'd see that Intel is making their chips cooler and on less power.
Next time you get all angsty about progress, a little research may do you some good.
It's not as bad as you think
by ferd farnsworth - 1/19/08 10:17 AM In reply to: Environmental impact concerns of consumer electronics by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Most people understand that all that wasted energy from computers, TVs, wall warts, etc. all ends up as heat. That is certainly something to be avoided... when you are trying to keep cool. In warm climates or during the summer when you run your air conditioner, this heat is a bad thing and you should minimize it to whatever extent you can.
In winter climates however, with the cost of electricity close to that of natural gas, that heat really isn't wasted at all, it just contributes to the warmth in your home and makes your furnace run just a little bit less. So if you are trying to keep warm, don't feel guilty about leaving this stuff on!
No Savings in the Winter
by Marsdave - 1/25/08 6:35 PM In reply to: It's not as bad as you think by ferd farnsworthRight on, Ferd. I suspect that this matter of energy conservation is badly misunderstood.
In warm months, reducing heat and the use of air conditioning is a good thing. Yes, that will save energy. But I live in the cold midwest US, and it's cold or cool for at least 6 months out of the year - yesterday it was 18 degrees below zero Fahrenheit overnight. During those times, my computer, electric lights, TV set, etc, etc, all contribute to heating my house. The gas furnace still turns on, but less often.
For summer, I use the low wattage light bulbs. For winter, I switch to normal wattage and HOT lightbulbs. My new furnace is noisy and drafty and uses both gas and electricity. The more I can do to reduce its use through quiet, non-drafty light bulbs and computers, the happier I am. With ONLY hot electronics, there's no noise, no draft, no danger of CO poisoning, no furnace filters to change, no furnance tuneup, no cold air coming into the house to feed the furnance, and no loss of humidity. Perfect.
And where will I recycle those low wattage bulbs that I use in the summer? The bulbs with mercury in them? The bulbs made in China and shipped at least 8,000 miles to the store? I guess I'll have to drive my car to the recycle place 20 miles away. Total energy savings: Zero. It's a scam. I use them to hold down the summer temps in my house, but there is no energy savings at all except for the few days in the summer that I use my air conditioner to cool the house.
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