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You definitely should, I know some folks that keep their huge TV on 24/7 because they like the pretty screensaver and photos it shows when idle. These same fo

You definitely should, I know some folks that keep their huge TV on 24/7 because they like the pretty screensaver and photos it shows when idle. These same folks take a lot of other steps in their life to try to help the environment (recycle, drive electric cars, etc) but simple stuff like turning things off completely confounds them.

dwaltrip 3y ago
What’s the relative impact of a mile driven vs. an hour of the tv being on? Edit: Hmmm. According to gpt-4, the average TV would incur about .02 kg of CO2 per hour of usage, assuming a typical electrical grid mix in the US. While it estimates that driving 1 mile emits avout 0.1 kg of CO2. If that’s the case, 5 hours of TV is roughly equal 1 mile of driving. Interesting. Of course, if the grid has a higher percentage of renewables or the car is electric, that changes things.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  A year of an Energy Star-rated TV being on for 5 hours a day is equivalent to charging a Tesla Model 3 once.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    A 26” TV or an 80”?
ForHackernews 3y ago
How much does turning the TV off reduce energy consumption? I know some appliances waste nearly as much power in "standby" mode as they do during operation.
- bombcar 3y ago
  And during the times of the year when you heat the house, it’s often basically a wash - the energy goes into heat anyway.
  - pests 3y ago
    Unless you are heating the house with a heat pump.
BurningFrog 3y ago
Counter-argument: Beauty and art are important for human welfare and are worth spending resources on.
- mistercheph 3y ago
  Counter-counter-argument: Neither beauty nor art are available through Netflix's streaming platform.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    Solid argument
- qbasic_forever 3y ago
  Hang a freaking painting or photo.
  - throwawaylinux 3y ago
    Do you have any idea how much CO2 it takes to create and hang a painting or photo?
    - nevi-me 3y ago
      I assume that you incur the cost once and amortise it over the life of the photo/painting.
      - throwawaylinux 3y ago
        Still wasteful and frivolous. Imagine how many more people the globe could support if we stopped being so greedy and thoughtless with entertaining ourselves.
gerdesj 3y ago
I'm a Brit. We don't have air con by default. For a few years me and the wife had Floridian relos (Coral Springs). We visited in summer and the house is about 17C (65F). Outside it is at least 35C (95F). The air con unit in the garage is pissing water everywhere and under quite some load. I did ask why they kept the house so cold and was told "because we can". I got it: they had a really hard start off in life and were now able, through parental sacrifices etc, and their own hard work, be able to basically show off and keep their house cold in summer. I've seen the same in TX - my brother worked for EDS near Fort Worth a while back (20 years back). The attitude is the same there and again, I understand the individual stories of being able to conquer something that they could not growing up. Obviously you also get the "because we can" from multi millionaires too but for what sounds like a different reason but is really the same. In the UK we constantly get badgered about water use. The fucking stuff falls out of the sky with monotonous regularity. The place is a series of islands. The Atlantic is off to the left and that's a lot of water. What is really wrong is our management of the stuff. There is rather a lot of technical debt in our water management system and it will need real money to fix. Faffing about a TV isn't going to save the world - that bollocks is for politicians and fossil fuel companies to victim shame consumers instead of giving a shit. A TV uses eleccy and that can be solar/wind/unicorn farts or good old fashioned gas or liquidised puppies. My home's underfloor heating is eleccy and hence seriously expensive but I am told that my supplier - Shell Energy - only uses renewables to deliver it (Shell? RLY?). I originally signed up with a "green" supplier but they went bust along with a few other shyster energy suppliers hereabouts when the shit really hit the fan. Ukraine invasion nightmare. OPEC opportunistically taking the piss as usual and massive companies filling their boots post a pandemic. I can almost feel the pain in Saudi and Shell.
- resolutebat 3y ago
  Fun fact: average household electricity consumption in Florida is among the lowest in the US. [1] This is because heating generally requires more power than air-con, and indeed, the average British home uses 12,000 kWh on heating, vs. on the order of 8,000 for air-conditioning the the average Florida home. This is despite Florida using 4x more power for air-con than the US average, and that the average Florida home is a lot larger than an average UK home. [1] https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/reports/2009/state_briefs/pdf/fl.pdf https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/reports/2009/sta...
vineyardmike 3y ago
A typical 55” TV uses ~100 watts. That’s roughly 10 LED bulbs. That’s ~900 KWh/year A Tesla model S has between 60-100kwH battery depending on the model. So a TV can be powered for 1/10th-1/20th a year with one Tesla charge. In the US, our electricity generated ~0.85lbs of carbon emissions per kWh. Some places (California) can run part of the day entirely renewably. The EPA says a gallon of gas generates 20 lbs of carbon. A single car tank of 20g generates 400lbs, while a Tesla would generate 85lbs, and a year of TV would generate 765lbs. a model s Tesla has a 400m range, while the average American car has 22mpg, so that’s why I picked a 20g tank. If running the TV 24/7 stops 2 trips a year by making the home more pleasant, it’s a carbon positive. If those same people who like the “pretty photos” drive an electric car, each “tank equivalent” is 1/8th a year of TV.
- xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
  My country (just to the north of yours) produced ~0.0551lbs of carbon emissions per kWh. That works out to less than 50lbs, less than a Tesla charge for you. I certainly don't have my TV on all the time, but I don't think much of my energy consumption as it is predominantly renewable and ultimately the superfluous usage is negated by any unnecessary driving due to my car's combustion engine. If anything, the larger concern is almost always expense, as prices here are roughly the same as there. I don't have much of a point to make, just thought it was interesting to compare. My peers and I are pretty worried about the situation in the US, though.
  - vineyardmike 3y ago
    > My peers and I are pretty worried about the situation in the US, though TBH I'm not too worried. Not in the head-in-sand way, but in the optimism of the future way. The US largely has issues with coordination but tends to lurch in the right direction on things like this once momentum builds. The economics of it will inevitably lead to the healthy outcome, and enough people care to pressure big industries (slowly...). We've been rapidly converting to renewable energy lately, so we're starting to make big moves in the right direction. Thankfully we're a rich nation, and somehow have endless money to burn. It's hard to coordinate, since we have a geographically large nation to power, and an unfathomable appetite to use energy. I'm jealous of your nation, which seems to have a sensible populace and leadership, relatively high wealth, and a relatively constrained geography with ample sources of power.

