After thinking about what I wanted to give up, I decided I would give up TV.
Why
I picked this as my action because I watch a lot of TV. I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. By not watching TV, I would have more time to do other things, such as homework, blogging and, last but not least, sports.
How it helps the environment
I have an LCD Samsung 32 inch 120 watt TV in my basement, hooked up to an Xbox 360 with a 175wat max and a Sony 42 inch 180 watt TV in my living room. Disconnecting them will help the environment by cutting down on electricity consumption in my house.
- Water is diverted from rivers in the processes used by hydroelectric, geothermal, nuclear and other energy plants. This changes the natural water cycle, causing droughts and dry land.
- When used for cooling nuclear power plants, the returned water causes problems for eco-systems, such as algae bloom.
- Fossil fuels are burned to generate electricity. The burning of the fossil fuels releases carbon into the atmosphere. This causes the greenhouse effect and contributes to global warming. It can also cause smog and acid rain.
How much energy will be saved
I calculated how much energy I use while I’m playing my games or watching TV, how much I use on an average day and how much I will be saving now that I’m powering off.
My xbox is on for a lot of the time after I get home from school. I estimate the average is 6 hours a day. I can recount many times that I have had it on even when I’m not really doing anything with it. I feel pretty bad about this after seeing the huge number of watts I produce. I also have that stupid energy sucking cable box that a hardly use but its always plugged in which will go into the standby part of my calculation.
I looked up some Xbox review to see how much energy it uses while in various modes like gaming, movies, idle, and standby. In gaming/movie mode it uses on average 175 watts and in idle it uses 157 watts. After I saw this I began to think about how much more energy I use when I watch netflix on my xbox (175 w/h) compared to cable (65 w/h) that’s almost three times the energy. I found that my cable box is constantly sucking 11.6 watts per hour all day long! Who knew the cable box is such a power drainer? I have two of them in my house ones a PVR and although I didn’t find any statistics specifically for my PVR it probably uses even more.
Playing xbox on my Samsung TV: 120w + 175w = 295w
Watching TV on my Samsung TV: 120w + 65W = 185w
All idle: 4w + 11.6w + 2.5 = 18w (surprising)
Power on
Hours of power on xbox: 6
Hours of power on TV: 6
Energy used for xbox and TV for 6 hours: 1770w
Standby
Hours of standby on xbox: 18
Hours of standby on xbox: 18
Energy used for xbox + TV for 18 hours: 324w
Energy used over 3 weeks: 43974w
My commitment
This means that I will power off my xbox, cable box, and my TV for the next 3 weeks. I'm going to be unplugging them from the wall to ensure they do not use any standby energy. I can't stop other people from watching TV in my own house, so I'm only unplugging my electronics. If I do feel like watching TV, I will replace that with sports and other activities above. I will only be watching it if I go out to the movies or at a friends house. If someone is watching TV in my house, it is breaking the rules to sit with them.
The hardest thing
The hardest thing will be to not watch TV when someone else is watching TV at my house. I've already tried to stop watching TV and when I hear my Grampa watching it at full blast, it temps me to see what is on.
Get started
So, starting now I have unplugged my TV, my xbox and my cable box.
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