Javia blog

I am an european, and I’m travelling in the United States right now. Many things are different: the power voltage is 120V instead of 220V-240V in Europe. The frequency is 60Hz instead of 50Hz in Europe. The power plug is different, having two thin blades instead of two round pins in europe. This is un-convenient, as somebody coming from Europe with a laptop, mobile phone, battery charger, etc. needs a plug adapter if he’s lucky (if the device can take either 120 or 240) or a power adapter if he needs to tranform the voltage. Of course, this creates a whole market for the manufacturers of plug-adapters. When I once suggested that we (i.e. the whole world) should standardize the power plug and voltage (that is, to have a single kind of plug that works everywhere), somebody asked than what would all these companies that specialize in plug adapters do…?

In fact, the different power and plug is not present only in US, but also in Canada and Mexic. In Europe, everybody uses the normal power voltage and plugs, except United Kingdom, where the voltage is normal (230V) but the plug is specific (different from both the european and the US one). What’s interesting is that in India, which was once a British colony, the power voltage and plug are the same as in continental Europe (not the UK plugs).

In this world where people are travelling more and more often between countries and continents, this plug mismatch problem is silly. We need, we have to standardize on a plug that works everywhere, and on compatible voltage for electronic appliances. Now the question is: who should make the change? the answer is simple: let’s keep the most popular system in place (if there is a dominant system), and the countries that don’t use it already would switch. In other words: first, the UK should adopt the european plug (they don’t need to change the voltage or frequency). Second, the Northern America should switch, first the plugs and next the voltage/frequency.

On a side note: Do you think such a change is difficult? yes perhaps it is, but of course it doesn’t match the United States’ apptitude for change: a few monthe ago, the US changed the daylight saving time (summer time) hour system, getting out of sync with much the rest of the world. This seemingly small change had huge costs, but the politicians justified it by the large electricity savings they expected the different hour change to bring. As the power and plug standardization would also bring large savings in plastic, manufacturing, energy, and human dis-comfort, it looks like nothing could stop America from jumping on it.

Oh, but it’s more. Afther adopting a world-standard power system, the US could continue with adopting.. for example.. the metric system? And the Celsius temperature scale?

Of course, the natural question is, why have not these standardization steps took place already? and why would they happen now? The answer is that the US, or the (North) American continent is no longer an island. Of course, people have always travelled far away, but now there is an explosion of travel and an implosion of distances (and it’s just the beginning). What would you think if you lived in a house that had different power voltage and plugs in every room?

So, let’s imagine that the enterpresing US does it all: the switch to 230V, 50Hz, european plug, metric system, Celsius temperature. And they say: we’re done, what’s to do next? And everybody starts to think what else is left to standardize?

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 06:52 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.