Get Off The Standby Fence: Gadgets Must Be On Or Off
from the nothing-in-between dept
Lots of folks around the world are concerned about energy issues, and different governments are taking different approaches to the issue. There's always talk about trying to wean people off of being dependent on certain types of energy, or at least lessening the amount needed. Over in the UK, they're apparently looking into outlawing the "standby" mode in electronics, complaining that it eats up too much electricity. Instead, people are going to need to turn stuff off. Of course, if those things take a long time to boot up, the opposite is going to occur. Rather than turn off, people will just leave them on constantly -- perhaps eating up even more electricity. There are some other interesting proposals that try to convince people to lower their energy consumption -- but it remains to be seen whether or not anyone is willing to give up convenience to save on their energy bill.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Convenience
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Re: Convenience
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Re: Re: Convenience
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Re: Re: Re: Convenience
You sound like a cry baby liberal who wants to try to neuter my huge genitals by telling me that I can't drive my gas hog SUV that I love and that I have to turn off my comptuers if I'm not sitting at my desk. I can afford to waste Energy, so by God I'm going to do it. You sound like a petty, jealous small speck of a person that has try to feel powerful by backing rules and laws that make no sense. Get your daddy's thing out of your mouth and go get a job you hippy.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Convenience
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Re: Re: Convenience
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Re: Convenience
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Re:
I'm not sure you can 'ban' standby. A lot of gadgets (e.g. PVRs) have to be on to do their thing, but TVs, DVD players etc should be turned off. Standby mode is generally just a convenience so that people don't have to get up to turn them on or off. But then again, standby is better than on, energy-wise.
The 1st world is incredibly wasteful generally. Almost everything is disposable. That's not sustainable.
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Re: Re:
Please read the article again; it states "8% of domestic energy". This states 'domestic energy' is 30% of 'total energy', so that number can be downplayed to around 2%.
It'd be more wise to start saving in bigger areas, like house/water heating (where we spend 85% of domestic energy use).
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Re: Re: Re:Stupidest
Point taken. 2% is still a significant amount.
The real point is that we are wasting so much energy. Maybe standby shouldn't be 'banned', but it should be made as efficient as possible. And I hate all these crappy wallwarts that give off more heat than electricity. I turn them off when they are not in use.
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Wow...
In fact, I heard they finally got 486 computers over there last year...
Why are you guys chosing to live in the dark ages of technology?
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Re: Wow...
If not your massively uninformed.
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Re: Re: Wow...
Tut...
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Re: Wow...
and we 'ad t'share that b'tween 'ole street too.
ya dun't know ya born.
(no seriously, i mean were still too backwards to understand a date with the month first for gods sake, i think the us should invade 'to protect the free world', assume gwb can *find* the uk ;-) )
this is just some dweeb wanting some publicity and allowing people to be seen *doing something* without any actual effect.
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Re: Wow...
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Re: Wow...
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Boinc is my personal preferance.
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Sorry to disillusion you Sheepie, but...
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power supply standby
I remember reading an article in that shining example of bad science, The Guardian, that just pulled a figure of $300 pca/y out of their asses to guestimate the energy wasted by an average household. I did the calculation myself based on actual physics/electronics and a bit of informal fact finding and produced a figure of $30, a whole factor of 10 out from the rubbish put about in the popular media. So I have no faith in the poorly conducted, sloppy pseudo-science often used to back up such studies.
The biggest problem is not the standby button, it's the switched mode power supply units. In standby most devices drop to a current supply necessary only to keep a CMOS memory active at 5v or 3.3v, and maybe power an LED on the panel to indicate there is still power available. This is typically measured in microamperes, not even milliamps (1/1000 A). It's basically negligable.
However a switched mode PSU is not as efficient as an old type transformer in the long haul. These power bricks, which are everywhere now, continue to draw a significant current whether they are loaded or not.
Since the "off" switch is usually on the device not the PSU, switching it off is going to do exactly nothing to stop the PSU continuing to waste energy.
