Carbon Cutters - Gadgets

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Running on Empty

Required reading:

Chris Goodall "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life"

Richard Heinberg "The Party's Over"

George Monbiot "Heat"

Required watching:

The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil - DVD

The End of Suburbia - Oil Depletion & the Collapse of the American Dream - DVD

The Revolution

This is a revolution. If you want to shut an airport then stop flying. Want an end to factory farming? Grow your own. An end to pollution? Change to renewables. An end to war & poverty? Microgenerate. Life for your childen? Stop needing oil. YOU have THIS Power. You do not need Government. Seize the initiative. Bring democracy to your community. Be an example to your children. Take responsibility. Change for good today.

Gadgets and Gizmos

In some ways gadgets and gizmos are the very antithesis of Powerdown in that we should be simplifying things - not making things more complicated. We should get away from the idea that we can just plug in another technological solution and our problems disappear. It would be nice if such 'magic bullets' exist. They do not.

However, you can cut down on your power usage with a few simple devices that really should be fitted as standard in every home. On our "Power Monitoring" page we looked at a couple of devices that will help us measure our usage. One we know where it all goes we can start to massage down the usage and waste. The devices on this page should help....

No more junk, Please!

On this page we will try to convey our experiences with using a small selection of energy saving gadgets. It is only a small selection. We cannot advise anyone to collect these things compulsively - although they can make great gifts! However, if someone would like it as a gift then its usefulness will be limited. We can track a close correlation between our society's "gifts" and our "useless junk". Most of what we give each other is - let's face it - crap & waste. So think hard about those gifts first. It is often better just to buy your friends and families trees.

The items listed here are ones chosen because they are, essentially, technical in nature. They don't make massive savings but even a few percentage points over a long enough time will save Fossil Fuels. Always be conscious of the embedded energy in these devices and the transport of them from a far-way factory. Don't drive for miles shopping for them. Let the internet take the strain and get them delivered to your door.

Bye Bye Standby

The premier Powerdown device! It simply switches stuff off! Brilliant! Is your home littered with appliances, Computers, TV and home entertainment systems that have no off switch? Is the only way to switch them off to move furniture to get at the socket? Do you have small children who love buttons and keep switching stuff on and off? Concerned about the fire hazard of so much electrical stuff always on? Sound familiar? Worried about the total Standby Power usage of all this junk?

We used a Power Monitor to measure the Standby Power usage of fifteen devices (in Carbon Cutters HQ - just an average three bedroom house in the UK), that could be isolated with Bye Bye Standby, and the it came to 72 watts! It really adds up. You could easily light half your house with CFL's and use less power! What a waste.

So what does Bye Bye Standby do? How does it work? It was actually never developed for the Energy Saving-conscious. It was an off-shoot of the Home Automation hobby. It is otherwise known as "Domia Lite". They simply rebranded it and repackaged it to open up an entirely new market for themselves. Those marketing people are dead clever.

It uses wireless frequencies to remotely switch devices off at the plug. You have a choice of three different types of remote control. It works on sixteen separate frequencies so you can control areas of your house as a variety of different zones giving you more flexibility. All you need is to put one of their special plugs between your appliances and the normal wall socket. This would be expensive if it only allowed you to plug in one appliance. Thankfully you can use a strip gang of four sockets to multiple the devices it can be used with. The instructions warn against using more than four appliances with one BBSB plug but there is no good reason for that. These plugs are rated to switch a far higher amperage that you could possibly load it with for most appliances. Just don't plug in multiple 3kw fires or kettles! As a rule of thumb you can load each plug with 12 appliances as long as these are only TV's, Stereo, Computers, Peripherals, DVD's, etc.

