do phone chargers use electricity when plugged into wall but not phone

[Mr_Donktastic]

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On one of Oprah's green specials an expert said that most electronic appliances still draw about 60% power when turned off. There is a smart strip you can buy which will disconnect power from everything plugged into it when the TV is turned off.

I expect that sometime in the near future it'll be mandatory to design these products to draw no power when in the off position. If they really do still use 60% it would be a sin not to.

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That "expert" is a [censored] moron. Of course, he was on Oprah, and she's not exactly the bastion of truth now is she?

Most appliances draw ZERO power or near zero power when switched off.

Here are common appliances:

Typical toaster: zero when off

Typical microwave oven: infinitesimal when off, just enough for the clock/display (milliwatts)

Typical vacuum: Zero when off.

Typical computer: No more than a few watts when off.



AB

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The expert is a moron - no electronics use 60% when turned off.

They may be misquoted or just dumb - the large % is only for total energy use of SOME appliances - those that you use like once every couple months but is plugged in all the time.

So say you use your DVD players or whatever 10 times a year for 2 hours each time, that 20 hours of use. But its plugged in for the rest of the 8740 hours of the year....that is how you get high % of electricity consumption while off.

Phantom power does use ALOT of electricty though when you add it all up.

[AlienBoy]

considering that a DVD player uses a miniscule amount of electricity when operating (not to mention in stand by) it's yet another thing that hysterical environmentalists are exceeding the bounds of credibility.


AB

[IdealFugacity]

I unplug my alarm clock each day, and reset the time and alarm before going to sleep at night.

I also unplug the stove, microwave, and turn off the water heater when I leave for work in the morning.


Sarcasm aside, I bet the water heater idea might be useful. Depends on how fast the insulation loses heat though, might end up using more power to bring the water back up to temp than it would have just maintaining.

[AlienBoy]

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Sarcasm aside, I bet the water heater idea might be useful. Depends on how fast the insulation loses heat though, might end up using more power to bring the water back up to temp than it would have just maintaining.

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The first law of thermodynamics states "In any process, the total energy of the universe remains constant."

In other words, that the total energy into a system must exactly equal the energy leaving that system.

Maintaining a water heater at temperature therefore uses more energy than cycling. However, with cycling, you lose the convenience of hat water on demand.

Cycling takes about 30 minutes to raise tape water to a typical temperature of 130 degrees, for a typical water heater. As such, one can posit that setting a time to shut off the water heater between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm, and off from 9 pm to 6 am (or whatever your needs might be) could reduce your energy usage - HOWEVER, one might also suppose that the heat loss during idle periods is not significant relative to the energy used for normal usage times.

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_heater

[Mr_Donktastic]

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considering that a DVD player uses a miniscule amount of electricity when operating (not to mention in stand by) it's yet another thing that hysterical environmentalists are exceeding the bounds of credibility.


AB

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Why is it hard to understand that 'miniscule' amounts of electricity add up when you are talking about millions of electronic devices???

[AlienBoy]

Because as a percentage of total power used, it is still miniscule - you can expect greater losses from the aging infrastructure of power distribution (bad splices, old transformers, etc) than from insignificant electronic devices.

Once upon a time, old tube type TVs had an "instant on" feature, that sucked up a measurable amount of juice. Modern electronic devices such as a DVD player use a trivial amount of power when in off/standby mode.



AB

[Sciolist]

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somebody told me that a phone charger that is plugged in uses the same amount of electricity whether or not there's a phone plugged into it. sounds dubious to me. thoughts?

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Haven't read the thread, but yes, they do. You can tell because they're warm if you leave them in without charging anything. I just put all my chargers on one power strip and turn it off when I go into work.

[wtfsvi]

There is a point in this that it seems to me people always miss. As long as you're heating the house anyway, it doesn't matter. The charger draws a little electrisity and that all goes towards heating the house. It matters only when you don't already use electrisity to heat. (And that is almost never in Norway [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] )

edit: My cell phone charger exploded, though. That was kindof startling, so now I pull them out when I remember it.