> More than two orders of magnitude?
More than two orders of magnitude. You put a refrigerator in an environment where the outside temperature is below its set temperature and it doesn't run at all, or one where 100% of its power use displaces less efficient heating methods and its net consumption is negative. By contrast in a high exterior temperature environment it never stops running and can cost in excess of $1000/year in energy. Or anywhere in the full range in between.
> Well it's charging overnight. My phone is inside the house probably half the time.
So in a cold climate it has no energy cost when it's indoors, but does the rest of the time. Meanwhile the refrigerator is inside all the time, and is a heat pump which is more efficient at heating than the phone which is equivalent to resistive heating.
> Honestly this is a really silly argument. If we cared about the extra heating from fridges then we would put them outside in hot climates.
Then the air conditioner runs less but the refrigerator runs more because it's cooling against a higher exterior temperature. That might be more efficient but not by a lot. It's still going to result in high energy consumption.
> If we're talking about a hundred phones versus a fridge, it might be comparable.
If the question is can a refrigerator use less net power per year than one phone, the answer is yes. Not always, not even usually, but it can actually happen in places like Maine or Canada.
> I take your point about hot climates but I still think any comparison about power usage between a phone and a fridge is ridiculous and draws into question the credibility of the writer.
It's a widespread rhetorical device in the media. State something which is technically true but generally misleading in support of your point. Then the statement is defensible from a pedantic technical perspective but still causes people who don't know better to come to inaccurate conclusions. It's basically motte and bailey:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey
The problem isn't that the claim is factually inaccurate, it's that it's purposely misleading. It's the difference between incompetence and malice. Not to say that either of them is commendable, but if we're going to be pedantic about things then let's see it through.