Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
longer. New uses for the net proliferate - transmitting music, social net-
working, free telephony (skyping) and processing digital photographs -
and so inevitably do the hours spent online and plugged in.
But what seems particularly wasteful is the number of gadgets left on
standby or in sleep mode. It is a mistake to think that standby mode pow-
ers nothing but a little red light. Many devices consume between half and
two thirds of their full power on standby. The European Commission esti-
mated that in 2005 the total of 3.7bn household and office computers and
electronic gadgets in use among the 25 countries then in the European
Union used 47 terawatt hours (TWhs) of electricity while they were in
standby mode. This standby consumption - roughly equivalent to the
total annual electricity consumption of Greece - cost €6.4bn and caused
19m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. A survey in the UK at around
the same time by the Energy Saving Trust found that the average house-
hold has up to twelve gadgets on standby (or charging) at any one time.
Some products require constant power to keep their time clocks run-
ning. TV set-top boxes, which are becoming more common as Europe
moves to digital TV, need to have power in order to download informa-
tion from digital transmissions which update their electronic programme
guide and software. But in most cases the standby mode is pointless
electricity consumption, designed at most to save people a few seconds
delay when they start their computers or gadgets up. At this stage, it may
be impossible to wave goodbye to standby. But products could at least be
required to “power down” automatically to standby mode, and standby
could be set at as low a level as possible.
