When you’re ready to buy a new computer, cell phone, TV, or tablet, you have many choices. You probably do a lot of research and choose a model with the features that you need the most.
There’s one device that you probably own but didn’t get to choose: the set-top box that came with your cable or satellite subscription.
It turns out, these devices are energy hogs. In a typical household with two cable boxes, they consume as much electricity as your refrigerator, which is otherwise the leading household energy drain.
They are drawing energy whether you are watching TV or not. Unlike your computer, the set-top boxes don’t have a “sleep” mode. So even if you turn off the tube and go outside to enjoy nature, your cable box is still piling up the kilowatt hours. Turning the box off or unplugging it is not an option if you want to use its recording capability.
It takes nine coal-fired power plants just to fuel all of the cable boxes in the U.S.
It doesn’t have to be this way. European service providers are leading a charge to offer more energy-efficient boxes, and some American companies are doing the same. There is also a move to design whole-house solutions to replace multiple cable boxes. And some of the newer streaming devices, including Apple TV and Blu-ray players, are notably more energy-efficient than cable boxes.
We usually don’t get to choose our cable or satellite company. But what we can choose is to ask our service provider to start offering energy efficient cable boxes.
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Web Links
NRDC report on set-top box energy usage
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/files/settopboxes.pdf
Photo, taken on March 20, 2010, courtesy of Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. Support for Earth Wise comes from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY, with partial support from the Field Day Foundation.