Is it more energy efficient to charge a phone/tablet using a desktop/laptop while your computer is being used vs using the charger?
Is it more energy efficient to charge a phone/tablet using a desktop/laptop while your computer is being used vs using the charger?
I was just thinking if you are on your computer anyway would it just use some of the excess electricity that your computer would have wasted or would it be worse than charging your phone from a charger while using your laptop separately.
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It reaaaaaally doesn’t matter. If you charged your phone from empty to full every day it might cost you a dollar. Per year.
I was just curious also I was more thinking of energy efficiency for environmental reasons.
Not to discourage such thoughts in the future, but your single post asking here probably used up more electricity than what you would save over the course of the next ten years.
I know the fediverse needs a green push and some instances are using renewable energy but really 10 years worth from one post?
It was a bit of a hyperbole, I have no idea about the exact amount.
Let's say you charge your 2000mAh battery every day and your PSU is 10% more efficient than your charger (the difference is most likely not even this big).
2Ah × 5V x 356d= 3.56kwh
3.56kwh × 0.1 = 356Wh
356Wh would be the difference per year, that's about 12ct per year.
Now estimating the power usage for fediverse messages is very hard to do since it depends on a lot of different factors (your device, cellular or WiFi data, amount of hops needed to reach you, general state of your nearby network, your instances infrastructure).
The only even remotely similar thing I could find was emails with pictures producing about 20-40g CO2, which only slightly increases with more recipients, and Reddit usage comes at about 2.5g per minute. Comparing these two numbers just shows that all estimates done are pretty much useless for us since we have no idea how they are done.
But if we go with a low estimate of 0.1g (slightly above SMS and somewhere around spammail level) per user seeing it and a few hundred to a thousand users seeing this even if they just scroll past, we reach the CO2 equivalent of 1kWh pretty fast without even talking about long term storage and future indexing. Not to mention that comments produce something too since they need to be federated, albeit not so much as the post itself.
So while 10 years was a bit much, 2-3 years would be very much in the realm of possibilities, but no one knows or can even properly estimate the actual numbers.
I think that's more about the scale than it is about the fediverse.
Effectively you're asking about a quarter cup of water where the answer isn't even clear. Wireless charging is a bit wasteful though.
I still appreciate your asking, because there's been interesting discussion in the answers.
In that case, you can make it a point to charge when the grid is “cleaner” - usually overnight. Your electricity costs may be cheaper then anyway.
The Apple Home app shows a grid forecast for your location, with cleaner times highlighted in green. I’m sure they pull this info from the utility company, so the info should be available in other smart home apps or maybe even your utility’s website.
But like others said, phone charging is very minimal. We’re talking about a 20W charger vs. say, a 1500W air fryer. Running larger appliances off-hours is a bigger deal - dishwasher, laundry, etc.
Overnight? I thought it would be cleaner during the day because that is when the sun shines. I haven't had an Iphone in a while but I will have a look into grid forecasts. I still use an air fryer not sure what the the wattage is though I would assume it is similar to an oven.
Kinda depends on where you live but there often is an excess of hydro and wind power overnight.