Lose your excuse commercials

[Ksyder]

These commercials have been bothering me for weeks now...

http://www.loseyourexcuse.gov/index.html

Basically the gist is that kids are leaving their cell phone chargers plugged in to the wall when not charging their phone and its wasting TONS OF ELECTRICITY!!

Maybe I'm wrong and I'm nowhere near as smart as our government. Someone please explain this to me.

 

[TehMac]

The government should talk to Al Gore about how much electricity he consumes at his ranch before they start passing climate bills on his urging.

 

[Nik]

Unless the circuit is closed, there is nothing wasted right?

 

[IronWing]

There is a transformer constantly running in chargers. Place your hand on a charger that is plugged in but has no phone attached. It is likely warm to the touch==> wasted energy. Maybe not much, but still unnecessary unless you want to heat your home with electric.


Edit: Maybe manufactures could add a circuit to chargers that would detect when there is nothing connected to the charger and turn off the transformer.

 

[ElFenix]

wall warts not powering anything suck down a tremendous amount of energy in aggregate over a year, all of which you have to pay for and none of which is of any use.

stuff like this is why we need smart meters. when you're paying $2 a kW-hr in the middle of the afternoon in july for electricity you unplug crap.

Originally posted by: Ksyder

Originally posted by: ironwing
There is a transformer constantly running in chargers. Place your hand on a charger that is plugged in but no phone attached. It is likely warm to the touch==> wasted energy.

Its obvious there is some energy used judging by the fact that it is warm all the time. I didn't know the reason for it but is it really significant enough to warrant a huge ad campaign about it?

how huge is the ad campaign? i've not seen any of it or heard any of it. it's not like the .gov has to buy ad space, running ads like this count for the educational content requirement of broadcasters. on a hot day in the middle of august it may mean the difference between turning on the last, least efficient power plant and not, if a whole city were to unplug all the unused wall warts.

 

[Ksyder]

Originally posted by: ironwing
There is a transformer constantly running in chargers. Place your hand on a charger that is plugged in but no phone attached. It is likely warm to the touch==> wasted energy.

Its obvious there is some energy used judging by the fact that it is warm all the time. I didn't know the reason for it but is it really significant enough to warrant a huge ad campaign about it?

 

[lxskllr]

Transformers will use a bit of electricity even when there's no load. It really isn't significant except on a nationwide level. It doesn't hurt to unplug AC transformers. If everybody did it, it would make a difference.

 

[BoomerD]

Power vampires...

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: Ksyder

Originally posted by: ironwing
There is a transformer constantly running in chargers. Place your hand on a charger that is plugged in but no phone attached. It is likely warm to the touch==> wasted energy.

Its obvious there is some energy used judging by the fact that it is warm all the time. I didn't know the reason for it but is it really significant enough to warrant a huge ad campaign about it?

Probably not. If everyone simply turned off their TVs for the duration of the 30-second commercial, it would probably save more energy.

 

[Ksyder]

makes sense

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: ironwing
Probably not. If everyone simply turned off their TVs for the duration of the 30-second commercial, it would probably save more energy.

Hence everyone should buy DVRs to save power.
I haven't watched a commercial in a damn long time.


Some devices can use up to half of the running power when they're in standby mode - for example, a DVD player I once had. It uses around 12W when running, but 6W when it's "off."
However, low-power standby circuits are quite possible. I've seen remote-controlled air conditioners that used so little power on standby that my Kill-A-Watt didn't even measure any current draw.

You'd think that sort of thing would be a fairly important concern these days, as more and more appliances use purely electronic control, and thus are likely to use a "soft off" as their normal state. For example, my dishwasher uses an electronic control, thus it needs to have at least some small amount of power to run the processor, so that it can monitor for when the ON button has been pressed.
That would be the case in any such appliance where the primary on/off switch is not directly tied to the main 120VAC line.

These ads probably shouldn't be directed at consumers so much as at designers. Power supplies can be made to use very little power when in standby mode. It just costs a little bit more - and that's where the good old penny-pinching comes in.

 

[geno]

Originally posted by: ironwing

Probably not. If everyone simply turned off their TVs for the duration of the 30-second commercial, it would probably save more energy.

I like the way you think.

 

[mugs]

The Department of Energy estimates that 11% of our electricity use is from things that are plugged in but not turned on. These things only use a few watts, but it's a few watts 100% of the time as opposed to 100+ watts for a small portion of the time (when the devices are on).

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: TehMac
The government should talk to Al Gore about how much electricity he consumes at his ranch before they start passing climate bills on his urging.

Why don't you save your worthless partisan troll posts for threads where they are applicable? :roll:

 

[venkman]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
Transformers will use a bit of electricity even when there's no load.

That's because they are more than meets the eye

 

[Mark R]

I suspect this is overblown. Modern phone chargers use switched-mode DC-DC converters with ultra-low energy standby modes.

Certainly, the old transformer based chargers were hopeless, due to the use of undersized transformers made from the cheapest materials. I tested a whole bunch of my chargers, a typical 5V 1A (5W) charger would draw about 7W from the mains when plugged in, but idle, and about 15W when charging.

The more modern charges - e.g. my 2005 Samsung charger and my 2009 iphone charger draw so little power when plugged in, but idle, that I've not been able to measure it either with my power meter, or even measure the current with my DMM (it's so low, it's below the minimum needed to even register on these meters - i.e. current draw < 1 mA).

 

[TehMac]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: TehMac
The government should talk to Al Gore about how much electricity he consumes at his ranch before they start passing climate bills on his urging.

Why don't you save your worthless partisan troll posts for threads where they are applicable? :roll:

1) Many democrats are scoffing at the bill as well, so it's hardly partisan
2) The government, probably the most wasteful body of people in the world, are telling other people what to do, while partying it up in Washington.

My comment was quite applicable, kthx.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: TehMac

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: TehMac
The government should talk to Al Gore about how much electricity he consumes at his ranch before they start passing climate bills on his urging.

Why don't you save your worthless partisan troll posts for threads where they are applicable? :roll:

1) Many democrats are scoffing at the bill as well, so it's hardly partisan
2) The government, probably the most wasteful body of people in the world, are telling other people what to do, while partying it up in Washington.

My comment was quite applicable, kthx.

Of course you think your comment was applicable - for some reason you think this thread is about the climate/energy bill. Apparently in your rush to spew hate you didn't bother to read the OP or click the link. It's a campaign to encourage sensible energy conservation. Who cares if it comes from the government? Is there anything wrong with their message?

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
wall warts.

I had never heard this term before this thread. I had to wikipedia it. It made me

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: venkman

Originally posted by: lxskllr
Transformers will use a bit of electricity even when there's no load.

That's because they are more than meets the eye

that was so bad... yet I chuckled a bit.