Earth Hour aftermath

[the_siobhan]

One of the things we did last night was wander around the house and locate all the things that glow in the dark when the lights are turned off.

The TV doesn't need to be "on" all the time when we watch it once a week. There is a clock on the microwave and one on the coffee maker, we don't need both of them. We never use the VCR in the bedroom for recording, it doesn't need to be powered all the time either.

We already power 90% of the house through extension cords and power bars. We're going to rearrange them slightly so that anything that isn't say, a refrigerator can be switched off when it's not being used.

The best part is that the money we save on electricity eventually gets spent on insulation.

Comments

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

One of our local pubs did a lights out party. we didn't go, as we didn't know until afterwards. It sounded lovely though, as they served mulled wine and goulash by candle light. More pubs should do this!

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I have what sounds even to me like shitty excuses for leaving some of our stuff on standby all the time (like I do occasionally use the clock on the microwave, the cable box takes about 5 minutes to boot on a good day and I can't get to the plug on the DVD player to turn it off), but on the other hand I don't even own most of the energy-sucking appliances most of the Western world seems to think are necessities so I'm probably still ahead of the game. I hope.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I can't get to the plug on the DVD player to turn it off

Well, technically I can, if I knew which cord it was. And if I wanted to crawl around on the floor everyday re-powering my component system.

What bugs me about my stereo (and many devices) is that 'Off' isn't off, it's 'standby' so you can use your remote to re-power it. Or that it keeps the power running to the clocks.

I really need to find a website that shows how much power stuff like that chews up per annum. Maybe then we could afford insulation too.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

A group studying this at Livermore-Berkeley Labs has esitmated that all standby-powered equipment accounts for about 5% of all residential power use. A typical standby device draws about 4-5 watts.

Another figure that's worth looking at is computer power. A friend that does capacity planning estimates laptops being left on and not used or used for typical office tasks draw 50 watts (~1kWh per day), desktops 200 watts (~5kWH per day) and servers (running more or less full-tilt all the time with many disks) draw about 400 watts (~10kWh per day). Around here, that means two desktop computers left on all the time cost about $500 per year.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I had no idea desktops were such power-suckers. Don't ask me why, but I was under the impression they used closer to 100W per hour.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

I'm just relating what Steve said... Maybe he's figuring for a mix of CRTs as well as LCD or some folks running graphic-heavy screen savers all night or something. Best way to find out, of course, is borrow a decent clamp meter and measure it.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Oh, I expect you're right.
My knowledge probably dates from the 1980s. Computers might be more efficient now, but I'll bet modern motherboards and graphics cards are power-hungry.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

> I can't get to the plug on the DVD player to turn it off

Well, technically I can, if I knew which cord it was. And if I wanted to crawl around on the floor everyday re-powering my component system.

That's the idea behind the power bars. Easy to mount within hand's reach and we can pre-select which things need to be turned off every night.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

According to that big, dumbed-down tv show last year (was it the Carbon Test?), a stereo system not turned off at the point is like a 60W globe burning day and night. About the only useful thing i got out of that special.