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from the resist-the-urge-to-get-amped-up dept.
According to the National Resource Defense Council, Americans waste up to $19 billion annually in electricity costs due to "vampire appliances," always-on digital devices in the home that suck power even when they are turned off.
But University of Utah electrical and computer engineering professor Massood Tabib-Azar and his team of engineers have come up with a way to produce microscopic electronic switches for appliances and devices that can grow and dissolve wires inside the circuitry that instantly connect and disconnect electrical flow. With this technology, consumer products such as smartphones and computer laptops could run at least twice as long on a single battery charge, and newer all-digital appliances such as televisions and video game consoles could be much more power efficient.
...
"Whenever they are off, they are not completely off, and whenever they are on, they may not be completely on," says Tabib-Azar, who also is a professor with the Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) initiative. "That uses battery life. It heats up the device, and it's not doing anything for you. It's completely wasted power."Tabib-Azar and his team have devised a new kind of switch for electronic circuits that uses solid electrolytes such as copper sulfide to literally grow a wire between two electrodes when an electrical current passes through them, turning the switch on. When you reverse the polarity of the electrical current, then the metallic wire between the electrodes breaks down -- leaving a gap between them -- and the switch is turned off. A third electrode is used to control this process of growing and breaking down the wire.
He did not get the memo--reducing vampire current is not what the Internet of Things is all about.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:36PM
Was given a Bunn coffee pot as a gift, and I thought it was great until I realized that it *always* keeps the water hot. Even at two pots-per-day, that seems like a lot of energy waste. What's great as the workhorse of a ship's coffee mess doesn't necessarily apply at home.
Now I'm curious to know how much energy was spent each day keeping the water hot. It doesn't seem like it would be an insignificant amount.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Friday October 28 2016, @09:56AM
We use a Bunn at our house. Thing to remember is it's more efficient to achieve and maintain a stable brewing temperature with than to heat from ambient on demand. Also, cold-start elements use much more power to brew quickly. The actual difference in total power consumed is actually very little. Fun science fair project for the kiddies: Run a trace with a recording ammeter over 24 hours with same number of pots brewed on Bunn vs. Mr. Coffee.
(Score: 0, Troll) by toddestan on Saturday October 29 2016, @12:57AM
That doesn't make any sense. It uses the same amount of energy to heat the water to the brewing temperature no matter how you do it. If it heats it on-demand when it's needed, that's the amount of energy used. If it heats it beforehand then keeps it hot until you need it, that costs the same amount of energy to heat it initially, plus whatever it needs to keep it hot until it's needed. Which will equal the amount of heat lost from the reservoir, as it will never be perfectly insulated. The only possible benefit is that the on-demand coffee maker will draw a lot of current to heat the water quickly, whereas the always hot coffee maker can afford to draw less current as it can take longer to heat the water.
Plus there are other considerations. Since it's heating all time, even when no one's around, it's more likely to start a fire. And if the reservoir isn't perfectly sealed, the water can eventually boil off and what then?