ShareThisTurn off, tune out and unplug.
That's the advice from the International Energy Agency that is raising alarms about rising electricity consumption -- and resulting greenhouse-gas emissions -- from the global boom in home electronics.
Over the next seven months, the number of people using a personal computer will pass the 1 billion mark, while there are more than 2 billion television sets worldwide, an average of 1.3 sets per household that has electricity.
And residential power demand is soaring with the proliferation of MP3 players, home video games, set-top boxes, wireless routers, portable phones and flat-screen, high-definition, digital televisions.
Last year, the world spent $80 billion on electricity to power these household electronics, and that is expected to grow to $200 billion by 2030. To meet the demand would require the output of 200 new power plants, and double greenhouse-gas emissions to 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year.
The IEA -- the Paris-based energy watchdog for the developed world -- is urging governments to pass new energy-efficiency standards that will force manufacturers to include extra-low power modes when gadgets are not in use, improve the operating efficiency of electronic devices and encourage their citizens to use residential power more wisely.
In fact, huge gains have been made in the energy efficiency of traditional appliances like fridges, washers and dryers, and the agency says similar efforts need to be made in the home electronics field.
Paul Waide, a senior policy adviser at the agency, says the digital revolution is transforming home electronics into ubiquitous, multipurpose appliances. Some refrigerators now come with televisions in the door, while TVs are now high-definition computer monitors that can also be used to listen to radio.
He said consumers should shut down their gadgets when not in use and unplug when not in use the growing number of battery chargers needed for cordless phones, cell phones, iPods and laptops.
And they should listen to radio on an actual radio, rather than an energy-hogging television or computer.
At the same time, many jurisdictions are moving to digital-only television, which consumes far more power than the traditional analogue sets.
The IEA estimates the electricity demand for television usage will rise by 5 percent a year.
The agency says that power demand could be reduced by 30 percent from forecast levels with the use of existing technologies and by more than 50 percent at a small cost.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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