Isabella Gronchi
Prof. Grimaldo
Persuasive Speech N°1
13 Feb. 2012
Vampires are pretty cool aren’t they? Especially those on movies who are really hot and evil, right? Yet,
there’s one type of vampire I seriously dislike and that’s vampire energy. Vampire energy is another
term for standby power, the electricity used by appliances and equipment while they are switched off or
not performing their primary function.
So, why the term vampire energy? Well, vampire refers to the little black cubes, like those of chargers,
which have two teeth (the plugs) that "suck" electricity all night.
Almost everything we use at home and at work draws standby power; electric clocks, TVs, microwaves,
chargers, computers, and many others. They draw power so that they are readily available when we
want to use them. For example, take the TV. We power it with our remote controls. But in order for it to
be ready as soon as our control signals it to turn on, it must remain somewhat on or aware.
But, why is this important? Well, did you know that standby power costs more than $10 billion to the
U.S. economy each year? If a million computers were switched off, it would save almost the equivalent
of 250 thousand liters of gasoline a day. Standby power releases 3.1 million tons of CO2 each year in the
UK alone, thus increasing global warming enormously. Sounds really serious right? I definitely think it
does and it is so easy to stand up and disconnect your cell phone or laptop charger after using it that I
don’t understand how standby power has reached these enormous proportions. Actually, I do
understand; the cause is people’s laziness and I speak from experience. I have left my phone charging at
night so that it can survive the entire next day; and do you know how irritating it is to get up in the
middle of the night and interrupt my sleep once the phone has stopped charging to disconnect it? I bet
you do because most people just stay in bed. You may think: “What difference does it make? It is just
one charger out of billions worldwide.” Unfortunately everyone thinks this way so it wouldn’t be just
one charger, it would be billions contributing to global warming. I have taken action: now, everything in
my house is connected to power switchs which are turned off until my family wants to use a device
that’s connected to them. They save an incredible amount of energy as well as money, which I can
vouch for because I have seen my electric bills and they are way cheaper now. Just so you can see how
much money standby power costs, look up the Watt of the product and multiply it by 5, the result is the
amount of dollars that product is costing you yearly. Let’s say my TV draws 5 watts when turned off: that
means that each year I pay 25 dollars for each TV in my house; that’s a substantial amount!
Fortunately, there are some organizations that think as I do, such as the International Energy Agency
(IEA), and they promoted a law which has now passed that states that every electric device must draw
no more than 1-Watt of standby power. This is great because standby power is somewhat reduced yet
not totally eradicated. To eradicate it completely, we need your help. We need you to disconnect things
when they are not in use. Just one little charger can make a difference and I encourage you to
disconnect yours after using it because you might just save the planet.
Works Cited List
Long, Chris. “Energy cost of PCs on standby.” BBC News. 21 April 2006. 10 Feb. 2012.
“Standby Power: Frequently Asked Questions.” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Regent of
the University of California: 2009. 10 Feb. 2012.
“Standby Power and Energy Vampires.” Energy Star. US Environmental Protection Agency: 2012. 10 Feb.
2012.
“Standby Power Use and the IEA ‘1-Watt Plan’.” International Energy Agency. 2012. 10 Feb. 2012.