VAMPIRE ENERGY: HAVE YOU BEEN BITTEN?

I wish I hadn’t found this site; we just acquired a plasma television and the site tells me that it will consume nearly US$160.00 per year in electricity—when it is off! Yikes! The site consists of a graphic “showing how much electricity is sucked out annually, in kilowatt hours, and what it costs you—assuming 11 cents per kilowatt hour—in either passive or active standby mode. The source is the 2005 (!) Intrusive Residential Standby Service Report from the US Department of Energy. Other appliances include: radio, cordless phone, LCD monitor, computer, laptop, laser printer, VCR, DVD player, game console (the number 2 energy waster), a convection microwave, and a rechargeable toothbrush (the least bad at just over US$1 per year). “Vampire energy is estimated to cost US consumers $3 billion a year.” Oh well, I’m going to enjoy the TV anyway.

URL: http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/transparency/008/

trans008vampireenergy.html