A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
I really hate arguments about how much electricity wireless phone charging wastes because it makes people feel like they’re doing something when in fact they aren’t. Charging a cell phone every day for a year consumes about 1-2 kWh per phone. The average American household consumes 10,399 kWh per year, meaning that a typical smart phone consumes one 5000th, (0.02%) of a typical home’s electricity (excl. natural gas) budget. With wireless charging being 60-75% efficient, the literal worst case scenario is that you go from 2kWh to 3kWh. While that’s not nothing, it is damn close to nothing compared to HVAC or commuting, some of which involve burning more fossil fuels above and beyond the 10,399 kWh figure above. And I fear that burning out consumers on changes that will literally save maybe 1lb of CO2 per year (avg. of 0.99lbs per kWh in the US) might exhaust their will to make more meaningful changes that would have a larger impact.<p>Heck, just not upgrading your phone every 2 years would have a bigger impact, since most of a phone’s emissions happen during production. Apple themselves say that each iPhone 12 will produce 70kg (154lb) of CO2 during its lifetime, 83% of that during production and only 14% during use.