GAMING IMPACT: If a gamer plays about six hours a day over a year -- a figure found by Nielsen Co. in 2006 -- then his Wii would consume 29 kilowatt-hours, his Playstation 178 kWh, and his Xbox 360 184 kWh. A plasma TV, by comparison, averages 242 kWh a year.
Image: © iStockphoto.com / Adam Filipowicz
Millions of Americans will fire up video game consoles this Christmas, but they may not know that some systems use way more energy than others.
When playing the same video game, Nintendo's Wii system uses a sixth of the power of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's Playstation 3, according to research from the Electric Power Research Institute.
That doesn't tell the whole story, because the latter two systems have more sophisticated graphics and computing power. That's how Jess Dols, a project engineer at EPRI, explained it.
Dols had the task of playing Madden 2011, a popular football game, on each system for an hour to let EPRI log their relative energy use.
EPRI said if the heaviest gamer plays about six hours a day over a year -- a figure found by Nielsen Co. in 2006 -- then his Wii would consume 29 kilowatt-hours, his Playstation 178 kWh, and his Xbox 360 184 kWh. A plasma TV, by comparison, averages 242 kWh a year.
That makes gaming a formidable energy user. U.S. homes have about 63 million video game consoles, and together they use about as much energy as San Diego does in a year, according to a 2008 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
It isn't just killing zombies that uses the juice
Much of the energy use isn't even from playing video games, according to NRDC -- it's from the idling that goes on after the gamer has left the room. The group said idling uses about as much energy as playing.
If gamers turned off their systems when they finished playing, and if manufacturers made systems that turned themselves off when inactive, consumers would save $1 billion a year in utility bills, NRDC said.
But part of the issue is behavior. Today, in many games, turning off a system means the player would lose progress before he can return to it.
And even if game systems come with power-saving features, they're usually not on by default.
In its report, NRDC asked the industry to make games easier to save, to switch off power automatically, and to make sure the consoles are energy-efficient when playing movies, an increasingly popular use.
Manufacturers throw up their hands at pending EPA regs
U.S. EPA is developing Energy Star guidelines for game consoles; this wouldn't set minimum energy standards for them, but it would affix a label to the most efficient models on the store floor.
EPA said it plans to have the Energy Star label ready by the end of 2011.
In the proceedings, the Consumer Electronics Association, the main group representing the U.S. industry, said EPA's current proposal is "simply not achievable."
"Obviously, aggressive and achievable Energy Star specifications for game consoles are desirable," the CEA commented (pdf) last December. "But manufacturers cannot indefinitely sustain the level of energy consumption improvement seen over the past few years."
CEA also said that gaming consoles vary widely; some are mainly for video games, others have features for surfing the Internet or watching movies, so they shouldn't be rated by the same standard.
EPRI found that all three gaming systems' latest models use less power than their predecessors.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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21 Comments
Add CommentThere are so many things wrong with this article, I'm in a quandry as to where to start.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe intended effect of your headline is no doubt having people say "OH MY GOD, THOSE GAME PLAYERS ARE WASTING ENERGY LIKE CRAZY!" But let's look at how (not-so)Scientific American has stacked the deck.
First, the article refers to a population of 65 million gamers, versus San Diego which has a population of only 3 million. Right off the bat, we might surmise that the efficiency of gamers is more than 21 times better.
Second, in a cardinal sin of bad wording and poor editing, the article states of the console gamers that "together they use about as much energy as San Diego does in a year," however it does not say in what period the gamers use this amount of energy. If for instance the gamers use in one century the amount of energy that San Diego does in a year, Again they're pretty darned efficient.
The more salient comparison buried within the article is that the Wii gamer, for instance, uses 29KWH in a year, while his fat father, watching football on his plasma screen is using 242KWH per year.
While your headline is written for titillation and blandly accuses gamers of being the energy wasters, They are using a fraction of the energy of their plasma-screen-watching critics, in San Diego, at SciAm HQ, or elsewhere.
