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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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How many chargers do you own? One for your cell phone? Another for your laptop? Yet another for your tablet, podcast player or even electric toothbrush? It adds up.
If you've ever felt a charger when it's doing its job you know how warm they get. That's because they're inefficient: wasting electricity as heat as well as feeding the battery. But new standards recently adopted in California aim to change all that.
Earlier this month, the California Energy Commission voted to adopt minimum energy efficiency standards for these ubiquitous devices. The Golden State alone boasts 170 million such chargers (pdf)—not including the team in San Diego—or more than four for each resident of the state.
The new energy efficient chargers will save Californians an estimated $306 million a year in electricity costs, as well as enough electricity to power 350,000 homes for a year.
Of course, replacing the plethora of different chargers with one universal charger for a particular type of gadget might be even better—and cut down on e-waste. But until that day, stronger charger standards give a nice jolt to energy efficiency efforts.
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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13 Comments
Add CommentSo many chargers use less than a tenth of a watt now, that this podcast was very misleading. People are being bamboozled into buying replacement chargers or unplugging chargers that use less than 1/10,000th their personal cumulative energy use. If your charger doesn't have a transformer (it isn't bulky, heavy, humming), then it uses a "switching mode" power supply and uses truly negligible amounts when not charging. Some equipment has modern power supplies but still uses a lot on standby, such as XBox and similar game consoles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn adjustment of one degree on the thermostat makes much more difference than anything you can do with tiny appliances. The refrigerator, AC, and lighting that waste hundreds of watts are still the biggest users in most households, and investments therein obviate any concern for transformers that either waste watts (old) or milliwatts (new).
None in this house use a tenth of a watt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere did you get that information?
We never have enough heat. It's always freezing here!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI dress like a woolly mammoth in the house!
The other problem is that, most of us, always forget the phone is charging.
Be nice to have an everything solar charger, that shuts it self off.
There are ways to make them look cool vs tacky.
Some of the better solar lights work great and look nice. Why not use what works for small charges?
Provides jobs and better products.
If it just old and useful...use it. Wasteful...replace it.
Why squeeze the nickel until the Indian rides the buffalo?
Yes, to buy a NEW fast, wasteful, flashy, over priced NON American made car so that everyone knows your level of thinking!
I listen to what people say, but seeing what they do, speaks the truth.
Your right about the small amount of power used.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe make green changes even if it's only a small outcome, because it adds up over time.
Even at a tenth of a watt 170 Million devices is 17 million watts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishaving carefully calculated many of my consumption costs for many years, I have given up turning off standby devices to save $20 or something a year standby power. Tho' I may turn off warm transformers - thanks for the tip !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI estimate my disposable time between $2 and 14 an hour - and getting up and turning off, then making another trip to turn on and wait to restore status, is simply not worth it for me - I'll gladly pay the $20 a year, or 5 cents a day.
A little like my work has an auto-off program for all PCs at night - great, it saves maybe 20c overnight ! except when I arrive in the morning, turn it on and wait 6 minutes for bootup, they're paying me $4 for that time I go and make a coffee because I can't use the computer yet.
looks like penny wise and pound foolish ...
What a horrible article. Even for a blogger (which is not a real writer) The title asks a question that the article doesn't even ATTEMPT to answer. It is as if David Biello really wanted us to to post how much energy we waste. Like he was just curious.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBops...the negligible savings in electricity usage for some of these chargers is WAY more than negated by the impact on the environment from manufacturing the new "energy efficient" charger.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI bet you were also one of those suckers who thought you were saving the planet by trading in and destroying a perfectly good old car just to get a $2000 savings on another car that got 6 MPG more.
I have some meters, and I've built switching mode power supplies myself. All such solid state power supplies I have use truly negligible amounts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you have any cell phone chargers made in the last 5 years, you have such a power supply. Fancier companies like Apple have used such supplies since the late 90s.
Maybe there's some confusion because we're talking about power supplies on standby, not charging/running devices.
@lakawak, I have to point out more thoughtful car calculations. EROE is a few years on such a trade, depending on your mileage. EROE on light bulbs is much quicker, but there is some point where you should be trading in a car, considering the future is infinite. It's similar to refinancing a mortgage. It makes sense if you will save more money than the refinancing costs. The energy cost to build a new car is much less than the energy used by the car, but it is a few months to a few years equivalent in its gas consumption.
@candide:17MW, my point exactly. 17MW out of the terawatts we use is truly negligible. The bigger fish is so much bigger, that we really should fry it first. The President of the US in 2001 created this campaign against "vampire" devices as a distraction from more significant measures the opposition preferred.
R U my EROE ? dunno - but I guess someone impressed themself by using that FLA (four letter acronmyn) that I'll guess most people didn't understand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'll guess RO stands for Return On - maybe Eventual Return on Equity - but just the point that using alienating buzzwords might give you a warm momentary buzz of superiority, but simply loses others who stop reading at that point ... ciao
What is the environmental damage caused by discarded yet perfectly working chargers that are slightly inefficient?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI never throw away chargers. I keep unused chargers for use as power supplies in various projects. However, some day after I kick off, my daughter will have to decide what to do with this stash of old chargers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's a thought. Maybe we can turn down the thermostat, use low power light bulbs and still replace or turn off those power vampires. Saving on the big items may be big enough for us personaly to notice and benefit from, saving on the small items will definitely be enough for our society to notice and benefit from.
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