The ugly truth of our profession is that whether you design jet fighters, spacecraft or kitchen timers, most of one's work with even the "sexiest" technologies involves dealing with lots of "unsexy" details that are critical to your project. Likewise, much of the important work to be done in green engineering is not as sexy as the wind turbines or hydrogen-powered cars that we associate with the field.
Nevertheless, it's equally, if not more, important.
Consider, for example, the average household in North America. Before we start installing windmills or photovoltaic roof tiles on these homes, perhaps it's best to see exactly how much electricity we waste first. You'll probably be surprised to find that the standby power consumed by devices that are supposedly turned off accounts for 5 percent to 20 percent of your electricity bill.
Between the dozen or so "power bricks" whose transformers eat power even while your printer, modem, computer or cell phone charger is at idle, and the microwaves and VCRs that use up to 15 watts to blink "12:00" on their displays, your household electronics are probably burning 60 to 150 W of power on a 24/7 basis.
Even at a conservatively estimated 5 percent (I think this is very low) of your residential bill, this phantom load accounts for 1.5 percent of the electricity generated in the United States, or about three times the total output of our current solar, wind and geothermal capacity. And this is not even counting the standby power consumed by the industrial and commercial sector.
This translates into many golden opportunities for the electronics industry to help replace those inefficient wall transformers with compact, ultraefficient switching power supplies that draw milliwatts when not in use. Iomega, the computer peripherals manufacturer, and several other companies already use these snazzy little devices in many of their products.
Similar markets are already booming for power supplies that can efficiently provide both standby power and full operating load. LG, Nokia, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony and other appliance makers are dramatically slashing the idle power of their products to obtain EnergyStar, Blue Angel and other important consumer eco-label approvals.
These humble power supplies can create enormous reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and enormous markets for forward-thinking companies. And that's before we start using sexy technologies like hybrid electric vehicles, smart buildings, windmills and solar panels. We'll cover that in another column.
Comments? Questions? Ideas for other unsexy energy conservation technologies? Write me at lgoldberg@green-electronics.com
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