(1) The International Energy Agency estimates new electronic gadgets will triple their energy consumption by 2030 to 1,700 terawatt hours, the equivalent of today’s home electricity consumption of the United States and Japan combined.
(2) Electronic gadgets already account for about 15 percent of household electric consumption, a share that is rising rapidly as the number of these gadgets multiplies. Last year, the world spent $80,000,000,000 on electricity to power all these household electronics, and that is projected to rise to $200,000,000,000 a year by 2030.
(3) Most of the increase in consumer electronics will be in developing countries, where economic growth is fastest and ownership rates of gadgets is the lowest.
(4) This proliferation in the use of devices will jeopardize efforts to increase the energy security of the United States and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
(5) The cost to business is even higher. Power consumed by the typical corporate data center is growing by 20 percent per year. Existing technologies could slash gadgets’ energy consumption by more than 30 percent at no cost or by more than 50 percent at a small cost, meaning that total greenhouse gas emissions from households’ electronic gadgets could be held stable at around 500,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.
(6) Many governmental policies and programs, such as the Energy Star program, in the United States are already missing the opportunity to deliver 20 percent to 50 percent more savings, due to poor attention to implementation. Most such programs are voluntary, and need to be improved with both clear mandates and incentives.
U.S. Congress - Text of H.R.5070 as Introduced in House Smart Electronics Act
