Appliances Hog More Energy Than High-Tech Gadgets 688
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "A tech columnist looked around his home and wondered, 'All these TVs and cable boxes and computers and computer gear and chargers for various adapters have to be sucking up a lot of power, right?' So WSJ.com's Jason Fry bought a power meter to find the biggest power hogs in his home. They weren't his newfangled gadgets: 'The heavily used agglomeration of PC / two monitors / printer / hard drive / speakers in my downstairs study costs a bit more than $10 a month. The PC in our bedroom costs about $6 a month. The upstairs laptop? Less than $1 — a bit more than other always-on gadgets such as the router, cable modem, wireless repeater and Airport Express. So what were our apartment's power hogs? The lights and the dryer. I estimate our lights cost us around $30 a month, nearly a third of that from a chandelier with eight bulbs. Then there's the dryer. I don't know exactly how many watts it uses, but estimate it's costing us at least $25 a month.'"
Lights? (Score:5, Informative)
EIA Residential Energy Statistics are free to all (Score:5, Informative)
Things might change as people consume their 8h/day TV on 60" plasma space heaters.
Re:Lights? (Score:3, Informative)
My wife switched us completely to compact flourescents a few years ago. It has saved a bunch of money.
Duh? (Score:2, Informative)
You have to be perpetually asleep to not have realized this already. Light bulbs have a wattage rating right on them. So does practically everything else except for a clone PC, whose wattage rating is on a sticker inside the case (on the power supply.)
An electric dryer draws about 4 kW (heating element, blower, motor) while a gas dryer pulls about 400-500W (for the blower and the motor.) Any asshole could look this up with google... except the one who wrote this article.
It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to realize that a PC with a peak draw of, say, 500W is going to consume less power than a chandelier with 8 light bulbs on it. Even at 40W each that's 320W, which is a fair amount of juice.
But seriously, you have to be some kind of idiot not to know that an electric clothes dryer is consuming more power than anything else in your house (when running) save possibly the water heater. After the dryer and the water heater (which could have anything from about a 10 amp (1200 watt) to a 30 amp (3600 watt) heating element) the next thing is either an electric heater (usually at least 1000 watts; I have one of those portable oil-filled electric radiators and it's 700 or 1500W) or in the absence of an electric heater, the refrigerator, which draws about 500 watts. 1 kW = 1.34 horsepower. The electric motor turning the AC compressor is probably about 80% efficient. That's .5 kW = .67 * 0.8 = about .53 horsepower. (Fun with math, whee.) For comparison your car's AC compressor takes 3 to 5 HP to run. Er, I should mention your home air conditioning will, of course, consume more power than your fridge, but less than an electric heater.
Want to reduce power consumption? Unfortunately most people blow it when they build their house and nearly all commercial home builders blow it too; orienting your house in the proper direction and building overhangs and windows to match one another so that you get sun in the winter and not in the summer is one of the most important steps. Going big on insulation is another. Using solar preheat for your hot water and installing a water heater blanket will do a lot more than you think. I'm about to move into a rental house that's designed with all of these principles in mind (Except that the solar water preheat is out of commission right now) plus it uses a just-in-time propane hot water heater that saves you from having to keep water hot when you're not using it. We expect to save a bundle on both gas and electricity.
His guess about the dryer is spot-on (Score:4, Informative)
Now this was in 2003. We've noticed that the generation charge has been going up, so that, compared to 2003, we are paying roughly $10 more a month for the same number of kWh (roughly 180 kWh/mo). So you'll even save a bit more now.
Anyhow, that prompted us to walk around and replace all of our lightbulbs with compact fluorescents, and so on (saving us another $10/mo). Considering that none of these bulb have died (save the one that our landlord dropped), I think the $40 or so we put into bulbs has paid us back quite a bit.
I did the same experiment with the power meter. I was quite surprised to discover that under normal load, my Soekris router consumed less than 1W. Very cool. The same can't be said about the laser printer (LaserJet 4M Plus), though. 700W peak, ~30W at idle. We leave that one off most of the time.
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:4, Informative)
Have you tried an induction cooker? I used to think the same way as you, until I first tried one. To my surprise, it is even more responsive than the gas burner I previously had (I don't know how that works, but it does).
I've always been curious why more people don't use gas.
I think safety issues are the prime concern, these days. Cooking on an open flame just seems risky.
Re:Lights? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Lights? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't work for Ikea, I just like referring others to free resources that help people be more responsible in their consumption behaviors.
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:3, Informative)
Where electric really sucks is its inability to change temperatures quickly. If you turn one on full it takes perhaps a minute to hit full heat, where a gas stove achieves full heat instantly.
Professional chefs use gas for a different reason: a professional stove can put out far more heat than an electric one can. However, that only applies to the big commercial gas lines that can deliver 15,000 BTU; the ordinary home stove often tops out at 9,000 BTU. In many cases an electric stove can boil a large quantity of water faster than a gas stove. (But gas is faster for a small quantity, since it starts up faster.)
I don't know the full pattern, but I suspect that they go electric-only in inexpensively-built houses (like suburban developments) because it saves them the trouble of running gas lines. I've grown up around electrics so I can compensate for their failures (preheating burners before I use them, setting things aside rather than just turning the burner off).
