
IPhone uses more electricity than a fridge - nreece
http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/iphone-uses-more-electricity-than-a-fridge-20130822-2sdak.html
======
sitharus
After some digging this is a syndicated article from here:
[http://www.shns.com/web/guest/shns-
search?p_p_id=listenersea...](http://www.shns.com/web/guest/shns-
search?p_p_id=listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-2&p_p_col_pos=1&p_p_col_count=2&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_pageNumber=1&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_search=iphone&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_match=a&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_sort=d&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_byline=&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_sws=false&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_source=&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_loc=&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_daterng=&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_searchHZ=false&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_searchVT=false&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_searchPhoto=false&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_searchVideo=false&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_searchFeature=&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_searchFeatures=&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_searchText=false&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_struts.portlet.action=%2Fview%2Fview%2FshowDetail&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_struts.portlet.mode=view&_listenersearchresults_WAR_searchportlet_INSTANCE_igtl3uEpHlGZ_tagId=shnsnewslive014108)

That's a horrible URL.

Who cite the Digital Power Group, who seem to be here: [http://www.tech-
pundit.com](http://www.tech-pundit.com) but don't appear to really exist.

Finally you end up at this WSJ video: [http://live.wsj.com/video/what-uses-
less-energy-an-iphone-or...](http://live.wsj.com/video/what-uses-less-energy-
an-iphone-or-a-
fridge/FA9F7615-3185-418B-B3BF-7DFD4B98CB35.html#!FA9F7615-3185-418B-B3BF-7DFD4B98CB35)

Where they say it's 38c/yr for power vs $66/yr for the iPhone.

What they're talking about is total energy including manufacturing the
cellular network and the whole internet. Quite different.

[edit: added manufacturing to the energy list]

------
kens
I read the original paper † and according to footnote 1 it's measuring iPad
usage as network operations + network embodied energy + tablet embodied
energy, ignoring data centers and end-use tablet charging. That's right, this
calculation ignores the energy the tablet actually uses. "tablet embodied
energy" is the energy from manufacturing the tablet, and "network embodied
energy" is the energy to build the cellphone network. "network operations" is
the energy to transmit data through the network which is being counted at
2kWh/GB. Since the average electricity cost in the US is 12.4 cents / kWh,
that works out to data transmission costing 25 cents of electricity per GB,
which seems crazy high.

Needless to say, this paper is very controversial, see ††.

TL;DR: The iPhone electricity usage in the paper is ignoring the actual
electricity usage of the iPhone and counting lots of other hand-wavey things.

† [http://www.tech-pundit.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/07/Cloud_...](http://www.tech-pundit.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/07/Cloud_Begins_With_Coal.pdf?c761ac) ††
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/20/iphone-energy-
refri...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/20/iphone-energy-refrigerator-
controversial-study_n_3782211.html) which is more informative than you'd
expect from Huffington Post.

Edit: The paper is titled "The Cloud Begins With Coal" and is sponsored by the
National Mining Association and the American Coalition for Clean Coal
Electricity.

------
anshargal
1\. As far as I know, most powerful Apple charger is 12W (iPad 4)

2\. I assume that iPhone is not discharging when it is plugged in this charger
while being actively used (probably true even for less powerful chargers)

3\. Wolfram: "12W for a year in kWh" (
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=12W+for+a+year+in+kWh](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=12W+for+a+year+in+kWh)
) = 105.1 kWh

4\. Article says that iPhone consumes 361kWh which is more than a
fridge(322kWh).

Either I don't understand something, or this is bullshit.

------
sitharus
I'm not sure how this is possible. On one hand I'm not hugely surprised - once
fridge is at temperature it doesn't require much energy to sustain it if
people don't open the doors, but on the other the iPhone uses a tiny amount of
power.

Back of the envelope says the 10W charger can use 240W a day, or 87.6kWh per
year when in constant use, which it won't be.

I wonder how many fridges my laptop could power.

------
Dylan16807
This article is a piece of trash, and so is the report it's based on. The
report was talking about the entirety of phone towers and datacenters and
servers. You can't blame the entire internet on phones.

The actual phone uses almost nothing, somewhere around 4kWh per year.
[http://blog.opower.com/2012/09/how-much-does-it-cost-to-
char...](http://blog.opower.com/2012/09/how-much-does-it-cost-to-charge-an-
iphone-5-a-thought-provokingly-modest-0-41year/)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/17/links-17-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/17/links-17-aug-
your-iphone-uses-more-energy-than-your-refrigerator/) This version is much
more fun.

------
EiZei
The iPhone 5 battery is specced as 5.45 watts, even assuming 100% load all the
time wouldn't this mean less than 50 kWh a year?

------
crististm
So basically they are saying you can plug the 10W or so Iphone charger to the
fridge somehow and get the same amount of freezing over a day? Engineers
beware. 24 h * 10W is not 1KW and that means running the charger all day long.
I don't know where they come with these figure but I can only imagine.

