This wasted electricity accounts for about 5% to 10% of home energy use, depending on factors like the age of the equipment, according to Alexis Abramson, dean of the Columbia Climate School.
It’s recycling all over again.
Corporations are responsible for a vast majority of the waste, but they try to shift the blame to individuals.
Corporations are responsible for a vast majority of the waste
I don’t really understand this recurring theme in this context, Can someone explain to me why this is relevant?
Afaik, this isn’t a discussion in my country, since most people (should) know that already. This article triggered me, beacuse I want to lower my personal energy usage. Many companies in Europe who were energy wasteful and high energy users (like some chemical, steel, or aluminium plants) needed to close after the Russian invasion in 2022 and the then extreem high energy prices. Those that survived, are still struggling to this day.
It’s good to know what we can do to reduce our own use—we all have to live on this planet, after all—but these kinds of articles pop up and, at the very least, make people think their efforts will have a meaningful impact. They go to sleep thinking they’re solving the problem (barring extreme situations like war-driven scarcity, for example).
But if every household stopped using electricity, many countries would still have a massive energy problem on their hands, because households aren’t really the problem.
This.
At home we minimize energy use and stuff, especially when the Ukraine war induced energy crisis hit.
But in companies nobody turns of their PC at night. Huge TVs are constantly running playing ads to empty rooms all night.
There’s a large tower in the inner city where I live and their whole fassade is wrapped in complex RGB lighting. I wrote to them to please disable that since we are in an energy crisis, and their response was (I kid you not) that their building lighting is totally eco-friendly, because one night per month they switch it to completely green light, and that reminds people to save energy, and the energy thus saved offsets anything the building lighting consumes.
And that’s not even talking about all the other industrial and corporate energy wasting.
Tnx, I wasn’t aware of this context.
I tested most of my devices with a wattmeter. Definitely not true for me. But I live in Germany and don’t even own a TV, it’s possible that it’s true for other types of devices or that the devices that are sold in my country just have higher standards than devices sold in the US.
I had my old house tested ( after I mostly had it all rewired), by various electricians for energy losses. And they claimed that there was always some unaccountable energy loss ( 5% iirc).
What was the source of that energy loss? Just the wiring or something?
What was the source of that energy loss?
No idea tbh. I tried to figure it out myself first, then I had two electricians independently checking it.
And their conclusion was that they didn’t know, and that the 5% was sort of normal. I even had my electricity meter recalibrated by the grid company. I was afraid somone was taping, but no… It still could’ve been the electricity meter ( which was like only 10 yo, I looked up its specs and readings). Humidity, Magnetism and Radio signals might effect the readings, under circumstances. So to be" safe", I have now a newer smart electricicity meter.
Mynock. Chewin’ on the power cables.
Charron recommends starting with small steps like unplugging chargers for phones and other devices
This is completely useless advice leftover from two decades ago. All of these chargers have been active power supplies for a long time, and use almost no power when not in use
Meanwhile my coffee maker’s power button is on a touch screen? Who the eff designed that? How about yelling at corps to stop doing shit like this?
This is probably the start of our residential electricity being throttled and have to pay a premium for what little we use just like internet data caps. Meanwhile inefficient data centers, lights on 24/7 at corporate headquarters and giant art displays guzzling electricity won’t even be considered for the chopping block.
We already have a premium like that here in CA, plus ridiculously high base rates.
Anyone who can confirm if these figures are correct?
Even if it is, this pales in comparison to corporate energy use. https://www.epa.gov/energy/electricity-customers
This is shifting the blame, just like pretending your recycling a soda bottle will save the environment compared to the huge amounts of landfill waste generated by companies every day.
In 2024, datacenters alone consumed 1.5% of global energy. That’s not even counting non-datacenter server facilities. https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-demand-from-ai
Even if it is, this pales in comparison to corporate energy use.
Yeah I agree, I later saw that the article focuses on households, which usually account for like 20% of a countries energy usage.
Honestly, I associated the articles headline and photo to energy losses in the Grid by keeping energy online. So Grid losses, and the application of smart grid functions will save way more then 5% of a ca 20% household energy usage. In this article they talk about a 4-5% overall country gain, for example
