DVD or Internet Streaming—Which Uses More Energy?

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/05/31/dvd-or-streaming-which-uses-more-energy?cmpid=tpenviro-eml-2014-06-07-dvdstreaming

According to a new study, choosing one over the other in 2011 could have saved enough energy to power 200,000 American homes for one year.

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May 31, 2014 By Kristina Bravo

Kristina Bravo is a Los Angeles–based writer. She is a fellow at TakePart.

Wth each weekend comes the risk of falling down the Netflix rabbit hole. It starts innocently enough, with one or two episodes. Before you know it, Sunday’s nearly over and you just finished a whole season of Mad Men.

Guilty? Well, at least you didn’t watch the DVDs.

A study published Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters found that we all might be better off without the discs. Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory studied the energy used in online streaming and watching DVDs, which were either mailed or procured from a store. The team considered several factors: the energy needed to play the video; viewing and playback methods; data server storage; and manufacturing, shipping, and delivery.

Because of energy-guzzling DVD players and transportation (including the postal truck that delivers your subscription), Internet streaming came out as the energy-efficient winner. It relies on newer and power-saving devices, which make up for the energy streaming uses to transmit data online.

FULL story at link.