Amen brother.

Well done to Dr. MacKay for a very valuable contribution to energy saving.

Thanks for linking to his book. It's a great "bottom-line it for me" report on the things that actually make a difference. Since it takes time to do anything, it helps to know which time investments have the biggest ROI.

With half a billion people soon using cell phones, it adds up to a lot of wasted electricity. Or a lot of people going stinky.

[maybe we need a 'No Bath Day' mjo]

Hallelujah. Too often people who have little understanding of numbers lose track of the relative scale of things. That is why people are afraid of terrorists and not global warming, of earthquakes and plane crashes but not obesity and smoking.

As valuable as this is, it is unfortunate that people could take this as an excuse not to unplug their cell phones. These little lifestyle changes can have so many positive feedback loops that Dr. MacKay can't quantify. For example, making the simple effort to unplug your cell phone charger can be the baby step that helps you realize changes aren't nearly as hard as people make them out to be. If we just ask people to change the big ones, they're not likely to. But if we get a foot in the door with little changes, bigger steps get easier and easier.

Good big-picture thinking. It's so easy to get caught up in the little things that people forget that to make true change there has to be a more comprehensive (and tough to swallow, unfortunately) change in our lives.

My next step: buying a high-quality bike and starting to replace my car for short trips.

Sheesh. Burnout, shmurnout. Should you give up flying? Yes. Should you buy a clothesline? Yes, and then you should use it. Should you unplug your cellphone charger when you don't need it? Yes. Should you buy a Prius? Probably not; depends on what you're driving now.

The only reason thy flying question is at all difficult is that it's not the answer people want to hear.

Our green movement is filled with liberal arts degree holders who, "Never really got into math." We make fools of ourselves when we celebrate conserving milliwatts, while ignoring kilowatts - not even understanding the difference. We respond with the childish saying, "Every little bit helps!" when in fact, there are many little bits of energy conservation that are utterly trivial and meaningless.

The same is true of most alternative energy sources. At current technology levels, many will provide only a fraction of what is needed, and at a higher cost than oil. Is that a long term solution?

Energy is produced and consumed by numbers, not by words. The hard solutions we need will not come from feel-good platitudes, neither will they come from carrying signs and chanting slogans. The solutions will come from a new generation of scientists working with physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics.

Where will that new generation come from? Are members of the green movement teaching their children math and science? Or are the little darlings too busy being sensitive and creative to be bothered with all that boring stuff?

Michael Covisi,

This exact phenomenon kept me away from the environmental movement for quite some time. Despite my hippie-liberal-arts mother's best efforts, I grew up to be an engineer of sorts. (Really I'm a computer guy who supports real engineers.) The lack of intellectual rigor in the conservation efforts that I encountered when I was a kid kept me from taking it seriously until a few years ago.

Here's an example: Lots of people have shouted "thou shalt recycle" at me, with a kind of religious conviction. However, in the town I was living in at the time, the recycling effort requires driving a second giant truck around town (burning hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel per week) to pick up only a couple of hundred pounds worth of material. I'm not convinced that it's an environmental win, even not counting the energy and chemical processes used to recycle the material. I get blank stares. Nobody has been able to provide any numbers to weigh these costs/benefits/detriments of this choice. I'd love for it to be a win -- recycling is such an elegant concept. But, in real life, it's a complex issue, and nobody I've talked to has ever been able to show me how to even start on a formal analysis of the tradeoffs.... Even now that a significant fraction of my friends are environmentally concerned engineers!

Consequently, I don't go out of my way to recycle. I have moved to a town where I can walk to work, though, and I've got all kinds of ideas on how to make a house more efficient when I/we finally buy one. I can calculate the kilowatts and the BTU's there!

But, seriously, if my phone charger pulls a couple of mWh, I think it'll be OK and more than offset by being 30 seconds quicker in the shower. Or by running the dryer for 30 seconds less. Or by turning up the thermostat a degree or two.

