Study: Greedy Gadgets Suck Global Resources

A new study from the International Energy Agency predicts that by 2030, the energy demands of gadgets globally will collectively drain an amount of electricity equivalent to the total power consumption of two of the world's largest developed countries.

According to the intergovernmental organization, consumer gear currently accounts for 15 percent of household electricity consumption, and its share of the total is rapidly rising. Without new policies, noted IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka, the energy consumed by high-tech gear will double by 2022 and increase threefold by 2030.

"This increase up to 1700 TWh is equivalent to the current combined total residential electricity consumption of the United States and Japan," Tanaka said. "It would also cost households around the world $200 billion in electricity bills and require the addition of approximately 280 gigawatts of new generating capacity between now and 2030."

New Policies Required

The good news is that higher-efficiency technologies are already available that could cut this demand in half, Tanaka noted. "Many mobile devices are already far more efficient in their use of power than other devices which run off a main electricity supply. Because extending the battery life of a mobile device is a selling point, manufacturers place an emphasis on designing products which require very little power."

However, Tanaka believes that little will be accomplished in the area of world energy consumption reductions without government intervention. "Without new policies, the projected energy demand from information and communications technologies and consumer electronics will undermine our energy security and climate change mitigation," Tanaka said.

Government intervention is needed because consumers currently are not well informed about the problem and have little personal economic incentive to reduce gadget power consumption when their individual use is so small, Tanaka noted. Moreover, the entire gadget supply chain is currently geared toward delivering products with...