Standby Britain: How it fuels our energy crisis
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=649018One million tons of a damaging greenhouse gas is pumped into the atmosphere each year by televisions, DVD players and other appliances left on standby in British living rooms.
Gadgets apparently turned off, but with their standby lights illuminated, are a little-recognised but significant contributor to global warming, figures released yesterday show.
Each year they waste enough electricity to power a city the size of Birmingham for a year or keep Britain's street lights burning for four years, and are a major contributor to the emissions which are polluting the atmosphere. Millions of "sleeping" video recorders, set-top boxes, washing machines and radios in homes and offices accounted for one million tons of carbon emissions, approaching 1 per cent of the nation's total.
Researchers said they represented the equivalent of enough carbon dioxide to fill 80 million double decker buses. Up to 85 per cent of the power used by an average video recorder is consumed while it is not in use, while many appliances use as much power on standby as they do when they are turned on.
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