Here's the real reason the power grid is in trouble

[Dreamer Tatum]

http://theweek.com/article/index/248273/your-iphone-uses-more-energy-than-a-refrigerator

All those portable devices...plugged in and connecting to things. The grid never anticipated them. This is a good reason to
invest in the infrastructure.

[yesphan]

1. Some pretty interesting

comments at the link.

[Egalitarian Thug]

2. And here all this time we thought it was selling off an infrastructure built with taxpayer money

to "private" concerns that have let it crumble so they could suck a few more dollars out of it before they walk away and leave us holding the check for their neglect.

[Dreamer Tatum]

4. Yeah, a billion portable devices had no effect whatsoever.

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Did I say that? No. n/t

[Divernan]

3. Your I phone uses more energy than a refrigerator!

All added up, Mills calculates that it now takes more energy to stream a high-def movie than to manufacture and ship a DVD of the same film.

So where does coal come into the equation? To start with, the National Mining Association and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity sponsored Mills' study. Coal is still the largest source of electricity in the world, so it's safe to say it's playing a huge role in keeping us connected.

Says Mills: “Coal’s dominance arises from the importance of keeping costs down while providing ever-greater quantities of energy to the growing economies, and as the IEA recently noted, the absence of cost-effective alternatives at the scales the world needs.

”

[1-Old-Man]

7. If that were true wouldn't the phone get awfully hot?

Look, I'm not an engineer or a physicist, but I understand enough about energy to know if something as small as a phone was burning through as much energy in a day as something as big as a fridge, a heat moving device in itself, it would have to get pretty warm.

But your point is well made about the use of coal. I'll tell you another place where the coal is hidden from the equation but lies as the largest player in the background as well. Its the nonsense about hydrogen fuel cells. Sure, they only have one byproduct, clear water, but just where does anyone thing the hydrogen comes from in the first place? It will either be directly extracted from the coal or the coal will be burned to produce electricity that will then be used to split the hydrogen and oxygen apart in water and capture them for sale. One way or the other its coal at the heart of the productiion and it only looks clean at the consumer's end of the wire.

[Divernan]

8. Here's how they calculated it.

How much energy does it take to power your smartphone addiction?

The average iPhone uses more energy than a midsize refrigerator, says a new paper by Mark Mills, CEO of Digital Power Group, a tech investment advisory. A midsize refrigerator that qualifies for the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star rating uses about 322 kW-h a year, while your iPhone uses about 361 kW-h if you stack up wireless connections, data usage, and battery charging.

[former9thward]

10. If that were true everyone's electric bill would have gone sky high.

That has not happened. My average electric bill has not changed in at least 10 years and I have crap plugged in all over the place that I never had before. The devices which draw electric power are ones that do actual 'work'. Your air conditioner/heater, anything with large motors such as the refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, etc. Things that do no work such as computers or lights do not have much draw at all.

[Igel]

12. I get his point.

Don't know if it's reliable.

His point isn't that your phone draws the power. His point is that your use of the phone to stream video requires that much power--this is both the trivial amount of power consumed by the device in your hand and the much larger amount drawn by the data-transmission grid the bits are being pulled over.

More phones, more streaming video, more power consumed by the infrastructure supporting your phone.

See http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/environment/smart-phones-uses-as-much-energy-as-a-refrigerator

and

http://www.tech-pundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Cloud_Begins_With_Coal.pdf?c761ac

if you care.

[WilliamPitt]

6. Important.

Thank you for sharing this.

[Rex]

9. Just more reason to charge it up in the car while you drive.

Just no texting or sexting please. I never charge mine up at home anymore. Invest in the infrastructure? That was a nice thought back when Reagan was in office...too bad he decided to fuck everything up. If it wasn't for Repukes, we would be living in a paradise by now.

[leftstreet]

11. If we turn off our phones at night, will they turn off cell towers?

[Dreamer Tatum]

13. Um, earth to simpleminded person...

There ARE cellphones, WHICH REQUIRE POWER.

Oh, and cellphones require towers, WHICH REQUIRE POWER.

Cellphones connect to the internet, WHICH REQUIRES POWER.

And so on.

20 years ago, we had almost none of that stuff. It all outs a strain on the infrastructure.

Are you catching on yet?

[leftstreet]

15. Let the wealthy Privateers solve the problem

Cell Phone Tower Owners
Cell Phone Manufacturers

Let THEM make use of energy saving technology, rather than pound the serfs over the head about usage

[Dreamer Tatum]

16. who's pounding anyone?

Geez. Tough day for reason around here.

[leftstreet]

17. The article is

The wealthy privateers make buttloads of money off the public commons through everything from resource theft to tax cuts to cheap labor to buying off regulating officials and then, THEN, THEN, when they discover there might be a problem....suddenly the serfs are to blame

Fuck em. Let them solve the problems they created

[X_Digger]

14. Reading the paper this article is based on..

.. it's a bit of a worst case estimate based on an extrapolation based on an extrapolation.

Yeah, the numbers are kinda bullshit.