nytimes.com — The Department of Energy estimates that in the average home, 40 percent of all electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. Add that all up, and it equals the annual output of 17 power plants, the government says.
Jun 14, 2007 View in Crawl 4
belogicalJun 15, 2007
good idea...(NOT)the government can solve everything... (ha)maybe the government should come into your house and also put water like restrictions on your TV.right now i can only water my grass on saturday because of the lack of rain. the earth is 2/3 water! water literally falls from the sky!and... we aren't running out of electricity... if you use it, pay for it...
0crabby0Jun 15, 2007
If you have an electric water heater - you can save even more by flipping off it's circuit breaker when you leave the home. And then turning it on again when you return home. This also saves on you heating electrodes(less scale and deposits).I save anywhere from 30 to 60 dollars a month, just by doing this.
egrumlingJun 17, 2007
Have you ever timed how long it takes to charge your cellphone? Mine takes about 1.5 hours, every 3-4 days. Yet, the charger is idle, with an LED lit, 24/7. so for 164 hours/week it is not being used, but drawing a little power that can add up over time. In May I began using the 12Vdc car adapter with my solar panels. I'll find out this month how much of a change it made to my electric bill. My guess is not much, but I'm paying a higher than national average rate per kW/hr (don't remember off the top of my head), so my savings will be more than most people's. For me, though it is about saving money over time, and messing around with redundant (solar and grid) power systems.Remember, just because something sounds unbelievable doesn't mean it can't be true.
dmmorelandJun 20, 2007
Wrestling with power saving software can help, but to me the easiest approach is to use power strips for all the devices that consume power when not being used...computers, printers, monitors, TVs, stereos, cell phone chargers, etc. Then, when I'm finished in each area for the day, I turn off the single switch on the power strip. Most of the time, I turn them off by 11:00pm and don't turn them back on until 7pm the next day. Voila, I've eliminated about 85% of the waste, and it is easier than turning the devices off individually.www.energy-guru.blogspot.com
gmasterfluffyJul 2, 2007
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investwiseJul 15, 2007
Had that "Hibernation" feature been better in Win XP (home edition), I would be doing that regularly. Everytime the PC comes out of hibernation, some applications will have issues .. So I have been keeping the PC running ...