Friday, 6 July 2007

New Gadgets Cause Of Environment Damage

Most new gadgets today cause more environmental damage by way of consuming more power than traditional products do, a new study said...

Most new gadgets today cause more environmental damage by way of consuming more power than traditional products do, a new study said.

The Energy Saving Trust said the new 'ICE age' (Information, Communication, Entertainment) was undermining efforts to manage domestic energy demand.

The popularity of digital radios, flat screen TVs and laptops increased the threat of climate change, it said.

The report said by 2020 'ICE age' technology would account for almost 50 per cent of electricity used in homes.

Noel Williams of the Energy Saving Trust said, "While owners' backs are turned, gadgets like televisions, computers, set top boxes and video recorders are spending billions of hours sucking up electricity.”

"With trends such as listening to the radio through TV and PC on the increase, it's highly unlikely that consumers realise that this uses far more energy than conventional means, or that digital radios use almost as much energy in the standby mode as they do while switched on.

"What's more, a new flat panel TV can use up to three times more electricity than a 'traditional' TV."

Just take a look at LCD devices. They need to be backlit to brighten up and this consumes a lot of power. There are new sources of flat panel technologies such as OLED that don’t need to be backlit, however it will still take sometime for these OLEDs to be commercially viable.