Obviously, someone else has to do something to stop the waste of electricity which leads to the release of greenhouse gases, killing everything! Your DVR Guzzles Electricity — Whether You Record the Daily Show or Not!
Turns out that one of the most inconspicuous home fixtures is one of the biggest energy hogs — even when they aren’t recording or replaying programs!
Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) allow users to record television programs to a storage device (hard drive, memory card, etc.). They also use more electricity than a refrigerator! (albeit, an energy efficient one.)
The startling state of DVR efficiency was brought to light by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The report finds:
In 2010, set-top boxes in the United States consumed approximately 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is equivalent to the annual output of nine average (500 MW) coal-fired power plants. The electricity required to operate all U.S. boxes is equal to the annual household electricity consumption of the entire state of Maryland, results in 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and costs households more than $3 billion each year.
Remarkably, “U.S. set-top boxes continue to use almost as much power when not in use as they do when in use.
Well, there you go, Alarmists, they are evil. You can certainly give yours up in order to help stop anthropogenic global warming, right? What’s that, you say? You depend on your DVR, and that other guy should give his up? And Government should mandate that they be made more Gaia friendly? But, you’ll tell everyone about how evil they are? Glad you could walk the talk.