Such vitrol!! You are right, it is not written clearly. However, I guess I just assumed that the numbers for the game consoles do not include the energy use of the television (plasma or otherwise) that you play the game on. Therefore, the Wii gamer is using 29 kwh per year MORE than his fat father, who is just innocently falling asleep while watching his football games on TV.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot that I care, mind you... just sayin.
I only see about two or three comments on this story besides the spamming. Must be no one monitoring this site to eliminate such junk.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyway here is my two cents. I have an XBOX 360 for my grand-kids to play [and myself sometimes]. When they [and myself] finish playing the game they turn it off. They are learning at 5 yrs and 7 yrs that energy costs money and it is unwise to waste it. Same as when they leave the room - off go the lights. I think this is just good parenting especially when electricity is approaching $.14/kw and will continue to increase in price.
I also think the industry needs to stop sniveling and add a few lines to the software that shuts game machines down after 1 or 2 hours of in activity. It's really easy, its cheap and almost no one will ever notice except the parents who pay the electric bill.
Its like my TV set. After 4 hours of inactivity my Visio flat panels shuts off. When I go to bed at night I turn off a power strip which shuts down 3 or 4 other devices. Doesn't cost me a dime to shut the stuff down - only about 3 seconds of my time. My monitor on my PC and my PC go into sleep mode after an hour. My printer goes into sleep mode after 5 minutes. Good grief people almost everything else shuts down or goes into sleep mode - don't tell me Microsoft doesn't know how to write a few line of code and send it on down the line. Really stupid statements by industry representatives. Do they think we are really that stupid?
There is so much we CAN do and SHOULD do to save energy its not even funny. I don't know if global warming is true or not but I am doing everything I can to reduce my carbon footprint. I could have chosen to use my XBOX 360 to stream movies from Netflix but instead bought a Roku box - why? Because my XBOX uses 20X more electricity than the 6 watts my Roku box uses. The Roku box also automatically goes into sleep mode when not in use.
Did you know this bit of info. People who live in California are not using any more electricity today than they were 8 years ago. Yup, that's right - California's has flat-lined energy consumption.
Now if I could just get my Dish Network TV receivers to automatically shut down at night and stop wasting electricity I could shave another $4.00/mo off my bill.
o.k. getting down off my soap box now. I recommend everyone get a power strip/surge protector combo and shut stuff off when it is not being used.
Getting down off my soap box now - good night.
Tom G.
Whoa! The article says "U.S. homes have about 63 million video game consoles, and together they use about as much energy as San Diego does in a year". What is unclear about that? Additionally, in your fervor about writing and editing, you made numerous errors in grammar yourself. Before you get so righteous I suggest you actually read the article, and perhaps take a basic course in writing as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is an odd article. Definitely, if an 'average' gamer spent part of the 6 hrs he normally spends on his game system, getting some exercise, it would be better for him AND the planet (assuming he was able to stop drawing power while he was away from the game). But if, OTOH, he spent all that time screaming around the wilderness on his gasoline powered, noisy four wheeler, he'd be doing far greater damage to the planet. In fact, there are hundreds of things he could be doing that are more destructive. We live in a society that uses energy. Let's stop moaning about how much we're using & develop renewable resources. Wind, waves, tides, temp gradients, geothermal &, of course, solar would provide us with all the energy we needed to power our game systems, our cars, our trains, our can openers & our vibrators, if we just stopped depending on fossil fuels & other burnable products. Gah, people! Think differently!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, & BTW... the sky is falling the sky is falling the sky is falling.
(I am returning to teaching my cat mathematics. He's really stuck on the whole quadratic equation thing, but I think he's likely to master calculus before we save the planet. Wanna bet? ;)
the point of the article is not to compare the citizens of San Diego to the average U.S. gamer. The point is that the energy use just for gaming could satisfy the total energy needs of a large city.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo if people played chess instead of gaming we could eliminate the burning of that much foossil fuels and the importation of that much oil.
More realisticall, we could save a large fraction of that amount by haing more efficient systems and merely turning them off when not in use.