The Instructions also warn you not to plug the BBSB Plugs into anything other than a wall socket. However we have tried it with gang socket strips to no ill effect. Again, apply common sense and do not overload your sockets. The BBSB Units are quite robust and will take plenty of punishment. Just don't push your luck. One note of genuine warning though. Of the two remotes we used both batteries ran out within weeks of installation. We first feared that there was a large drain on them but the replacement batteries have lasted ever since. We think they fitted extremely cheap batteries in the retail packs with practically no life to them. The Batteries for these things sadly are not the rechargeable type. They are much small than AAA's in most remotes meaning you have to throw them away. This is a hangover from their origins as "Domia Lite". We look forward to a 'greener' alternative in future that will take conventional rechargeable batteries.

One final point (in case you are wondering). We tested the BBSB Plugs for Standby Wattage and couldn't detect anything. For this reason we heartily recommend Bye Bye Standby - but hope they improve it in future.

Other Techy-Gadgets

Intelliplug - this shuts down your PC's peripherals at the mains socket when you switch the computer off
PowerSafer - this shuts of the Standby drain from your TV. It essentially works the same way as Intelliplug - we think
Solar Battery rechargers
"Standby Buster" - basically the same as Bye Bye Standby. Recommended by the EST

Millablog

Hi there! My Daddy has tried the gadgets on this page. Every now and again he gets a little package in the post which he eagerly plugs in. However the effect is never very dramatic. We save a little bit here and a little bit there. The problem is Daddy doesn't really know whether these things work or not. They could even be making things worse not better. Oh, the work of pioneers. Don't quit!

Resource

EPS 188 and 388

The EPS 188 and 388 are Household Voltage and Current optimisation gadgets. The 188 is for 3 bedroom houses and the 388 for house with four or more bedrooms. They do what they do through a "combination of filtration and correction techniques" but the instructions do not elaborate. Correction devices are used in Industry especially in environments with lots of electric motors and transformers. This machinery distort the mains voltage causing energy to be wasted as the electromagnetic coils heat up more than necessary. These Industrial EPSystems reduce the current drawn from the mains. However it is unclear if these "EPS" devices work on the same principle or whether they will have any effect upon household power drain. They could just be some kind of scam. An empty box with a plug and an LED.

To test the "scam" theory we plugged an EPS into our trusty Power Monitor. The result of the experiment was interesting if not scientific. The Watts drawn varied between nothing and 2. So it did appear to be doing something. Of course we can't tell what. We invite the makers of the EPS to write in (via our Contacts Page) and tell us exactly how this works. Although we do not have any equipment sensitive to measure a claimed 10 to 20% drop in energy usage per appliance we can only say, anecdotally, that we found many appliances with a standby wattage so low it couldn't be measured. Indeed many power supplies around the house (transformers) run quite cool. This would suggest the EPS is doing its job. However, it remains a difficult thing to recommend without an independent scientific review. If it really works then every home should have one by law.

SavaPlug

This is a plug that you wire in to replace the plug to your Fridge. It is claimed to reduce the cost of running your fridge by 20%. It works by stopping the refrigerant pump from running unnecessarily on full power. It limits the surge to match the fridge's actual requirement. Obviously we expect most modern fridges to have this technology already installed if they are to make their "A" Rating.

You cannot use the SavaPlug in commercial environments or on fridges with digital displays or motorised ice/drink dispensers. A full list of such fridges can be found at the windtrap.co.uk web site where we purchased our review sample.

Although the SavaPlug is "Award Winning" - like the EPS it comes with no documented independent third party proof that it works. We have no way of proving it does anything. Until we can find an independent review of this showing it to work then we hesitate to recommend the SavaPlug. Once again we invite anyone out there to provide us with this evidence.

Gadgets as Gifts

The ECO Kettle - like a normal kettle but it allows you to more precisely measure the water that goes into it because it has a non-boiling chamber. We say - save your money!
Wind-Up Radio - a great idea for the great outdoors. If you like Radio. We don't. We prefer peace and quiet.
Windup Torch - probably more useful
Water powered clocks & calculators - how do these things work?! We think that the energy is in the chemicals stored in the battery. It is released by the water - hence a waste of money.

References:	References

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