Switch it off?

P

Piet Le Roux

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I know trivial things irritate me but I cant help it. My latest pet irritant are notices that instruct you to switch off or unplug computer and cell phone appliances that’s not in use. My @#$% cell phone can sense if you were charging from its mains charger or not. After charging it instructs you to unplug it to save power. My new monitor came with detailed specifications about its power consumption: 30 watts when in use and 0.3 when in standby mode. A big improvement on my old CRT that used 125 Watts when in use and 8 Watt in standby mode. The thing is that these appliances uses switch mode power supplies to covert the mains supply to what they need, The most stress you can submit these units to is to switch them on and off. Their mean time between failures (MTBF) would thus be greatly reduced if switched on and off frequently. Lets say that I left my monitor in standby mode for 16 hours every day for a year: that would be:
16 hours X 0.3Watt X 365 days = 1752/1000 = 1.752 KW/hour. At an average of R1-20 per KW/hour it means I have saved R2-10 or 1.752 KW/hour bravo! If I had been switching it off and on diligently every day there’s a good chance that the unit and/or the switch I used would now be in need of replacement in which case more of these items would have to be manufactured, probably in China, and then these items have to be shipped to a local supplier where they would have to be booked into stock and then an technician would have to install them. You would need to travel to and from the service centre etc. etc. So looking at the matter holistically I have saved our incompetent local electricity supplier 1.752 KW/hours but have wasted much more than R2-10 and left a huge global carbon footprint in the proses! Yes all of us have a responsibility to save power and reduce our carbon footprint, but we also have a responsibility to use common-sense.
 
Saving is small, but not sure which risk for failure is bigger. Power on stress, or exposing to possible power surges. In South Africa I would rather unplug.
 
Very nice post piet, but you are wrong on a couple of things... if you let me, I can show you where you went wrong.
I explain exactly what a kilowatt hour is and how much you pay for one. And I show you how to calculate exactly how much electricity your household appliances use, so you know which items are guzzling the most juice (and which ones are the best targets for savings). You'll also learn exactly how to read your electric meter, if you like. (Find that on any other website.) And I not only give you meaningful tips for slashing your electricity consumption, I give you the tools to figure out exactly how much you're saving as well. Finally, I've answered countless questions from readers about saving electricity. If you have a question, it's probably answered here already.Saving electricity doesn't just save money, it also saves the environment. This is news to a lot of people. After all, when you plug something into the wall, it seems clean enough -- you don't see or smell any pollution, like you do with your car. But the pollution is there -- it just happens at the power plant. Most electricity is generated by burning coal and other fossil fuels. Every time you turn on the lights, you create a little pollution. (See the sidebar.) In fact, the average home pollutes more than the average car! (See my Carbon Footprint Calculator for the numbers.) So saving electricity doesn't just put money in your pocket, it helps keep the air and water clean, too.But don't just take my word for it. The legendary James Hansen, one of the first scientists to sound the alarm about global warming way back in the 80's, recently said that the real key to preventing climate change is reducing home energy use. That's because, as he says, we can't stop the oil from being burned for transport, since if we don't use it, another country will. But we can certainly stop burning our own country's coal. And the quickest way to reduce coal emissions by 50%, is to reduce our electricity consumption by 50%. (more on climate change)Note also that as the age of oil is coming to a close (we've already used more than half of the oil that exists on the planet), our energy appetite puts more pressure for utilities to build dangerous nuclear power plants.Thinking about going solar? Solar is indeed now affordable in many cases. My concern about this is that, just like with cars, people are looking for an alternative fuel source so they can continue blissfully using ridiculous amounts of energy. A better approach is for us to just stop using such a ridiculous amount of energy in the first place!In reality, conservation is pretty easy; the problem is that most people don't want to do it. That's why people bought SUV's in droves. (Yes, the price of gas used to be lower, but the point is, even then, people were still buying the most wasteful vehicles available to them. The fact that they used to be more affordable to drive is fairly irrelevant.) When I go to the gym, I see that everyone has turned on the little TV attached to the treadmill or exercycle. I always go and turn them all off, but probably 90% of the people who use those machines again will turn the TV back on and leave it on when they leave. That's an easy way to see why we've got a problem. If most people won't do an easy thing, like turning off a TV when they're not using it, how can we expect them to do things that actually require a tiny amount of effort?But you're here, you're reading this, so you're the kind of person willing to make some modest changes. So good for you! If you're serious about saving energy, then there's no better place to find out about it than here. And the time is right, too. U.S. taxpayers can now get a whopping 30% tax credit for installing things like attic insulation, a metal roofs, and EnergyStar rated HVAC (air conditioning systems).
And if you really want to lessen your carbon footprint, you'll also want to look into eating less meat and driving less.
 
You're using energy efficient devices that exist only *because* people have been pushing for awareness on this for years. And now that it has paid off you want to know why its such an issue....look at the devices...they're efficient. :rolleyes:

SA is still full of the older gen devices, so the message is still valid for most cases.

Also, we've got 50 million people in SA. Multiple whatever tiny usage you arrive at by 50m and it'll look a lot more significant.
 
“Very nice post piet, but you are wrong on a couple of things... if you let me, I can show you where you went wrong.”

Keeper after reading this part I was all excited because I like learning about things…… but then nothing , you also did not show me where I went wrong. Remember I am only referring to computer and Cell phone devices using switch mode power supplies not the whole @#$% house. And as far as I am concerned you are leaving a bigger carbon footprint switching and unplugging these devises on a daily basis. I think my reasons were reasonably clear.
 
Piet Le Roux said:
“Very nice post piet, but you are wrong on a couple of things... if you let me, I can show you where you went wrong.”

Keeper after reading this part I was all excited because I like learning about things…… but then nothing , you also did not show me where I went wrong. Remember I am only referring to computer and Cell phone devices using switch mode power supplies not the whole @#$% house. And as far as I am concerned you are leaving a bigger carbon footprint switching and unplugging these devises on a daily basis. I think my reasons were reasonably clear.
Click to expand...

Oh I just pasted it from some site, you actually read that?!

payback is awesome! :p
 
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