Re:Felt the article was lacking. (Score:3, Informative)
I personally witnessed small compact hifi systems drawing 30W while "off" compared to 35W while on without any load.
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:3, Informative)
Trust me, they exist. They're also idiotic. It's even worse when the labeling is inconsistent (HI-2-3-LO-WM-OFF) and the buttons are placed over the rear burners.
Re:Lights? (Score:5, Informative)
also, someone up above made a comment about LED lights and got moderated troll. he is correct, LEDs are the next thing in lighting, as soon as the cost comes down. considerably more efficient than CFs.
last note. i put CFs in my current house when i moved in 4 years ago. i havent had to replace a single one yet. and i too am a night owl.
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:5, Informative)
You had to pay for the use of gas which was cheaper wholesale (which benefited business that pushed for deregulation) but marked up well over the original prices for residential customers and you had to pay for the billing of gas from the gas marketer which was a new charge.
The deregulation was sold as cheaper gas for all but it ended up costing way more than they imagined, Natural gas prices rose insanely on top of that, and people that couldn't pay for the increase of both had to freeze in the winter.
http://www.psc.state.ga.us/consumer_corner/cc_gas
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:3, Informative)
Hierarchy is: (Score:4, Informative)
- Electric heating (resistive heating: Driers, room heaters, heating appliances.)
- Motors
- Lighting
- Consumer electronics.
Electric heating (by resisitance heaters) consumes an ENORMOUS amount of power.
Switching from electric to gas drying (so the electric load is just the motor) will cause a big savings in the electric bill, while the gas bill won't go up anywhere neer enough to compensate. Ditto (even more so) if the house has electric heat.
Same is true of the other heating appliances (hair driers, toasters, stoves and ovens, etc.) But (except for ovens if you do a LOT of baking) they tend to only run a short time so it doesn't make all THAT much difference on your bill.
Motors are the next big load. Air conditioners are the worst, due to the heat pump. But moving anything around (even air) is costly. One horsepower is almost exactly 3/4 KW (and motors can be very efficient - 80s to 90s percent - but they're still not lossless). (Nevertheless, using a heat-pump for HEATING - especially if the weather outside is above freezing or so - uses a lot less power than resistive heating. But except for merely cool days it's still more expensive than gas.)
Lighting is next. Incandescents are especially hot heaters, and the light is the visible part of the hot-wire glow. Much more is heat. Switch to fluorescents (compact or otherwise) and you get about four times as much light per watt. (LEDs may beat that in a few years but right now they're trailing fluorescents.)
Consumer electronics is 'way down there - because it's improved a lot and because there has been serious effort to increase its efficiency and reduce its losses - as well as to reduce localized heating of the components. (When I got my first linux box it was a good space heater - and most of that was the disk drive. Nowdays things take a LOT less power.) With cheap semiconductors modern power supplies are now highly-efficient switching-mode devices, which also helps a lot.
(Other appliances have also been re-engineered for efficiency, so switching to a modern large appliance may save you significant power and/or fuel. But electronics has had a much bigger improvement.)
Re:Lights? (Score:5, Informative)
It is a misconception that LED fixtures are more power efficient than CF or other traditional "hot wire" light sources. Compared to your typical compact fluorescent bulb at the magical "100 watt incandescent" equivalent light output, they are in fact about the same. Fluorescent tubes are quite a bit better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy [wikipedia.org]
There are however some new high-flux LED's in development that are cracking the previous 100 lumen/watt ceiling, but they still have a *long* way to go until they are cost competitive with any other light source.
Re:Use a dimmer (Score:3, Informative)
Most light dimmers actually use a transistor that chops off parts of the AC waveform. Since the transistor is always full-on or full-off, no significant power is lost in the dimmer switch (which would get very hot otherwise). The chopped-up waveform is also the reason you're not supposed to hook fluorescent lights, motors, etc. to light dimmers.
However, dimmed incandescent lights are even more dismally inefficient than normally running incandescent lights, so a dimmer is really more for setting a mood than saving power.
Re:Lights? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:3, Informative)
Not saying it's a realistic reason, but seriously, a lot of people are just afraid of gas.
It's not realistic at all. Ever light the pilot light on a furnace or hot water heater? Notice how the switch has three modes: off/on/light (or pilot, pilot-light). In the 'on' mode a thermocouple is enabled. This thermocouple generates a tiny current using the heat of the pilot light and uses that current to hold the gas valve open with an electromagnet. If you blow out the pilot light then the thermocouple stops generating that current and the gas valve closes automatically.
Only in the 'pilot' mode does it bypass the thermocouple and open the gas valve directly. So, yes, if you set it to pilot, lit the flame and forgot to turn it to 'on' your house might blow up. But not in normal operation.
Add to that the fact that a lot of modern gas appliances (stoves and furnaces) are using electronic ignition these days. Why? Because the pilot light is a huge waste of gas. The pilot light on my old furnace alone uses about 6-8/therms a month of gas! That's more then half of what my hot water heater uses (10-12/therms) and it's actually doing something!
