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Prompt's TechBlog

Devices on standby waste power

23 January 2006

Posted by Sean McManus

Perhaps leaving the TV on standby is a guilty pleasure that you allow yourself, so that you can flump down in front of it and get it to come alive for you quickly later on. But according to the BBC, we could do without two power stations if we would only turn the telly off properly.

The story says:
To put it another way, the entire population of Glasgow could fly to New York and back again and the resulting emissions would still be less than that from devices left in sleep mode.

Possible solutions include forcing manufacturers not to include a standby button or rating TVs for energy efficiency in a similar way to how fridges are rated now. Until then, we'll all just have to take a few steps across the living room to turn the telly off properly.


# posted by Sean McManus at 5:22 PM

Comments:

How long would I and my fellow couch potatoes have to remember to turn our electrical appliances off standby for in order to knock down two power stations and/or fly the population of Glasgow to NY and back? A night or a year?

And are the two rewards mutually exclusive? If so, I vote to knock down just one power station, and forget about the return legs of the transatlantic flight. I think our colonial cousins would have fun putting up the population of Glasgow for an extended break...

# posted by Blogger Dave Wilby : Tuesday, January 24, 2006 11:10:00 AM
 

I should have made clear that the UK uses two power stations *per year* fuelling devices on standby.

# posted by Blogger Sean McManus : Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:45:00 PM
 
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