[Workaccount2]

Of the many electronics we build at my job, one of them is a shoe box sized 5kW power supply that we sell to the railroads. Testing 10 of these units in one afternoon, by one tech in a closet sized room, uses more energy than my house uses in a month (yes, it can get very hot in that room, hah)

And this is a very tiny project that's simply just easy recurring revenue. The bigger units that are being built and tested all day everyday will go through 100kWh just warning up.

It puts things into perspective were I can bend over backwards at home to save energy, but at work if I order a unit to be retested "just to be sure", it can wipe out months of energy I saved at home by being especially conscientious.

Not saying it's a waste to be efficient at home, I do it myself. But man, industry uses _a lot_ of energy, and it's not clear how to make it more efficient. I can't test a 25kW supply without running it at...25kW.

[jorvi]

The same thing happens with recycling as well. I forgot the exact number, but if all US households recycled perfectly it would amount to something ridiculous like <1% of total recycle waste, because of the gargantuan industry waste.

In general sometimes it gets really difficult to be the good citizen. Over here in The Netherlands, we have a special inheritance provision for family businesses, where below €1 000 000 in size you pay zero inheritance tax. Due to intense lobbying, it has now been extended to any company, except that companies above €10 000 000 have to pay 25% tax. So now it includes gigantic billion euro companies like Heineken.

Stuff like that makes me scratch my chin and think “fuck you, I am going to dodge and cheat any tax I can”. And I generally fall in the camp of “tax me to death and build great things with it.”

[trymas]

That puts a great perspective, though please correct if I am wrong - if you are testing power supplies - you need to dump that power somewhere?

Can’t you dump it back to power grid (easy to say, probably not so easy to do)? There will be losses, but better than nothing.

[rootusrootus]

Or just don't draw it from the grid to begin with. Test enough really big power supplies, and the cost of a big set of batteries & inverters starts to look like a good investment vs paying the electric utility for it.