Think about the "vampire electronics" in your kitchen -- all of those blenders, coffee pots, toasters and toaster ovens that are sucking down power simply because they're plugged into an outlet. These electronics gobble an estimated 5% to 10% of all the electricity used in U.S. homes, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
This sounds like a pretty solid idea. Simply unplugging some appliances in the house if they are "vampire electronics" could save a great deal of money in electric bills. I really don't see a downside to something like this other than that the product is faulty or defective. I mean sure the electric companies might lose some profit here and there, but economically overall it can do nothing but good. People will save some money and will be able to use those savings to go buy stuff. Which in turn just keeps the ball rolling in the market.
8 comments:
How would this affect demand for electricity? How would this affect the overall market demand for country?
Don't you think that the parts that make the cord light up are taking unnecessary electricity thus negating at least a portion of the proposed benefit?
To Smith, the demand for electricity will most likely shift the quantity demand about the same. If people are saving money on electricity then there really wouldn't be an increase in demand for electricity. Overall it may affect the market demand for the country in a positive way. I really don't see it shifting up or down at all. Unless there is reason I'm not thinking about right now that may increase/decrease the demand for electricity.
To kern, there may be part of the cord that light it up that take up unnecessary electricity yes, but it is probably miniscule compared to the amount of energy saved. I didn't make the product nor do I know exactly how much electricity is needed to power the lights so i cannot say if said product eats a large amount of electricity or not. I would think that it doesn't seeing as one of the major reasons of creating such a cord is to save energy.
In regard to the question about the demand: If (before the cord) people have a lot of energy vampire products, their electric bill is a certain amount of money. Then they get the cord and know when to unplug the cord, saving them money. They could spend this on other things, or they might use up the extra electricity with other things (like turning on the lights during the day instead of using natural light)if that's more convenient and they could manage the bill before. In that way, it might increase demand for electricity.
I agree with Garrett. The fact that the whole point of the new cord is to save electricity, the ability for the cord to light up probably uses a very small ammount of energy. But, if people just unplugged the cords they had before when they werent being used, wouldnt that save energy too?
This new technology is probably a very smart idea but costs as much purchasing as it would for the electric bill of the "vampire products." Is it as safe as the other cords? Wouldn't this cord become extremely warm during the use? If this were truly a good substitute project, why would it not be advertised more?
I think the idea behind this product is worth more then this device itself. With this idea of visual active power usage monitoring that is easy to comprehend it will be easier for everyday common people to understand were all that energy is going. If every product that you plugged into the wall had this type of power cord you could see what products are vampire products and should be unplugged when not being used. I see this idea potentially cutting energy consumption and intern helping the environment at the same time.
Post a Comment