I would suggest two much better ways of regulating this problem:
Lastly I point some blame directly at manufacturers who deliberately make incompatible power connectors. It's 2006 FFS! Why do I still have 20 different connectors for phones, shavers, toothbrushes, ipod, radio.... each with a different plug, voltage and polarity? Each one of the dozens of stupid wallwart boxes plugged into my wall could be replaced by a simple autosensing DC supply with a universal standard connector. Considering how many of these horrible square bits of black plastic end up in landfill sites I would really welcome an abusive government dictate forcing all electronics manufacturers to adopt a standard power connector or die. And you all know what I think of big government interference...this is a case where a big stick on the asses of the corporations would be a benefit to all, because we all know they do it to be peverse and make extra profit on power supplies, there are no technical or engineering reasons why we need so many different power connectors.
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Re: power supply standby
We dream, we wish for a better way and we invent new machines to make our lives better.
Ok......Now what? Go back to the horse and carriage? Why discard our gadgets?
The real point is that obscene greed has prevented us from having energy sources that keep ahead of our need.
Wake up! Look up! Don't you see that space station in orbit? How about that space shuttle? We manage to have power sources for them, why not for us.
OBSCENE GREED of the energy companies and the corrupt politicians that support then is the problem.
Join the NOPARTY Party, be an independent voter, and vote for honest representatives keep the gadgets on.
www.usvoters.us
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just somethin I heard
I doubt this applies to most simple home electronics...
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Politicians take the easy option always, whatever the current "meme" is. Do they ever consult experts? Do they ever do what is right? FFS I despair.
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Re:
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Re: Re: China
Simple solution to complex problems.
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Americans are not lazy
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Re: Americans are not lazy
Please contact me. Good post!
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Conserving, even a little, pays off.
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Eliminating stand by mode is a horrible idea. Someone should fix the power block epedemic. I have nests of those things growing behind my computer and in drawers.
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I think the Govt. can look at itself first
I bet if we turned off 50% of our street lighting (or dimmed them) we could save Gazillions!!! (give or take a kabillion)
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For gods sake if you want that 8 % back Ill give my 8 % back. Just stick a freakin 2 square inch solar panel outside.
Of course if everyone ont eh planet hooked up one of these to the power grid it'd be kinda cool.of course cost wise its more cost affective to put a bigger panel outside becuase the invertor would never operate at max effiicency without the larger panel.
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stupidity
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At least we're coming up with ideas...
At least we're thinking about the problem here in the UK rather than just invading other countries to support our oil hungry culture.
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Re: At least we're coming up with ideas...
I'm sorry, I've copyrighted all the stupid ideas, sayings, and comments. You're going to have to find something intelligent to say or start paying me for the right to keep using the stupid comments. Last time I checked, (and forgive me for being a stupid, fat, American if I'm wrong), Great Britain was in Afghanistan and Iraq with us. But no, you're right, this all got started when every single American sat down together and said "Well, the golf links are crowded this weekend, and there's nothing good on T.V., so let's invade a coupla countries for the oil. We got nothing better to do, so let's go get the shit shot out of our troops and piss everyone off." Seek help. Surely there is a program that can help you not post stupid comments.
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Wall Warts
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Clock
This idea is obviously from a guy who cannot program anything he wants all VCRS off because his blinks 00:00 still. If we have to turn them off he won’t feel bad about his inability to use the auto-clock set function.
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Re: Wall Warts and US v European Attitudes
So - switch off the PC and all the horrible little power adaptors for the peripheral devices are shut off too. You can do the same thing with hi-fi, home theatre setups, etc.
Regarding US v European attitudes: once US citizens find themselves paying realistic prices for increasingly scarce energy resources, as they surely will some day, they will find themselves at a severe economic disadvantage to countries which have been addressing the problem for decades.
For example, you can't put in place conservation measures, insulate buildings, reduce fuel consumption in the national vehicle fleet, replace energy guzzling home appliances with more efficient ones, etc, overnight.
