Wasting electricity

First…

ETFO

All ETFO members will engage in a strike action throughout the province today.

Details here.

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I had a couple of takeaways from this article.

How much electricity do all your smartphone chargers waste when not in use?

First of all, electricity appears to be really expensive in Hawaii!

Secondly, I’m guilty of this. I took a walk around and noticed that there are chargers plugged in in a number of places. As noted in the article, they’re plugged into the wall, power bar or DataShield and for some of them, there is no good reason.

Well, I guess there is a reason, good or not depends on the interpretation. The reason is that it’s convenient when the device that appears on the other end, lazy Doug doesn’t have to plug in two things. Just one.

As noted in the article, they might not be drawing a full load during these off moments but they are drawing some if not for just having the LED there to indicate that it’s ready to do something.

It made me think about growing up. There was an almost constant admonishment from Mom and Dad to turn that light off if you’re not using it. And, lights were just the beginning.

But we’ve just got used to it always being there. I took a walk through the house this morning and, even if I don’t have my watch on, I can tell you what time it is in every room in the house. The kitchen is particularly bad with microwave, oven, clock on the wall, and the rooms that you can see into that are next to the kitchen! I guess I can excuse them because they get downright annoying if not set with their constant flashing!

Over the weekend, the power went out and the ETA from Hydro One was four hours. The real winner was Jaimie who joined us for lunch at a drive through and then a stroll at the beach. (I can charge my phone in the car during the drive….)

Anyway, back to the electronic chargers. Forget saving the planet; one little charger or two isn’t going to make a significant difference there but the pennies saved might end up being something interesting a year from now. Besides, when I think about it, they’re just left plugged in for my convenience. I’m going to try to disconnect from the wall when I’m done charging and see what happens.

I shudder when I think of the charging done in schools when technology isn’t being used. It certainly is convenient to come to work with a fully charged laptop cart but that could be accomplished other ways like having a timer, for example.

Update

I was quick to complain when search wasn’t working on my Windows computer over the weekend. I’ll have to report that it’s working nicely this morning. You never really appreciate something until it’s done.

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