Raúl Santos
Computers use electricity. Teens love MSN Messenger. Teens also like to keep their computers on in order to have their MSN Messenger accounts logged in at all times, which is a huge waste of energy for something really unnecessary. Could this be something to worry about? Maybe it is…Today I’m writing about energy waste.
Home appliances need electricity to work. Electricity costs money. So far, this is common knowledge. But electricity also has other costs, such as environmental pollution due to the CO2 emissions resulting from the electricity production. These indirect costs are something some people don’t know of and other (most) people prefer to ignore.
An example of something that people don’t see as an unnecessary waste of electricity (and, consequently, an unnecessary waste of money and an unnecessary source of pollution) is the standby light present in most of today’s appliances. Did you know that Britons waste the equivalent of around two power stations’ worth of electricity each year by leaving TV sets and other gadgets on standby? Yes, that much. You can read about it in the BBC News article “TV ‘sleep’ button stands accused”.
The article says that Mr. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat’s environment spokesman, has calculated that the CO2 emissions from electrical equipment being left on standby are equivalent to 1.4 million long-haul flights. This means that 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!
As another example of enormous waste is a simple thing we use every single day: light bulbs. FastCompany has a story about it, “How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World? One. And You’re Looking At It.”. From the article:
if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.
People usually think “yeah, right, like I’m going to save the world if I don’t leave my TV on or if I switch to one of those weird-looking light bulbs”. This is one of the greatest incapacities of the human race: we only think about ourselves, not that we are part of a very very large number that together has the power to do a lot!. As the article says, “That’s the law of large numbers – a small action, multiplied by 110 million.”
Now, why did I name this article like I did? After all, MSN Messenger isn’t directly wasting any electricity - well, not even indirectly. Perhaps it’s just my subconscient “hate” for it talking. The true problem is in people.
Just as people don’t see a problem in leaving a TV set on (or on standby), they (especially kids) also don’t see a problem in leaving their computer on, in order to have MSN Messenger connected and storing the messages from their friends. (Yes, I know Windows Live Messenger stores the messages offline - as ICQ has done for years, mind you).
Why they need to have it on all the time is something else I would also like to understand. Is it just because they want to be able to store their friends’ messages or is it due to something else? Perhaps it’s a matter of status to have your online identity loggedin… I mean, it’s not like they’re leaving it on because they’re downloading something or want to leave it processing something during the night, so why? I don’t know. But that’s a matter to write about on another day, along with its social implications (both positive and negative).
What I do know is that computers waste a lot more energy than a TV set or a light bulb and if those two simple things waste as much energy as it is written in those articles, then I can only imagine how much energy is being wasted by teens to keep their MSN Messengers connected all the time…
As a last note, here’s 101 easy ways to save energy. They’re mostly for the folks living in the US but I’m sure they’re useful for other parts of the world, too.