Giving US citizens low tax rates on energy may be politically expedient in the short term, but by encouraging some of the complacent attitudes displayed here, does the country no favours in the long term.
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Re: Re: Wall Warts and US v European Attitudes
That's one of my biggest concerns as a current U.S. citizen. Everyday I see short-sighted plans to save a few bucks in the short term, when, if you plan for time periods longer than 4 years, you not only will save more money in the long run, but you also gain the ability to begin shifting to better and more environmentally friendly practices (especially in regards to electricity).
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http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/console-power-usage-181610.php
I should start unplugging all of my consoles, LOL
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Wow
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I already did it!
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This one...
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Has anyone thought about enforcement
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argh...
Also, any changes to the standby mode standards already in place will do very little to affect the amount of wasted energy. The real answer is in searching for better forms of energy, like someone mentioned earlier.
PV solar cells are the way to go and they get smaller and better each year...if the goverment had a clue (or cared) they would make them mandatory. Think about it, spend a little money now, get free energy forever, not much of a choice in my opinion.
...but, unfortunately, the big governments and corporations (at this point) do not want the consumer to save money. Rather, they want to sap every last dime from them (as energy prices continually rise). It is a blatant filtering of money from the hard-working populous to the big wigs, who then use that money to remain in control and continue getting money from consumers. Ahhhh, the crux of capitalism... Until a breaking-point occurs, it will remain this way.
The truth is, we could all be very free from the confines of the energy crisis if the people that ran this world had a little more compassion and weren't swept up in a whirlwind of greed...
Example: With the money that the US has spent recently on 'defense' we could have built any number of PV Cell factories that could easily supply entire nations (if not the world) with free energy...
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On the other hand, the DIY computer that I built myself uses 30 watts when sleeping. I turn it off.
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I just say ban stupid people from having PCs
The problem is exactly as I mentioned, there is a huge load imbalance between the power company and your house. The issue becomes worse based on more DC devices with heavy loads. Current runs down hill and these tip the scale. The power companies have known about this for about 80 years, but realized that these devices would keep the current demand up, and your bills high even if you are on vacation. So they never did anything about it. To fix it now would undo 80 years of lies, and probably end up in court in THE Class action lawsuit of all times.
So instead now that we are in an energy crunch, blame devices instead and push the blame away from the power companies who created the problem.
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Isn't Standby required to be able to turn on from
The devices may be designed so that there is a small component that looks for a power on signal, but I'm pretty sure it is essentially in standby mode for each unit.
Then another example of somethign using power whoile it's just sitting there: My Microwave. Since it's user interface is purely digital and not mechanical, when it is sitting there and not being accessed it is using some amount of power just to see when I hit a button on the unit. I would think it's not a huge amount of power, but still it has to be some.
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PCs vs. Electronic Equipment
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Re: PCs vs. Electronic Equipment
Hibernate takes longer to return from, but requires no power. Standby is fast to return from, but requires power to keep the ram running and pay attention to interfaces that may return it to ON.
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overkill
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ummmm....
Of course it's all short sighted. I've noticed lately an explosion in the term "instant gratification" My parents generation seems to enjoy slapping that label on my generation, as well as the generation that is now in grades schools. Seems to me, it's a bit of projection going on...Many of them do it just as bad, if not worse. I.e. banning anything that harms a child, or, *cough* invading countries in reponse to a terror attack, not because it will do anything to eliminate terrorism, but just because it makes us "feel" like we're doing something about it.
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YOU GUYS ARE NUTS
You're killing the earth, man! :-P
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Power
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Contact
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STANDY
It's like going on a diet by always leaving one french fry on your plate. Eating one less chip is not really solving the problem.
Outside my house right now I can see hundreds of street lights that are on ALL night. and there's no one out there!
Switching off half of them would be like taking away half my chips and the burger!
Also, boiling a full kettle for one cup of coffee wastes more electricity than all standby gadgets on for a few days!
I love analogies
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