Energy Saving - the great standby fallacy

And when such campaigns are exposed as founded on a fallacy, the whole energy message is compromised.
 
Fair point, it doesn't help with getting the message accross... I suppose the alternative: tell people to stop buying (lower initial purchase price) less energy efficient appliances, stop taking short haul flights etc can be socially divisive- not everyone can afford the "A" rated appliance, air travel is at last available for the less well off. I digress, I apologise...
 
I've been all over that 'Mr Electricity' website that ClubMan linked to/quoted from above... the guy certainly has lots of useful advice to offer (not to mention a great photo gallery!) :D

I'm surprised his energy conservation tips don't include the obvious one, though... [broken link removed]... ;)
 
Gulliver said:
And when such campaigns are exposed as founded on a fallacy, the whole energy message is compromised.
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Is there anyone else for whom energy conservation/global warming/carbon footprints is the new Northern Ireland? As in, change the channel...no interest!
Just curious
 
Carpenter said:
Perhaps it's an over simplification or a case of "gilding the lily" but I think the campaigns do help to raise the collective awareness about energy use- why have something on standby mode unless it's necessary, why leave lights on unnecessarily? There are a great many people who don't care about energy use at all.
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People forget, kids turn things on. You have to help people help themselves if possible.
 
DrMoriarty said:
I've been all over that 'Mr Electricity' website that ClubMan linked to/quoted from above... the guy certainly has lots of useful advice to offer (not to mention a great photo gallery!) :D

I'm surprised his energy conservation tips don't include the obvious one, though... [broken link removed]... ;)
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Mr. Electricity does the same calculations as I did above... but not for a TV. He does it for a VCR... which I guess is probably old. It uses more than 10 times as much on standby as a modern TV
 
Originally Posted by Gulliver
He does it for a VCR... which I guess is probably old. It uses more than 10 times as much on standby as a modern TV
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The only appliance I unplug when not in use is the TV - because I was told ages ago a TV is a potential fire hazard; could that be true? In view of the above re a VCR, should that be unplugged too?
 
Gulliver said:
Mr. Electricity does the same calculations as I did above... but not for a TV. He does it for a VCR... which I guess is probably old. It uses more than 10 times as much on standby as a modern TV
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Interesting that he challenged his initial skepticism about the microwave clock using more power than the microwave oven itself by crunching the numbers and finding that what he thought was a fallacy could actually be true - see here:
[SIZE=+1]The clock on the microwave uses more energy than the oven[/SIZE]
The first time I heard that statement I thought,"Great, another electrical myth, like the myth that you should leave lights on because they take a lot of electricity to start up.". After all, I knew that the oven uses about 1000 watts while the clock uses five.
But then I thought, wait a minute, the clock is running 24/7, while the oven is running just a few minutes a day. Then I did the math:
How much energy the clock uses in a day: 5 (watts) x 24 (hours) = 120 (watt-hours) How long it takes the microwave to the same amount of energy:
 120 watt-hours / 1000 watts = 0.12 hours, or 7.2 minutes
​
This means that if you use a typical microwave oven for less than 7.2 minutes/day, the clock uses more electricity than the oven. Wow.
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I bought a wattage and current meter to measure what I'm getting from my various appliances. Here are the measurements I've made so far.

21" TV CRT (10 years old) 73W on 12W standby
Set-top box (few years old) 21W on 7W standby
800W Microwave with LCD clock 1250W on 0W standby
Sony LCD clock radio 0W radio on 0W clock on (below sensitivity of meter)
Laptop 65W charging + disk + network activity
46W Charged + disk + network activity
40W Battery removed
Desktop iMAC 20" 95W on 1W in sleep

Newer devices do seem a lot better than my museum piece TV set-up.
 
Gulliver said:
Correct, Zod. And all of the newer devices can be easily brought well below 0.5w. Far better than banning the concept of standby
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If however a very large percentage of devices in the country are still of the type that consumes a lot of power on standby and it'll take years to replace them all, then surely there is a case for at least encouraging their owners to switch them off at the mains?

I don't know how representative I am but most of the devices in my house are probably in this inefficient category and I don't see any reason why I should replace them until I have to.
 
When did facts get in the way of propoganda ?. The government need to look at much larger things...like using heatpumps rather than convector heaters in the multitude of poorly insulated school pre-fabs. Also, eliminating motorway lighting, except for illumination of signs !.
 
ClubMan said:
You mean [broken link removed] that I was looking at on eBay?
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That's fine for measuring standby on older and less efficient devices. Well-designed modern devices are below the 1-watt threshold for this meter and will not register. I suppose if you had a few devices on a trailing socket it could measure the combined wattage.
 
I've only just read the post about the microwave on standby, and it's an absolute classic of its kind.

The maths is 100% acurate so how could anyone disagree with the conclusion: we're all madly profligate!

The first thing I'd ask is what kind of device needs 5W to work out the time and display it? Think about it: the smallest button cell can power the average watch for a couple of years. I'd check that microwave if I were him, or more likely the meter he's using to measure it.

The second thing I'd ask is how much a percentage of total household consumption the microwave's clock, even if the 5W figure is correct.

Clearly there are enough old/badly designed appliances out there for there to be a potential problem. To my mind the best way to tackle this is through regulation of the suppliers: competition amongst manufacturers in domestic appliances is so fierce they won't invest even a few cents in anything that doesn't give a clearly demonstrated market benefit.

Regulation could be either to ban standby power consumption over a certain level (as a percentage of the active consumption) or mandate energy rating labelling at point-of-sale (e.g. similar to fridges/washing machines etc.) that are clearly understandable.
 
sherib said:
The only appliance I unplug when not in use is the TV - because I was told ages ago a TV is a potential fire hazard; could that be true? In view of the above re a VCR, should that be unplugged too?
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Any device containing electronics could potentially be a fire hazard. Probably not a major issue although I have heard of several new LCD TVs catching fire. A friend of mine had his house burnt down when a clock radio caught fire. My standard policy overnight is to switch off all electronic equipment at the mains (TV, VCR, DVD which are conveniently all on one mains switch), and the PC and Router. When out of house I switch off the clock radio as well.

Just because you're not paranoid etc....
 
If individuals decide to make the "standby to off" change, perhaps the manufacturers could help by making equipment that has an off switch to begin with! I've got a DVD player, VCR, Chorus decoder and an older stereo which have no off switches! Accessing the electrical socket(s) for these items isn't easy as all the wiring is behind the TV unit.
 
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