The following article from the economist highlights one of the areas in which we can improve our resource useage: Demand that our power supplies use integrated circuits. This will cut vampire power consumption by up to 80%.

The Economist Tags : climate change, power adaptors

The dullest bits of the many electronic devices people plug into mains sockets in their houses and offices are the power adaptors. These are boxes that sit between the plug and the device, or are sometimes integrated with the plug. Their job is to convert high-voltage alternating current from the mains into low-voltage direct current for mobile phones, laptops, iPods and other electronic gadgets. About 5 billion such devices are in use worldwide.

Until recently the conversion was made using copper wire. Typically, half the power they drew from the wall, and sometimes as much as 80 per cent, would be lost in conversion. As a result, electricity bills and carbon emissions were both higher than necessary.

Making the conversion with integrated circuits is much more efficient, with as little as 20 per cent of the power being lost. The technology for this has been available for many years and costs only around 30 per cent more than the copper-wire method, but the market gave manufacturers little incentive to switch. Power adaptors are cheap, usually costing $2 or less. Appliance-makers tend to buy them from companies in Taiwan or China. Contracts are won and lost on a fraction of a cent per unit. And since consumers do not think about power consumption when choosing a phone or laptop, manufacturers tended to stick with copper wire.