The Cost of Convenience

A recent BBC News article spells out something that's concerned me for some time: that the cumulative effect of leaving all our electronic gadgets on standby is incredibly wasteful. The first time I ever thought about it was when I installed my external Zip drive in 1996, and noticed it didn't have an off button. It was so unusual I even wrote about it in a magazine article at the time; now it's so common I doubt anyone would blink.

If I look around my office, there are sixteen devices that are always drawing some kind of power. Three have clocks I'd rather not have to constantly reset, and ten have inconveniently located power buttons. My scanner, which I use less than ten minutes a week, has no power button.

So what to do? I guess until manufacturers make it easy for us to power down, we'll have to rely on devices like the Smart Strip.