Switch off at the socket?

On 2009-09-15, Zero Tolerance wrote:
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:39:13 +0100, "Norman Wells"
wrote:

However, he ignores the fact that he's also losing 45 watts of heat. To
keep his house at exactly the same temperature, an extra 45 watts of heat
need to be pumped out by whatever heating system he has, for as much of the
year as he needs any heating at all. Admittedly, that may be a bit cheaper
if it's gas-fired, but it's still the same amount of energy, so it's
unlikely to have a huge impact on climate change.

This is an old (and thoroughly discredited) logical error. Saving 45
watts of energy is not the same as saving 45 watts of heat. For a
start, most of that energy is expended in doing the 'work' - e.g.
lighting lights, spinning discs, and so on. Any excess heat generated
after that (unnecessary) work is done is minimal.

By your logic, if I leave a Sky+ box on standby, then the 20 watts it
spends on spinning the hard disc is converted into 20 watts of heat.

It is, through vibrations and friction in the bearings.

If that were true, it would turn Sky+ into a free energy machine -

It would not.

which is impossible - breaking every scientific law there is.

No, it would not.

--
David Taylor

Man at B&Q wrote:
On Sep 15, 11:28 am, Andy Burns wrote:
On 15/09/09 08:54, Gordon Henderson wrote:

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/charger/

I read that and started thinking the 5000W per person figure was a
confusion between power units and energy units, and assuming it meant
5000Wh per person per day, but I decided I'd best check the numbers
before possibly inserting foot into mouth ...

According to the International Energy Association figures for 2001
the total UK energy consumption was 262,186,000 tonnes of oil
equivalent

or about 4.3 tonnes of oil per person

or 180 Gigajoules per person

so dividing by 8760 hours that *did* equate to a continuous 5.7kW per
person. Granted some of that will contribute to exported goods and
services, but equally our imports will contribute to other countries'
consumption figures so it's difficult to adjustment for that.

Still barely makes it worthwhile unplugging idle phone chargers
though, most of that power is consumed on our behalf, not directly
by us.

Indeed. As the saying goes, 100% of bugger all is still bugger all.
OTOH, even just 20% of something larger like unneccessary nightime
illumination in shops may be worthwhile. i don't know the exact
figures but you see what I mean.

I think the retailers would take the view that illuminated shops are less
likely to be burgled/vandalised. There is an energy cost in dealing with
crime.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:47:46 +0000 (UTC), David Taylor
wrote:

On 2009-09-15, Zero Tolerance wrote:
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:39:13 +0100, "Norman Wells"
wrote:

However, he ignores the fact that he's also losing 45 watts of heat. To
keep his house at exactly the same temperature, an extra 45 watts of heat
need to be pumped out by whatever heating system he has, for as much of the
year as he needs any heating at all. Admittedly, that may be a bit cheaper
if it's gas-fired, but it's still the same amount of energy, so it's
unlikely to have a huge impact on climate change.

This is an old (and thoroughly discredited) logical error. Saving 45
watts of energy is not the same as saving 45 watts of heat. For a
start, most of that energy is expended in doing the 'work' - e.g.
lighting lights, spinning discs, and so on. Any excess heat generated
after that (unnecessary) work is done is minimal.

By your logic, if I leave a Sky+ box on standby, then the 20 watts it
spends on spinning the hard disc is converted into 20 watts of heat.

It is, through vibrations and friction in the bearings.

If that were true, it would turn Sky+ into a free energy machine -

It would not.

which is impossible - breaking every scientific law there is.

No, it would not.

Quite. Scientific laws would be broken if energy went into a box of
electronics (from the mains connection or a battery) and did not come
out in some form: heat, light, sound, whatever.

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:43:54 -0700 (PDT), "alexander.keys1"
wrote:

There have been a lot of comments recently about the waste of energy
due to appliances being left on standby, and various gizmo's that are
on offer to turn them off automatically, or otherwise purporting to
save energy. What everybody seems to be forgetting is that an energy-
saving device comes with most UK socket outlets, it's called a
'switch', and when put into the 'off' position, power cosumption is
zero! None of my appliances, including computers, digital TV
receivers, etc. have come to harm through this practice, I always
switch off at the wall, back in the day when there were fewer
appliances this was standard procedure to avoid fire risk.

This energy isn't wasted. Its given off as heat, which is quite useful
in a domestic house.

In article ,
[email protected] wrote:
You know of a VCR etc which can do a pre-programmed recording when
powered down at the socket?

