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Whatever you call it, the humble AC adapter, external power supply, plug pack, plug-in adapter, domestic mains adapter, line power adapter, wall wart, or power brick is due for significant changes next month.
The U.S. Level VI energy-efficiency regulation, aimed at energy savings in external power supplies, goes into force on February 10, 2016, and will impact all OEMs selling into the U.S. market. The European Union (EU) also is expected to harmonize with the new efficiency standard.
This article includes a quote (& pun) from one power supply vendor,
"It's a two-pronged approach," said Johnson. "The regulation addresses active mode when the adapter is powered up and supplying power to the end product. Under the regulation, efficiency is increased by roughly five percent."
But the big change is at no load when the adapter is plugged into the wall – like a cell phone charger – and nothing is connected to it, Johnson added. "Power consumption at Level IV was .5 watt and at Level VI it's decreasing to .1 watt, which when you talk about the millions of adapters in the market it's significant in power savings."
Another article can be found at http://www.metlabs.com/blog/energy-star-2/external-power-supplies-must-meet-level-vi-energy-efficiency-requirements-for-u-s-doe-by-february-2016/
US Department of Energy has an information page with several linked documents
https://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/appliance_standards/rulemaking.aspx/ruleid/28
"Rulemaking for Battery Chargers and External Power Supplies Energy Conservation Standard"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 03 2016, @06:24PM
So if you can set your airconditioner temperatures higher and heater lower you'd save a lot more than replacing a bunch of 0.5W wall warts with 0.1W ones. If your home is big enough to have very many wall warts you probably have more heaters and lamps etc. Lighting for a brightly lit room probably would be about 30-40W.
A fair number of us use PCs. Google Chrome/Firefox on an intensive webpage that uses 100% of on one of my desktop's cores could use about the same amount of power as nearly sixty 0.5W wall warts (based on what my UPS says- from idle at 112W it goes to 140W when running octane on Chrome). So in some cases using an ad blocker and/or noscript might save you a fair bit of energy. Most laptops are more efficient than my desktop. But some of us have desktops for games. Which brings me to the next point- I find running an old game with vsync off vs vsync on uses 60 Watts more - the graphics card etc doesn't use as much power if the game is locked at 60fps compared to 200 fps or higher...
So it's nice if you switch wall warts off if you're not using them but don't get too worked up about it.
If you want to be really environmentally friendly what's more important is not having children unless you're reasonably sure that you'd do a good job raising great kids. If you're not sure, go ask others who know you and your would be breeding partner well, whether you would make great parents. There are already billions of us on this planet. Time to focus on quality not quantity. Just look at the news. Terrible children who become terrible adults can be really bad for the environment in so many ways... Maybe a few of you might produce wonderful children who would save mankind... But the rest of you? Please take an honest look at yourself.
I have done so, and by not having children I'm saving the environment far more than most breeders would. Even if I drove an SUV till I die my environmental impact would be lower than if I had children and my children had children etc, and they don't want to live without modern amenities. Last but not least, I won't be producing any more assholes like me to plague the rest of the world.