我應(yīng)該拔掉電器的插頭嗎?如果是這樣，我可以節(jié)省電費(fèi)嗎?

我應(yīng)該拔掉電器的插頭嗎?如果是這樣，我可以節(jié)省電費(fèi)嗎?

All things plugged in will bleed some energy. Called "standby" electricity loss because it's so often associated with electronics in standby or idle mode, it's also known as "phantom" or "vampire" electricity (for obvious reasons). Even turned off, many appliances keep drawing power. Same goes for all those chargers — whether or not a device is charging! That means the charger continues to use power even if your cell phone/portable vacuum/toothbrush/wireless drill isn't attached, let alone charging. Power supplies don't just convert energy; they consume it. Anything with a transformer — those black boxes on power cords — draws power as long as it's plugged in. And because of poor design, these boxes waste up to three-fourths of the electricity that passes through them.

所有充電的東西都會(huì)消耗一些能量。它被稱(chēng)為“待機(jī)”電損耗，因?yàn)樗?jīng)常與處于待機(jī)或空閑模式的電子設(shè)備有關(guān)，它也被稱(chēng)為“幽靈”或“吸血鬼”電(原因很明顯)。即使關(guān)掉電源，許多電器仍在吸電。同樣的道理也適用于所有的充電器——不管設(shè)備是否在充電!這意味著即使你的手機(jī)/便攜式吸塵器/牙刷/無(wú)線電鉆沒(méi)有連接，充電器也會(huì)繼續(xù)使用電力，更不用說(shuō)充電了。電力供應(yīng)不只是轉(zhuǎn)換能源;他們使用它。任何有變壓器的東西——電源線上的那些黑盒——只要插上電源就能吸電。由于設(shè)計(jì)不佳，這些盒子浪費(fèi)了高達(dá)四分之三的電力。

If it's plugged in, it's using energy. (Photo: Dream2551/Shutterstock)

The Natural Resources Defense Council says the cost of plugged-in but not used devices is about $165 per household, or $19 billion across the U.S. That amounts to about 44 million tons of carbon dioxide, or 4.6% of the country’s total residential electricity generation, points out The New York Times.

據(jù)《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》報(bào)道，美國(guó)自然資源保護(hù)委員會(huì)表示，未使用的嵌入式設(shè)備的成本約為每戶(hù)165美元，相當(dāng)于全美190億美元，相當(dāng)于4400萬(wàn)噸二氧化碳的排放，占美國(guó)住宅總發(fā)電量的4.6%。

Unplug 10 of those black box transformers and you save, depending on how much you pay for electricity, $20 a year. But add up the energy used when we are not using our TVs, stereos, cable boxes (all turned "off" but really in standby mode), computers, modems, routers, printers (these networks tend to be left on all the time), rechargeable devices (cellphones, computers, MP3s, cameras, wireless tools and vacuums, toys, cordless phones) and their transformers, and you get the equivalent of a year's output of 17 power plants. The oft-cited research by Alan Meier of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory finds that vampire energy accounts for about 5% of all residential electricity use.

拔掉10個(gè)這樣的黑盒子變壓器，你就可以省下每年20美元的電費(fèi)。但是當(dāng)我們不使用電視、音響、有線電視盒(都“關(guān)閉”但實(shí)際上在待機(jī)模式),計(jì)算機(jī)、調(diào)制解調(diào)器、路由器、打印機(jī)(這些網(wǎng)絡(luò)傾向于留在所有的時(shí)間),充電設(shè)備(手機(jī)、電腦、mp3、攝像頭、無(wú)線工具和真空吸塵器,玩具、無(wú)繩電話)時(shí)消耗的能量,相當(dāng)于17個(gè)發(fā)電廠一年的輸出。勞倫斯伯克利國(guó)家實(shí)驗(yàn)室的艾倫·邁耶經(jīng)常被引用的一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，吸血能源約占所有住宅用電的5%。

The Department of Energy sets the loss at 5% to 8% of a single family home's annual usage, which is an entire month's energy bill. That's a national average; take a walk through your home and count the number of devices you have plugged in (don't forget the washing machine) and you may find that you're spending 25% of your energy bill to feed vampires.