dwaltrip 3y ago

What’s the relative impact of a mile driven vs. an hour of the tv being on? Edit: Hmmm. According to gpt-4, the average TV would incur about .02 kg of CO2 per hour of usage, assuming a typical electrical grid mix in the US. While it estimates that driving 1 mile emits avout 0.1 kg of CO2. If that’s the case, 5 hours of TV is roughly equal 1 mile of driving. Interesting. Of course, if the grid has a higher percentage of renewables or the car is electric, that changes things.

jeffbee 3y ago
A year of an Energy Star-rated TV being on for 5 hours a day is equivalent to charging a Tesla Model 3 once.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  A 26” TV or an 80”?

ForHackernews 3y ago

How much does turning the TV off reduce energy consumption? I know some appliances waste nearly as much power in "standby" mode as they do during operation.

bombcar 3y ago
And during the times of the year when you heat the house, it’s often basically a wash - the energy goes into heat anyway.
- pests 3y ago
  Unless you are heating the house with a heat pump.

BurningFrog 3y ago

Counter-argument: Beauty and art are important for human welfare and are worth spending resources on.

mistercheph 3y ago
Counter-counter-argument: Neither beauty nor art are available through Netflix's streaming platform.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Solid argument
qbasic_forever 3y ago
Hang a freaking painting or photo.
- throwawaylinux 3y ago
  Do you have any idea how much CO2 it takes to create and hang a painting or photo?
  - nevi-me 3y ago
    I assume that you incur the cost once and amortise it over the life of the photo/painting.
    - throwawaylinux 3y ago
      Still wasteful and frivolous. Imagine how many more people the globe could support if we stopped being so greedy and thoughtless with entertaining ourselves.

