How Much Electricity Does a Netgear Wireless Router Use?

We are all pretty much using wireless internet, I have had my wireless router for almost 3 years now, and Im sure that many people never switch them off (just like me), so how much electricity do they use?

Netgear Wireless Router DG834GT - 10W

Assuming you do not turn your router off, this would equate to 0.24kWh / day and 87.6kWh annually, costing approximately £10 per year to run and emitting 48kg of CO2. If you can compare the consumptions of the product before you purchase, this might be an idea to save a few pounds a year and a few kg of CO2 for each watt saved. Approximately there are 12m households in the UK with a broadband connection, if each of these used wi-fi and never turned it off we would be using 2880MWh per day, and in a year collectively spend £135m per annum, and emit 102 000 tonnes of CO2.

For information on the electricity consumption of other products check out "How Much Electricity Does a ... Use?"

Please Note the energy use figures are taken from an energy monitor and are not scientifically analysed, therefore the range and margin of error is greater. If you would like a specific product tested let us know and we will endeavour to check it out.

Picture: Nicole Cooke Winning Gold in Road Race

British cycling has now seen two medals, one gold for Nicole Cooke in the women's road race, two days ago and this morning Britain's second silver of the games by Emma Pooley in the women's time trials. An excellent performance by both. Will this collosal achievement captivate people in the UK to get on their bikes and ride, if not for a Gold medal in 2012, but to get to work, any promotion for cycling is a positive step, and surely this must be the gold medal for Cycle England.

Greenwashing is Unacceptable

Oil giant Shell misled the public when it claimed in an advertisement that its giant $10bn oil sands project in northern Canada was a "sustainable energy source", according to the Advertising standards authority.

The tar sands cover over 140,000 square kilometres of Alberta and contain nearly 173bn barrels of oil in the form of bitumen. This is strip-mined from vast open pits and the bitumen is then heated, using far larger amounts of energy than in normal oil operations, therefore causing greater carbon dioxide emissions.

A recent report suggested that the production of oil from tar sands can create up to eight times as many emissions as producing conventional oil.In one of the most significant "greenwash" rulings in some years, the independent body responsible for regulating UK advertising upheld a complaint from green campaign group WWF that Shell's advert in the Financial Times was "misleading".

This isn't the first time that Shell has been caught misleading the public about it's environmental performance, in November 2007, Friends of the Earth filed a complaint after viewing a Shell ad that showed flowers spouting from the chimney of an oil refinery, suggesting the company used all of its CO2 waste for beneficial purposes like flower growing. Shell actually uses only 0.325% of its CO2 waste in this way. The ads also claimed that the company’s waste sulphur was used as a concrete strengthening agent. Surprisingly, this was also not the case. An immensely small amount of sulphur waste is used for this purpose.

The ASA declared the ads misleading. They forced Shell to immediately withdraw the advertisement and promise not to use it in the future.

The ASA also ruled that Shell's construction of the world's largest refinery in Texas, also mentioned in the advertisement, was not helping sustainable energy production.

Related Articles
Tesco and Local Produce
BMW Efficient Dynamics
Fast Food with a Conscience

Scores on the Car Doors

Beginning January 1, 2009 all new cars sold in California will carry a label which clearly informs consumers of the state's assessment of the vehicle's environmental impact.

The new regulation signed into law last month by the Secretary of State, creates a simple ranking system that will provide consumers with practical information that can be used to choose the most environmentally friendly vehicle that meets their transportation needs. Showroom models displaying these labels have already started to appear.

Related Articles
Fuel Economy Label
European Energy Label
Can You Afford to Fill Up?