4 ms·

Scale matters though: there are about 15 billion mobile phones in use, which means an theoretical excess power usage of 90 terrawatt-hours; about a week's worth

• jodrellblank 3y ago
  I doubt there are 15 billion mobile phones in enough use that they are fully discharged and charged every two days. That's two for every person on the planet including including the 2Bn who are under 14 and including the billion who have no access to electricity. In electricity terms, a power shower can be 5-10KW so what you're talking about - the phone charge waste - is the equivalent of running one at 4KW for 7 seconds longer. Who is campaigning to get people to shave 30 seconds off their shower time? Compare with the amount of money, energy waste, heat waste, pollution, of driving every journey less than 3 miles which could plausibly be biked or walked or bussed or trammed - between North America and Europe closing in on a billion people, estimate 20% of them driving 3 miles every 3 days and we're in the region of 200,000,000 miles of unnecessary driving every day and tens of millions of litres of gas/diesel burned