美國(guó)能源部設(shè)定的損失為單戶(hù)家庭年用電量的5%至8%，相當(dāng)于一個(gè)月的能源賬單。這是全國(guó)平均水平;在家里走一走，數(shù)一數(shù)你插上電源的設(shè)備(別忘了還有洗衣機(jī))，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)你要花25%的能源賬單來(lái)養(yǎng)活吸血鬼。

Good to know:

很高興知道:

If you're not using your computer, unplug it or at least turn off the monitor. And plug your phone into a power strip. (Photo: David M G/Shutterstock)

Use power strips: Instead of unplugging things one at a time, make the job easier with power strips. You can then switch off or unplug the strip to turn all the devices off at once — really, truly, actually off. There are all kinds of "smart" power strips on the market that make the task ever easier: strips with motion sensors (leave the house/office and it'll shut off all devices automatically); strips that have a few "always on" sockets, with the rest turned off as you please; and power strips that allow a master device to control the power use of its paraphernalia (turn on/off your computer or TV or stereo, and the peripherals are turned on/off too). In the meantime, I'm going to put my surge protectors on timers because, well, I don’t always remember to switch them off. OK, that's almost never remember, and at least this way they'll be off when I'm most likely to be sleeping.

使用電源線:不要一次拔一個(gè)插頭，使用電源線可以使工作更簡(jiǎn)單。你可以馬上關(guān)掉或拔掉所有的設(shè)備——真的,市場(chǎng)上有各種各樣的“智能”電源板,使任務(wù)更容易:運(yùn)動(dòng)傳感器(離開(kāi)家/辦公室,它會(huì)自動(dòng)關(guān)閉所有設(shè)備);有幾個(gè)“一直開(kāi)著”插座的接線板，其余的可以隨意關(guān)掉;和允許主設(shè)備控制其設(shè)備的電源使用的電源條(打開(kāi)/關(guān)閉您的計(jì)算機(jī)或電視或立體聲，和外設(shè)也打開(kāi)/關(guān)閉)。與此同時(shí)，我要把我的電源保護(hù)器設(shè)成定時(shí)器，因?yàn)?，嗯，我并不總是記得把它們關(guān)掉。好吧，這幾乎是從來(lái)沒(méi)有記住，至少這樣它們會(huì)在我最有可能睡覺(jué)的時(shí)候被關(guān)掉。

Your screen will be fine; save energy instead: Screen savers don't save energy. If you won't be using your computer and don't want to shut it down (but why?), turn off your monitor. I've read that we spend as much as $100 a year running screen savers. Along the same lines, you can reduce the energy consumption of your TVs and computers by dimming the screen: Reduce the brightness by half, and you can cut energy use by 30%.

你的屏幕效果會(huì)很好;而且節(jié)省能源:屏幕保護(hù)程序不節(jié)省能源。如果你不想用電腦，也不想關(guān)機(jī)(為什么?)，那就關(guān)掉顯示器吧。我聽(tīng)說(shuō)我們每年花費(fèi)100美元來(lái)運(yùn)行屏幕保護(hù)程序。同樣，你可以通過(guò)調(diào)暗屏幕來(lái)降低電視和電腦的能耗:將亮度降低一半，就可以減少30%的能耗。

Check yourself: Measure the electricity usage of all your appliances — on or off — and see for yourself which ones are the big suckers. A popular power monitors is Kill A Watt.

檢查你自己:測(cè)量你所有電器的用電量——開(kāi)著或關(guān)著——自己看看哪些是最耗電的。一種流行的電源顯示器會(huì)消耗一瓦。

Standby is better than on: Whether you consider vampires a threat or not, it's when things are turned on that they're consuming the most power, so turn them off even if you don't unplug!

待機(jī)狀態(tài)比開(kāi)機(jī)狀態(tài)好:不管你是否認(rèn)為吸血電是一種威脅，當(dāng)你開(kāi)機(jī)的時(shí)候，他們消耗的能量最多，所以即使你不拔電源也要把他們關(guān)掉!