From an Economist Special Report on the Carbon Economy

"Seven years ago the Natural Resources Defence Council and Ecos Consulting, an energy consultancy, got manufacturers, power utilities and the state and federal governments together to talk about shifting to integrated circuits. It took two years to get regulations in place in America. Once adopted in the world’s biggest market, integrated-circuit adaptors spread swiftly everywhere, because manufacturers cannot afford to make things that cannot be sold in America.

"For consumers the switch has meant lower power bills and smaller, lighter power adaptors. For the world as a whole it has meant a drop in global power consumption worth around $2 billion a year—saving 13m tonnes of CO₂ annually worldwide, the equivalent of closing down eight coal-fired power stations."

Comment: How annoying that manufacturers would not have provided the more energy and cost efficient technology simply because there was no explicit demand for it! JAD