Sunday, October 12th, 2008
Defanging your Entertainment Center’s Vampire
A lot of people enjoy watching TV and movies at home. My family really does. Most folks have some variation of entertainment system setup at home. Some basic components that almost every entertainment system include are TV, DVD Player and/or VCR and cable box. Some larger entertainment systems include a stereo receiver, CD player, DVR (e.g. TiVo), MP3 player and more. What most people don’t realize is that each of these components draws power even when turned off and it can be a considerable amount when you combine all the components in your entertainment center.
Why do they draw power even when they are turned off? A common reason is so that you can use the remote control to turn them on.
A good device/component, in my opinion, is one that uses the least power when turned off. In the entertainment center world good is under 2W when off. Bad can be >90W (WHEN TURNED OFF) and even 20W over time adds up very quickly. With a few minutes and a power strip, I have been able to lower the vampiric load of my entertainment center by 40W, read on to find out how you can do the same and what this will save you over time. More…
How long does it take to get clean in the shower? Is it 10 minutes? Did you know that a 10 minutes shower with a non-low flow shower head can use upwards of 80 gallons of water and generate up to 4 pounds of CO2, not to mention the cost of the energy to heat the water.
Got an electric stove? I do, unfortunately.
Ahhh, “reduce” and “reuse” — the poor stepchildren of “recycle.” Truth is, the grand green triumverate starts with “reduce” and “reuse” for a reason.
Bikes are on the rise around the world, according to 
Think of all the energy that goes into producing new clothes. Especially nowadays, when most of the clothes we buy in the Gap or Old Navy are made in Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, Malawi, China, India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Taiwan, Nepal… you get my point.
Can’t afford a hybrid car but want to do your part against climate change? U. Chicago researchers have determined that eating 20 percent less meat is climatically equivalent to switching to a hybrid car. That’s because it’s incredibly energy-intensive to raise cows, chickens, and other animal-meat products. Those animals also require lots of land, which means forest clearing. And don’t forget about 
Have you ever thought about how much energy it takes to get things to the store before you buy them? A lot of thought is going into that kind of thing and there is a term for it, embodied energy. Now lets apply that thinking to that morning fix so many of us have every day, our morning coffee, tea or caffeinated soda. Let’s compare drinking a pot of tea versus 24 ounces of soda every day. 
Decorations don’t have to be green to be green. Available for the past couple years at reasonable prices, LED options for holiday lighting are available alongside the standard mini-lights of the last 20 years. Unfortunately, most purchases are still mini-light strands. Using LEDs saves electricity, pure and simple. An equivalent strand of LED lights uses 80-90% less electricity than mini-lights and 99% less than the bigger (C7 or C9) lights common for many exterior decorations (those big bulb holiday lights).
Of course the answer depends on a lot of factors about you, your surroundings and how you relate. I’ll share some average for the US and go into some basic ways to calculate this for you. I was quite shocked with the magnitude of the difference when I went through this exercise myself. Please don’t mistake me for saying we shouldn’t do more just because it doesn’t do as much. Every little bit helps. If you are like me, you can’t do as much as you want right now. Hopefully you can use these concepts to prioritize your actions and where best to apply your energy and resources.
