/travel/ireland/Power Down
One of the cool things in my flat, and in normal construction in Dublin is that I can reduce the electricity usage in my flat to zero. Not "almost" zero or "probably" zero, but zero.
Every outlet has a little switch by it. The oven has a big switch to turn the whole thing off. The immersion (water) heater can be switched off, and so can the lights. If you do this, everything is off, except the heat, which I don't control.
But there's more. TVs here have three states: on, standby, and off. In the off state, the power-draw is zero whereas in the standby state it's enough to listen for the remote. My amp, two, has three similar states.
That's not all! The microwave has no LED clock, nor a digital power-drawing panel. Every appliance has a clear efficiency rating. Lightbulbs are on a one to nine scale, I think, whereas fridges are one to five.
These savings are small, but if you're otherwise careful with power, they're significant. And mostly I think they're interesting because they represent a smooth transition: from a relatively impoverished past where these things were driven by necessity, to a progressive future where these things are (I presume) driven by EU-based standards. There was no gap between these, as far as I can tell, and indeed there seems to have been overlap.
Time to suspend my laptop, turn off the lights, and go to bed.
Comments
Tony wrote
Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond...
There was an Earth day booth in the cafe at the lab today. I got to talking with the guy manning the booth and at one point I asked why we hadn't switched everybody over to LCD monitors for the power savings they afford. I had expected to be told that it was too expensive to switch over in one fell swoop so I was surprised to hear that nobody had thought to do that!
Power vs. heavy metals wrote
I'd encourage them to make sure LCDs are better on the heavy-metals front. Power is a problem we're working on. What to do with heavy metals is a problem we're solving by shipping them to china, then screaming about china's environmental policies.
Rob wrote
oh man, I don't even know how to use my own blog.
Jim wrote
Be True to your north american roots, Rob! Turn on everything! Every light needs to be on! Every stereo system! Three TVs! Six computers!
At least that way I won't feel bad about my own electric bill.
