“That coffee you’re drinking while gazing at your iPad? It cost more than all the electricity needed to run those games, emails, videos and news stories for a year,” Jonathan Fahey reports for The Associated Press.
“The annual cost to charge an iPad is just $1.36, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a non-profit research and development group funded by electric utilities,” Fahey reports. “By comparison, a 60-watt compact fluorescent bulb costs $1.61, a desktop PC adds up to $28.21 and a refrigerator runs you $65.72.”
Fahey reports, “If the number of iPads triples from the current 67 million, they would need the electricity from one small power plant operating at full strength. But if people are using iPads instead of televisions to play video games, or ditching their desktop computers for iPads, the shift to tablets could mean lower overall power consumption. A desktop computer uses 20 times more power than an iPad.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Paging the Greenpeace dullards… Greenpeace free-PR addicts…
Hmm, AWOL. Must be chained to a tree or something.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
The dullards will show up just as soon as they stir from their opiate state long enough to come up with a Bizarro spin to this story.
The cost to run a computer should have an Adobe Flash and non Adobe Flash version to see the cost of maxing out computer processors and fans in order to run a short video clip.
Plus, unlike nearly every other computer program on the planet, Flash still consumes resources when not in use.
Yep. I always know when I’ve started to watch a video made in Flash on my MBP. I hear that familiar, slowly increasing, whining sound and my fans are headed up above 4,000 and the left side gets scorching hot. Great job Adobe.
@MDN’s take… Love it!
(ignoring the content of the article) but where is the energy coming from?? coal this! green house gas that!
Michael,
Are you sure? I’m pretty sure a large part, if not all coming into my house is from sources other then coal where I live. That green flag you are waving is getting old and has tathered.
“Chained to a tree”, too funny MDN.
In Australia it’s more like 7 dollars.
And how much does it cost to run a refrigerator?
Wow. That’s pretty interesting and cool.
LMAO @ “chained to a tree”!!!
Mdn hates nature. Lets kill It all.
That was quite the leap. You should try out for the Olympics.
Greenpeace take note of this, next time you’re ranting on Apple.
Im pretty sure green peace gets the credit for how little power the iPad uses, right? They put the pressure on apple AND IT WORKED!! WE DID IT WOOOOOOO
Even the dumbest Greenpeace dullard can see the fallacy in this argument. Even if an iPad used half the energy of a dim bulb, it still is a net gain if it doesn’t replace some other electronic device. That certainly isn’t the case in my home. We still have our TV and our Macs and yada yada. Also, the piece ignores the energy to manufacture and distribute and dispose of the old iPad when the new one comes out in 6 months.
Let’s be clear.
Don’t say “iPad uses half the energy of a dim bulb.”
Say “iPad uses half the energy of the average Greenpeace member.”
Much clearer and to the point. And it’s saying the same thing anyway.
Actually it should be free for everyone that doesn’t reside in Australia as we are subsidizing it by paying $24 per tonne for carbon tax. Well done Julia Gizzard and her troupe of circus clowns