While you make a good point, Design Critic, regarding the whole "small" population of San Diego thing I really don't think that 3,000,000 is all that small of a number. Not to mention a crucial fact you're leaving out. A video game console is just one of many electronic devices that are in use in one home. The total console electrical usage is being compared to the amount of electricity 3,000,000 people use in their HOMES; that is to say, nationally video-game consoles eat up as much energy as all the light, microwave, electric-oven, air conditioner (San Diego is pretty hot), computer / laptop, etc etc in all the homes in San Diego combined. That's pretty impressive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're right though, if someone were to just read the title or even read the piece in the wrong way, the message could be akin to "stop playing video games."
However, an intelligent reader will glean the important information from this possibly-biased article.
But how could this article not sound biased? Its author is writing about 1 billion dollars a year being wasted because people don't turn off their game consoles when they're not playing? And the difference between plasma-screen televisions and game consoles is this: until the publication of the NRDC article there was little (probably no) attention granted to the amount of energy usage in consoles, whereas "energy efficient" is a goal for most television manufacturers and is a niche in their advertisement.
Furthermore, the only thing this article can be accused of "pushing" is wiser energy use. Gee wiz, how could they do such a thin? It's not like Scientific American is grunting "video games bad." A simple change will save the average gamer 100 dollars a year (if he's using an Xbox 360 or PS3.) That sounds pretty nice to me.
I could even go so far as to say this article's only deficiency is its failure to publish the most disturbing number - excess console usage produces 7 billion tons of CO2 emissions yearly. Economic usage could drastically cut down that number.
If that's not enough, look at this in a more sociological light. By telling young kids that leaving their consoles on for hours at a time is bad and getting them into the habit of turning things off when they're not using them might actually produce a sense of conservation in younger generations.
For the record, though I don't play 6 hours a day and though I have a Wii (the most energy efficient of the bunch), I do play video games. They're great. But these little things, like turning a console off, make differences.
Pardon my grammar.
Elegia and Deaconbluz seem to have feelings that are closer to mine than the some of the other individuals posting here. Some EXERCISE sure wouldn't hurt and we certainly need to start creating some additional energy sources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs someone past their 70th birthday, my perspective is certainly going to be different than someone who is in their 20's or 30's. Of course even I play computer games sometimes but when I look around my home and our COUNTRY I see what we COULD and SHOULD be doing to conserve energy.
The XBOX game console is an entirely different machine than the Wii. The XBOX has a hard drive and more powerful graphic chip doesn't it - But does that explain the difference in the energy it consumes? Oh sure it has a 2 1/2 hard drive that takes 7-10 watts to operate and cool graphics but does that explain the difference? Don't think so. Maybe it has something to do with the DESIGN and MARKETING strategies of the two different consoles.
What country was the Wii first designed and marketed to? Was it maybe Asia where energy is expensive and closely monitored. How about the XBOX? Conceived and marketed for the U.S. where we look at energy as almost a birth right. Big cultural differences exist huh?
I am running out of characters so must summarize. Elegia in my not so humble opinion, is heading down the right path. There are lots of different way to create renewable energy that can make this whole discussion about the energy consumption of our game machines a mute point. What did they say about nuclear power back in the 50's; it would be TOO CHEAP to even meter. Don't think so.
We can have all of the renewable energy we want if we are willing to PAY FOR IT. Solar PV [and thermal] is currently about $.03/.04 per kilowatt hour more expensive than coal with carbon sequestration or natural gas or nuclear but prices change daily. Are you willing pay an extra $20.00/mo for clean renewable energy? Some Americans will; some won't and even others don't seem to CARE. And still others will do everything in their power to stop you from building renewable energy sources for one reason or another. Some of those reasons may be valid and others - well not so much, LOL
So from my perspective, we need to stop fiddling around and get on with creating an energy plan for our country. Something that will last beyond the next election? We can have all the energy we need if we choose to - how we get there is up to us isn't it?
Tom G.
