This is the third in a series of posts on random observations about CES. The first was about screens. The second was about fashion.

Sustainability

The Wednesday at CES was Environmental Awareness Day. One breakfast, two sessions on recycling, and one session on Saving Energy with Electronics was the whole of the day. By my count, that’s less than 2% of the events listed in the event listing. Still, the Consumer Electronics Association is trying; they will release a sustainability report on www.cesweb.org in the coming weeks.

I attended the Saving Energy with Electronics session, where a scientist from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Noah Horowitz, said the energy used by consumer electronics accounts for almost 15% of all energy use nationwide. He said that’s almost equivalent to what we use as a nation for lighting. One way energy is wasted is with all the devices that are plugged in that don’t have a sleep mode. He said that if the industry doesn’t develop standards for lower energy consumption during sleep mode, we would, “…need another half dozen power plants chugging along at three in the morning.” Energystar is working on standards that would limit a consumer device to eight watts when on and one watt when sleeping. As proof that energy efficiency is possible, Lloyd Levin, of the California State Legislature’s Utilities and Commerce Committee, said that since 1976, California’s per capita’s energy use has remain level, while every other state’s has increased, due in part to California working on commercial and residential energy conservation and sustainable forms of energy generation.
There were a few interesting sustainable products at CES. To begin with, here’s a soon to be available LED desk lamp powered by a solar cell. LED’s use much less power than traditional lightbulbs. They’re no longer for brake lights anymore.

Because LED’s use juice than regular bulbs, LED’s in flashlights burn longer than regular bulbs. Longer lived batteries mean less end up in landfills…and, they don’t burn out as quickly, if ever, for the practical life of the device. Here’s an LED replacement bulb for regular flashlight bulbs. Simple idea, but now found on hardware store shelves.

Going from the micro to the macro, the Gridpoint Connect is a whole-house device that’s kind of like a Swiss Army knife for residential, renewable energy. Solar cells only generate electricity when the sun’s shining, obviously, so the electricity must be stored in batteries to be used at night. But batteries need a charger so they don’t over charge. The batteries need to kick in when power from the grid dies, so the Gridpoint Connect acts like an uninterruptable power supply for the whole house. And if the solar cells generate more electricity than can be used, it makes sense to sell the excess back to the grid. The Gridpoint Connect device does all that in one box and does it so well, it won an Innovations 2007 Honor in Excellence in Design and Engineering at CES. Plain box; great idea.

Solar bags and backpacks were scattered throughout the show, used primarily to juice up iPods and cell phones.

And there was a laptop case with a solar array on one face that keeps laptops charged. Laptops need more juice than cell phones and iPods, so they need more solar cells to deliver that juice.

The trend: Sustainability. Consumer electronics everywhere. Like fuel cells, solar cells solve the problem of batteries dying at inconvenient times. Light from the sun is free, so they also cut down on the cost of electricity. We’re still in the early stages of alternative energy for consumer electronics, so things like the solar cell laptop hard case allow people to travel with electronics to places that are off the grid.

With the popularity of some sustainable trends like organic farming (Wal-mart is getting into organic; Whole Foods is founded on it), is sustainable energy far behind?