Smart Charger for your iPhone and Blackberry
AT&T's ZERO smart charger
A few days ago we reported on the issue of standby power – that our homes and workplaces are populated with electronics that often consume energy even when they’ve been turned off. Nationally, such secretive parasites add 5-10% to our total electrical consumption. At the global level, one of the biggest culprits are cell phone chargers. Without diving into a nerdy discussion of electrical engineering, most chargers use essentially the same amount of power regardless of whether they’re recharging batteries or sitting idle. In fact, the lion’s share of a mobile phone’s carbon footprint lies not in the energy required to charge its battery, but in the endless hours that its charger will spend plugged into an outlet doing nothing. A small portion of consumers are fairly dedicated about removing their chargers from the outlet when it’s done, but most are simply unaware of the problem. Then there are those not unlike myself, who, however well intentioned or conservation-savvy, have occasionally forgotten to unplug said cell phone charger only to realize their absentmindedness many days, and watts, later. Whatever group of consumer you fall in, there’s good news as AT&T has announced that it will be offering a smart charger for its US customers at “dumb” charger prices. This is particularly good news for iPhone and Blackberry owners seeking to keep their carbon footprint as trim as possible.
While this announcement is actually two months old, we just ran into it today while visiting over at http://earth2tech.com/ and thought we’d pass it along. This is a relative first for US mobile phone service providers and hopefully represents a sign of things to come. If the whole issue of fretting over cell phone chargers sounds trivial, keep in mind that there are an estimated 4.6 billion cell phones in use around the globe (and that’s continuing to climb).
Marc Swanson
The good news about Going Green is that lowering your carbon footprint = saving money, not the other way around. Just like the smart charger, our expertise lies in delivering to you the necessary information to intelligently lower your energy usage (and without having to give up your car or electricity.) Get an idea of what you could save.
Marc Swanson
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