UK’s gadget-mania blamed for surge in emissions

The surging boom in new technology for home entertainment, from CD players and DAB radios to flat-screen televisions, is taking up huge amounts of energy and undermining the fight against climate change, a report claims today.

The consumer electronics sector is now only three years away from becoming the biggest single user of domestic electricity in Britain, according to the report – and in 2010 it will overtake lighting, and “white goods” such as fridges and freezers, in home energy use.
By 2020, entertainment and computer technology in the home will account for an extraordinary 45 per cent of all electricity used in UK households, according to the study from the Energy Saving Trust (EST).

This is equivalent to the output from 14 power stations, the report says, and undermines the battle to reduce C02 emissions – as well as costing the owners of the gadgetry