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It’s not uncommon these days to find cordless phones, TV’s, DVR’s, security systems, automated coffee machines and much, much more in all of our houses. When you look around the house, there are a lot of every day things that use copious amounts of electricity. So, just how much electricity are these devices really using, even when they are supposedly turned “off”?

The electricity used by these devices is called standby power or vampire power because it sucks electricity without most people even knowing it.

Then there are power adapters which are even more deceiving. Ever leave your laptop power adapter plugged into the wall even when the laptop isn’t connected to it? How about Ipod speakers? Cell phone chargers? Computer speakers? Laptop charger? All these things have transformers, or power bricks, that take the 120 volts AC coming out of the wall outlet and step it down to about 12 volts DC. The funny thing is, you don’t even need to have your phone, speakers or laptop plugged in for these power adapters to suck power. Try feeling one of these power adapters even when they aren’t powering or charging a device. Feel a little warm? Electricity is still flowing through the transformer and creating heat, which is wasting electricity.

There are many sources of vampire power. Here are some of the more common appliances that leach power from your wall outlets without you knowing:

• TV’s
• DVD Players
• Audio Video Receivers
• Gaming consoles
• TiVo’s or any DVR
• Cable Boxes
• Computer monitors
• Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS’s) for computers
• Any recharging station
• Anything with a power adapter or transformer

So how much power is really getting wasted? Is it really worth the trouble to unplug everything when it’s not in use?

The amount of vampire power used by each device varies quite a bit. I was astonished with my wife’s little iPod speaker system we have plugged into the kitchen wall outlet. Even if I disconnect the power jacket from the speakers and leave the power adapter plugged into the wall, it draws 22 watts. Strangely, my 52″ LCD TV draws about .05 watts in standby mode as does my AVR stereo system. I would have expected these things to draw a lot more power. Then of course there are the TiVo’s and DVR’s. When you turn those “off”, you’re really just turning off the video circuitry, but the internal hard drive continues to spin and record shows. However, what I didn’t expect was my old stereo alarm clock drew 28 watts just to display the time on an LCD screen, even when the radio wasn’t on.

So again, would it make that much of a difference if I unplugged all this stuff every time I wasn’t using it? Let’s see … 22 watts for the IPod speakers, 28 watts for an stereo alarm clock, about 2 watts for all my audio video equipment (I’m not counting the DVR because that’s expected), 1 watt for the computer speakers, and about 5 watts for the computer monitor when in standby mode. This adds up to about 58 watts. So how much money am I wasting? Let’s do the math …

• 58 watts divided by 1000 = .058 kilowatts
• .058 kilowatts * 24 hours = 1.392 kilowatts per day
• 1.392 kilowatts * $.10 (cost of a kilowatt where I live) = $0.13 a day
• $0.13 a day * 30 days (about 30 days each month) = $4.18 a month

That’s not that much. In fact, it’s not worth my time to unplug this stuff everyday when I’m done using it. But there a lot of people who say if we all did this we could greatly reduce the amount of wasted electricity and thus reduce carbon emissions. Well OK, let’s assume a city of 1,000,000 households wastes as much electric as me, due to standby power loss (vampire power). That equates to about 1.4 Megawatts a day. While that may sound like a lot, it pales in comparison to all the business that leave their lights on all throughout the night while the stores are closed. Drive by a car dealership at night and look how many high powered lights they leave on. Drive by a shopping mall and look how brightly lit the empty parking lots are. Look at the downtown high-rise buildings. Look at an amusement park, strip mall, or any store that is closed. These guys waste far more electricity than we could ever hope to save by unplugging a few devices in our homes.

You might say they leave their lights on to deter thieves. Well, how about a motion sensor? If 50 flood lights are always on, no one pays attention. But if 50 flood lights were to suddenly turn on because someone set off the motion sensor, I’m sure more people would notice that.

I think we need to work on conserving energy, but let’s start with the top and work our way down.

In the past, electric cars were more of a joke than a practical solution. Even today, when most people think about an electric car they immediately remember the EV-1, a tiny little shoe box that could barely travel at freeway speeds and had a range of at most 70 miles. It’s understandable why no one was interested; It simply wasn’t fun and was barely practical.

However, the electric car has drastically change since then. The Tesla Roadster is an all electric car and not a hybrid. But get this … it can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in under 4 seconds which makes it faster than a Ferrari. The two door convertible sports coupe can also reach a top speed of 135 mph and has a range of 245 miles. It also comes with all the amenities of a normal car such as a navigation system, AC, radio, ABS Brakes, cruise control, and air bags. Now that sounds like a fun car to drive!