Re:Lights? (Score:3, Informative)
The best looking light (in terms of the light it puts out) I've ever owned is a full-spectrum flourescent desk lamp I bought at a craft store, that has all the usual benefits (in terms of low power consumption : output, long tube life) of flourescent bulbs over incadescent bulbs. It was expensive, which is why most CFLs aren't the same, but IMO most CFLs are about as good as avage incadescents (halogens last longer and look better than normal incadescents without saving energy, and nice-looking incadescents are available at premium prices, but still are short-lived.)
If you want dim lighting you can just use lower-output or fewer flourescents; whatever illumination level you want, flourescents will provide at lower power use than incadescents, and last longer doing it.
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:3, Informative)
Gas was much more expensive than electric.
Unless your electric is insanely cheap or your gas furnace is insanely inefficient then gas should always be cheaper then electric. Do the numbers: 1 therm = 100,000 btus = 29.307107 kWh. At $0.08/kWh that therm costs $2.34 with electric. The highest I've ever seen gas prices around here was about $1.20/therm.
Now that calculation doesn't take into consideration how efficient your gas furnace is. New model gas furnaces can achieve >95% efficiency. They suck so much heat out of the combusted gas that the water vapor condenses and has to be drained away. Older model furnaces can really ruin your day though. The one in my apartment seems to manage
Electric heat is always 100% efficient (from the end users prospective) so this might explain why it seems to be cheaper to use electric. I'd consider buying a new gas furnace though. Unless the insanely cheap electric applies to you.... My electric runs about $0.045/kWh (hydro) and gas would still be cheaper if my landlord would get me a new furnance.
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lights? (Score:3, Informative)
It makes a dramatic difference to how painted walls look.
Green under "warm" vs "Mint green" under "blue".
I have a wide variety of CFL's in my house and have at least 4 different shades from a very reddish light to a very blue/white light (like a reveal bulb).
Re:Lights? (Score:3, Informative)
There are a wide variety of form factors available these days.
They make teeny ones that fit in cieling fan and candle type settings, bulb size ones, they make cold white, cool white, warm, and very warm lights. etc.
Re:60W bulbs? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, quite the opposite. Power was out a couple days after a tropical storm. I could still cook quite easily...the electric gas stove starters didn't work, but, matches did just fine.
"Oh, and I call BS on the "can't really cook on an electric stove" thing. You do have heat control, and if you don't, you got a POS stovetop. They may not have the instant feedback of dialing down the gas, but just *plan* a little bit and adjust for the slight cool-down and warm-up times."
Well, not really....not if you are into some serious cooking...if you look into a pro kitchen, commercial setting, you'll never see an electric stove...ovens may indeed be electric (like the convection ones), but, for sauteeing, or for that matter, stir frying...you don't get near the results on an electric element.
I had my own restaurant for awhile...ran my own kitchen...I do know a little of what I speak of here.
My waistline is my resume...as they say, "Never trust a skinny chef".
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:5, Informative)
Blah blah blah. I'm the Fire Marshal of a small town in PA. Most fires (not just in my town) are caused by cooking, and have nothing to do with the fuel used. It has little to do with the exact method of heating, its just that its hot. It's normally because of carelessness (especially including lack of maintenence). This includes crappy old gas stoves with no thermocoulpes that aren't properly mainteined. It includes overloaded elctgrical circuits. It includes filty ranges that have dirt and buildup catch fire during normal usage. It includes imporperly installed applicnces that don't vent correctly. It includes decrepit electrical wiring in the wall supplying a 30 amp 240v circuit.
Don't kid yourself that gas is a higher risk. Improperly installed, improperly mainteained, and imporperly used are the real risks.
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:2, Informative)
Aaron Z
Re:Felt the article was lacking. (Score:2, Informative)
Many, problably most, devices consume a few watts to a few tens of watts in standby mode.
1 watt or less in standby for most devices is what the International Energy Agency is pushing for in 2010.
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:2, Informative)
Out in the country, we had the large propane tank in the yard. The gas tubing inside the house was never touched in all the years I lived there. No leaks could develop. The only "gas leak" was when the pilot lights on the stove went out, but they had such a small gas feed to them they would never fill the house. This happened maybe once or twice a year. So I can say from experience a gas leak is not common in a properly installed home environment.
Re:Wasting electricity in the winter impossible? (Score:3, Informative)
Ironically, many people have A/C.
Where's the irony? An A/C unit is simply a heat pump facing the wrong direction.
Anyway. Adding to your point: even electric heat is generally designed to deliver the heating effect to areas where it is most useful. As opposed to heating your ceiling.
Even it everything broke even, CF bulbs are nearly cheap enough (if not ARE cheap enough) to offset the cost of replacing the 5 or six incandecent bulbs which would be required in the CF's place (in terms of lifespan). Not to mention saving the hassle of breaking out ladders for those of us with high ceilings.
Re:Induction hobs (Score:2, Informative)
Imagine putting your hand on a halogen cooking device...
So far I cooked on gas, plain electric, halogen, and finally induction. Induction cooking beats everything else!
Re:Dual Use Tech (Score:3, Informative)