Re: Bollocks: Call to scrap TV standby buttons to help environment

Norman Wells wrote:
In article <e1tjid0k5b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Cardinal Chunder <cc@xxxxxxxx
pam.xyzabcfghllaa.com> writes
Norman Wells wrote:
But there's the nub of the argument. If you can't detect the 6 watts
from your TV on standby, and it doesn't alter the amount of heating you
require even in the room where it actually sits, it's hardly
contributing to global warming either.
That's absurd. 6 watts is 6 watts. Multiply by millions of households and you're talking power stations worth of wasted energy, and therefore hundreds of thousands tonnes of CO2 emissions.

No, you're not.

In 2003, the total electricity generated in the UK was about 378
TeraWatt-Hours, which, if you want it translated, means 378,000,000,000
kilowatt-hours.

If a house has a television on 6-watt standby for 20 hours a day, it
will use 43.8 kilowatt-hours per year. 20 million homes each doing that
will use in total 876,000,000 kilowatt-hours in a year. That is
significantly less than one quarter of one percent of the total
electricity generated in the UK.

There are about 40 power stations in the UK, so the most you could save
by turning all the TVs off is one tenth of one power station.

All power stations are not equal. How many coal fired power stations does that power equate to? How many hundreds of thousands of tonnes of coal / oil is required for that?

And that's just TVs in the home. Think of all the regular lightbulbs that are left on. Or businesses that routinely allow PCs, monitors, laser printers, photocopiers, heating, lighting etc. to be left on overnight for no commercial reason whatsoever.

There are a lot of ways that energy could be saved with minimal impact to individuals or businesses. They'd even save money through lower bills.

By way of contrast, China is commissioning a new coal-fired power
station every single week, ie a generating capacity equal to the whole
of the UK's every 10 months.

That may be, but that is no reason for the UK or other countries not to do anything.

The whole generating capacity of Britain is a drop in the ocean. We
make no difference whatever we do. Give up. It's futile.

It isn't futile. It means the UK is less dependent on fossil fuels, meaning less pollution, less respiratory diseases, less overheads for businesses.

--
"Hello. I'm Leonard Nimoy. The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true, I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer is: No."
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