Pedantic Grouch:

There was a recent article about the comparative environmental costs of recycling versus new materials for paper and plastic - found here - that should give you all the details you like.

The fact of the matter is, that sending "big diesel-belching trucks" around town to collect your recycling is nowhere near as bad as sending big, diesel-belching trucks out into the forest to carry logs to a paper mill (typically a round trip of a good 60 miles at least, nevermind the trip to take either the finished product to market or the pulp or the wood chips or whatever part of the chain the mill makes to the actual paper factory), and nevermind the other heavy equipment used to extract the trees in the first place. And nevermind the fact that they just made an enormous hole in the forest.

Plastic didn't fare much better, but apparently it did.

While "Every little bit helps" might seem childish and trivial to some, it makes plenty of sense to others. Especially when you "do the math".

Taking the low estimate of .01kWh per day for an entire year that means cell phone adpaters waste 3.65 kWh per year. Yes, this is a small amount of energy. An amount easily saved by skipping one bath per year; however, this is because you look at the little picture. Take a step back and take a look at the big picture.

In 2007 there 1.15 BILLION cell phones sold. That's new phones added to the public, and in 2008 it is estimated that a 1.28 BILLION will be sold.

If you take the above figure of 3.65 kWh per year multiplied by 1.15 Billion phones sold in 2007, and you get 4.19 Billion kWh (actually 4.1975 but I rounded down). That's a huge number and makes a great point, but let's go a step further.

The U.S. Department of Energy states that the average U.S. household uses 11,000 kWh a year. If you divide the 4.19 Billion kWh by the 11,000 kWh per household you get the result of 380,909 households. (Keep in mind that is "households" not individual people).

The U.S. Census Bureau states that the average household size for 2006 was 2.57 people. If we round that down to 2 people times 380,909 households we get 617,818 individuals.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that is the same number of individuals living in the states of Wyoming or Vermont or in the District of Columbia.

That’s right; we could power an entire U.S. state, simply by every cell phone owner disconnecting their phone’s power adapter when it is not in use.

Looking at the big picture that “little bit” doesn’t seem so trivial or childish, does it?

Reference:
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/printer/32860.php
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/consumer/tips/appliances.html
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2006.html
http://www.census.gov/popest/datasets.html

@Andy Linn

Please read the book before commenting on it. The author says that turning off your phone charger is one of the last things you should worry about, but if you have done everything else you could have done, then you can start to worry about it. For example, based on the same calculations, if everyone took two less baths a year then they would have enough excess power for two states, excellent! and you didn't even have to do anything, unlike remembering to unplug your charger.

To put this another way, if you unplug your phone charger in your air-conditioned/ poorly heated house before getting in your humvee to go to the airport on holiday to some far away place, and then think to yourself "at least I am doing my bit" then you are a hypocrite, as the energy used by just one of these other energy hogs completely eclipses the energy saved by the charger. You may as well not have bothered.

Basically, the whole point of his book is to avoid people like you making comments like that. Informed decisions, big changes, that is how you will get energy security/sustainability.

Another thing, the author makes the distinction between domestic energy consumption (the electrical energy you use from your plug sockets) and total energy consumption ( the energy you use from electricity, driving, heating, public services, flying, stuff) . He uses the more correct, latter value. I presume that the value you gave is domestic electricity consumption as it is very low. If you had read the book you would realise that total energy consumption per household is much higher than this. (based on your calculations: if everyone turned off their phone chargers, had less baths, turned off a few other electrical appliances when not in use, etc. I have no doubt you would find enough energy to power all 51 states. just "do the math". perhaps you might even find some energy left over whilst you are at it!)

Also, whilst I am at it, he makes an informed look at energy production too, and shows - using numbers - how many solar panels, wind turbines, bio-crops, tidal barrages, etc the world would need to sustain it's energy requirements at current levels. You will be surprised how much area is required. read it and find out.

Before you make any comments, please at least read the book first.