Defensive much? It fairly oozes from your text. Methinks you doth protest too much.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEasy killer I don't think they're trying to lay global warming at the feet of gamer geeks.
yiddishpablo also makes some very good points. Not only do we need to act in a responsible manner ourselves; we need to educate the next generation so that they can benefit from our mistakes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake for example the price of gasoline; a very touchy subject for sure - So touchy in fact, very few politician even want to discuss it for fear of losing votes, LOL. But the price of gasoline is certainly tied to our WILLINGNESS to buy electric, hybrid or plug in hybrid cars isn't it? If gasoline was $5.00 a gallon would you be thinking about buying that new Ford F150 truck that gets 20 mpg to drive around town or a hybrid or fuel efficient econo box that gets 50 mpg? In 2008 when gasoline hit $4.00/gallon we used 140,000,000,000 [140 billion] fewer gallons of oil in the next year. We all cried, moaned, whimpered and wined but our world did not come crashing down. In fact, here we are at the end of 2010 and we are still using a little less than we did in 2007.
In my opinion, we need to get serious about renewable energy and conservation. I personally believe we can no longer afford to import and spend $300 billion for a product [oil] that we just quickly burn up. It is in so many way, tearing our society apart.
Don't take me wrong; oil has also been good for our society in many ways. But as oil gradually goes away [peak oil] shouldn't we really be using it for what is important? What is going to be more important to you in 30 years; cheap fertilizer to grow the food we eat or a new SUV?
Many individuals have calculated that it will take our society at least 30 years for conservation efforts and hybrid vehicles to make much of a dent in oil consumption. So what do you think; is it about time we start talking about some type of energy plan for our country that lasts longer than the current term of a President? I am getting tired of bouncing back and forth between drill-baby-drill and more solar and wind please. I seriously wonder sometimes if we are really the sharpest cheddar in the deli case.
Here is an idea; notice I did not say it was a good idea; just an idea. How about a gradually increasing gas tax until the price of gasoline reflects its true cost? You know like the cost of wars to protect oil interests and the tax incentives we pay for finding and processing it. We can't even get our gutless Congress to open up this type of discussion so the American people understand what is coming after peak oil. Where oh where have all our LEADERS GONE?
Tom G.
yiddishpablo also makes some very good points. Not only do we need to act in a responsible manner ourselves; we need to educate the next generation so that they can benefit from our mistakes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake for example the price of gasoline; a very touchy subject for sure - So touchy in fact, very few politician even want to discuss it for fear of losing votes, LOL. But the price of gasoline is certainly tied to our WILLINGNESS to buy electric, hybrid or plug in hybrid cars isn't it? If gasoline was $5.00 a gallon would you be thinking about buying that new Ford F150 truck that gets 20 mpg to drive around town or a hybrid or fuel efficient econo box that gets 50 mpg? In 2008 when gasoline hit $4.00/gallon we used 140,000,000,000 [140 billion] fewer gallons of oil in the next year. We all cried, moaned, whimpered and wined but our world did not come crashing down. In fact, here we are at the end of 2010 and we are still using a little less than we did in 2007.
In my opinion, we need to get serious about renewable energy and conservation. I personally believe we can no longer afford to import and spend $300 billion for a product [oil] that we just quickly burn up. It is in so many way, tearing our society apart.
Don't take me wrong; oil has also been good for our society in many ways. But as oil gradually goes away [peak oil] shouldn't we really be using it for what is important? What is going to be more important to you in 30 years; cheap fertilizer to grow the food we eat or a new SUV?
Many individuals have calculated that it will take our society at least 30 years for conservation efforts and hybrid vehicles to make much of a dent in oil consumption. So what do you think; is it about time we start talking about some type of energy plan for our country that lasts longer than the current term of a President? I am getting tired of bouncing back and forth between drill-baby-drill and more solar and wind please. I seriously wonder sometimes if we are really the sharpest cheddar in the deli case.
