Gone gadget crazy

Here's an amazing statistic from an article in the New York Times this week: the average home had 3 electronic devices in 1980 but that number has jumped to some 25 electronic devices in the average home now, with household consumer electronics now consuming 15 percent of the world's electrical output.

This statistic surprised me, but then I went around my own house and pretty quickly realized the stats were likely on the money for most of us. The picture here tells the tale: where we used to have one TV in the house most of us have many, and with each TV probably comes a DVD player, Tivo or DVR and maybe a cable box as well.

Home offices are the same. Perhaps years ago you might have had an electric typewriter and that's about it in a home office. Now it's a computer (and maybe a few more around the house), a scanner, a modem, a printer or two and maybe a outboard hard-drive or other gizmo for backup.

The Times writer, Kate Galbreath, has more details on her blog about new trends toward more efficient appliances, but the overall picure of rising energy use squares with what PSE sees as being about 40 percent more energy use in our region by 2029.

It's also why we offer rebates on appliances, lighting and other energy saving ideas.