Report: Vampire equipment sucking power and draining wallets

Posted on July 2, 2014
Source: Fuel Fix.com

WASHINGTON — The price people pay for always-on, around-the-clock Internet connections with modems, cell phones and laptops may be higher than they think.

According to a new report from the International Energy Agency, all of those networked electronic devices are sucking up a whole lot of electricity — mostly just to maintain their Internet connections — generating $80 billion worth of wasted power in 2013.

For the average household, the bill runs to “many tens of dollars per year, per device,” said Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the Paris-based IEA. “This may not sound like much, but in 2013, the cumulative impact of 14 billion such devices was … unnecessary operation of over 130 mid-sized coal plants producing around 400 terawatt hours of electricity and all the pollution and carbon emissions that goes with it.”

Power vampires: Household items draining power
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