Energy consumption through email

Believe it or not, the e-mail service you use  has an impact on the amount of energy consumed. A study found on OPOWER's blog revealed that "the aggregate difference in annual electricity use between 1 million Yahoo households and 1 million Gmail households is…equal to the entire annual electricity consumption of Barbados, a reasonably well-off country of 287,000 people."

What this translates into is an estimated $110 per year difference in electric bills. The website asks a few questions that pry at the reasoning behind the increased consumption of Yahoo users.

  

Basically, what the study concluded was that Gmail users and Yahoo users have fundamentally different lifestyles. The site claimed that:

 "Hunch.com and Experian have found that Gmailers are more likely to be younger, single people.  Credit Karma found the average Gmailer’s age to be 34, while the average Yahoo user clocked in at age 38.  Being young and single means going out more; less time at home – and fewer occupants – means less electricity usage.

By contrast, Yahoo users are more likely to be in relationships and have children. Additionally, Hunch found that Gmail users are more likely to be active travelers (having journeyed to 5 or more countries), and so might be away from home more often."

Overall, this study is pretty interesting and gets me to thinking about what other types of things we as American's do to consume energy without necessarily realizing it.