Here is an idea; notice I did not say it was a good idea; just an idea. How about a gradually increasing gas tax until the price of gasoline reflects its true cost? You know like the cost of wars to protect oil interests and the tax incentives we pay for finding and processing it. We can't even get our gutless Congress to open up this type of discussion so the American people understand what is coming after peak oil. Where oh where have all our LEADERS GONE?
Tom G.
You rock, Tom. A much more thoughtful post than mine. I get weary. Ozy says, "Meowr mrrrurff mowerrrm worwmmewerm," which I think is his opinion of the Pythagorean Theorem. OTOH, he's having some difficulty concentrating today & is definitely more interested in throwing the pencil up in the air & batting it around that studying his maths. ;)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst off, I don't know anyone who doesn't shut off their game system when they're not around. That being said, there is something to say about the non-zero power draw of sleep-mode of most appliances. These appliances can forget settings if unplugged for a while, and so people don't like disconnecting them from power; properly setting configuration, colour levels, and equipment function are huge deterrents to disconnection (~15-30 mins of set-up time). Designing equipment for full-disconnect would solve this (e.g. flash memory, relay power cut, etc).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond, the amount of scrutiny over the power consumption in this article is almost offensive. We are looking at nickels and dimes when we could be saving dollars. First off, any appliance that is on for 6 hours each day and uses less than 200 kWh per year is not considered a major drain in my books. Doing the math, 200,000 Wh/(6 hours * 365 days) = 91.3 W. In the days of incandescent lighting, this is about half of what standard kitchen lighting would be (I use 60Wx3=180W to characterise what I would consider "standard"). To put this into perspective, the normal use of a clothes dryer (4000W-6000W heating element) would be in the range of 400-1000 kWh per year. If you had your clothes dryer on for 6 hours per day, you'd rack up a maximum of 8760 kWh in a year. Your oven element is not too far off, with a 2000W-3000W heating element inside. Even the energy efficient major appliances (fridge, chest freezer) use on the order of 400 kWh per year. Note that your coffee pot has a heating element in the range of 1200-1800 W.
The bottom line is that while it's good to be mindful of energy usage, it's not worth wasting time raising concern over anything stated in this article. The fact that 63 million 100-watt light bulbs uses more energy than some city of 1.4 million people should not come as a surprise to anyone; what should be more surprising is that someone actually thought it wise to write a story about it.
No, yiddishpablo, San Diego is NOT "pretty hot." In fact it is about the most moderate climate in the USA, and its residents don't really need to use electricity NOR air conditioning, given that year-round span of the the average high and low temperatures remain between 50 and 80 degrees.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.climate-charts.com/Locations/u/US72290000477401.php
This was another way in which this article made a false comparison. While the average San Diego resident uses 6000 KWh/year, the national average is about twice that, according to the Department of energy. Thus game console usage is an even smaller part of the total picture than this article pretends.
Quite simply, XBox and PS3 are computers, as is the computer you're reading this on. And yes, they should be shut off when not in use. Similarly you should turn off your oven when you're not using it, Duhh. The presumption that nobody would think to turn off a computer or game console they're not using is frankly out of touch.
Since you asked, Encreader, what's wrong with the opening line is that it's ambiguous. If you say "In a year, gamers and the city of San Diego use about equal amounts of electricity," that is not ambiguous. But if you say something such as "China's largest cement factory uses as much electricity as the City of San Diego does in a year" it is unclear because (as was mentioned in the first critique, if you'd bother to actually read it) the period of time we're talking about for the cement factory is now unspecific. The author could have meant: "China's largest cement factory uses in an hour as much electricity as the City of San Diego does in a year" or "China's largest cement factory uses in an day as much electricity as the City of San Diego does in a year."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the EPA just went and "messed with the wrong Marines". You come between a video gamer and his/her toys, it is ON.LIKE.DONKEY.KONG.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you Elegia for the very nice complement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo where do we go from here. We have almost talked this puppy to death and given the author bunches of ideas for new articles which is a good thing. It has been a good spirited and enlightening discussion. Not a whole bunch of he said, she said stuff which makes blogging stories like this fun.
