The Energy Wasters Report

FYI fast food nation: Every time you go to a drive through, you burn about 18 cents worth of gas idling your car. To use Burger King as an example, about 70% of their restaurant revenue comes from drive-thru business, according to the Associated Press. With $2B of annual revenue, and an average order size […]

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Cambridge University’s Sustainable Manufacturing Group is out with a study, “Well Dressed,” which analyzes the environmental life cycle costs of clothes, including the energy consumed in producing, washing and drying them. It turns out we cycle through a lot more clothes, and consume a lot more energy to support them, than our parents or grandparents […]

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Europeans are buying bigger and bigger cars, offsetting their other reduction efforts.

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting report on Jan 20th about how despite being focused on carbon emissions reductions, Europeans are buying bigger and bigger cars, offsetting their other reduction efforts. In fact, the European Commission’s president, who’s been giving stump speeches about […]

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BBC News is reporting that the appliance and gadget-packed homes of single men are the worst energy wasters in England and Wales. According to the journal Environment, Development and Sustainability, unmarried men in the 35-44 age group consume 13% more energy and use about 6% more space than one person householders aged over 60.

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CNET is out with a comprehensive survey of how much power the latest big and small screen TVs consumer, both running and in standby mode - and how much that power can cost per year (ranging from $13 to $145 a year for the bigger TVs).

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Over 50 billion soda cans were thrown away in the US in 2001 (vs. being recycled), according to the Container Recycling Institute. The energy required to replace those cans, according to the report’s author, was the equivalent of 16 million barrels of crude oil–enough to meet the electricity needs of all the homes in Chicago, […]

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Gamesindustry.biz reports that while the original PlayStation leaked just 0.2W - accounting for some 1.752kWh wasted each year - the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 both leak a massive 2W, or 17.52kWh each year. Doh! No word on PS3 leakage, if and when it ever emerges.

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