A media centre PC (laptop) will do that. They will even wakeup from
hibernation and do a recording and then hibernate again.

Great. So a laptop uses a battery to achieve this. Very energy efficient.

--
*I took an IQ test and the results were negative.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"DVDfever" wrote in message
...
On 15 Sep, 00:19, "Ian" wrote:



It's amazing that some people go, "Ooh, I'm so green that I unplug all
of my TVs, PC, Sky- whatever" but if you ask them to unplug their
fridge and freezer and nooooooooooooooooooo, they won't. Green, my
arse!

Don't unplug their fridge & freezer?
Gosh, I wonder why that might be?

Col

In article ,
Col wrote:

"DVDfever" wrote in message
...
On 15 Sep, 00:19, "Ian" wrote:



It's amazing that some people go, "Ooh, I'm so green that I unplug all
of my TVs, PC, Sky- whatever" but if you ask them to unplug their
fridge and freezer and nooooooooooooooooooo, they won't. Green, my
arse!

Don't unplug their fridge & freezer?
Gosh, I wonder why that might be?


they might not want green coloured food?

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:38:14 +0100, "tim....."
wrote:


"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , Andrew
scribeth thus
On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:43:54 -0700 (PDT), "alexander.keys1"
wrote:

There have been a lot of comments recently about the waste of energy
due to appliances being left on standby, and various gizmo's that are
on offer to turn them off automatically, or otherwise purporting to
save energy. What everybody seems to be forgetting is that an energy-
saving device comes with most UK socket outlets, it's called a
'switch', and when put into the 'off' position, power cosumption is
zero! None of my appliances, including computers, digital TV
receivers, etc. have come to harm through this practice, I always
switch off at the wall, back in the day when there were fewer
appliances this was standard procedure to avoid fire risk.

They can't switch the power stations off overnight, so they may as
well power the 1W my TV takes to be in standby.

I seem to remember that some hydro electric plant is powered down and
some gas fired .. but coal is rather long winded to slow down and
restart..

basically anything that is high power and heat driven doesnt
appreciate lots of heating up and cooling down.

used to be some of the really big generators needed to be left
spinning while cooling off......

They use the spare overnight power to pump the water back up in a stored
hydro power station so that it's full in the morning when everyone turns
their kettles on, so it isn't wasted.

except you only get back maybe 75% of what you put into the pumping
during generation.

And then you lose some more pushing all the power to N Wales and
getting it back again to somewhere useful.

tim


--
Regards

- replace xyz with ntl

In article ,
Stephen wrote:
On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:38:14 +0100, "tim....."
wrote:


"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , Andrew
scribeth thus
On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:43:54 -0700 (PDT), "alexander.keys1"
wrote:

There have been a lot of comments recently about the waste of energy
due to appliances being left on standby, and various gizmo's that are
on offer to turn them off automatically, or otherwise purporting to
save energy. What everybody seems to be forgetting is that an energy-
saving device comes with most UK socket outlets, it's called a
'switch', and when put into the 'off' position, power cosumption is
zero! None of my appliances, including computers, digital TV
receivers, etc. have come to harm through this practice, I always
switch off at the wall, back in the day when there were fewer
appliances this was standard procedure to avoid fire risk.

They can't switch the power stations off overnight, so they may as
well power the 1W my TV takes to be in standby.

I seem to remember that some hydro electric plant is powered down and
some gas fired .. but coal is rather long winded to slow down and
restart..

basically anything that is high power and heat driven doesnt
appreciate lots of heating up and cooling down.

used to be some of the really big generators needed to be left
spinning while cooling off......

They use the spare overnight power to pump the water back up in a stored
hydro power station so that it's full in the morning when everyone turns
their kettles on, so it isn't wasted.

except you only get back maybe 75% of what you put into the pumping
during generation.

And then you lose some more pushing all the power to N Wales and
getting it back again to somewhere useful.


but it was very close to a couple of nuclear power stations (probably now
closed) so the distribution losses would actually be rather low.

tim



--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

"charles" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Col wrote:

"DVDfever" wrote in message
...
On 15 Sep, 00:19, "Ian" wrote:



It's amazing that some people go, "Ooh, I'm so green that I unplug all
of my TVs, PC, Sky- whatever" but if you ask them to unplug their
fridge and freezer and nooooooooooooooooooo, they won't. Green, my
arse!

Don't unplug their fridge & freezer?
Gosh, I wonder why that might be?


they might not want green coloured food?


No ****, Sherlock!

Col