A (properly designed) satellite receiver in standby mode would hardly draw more than a couple watts, while a fully charged cordless phone on its cradle (base & handset) would use a few milliwatts at most (the battery’s trickle charge current).

The average microwave oven, showing time and awaiting input? I cannot think of more than 1/2W, and that’s with a super-bright, oversized display.

And there’s one thing that is definitely not taken into consideration in the numbers above: whatever the real power figure is, it all ends up as heat. As most North-American residences need to be heated anyway for at least some portion of the year, the true yearly cost is definitely not what is advertised here (basically, there is no “wasted” electricity during winter time).

At 10 cents per Kilo-Watt Hour, $275 is 2750 KWH. That seems like a lot, especially if it’s power that’s only being used when everything is on standby mode.

I’ll see, though, because for the last month, I’ve turned everything off when not in use. This month’s bill (coming any day now!) should tell me.

But just being on for no reason also takes a (much smaller) toll. Take the average 60W lightbulb: 1,000 hours life, or about 42 days when left on. But if you use it 4 hours a day and then turn it off, it may cost you 10% of the bulb’s life to switch it on & off, but it will still last 225 days, clearly a winning situation.

Over-voltage conditions (when the lights get momentarily brighter) often take a much heavier toll than switching the appliance on and off. For example, a single surge can easily reduce the life of a lightbulb by 10% or more, and a prolonged surge (> 2 second) will often burn it out. Thus, turning appliances off when not in use usually makes a lot of sense, even if you don’t consider the power savings.

The environmental cost of fabricating a new device is definitely significant, but this can be reduced enormously by making sure that everything is properly recycled.

So yeah, the drain is bad, but not as bad as turning things on and off all the time. Why doesn’t the department of energy start working on renewable energy so we don’t have to worry about conserving? The technology is there, someone’s keeping it from going mainstream.

“Every time you completely turn your appliance off and back on when you want to use it you are burning out the components more quickly than if you leave it on standby!

Also, the environmental cost of producing a new TV for you to buy far outweighs the environmental cost of you leaving your TV on standby mode!”

Yes, it is worth leaving the TV plugged up because it is watched so often (and it is not plasma). But the radio in the garage, the toaster, or the lamps that are not used that often. I think they are worth unplugging.

That puts me at just over $100 a year. But the convenience of not having to wait for the computer to boot up, my cable box to download the guide and having my internet always on offsets that.

Plasma Tvs though…ouch!