I have to agree that based on the amount of electricity a game console uses it may not be an EARTHSHAKING significant cost but IT IS A COST we can easily avoid. The interesting and fun challenge as I see it is this: How difficult is it to eliminate this waste? Might be pretty simple in many cases. The bigger challenge becomes; how do we change the mindset and culture of the America people so conservation is something VALUED? That is just one of the challenges I see facing our next generation.
I also think the author was trying to write a story which attempted to point out how difficult this is going to be. For example, this was a quote [in part] from the article. "Energy Star specifications ... are desirable ... But manufacturers cannot indefinitely sustain the level of energy consumption improvement seen over the past few years."
These types of statements just bug the heck out of me. Have they never heard of "Continuous Improvement", Six Sigma or Teamwork principles focused on energy conservation? Oh sure, we aren't going to cut energy cost 50% with every new generation of gaming machine, but isn't 10-25% just as valuable? Its almost like giving up before we start :-(
In closing I just wanted to let everyone know that I HATE MY CLOTHES DRYER! The one I have now draws probably 350 cubic feet of air a minute from the inside of my home every time I use it. It draws out the cool air I paid to air-condition in the summer and the heated air I paid to heat in the winter.
Can't they please make a model that uses outside air instead of the air inside of my home? This is not rocket science my friends; its a clothes dryer. It is the WORST electrical HOG in my home. Yes I know I could get off my butt and go hang the clothes outside but is that really the point?
Everywhere I look there are ways to save energy yet we don't seem to be very aggressive or have a very comprehensive plan for doing just that do we? So in this FACTITIOUS and NONE existent "Energy Plan for American" that I keep talking about; should we have something about how creative American minds can contribute? What do you think - is it important enough to at least talk about?
Tom G.
Lets not forget about corporations that waste energy through light and computers idly left on, day and night, at many offices, and other public buildings. Also, the title is a bit biased considering most people will look at it without realizing that we're comparing a portion of the world's populous (San Diego isn't the only place were people play games), and comparing it to a city of a mere 1 million+ people. In fact, if you look at it that way, suddenly the fact that consumption of energy from ~63 million gamers is equivalent to the total power consumption of 1 million San Diego citizens doesn't seem so bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLets not forget about corporations that waste energy through light and computers idly left on, day and night, at many offices, and other public buildings. Also, the title is a bit biased considering most people will look at it without realizing that we're comparing a portion of the world's populous (San Diego isn't the only place were people play games), and comparing it to a city of a mere 1 million+ people. In fact, if you look at it that way, suddenly the fact that consumption of energy from ~63 million gamers is equivalent to the total power consumption of 1 million San Diego citizens doesn't seem so bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis post has nothing to do with the subject at hand but is rather a message to our HOST and/or website manager.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have noticed that many people INCLUDING MYSELF sometimes DOUBLE post comments when we get pass the first page. This is probably caused by the lack of some type of INDICATOR that the post was acknowledged.
Another blog or comment site I post on, has a TEXT message in bright RED LETTERS - "Your post is being reviewed and will be posted shortly". This type of visual sign might go a long way towards preventing people like me from posting twice.
Thank you
Tom G.
Just like typical addicts/junkies, gamers are defensive & very critical about the content of this article, because they want to justify wasting time & energy for the purpose of entertaining themselves & feeding their "habit". Instead of looking at the facts, that such a useless activity as "gaming" is consuming tremendous amounts of energy, people are defending and justifying their energy usage on such a mindless activity by stating that if one does the numbers, so to speak, their enegry use is actually "effiecient". POPPYCOCK! The bottom line is, gaming is taking up a ton of electrical & psychological time & energy. Instead of being defensive, one should anylyze the context in which this informative article is written, in that we as human beings are putting tremendous amounts of resources into something that may be damaging our world & ecosystem & we should think about this in terms of our carbon footprint. How does gaming give back to or sustain the Earth? That is all.
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