Gadgets in the times of scarcity

Go visiting a friend and chances are that the talk will veer around to some new acquisition, a gadget. Guest and host will discuss the new models, the tricks it has up its sleeve, the price, and so on. Very rarely will the discussion touch on the aspect of efficiency or power use!

In developed countries this is more so, but developing nations with fast rising aspirations are catching up on their electric toothbrushes, smartphones, big fridges, flatscreen TV, tablet PCs. In the UK, a report from the Energy Savings Trust has warned of the nation falling below meeting its target on reducing emissions if this gadget craze continues.

The number of domestic gadgets and appliances in the average UK household increased by three and a half times between 1990 and 2009, according to the report, and overall energy consumption from consumer electronic goods rose by more than 600% between 1970 and 2009.

The new report finds that despite householders' efforts to switch to energy-efficient products, we are actually consuming more energy than five years ago, with almost a third of all the UK's carbon emissions coming from the home.
The proliferation of new gadgets such as laptops, tablets and powerful desktops shows no sign of abating, however. Between 2000 and 2009 electricity use from home computing more than doubled, and the number of devices in Britain's homes rose from 30,000 to 65,000!

This could well be the truth for most cities across the globe. The cost of running gadgets is often forgotten given the cheap and subsidised rate of fossil backed power. This awareness must be strengthened if homes are to stop being energy guzzlers.