gerdesj 3y ago

I'm a Brit. We don't have air con by default. For a few years me and the wife had Floridian relos (Coral Springs). We visited in summer and the house is about 17C (65F). Outside it is at least 35C (95F). The air con unit in the garage is pissing water everywhere and under quite some load. I did ask why they kept the house so cold and was told "because we can". I got it: they had a really hard start off in life and were now able, through parental sacrifices etc, and their own hard work, be able to basically show off and keep their house cold in summer. I've seen the same in TX - my brother worked for EDS near Fort Worth a while back (20 years back). The attitude is the same there and again, I understand the individual stories of being able to conquer something that they could not growing up. Obviously you also get the "because we can" from multi millionaires too but for what sounds like a different reason but is really the same. In the UK we constantly get badgered about water use. The fucking stuff falls out of the sky with monotonous regularity. The place is a series of islands. The Atlantic is off to the left and that's a lot of water. What is really wrong is our management of the stuff. There is rather a lot of technical debt in our water management system and it will need real money to fix. Faffing about a TV isn't going to save the world - that bollocks is for politicians and fossil fuel companies to victim shame consumers instead of giving a shit. A TV uses eleccy and that can be solar/wind/unicorn farts or good old fashioned gas or liquidised puppies. My home's underfloor heating is eleccy and hence seriously expensive but I am told that my supplier - Shell Energy - only uses renewables to deliver it (Shell? RLY?). I originally signed up with a "green" supplier but they went bust along with a few other shyster energy suppliers hereabouts when the shit really hit the fan. Ukraine invasion nightmare. OPEC opportunistically taking the piss as usual and massive companies filling their boots post a pandemic. I can almost feel the pain in Saudi and Shell.

resolutebat 3y ago
Fun fact: average household electricity consumption in Florida is among the lowest in the US. [1] This is because heating generally requires more power than air-con, and indeed, the average British home uses 12,000 kWh on heating, vs. on the order of 8,000 for air-conditioning the the average Florida home. This is despite Florida using 4x more power for air-con than the US average, and that the average Florida home is a lot larger than an average UK home. [1] https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/reports/2009/state_briefs/pdf/fl.pdf https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/reports/2009/sta...

vineyardmike 3y ago

A typical 55” TV uses ~100 watts. That’s roughly 10 LED bulbs. That’s ~900 KWh/year A Tesla model S has between 60-100kwH battery depending on the model. So a TV can be powered for 1/10th-1/20th a year with one Tesla charge. In the US, our electricity generated ~0.85lbs of carbon emissions per kWh. Some places (California) can run part of the day entirely renewably. The EPA says a gallon of gas generates 20 lbs of carbon. A single car tank of 20g generates 400lbs, while a Tesla would generate 85lbs, and a year of TV would generate 765lbs. a model s Tesla has a 400m range, while the average American car has 22mpg, so that’s why I picked a 20g tank. If running the TV 24/7 stops 2 trips a year by making the home more pleasant, it’s a carbon positive. If those same people who like the “pretty photos” drive an electric car, each “tank equivalent” is 1/8th a year of TV.

xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
My country (just to the north of yours) produced ~0.0551lbs of carbon emissions per kWh. That works out to less than 50lbs, less than a Tesla charge for you. I certainly don't have my TV on all the time, but I don't think much of my energy consumption as it is predominantly renewable and ultimately the superfluous usage is negated by any unnecessary driving due to my car's combustion engine. If anything, the larger concern is almost always expense, as prices here are roughly the same as there. I don't have much of a point to make, just thought it was interesting to compare. My peers and I are pretty worried about the situation in the US, though.
- vineyardmike 3y ago
  > My peers and I are pretty worried about the situation in the US, though TBH I'm not too worried. Not in the head-in-sand way, but in the optimism of the future way. The US largely has issues with coordination but tends to lurch in the right direction on things like this once momentum builds. The economics of it will inevitably lead to the healthy outcome, and enough people care to pressure big industries (slowly...). We've been rapidly converting to renewable energy lately, so we're starting to make big moves in the right direction. Thankfully we're a rich nation, and somehow have endless money to burn. It's hard to coordinate, since we have a geographically large nation to power, and an unfathomable appetite to use energy. I'm jealous of your nation, which seems to have a sensible populace and leadership, relatively high wealth, and a relatively constrained geography with ample sources of power.