The Energy Saved By Ditching DVDs Could Power 200,000 Homes 339
Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "The environmental benefits of streaming a movie (or downloading it) rather than purchasing a DVD are staggering, according to a new U.S. government study by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. If all DVDs purchased in 2011 were streamed instead, the energy savings would have been enough to meet the electricity demands of roughly 200,000 households. It would have cut roughly 2 billion kilograms of carbon emissions. According to the study, published in Environmental Research Letters, even when you take into account cloud storage, data servers, the streaming device, streaming uses much less energy than purchasing a DVD. If, like me, you're thinking, 'who buys DVDs anymore, anyways?', the answer is 'a lot of people.'" The linked paper is all there, too — not just an abstract and a paywall.
Hard copy (Score:5, Funny)
And if you're unable to read the study online, you can order a paper copy.
Can't wait (Score:1, Funny)
Re:False comparison (Score:2, Funny)
When I buy a DVD, I own that DVD. That is why I buy DVDs.
When I rent a DVD, I own that DVD. That is why I rent DVDs.
Technical expl. of harmonics, with car analogy (Score:4, Funny)
It means, as the poster alluded to FREE ENERGY. Though, as he says - it's not - because then we would call him a quack. He's just implying that 100-102% efficiency is possible when you synchronize the frequency of your input power source to the harmonic frequency of your target power consumption or device.
If you need a car analogy, it's like filling your gasoline tank in your car and marking down the mileage, and then checking to see how many miles you have gone when you fill up the next time. This is where the quantum effect also plays a role, because by simply never filling the tank all the way up, you'll get an infinite number of miles per gallon. Example: Fill tank at 12,400miles, partial fill 4 times, then complete fill of 8.26 gallons at 13,175 miles = (13,175-12,400)/8.26 = 93.8 miles per gallon. Once you fill up the tank and mark the mileage down, though, you've cut off your "harmonics" and you'll get a finite value. That's why it's not really "free energy" because to get free energy or over unity you would never be able fill up the car all the way. The longer you can go without completely filling the tank and triggering the measurement, the closer you are to matching the engine/gasoline fill harmonics. I've achieved well over 300mpg in my truck this way, but I've also got special magnets on my fuel line and installed an "open flow" regulator on the air intake, so there are other advantages which helped me achieve this which are unrelated to the harmonics.
The same thing applies to power - whether it be lightbulbs or networking equipment or freely spinning bicycle wheels, though in an entirely different way.
If my ideas are intriguing to you, I would be happy to subscribe you to my newsletter.
Re:It's the energy cost of the drive (Score:2, Funny)
They're right about the fuel cost. The nearest Blockbuster store to me is in Florida, about 545 miles. It's about 90 gallons of gas for each DVD - assuming that I return the DVD eventually. I probably burned that much just driving around Atlanta looking for an open store until my wife finally mentioned that they had closed most of their stores for some reason.