Gasoline powered engines are very inefficient at extracting energy from burning gasoline and converting it into mechanical energy used to turn the wheels of your vehicle. In fact, they are only about 20% efficient, meaning 80% of the energy extracted from gasoline is lost to heat. This is why we have oil to cool the engine, coolant to cool the oil, a radiator to cool the coolant, and a fan to pull air over the radiator.

But an electric motor is very efficient in comparison. Because so little heat is produced, there is no need for engine oil, coolant, radiator or a radiator fan. So aside from not having to change your oil every 4,000 miles (or forgetting to), you don’t have to worry about oil leaks or radiator problems either. The air alone is enough to keep the engine at an optimum operating temperature. In addition, when the vehicle comes to a stop or is stuck in stop and go traffic, the electric engine shuts off instead of remaining idle unlike a combustion engine, which wastes gasoline.

However, as of this writing, things have changed dramatically with the advent of lithium-ion batteries. The batteries are much smaller, much lighter, last considerably longer and have a much better recharge capability. For example, the lithium-ion batteries in the Tesla Roadster Sports Coupe can be fully recharged in as little as 3.5 hours and a full charge will allow the car to travel 245 miles non-stop. They are much lighter and the energy density is much greater which means the batteries take up less space compared to a lead-acid battery configuration of the same size and can last much longer. From an environmental standpoint, lithium-ion batteries are eco-friendly meaning they are not considered a toxic waste. They can literally be thrown away in the trash, however this would be unwise as the batteries can be recycled for re-use. This is contrary to the heavy lead-acid car batteries of today that must be disposed of properly and are extremely toxic. The real breakthrough may come in March of 2008, when Toshiba begins selling the SCiB (SuperCharge Ion Battery) which can charge at 50 amps with a recharge time of 5 minutes. It’s capacity loss after 3,000 recharges is only 10% but can be charged over 5,000 times which means it could run continuously for 10 years recharging once a day. Depending on the cost, this could be a huge breakthrough in favor of the electric car.

When an electric car needs to be recharged, you simply plug it into the wall at your house. You don’t have to find a gas station or wait in line. Currently, the Tesla Roadster can fully recharge in as little as three hours. With Toshiba’s new SCiB SuperCharge battery, this could be reduced to a matter of minutes; a comparable amount of time we spend at the gas pump. Chances are your commute is around 50 miles a day which means you would need to recharge about once a week.

The other advantage of the electric car is that it’s very quiet. Most people who have never driven an electric car are startled when they come to a stop. The first reaction is restart the engine because when the car isn’t moving, the engine is literally off. It doesn’t idle like a gasoline engine. Quiet is nice, but perhaps more so for those who live near busy streets or freeways as the sounds of passing cars will be greatly reduced.

So which is better? For me, the answer is obvious. Electric cars are mechanically simple compared to the internal combustion engine. For example, here are some things a gasoline powered car has that an Electric car does not …

• Engine Oil
• Oil pump
• Coolant / Radiator
• Transmission
• Exhaust pipe
• Exhaust manifold
• Clutch
• Spark Plugs
• Fuel Injectors
• Fuel/Oil/Air Filters
• Engine Belts and Timing Chains

This means you won’t have oil changes, coolant flushes, or transmission problems. There are no air filters, oil filters, or fuel filters to replace. There are no tune-ups or emissions tests. There are no belts or radiator hoses to replace.

More so, electricity rates are much cheaper compared to gasoline. In order to travel 250 miles on gasoline and assuming you get 20 mpg, you will need 12.5 gallons. Based on today’s gasoline rates of about $3.00 a gallon, that will cost you $37.50. To drive the same distance of 250 miles using electricity (based on the Tesla Roadster) with an electricity rate of $.10/kWh will cost you a whopping $5.00. Add all the other expenses such as changing oil, filters, spark plugs, transmission fluid, and coolant and that’s a heck of a savings over the course of 100,000 miles. Even if you did have to replace the Lithium Ion batteries at the 100,000 mile mark, the before mentioned savings will more than pay for the new battery pack, which in all likelihood will be far more advanced and longer lasting that the old one you had to replace.

Electricity it also a domestic commodity. Add some nuclear power plants to our electrical grid and we can easily support the electric car. With oil reserves existing in finite quantities, oil price uncertainties and the unproven fear of global warming, it’s just a matter of time before the electric car becomes more practical than the internal combustion engine. Necessity breeds innovation.