Have you ever thought about the energy consumption of your iron ? If not, others have…and the results can be surprising.
We often talk about the ecological impact of digital technology, smartphones, cars, heating, etc. At the same time, we hear less often (if ever?) about the sobriety of ironing, and yet…
Twenty minutes of ironing = 260,000 HD hours
It was Pierre Beyssac, spokesperson for the Pirate Party, who made this interesting calculation comparing the energy impact of ironing with that of HD video. On Twitter, he says that a 2,000 watt iron that heats up 25% of the time and runs for twenty minutes uses about 166 watt hours (formula: 2,000 watts x 20/60 x 1/4 = 166 watt hours).
In comparison, a streaming server consumes 500 watts for 800,000 streams, or 500 watt hours for 800,000 one-hour streams. With a third of that, it can ship 260,000 streams.
He then concludes that in twenty minutes of ironing, you burn the equivalent of 260,000 hours of HD (energy on the Netflix side) or eighty hours on mobile, or two hours on a big screen TV “. Simply put, your iron consumes more than your Netflix server.
Moreover, if we want to push the comparison, 166 watt hours is also the energy needed to charge a phone to 100% 10 times.
What can we learn from this calculation?
His Twitter post was quick to draw comments and criticism from netizens – with some disagreeing with the principle of comparing a necessity device with a leisure service, and others supporting the information.
But there is one important thing to remember about this post: it does not in any way impose a boycott of ironing, but to take a step back from our habits. In addition, Pierre Beyssac criticizes here above all the perpetual injunctions to watch fewer videos, when other stations can in fact consume more than we believe.
Moreover, the calculation is not absolute. The energy consumption of a streaming service is not limited to the server. Other elements of the infrastructure consume, such as the terminal, the network, etc. On the other hand, we don’t necessarily always iron for twenty minutes and not every day. It is therefore a comparison to be taken with tweezers!
Source : Twitter
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