Fast forward to the average American home today, turn out “all the lights” and it’s not all that dark. If you haven’t noticed, try it. Most rooms will still be dimly lit by a plethora of green, blue, amber and red lights; they’re often even safe enough to walk through. Your home office or entertainment room may virtually glow. Light from a computer screen would calm the most timid child afraid of the dark.

Except for L.E.D. lights showing the time from nearly every appliance imaginable, these eerie sentries are harbingers of glutinous energy hogs behind them. Each is seemingly a little bitty piglet, but ensemble they root away at energy budgets like ravenous wild boars. O.K., enough of the animal imagery already and down to the facts and figures.

Here is a list of typical household energy wasters in average standby mode:

• A cable or TiVo video box; 15 watts.
• Stereo amplifier and components; 43 watts.
• Home Theater System; 34 watts.
• CD Boom Box; 4 to 6 watts.
• VCR player; 5 watts.
• DVD player; 10 watts.
• TVs (nearly regardless of size); 4 to 5 watts.
• Cable and Satellite TV; 15 to 16 watts.
• Desktop computers; 4 watts.
• Laptop computers; 2 watts.
• Old Monitors; 4 watts    New Monitors; 2 watts
• Peripheral printer; 5 to 6 watts.
• Cordless phones; 2 watts
• Telephone answering devices; 3 to 4 watts
• FAX machine; 10 watts.
• Video games; 17 to 168 watts, average 36 watts

For source of numbers, see this report from Tiax LLC, a technology company in Cambridge, MA: Thus, it’s not unreasonable to assume running up to 100 to 150 unattended watts for our gadgets is likely for a single person or easily 200 watts for a small family. Sneaky isn’t it? If you accrue 200 watts for 16 standby hours each day for a month, does 96,000 watt hours surprise you? When translated into your electric bill, 96 kWh at $0.18/kWh (in Connecticut) is nearly $18 a month or an annual cost of $200.

Thus, someone in the 28% income tax bracket must earn roughly $275 a year for what runs behind those colorful little lights mentioned innocently at the outset of this article. Some might think $275 a year isn’t a lot for the convenience of just letting things be. Would the effort become more appealing if reminded that investing $275 each year for 20 years at 6% compounds to over $10,000 in 20 years and over $42,000 in 40 years? And that assumes no inflation in the base saving of $275. Thus, being motivated as an environmentalist need not be a factor in reducing waste.

A 147-page study, titled “Energy Consumption by Consumer Electronics in U.S. Residences,” concludes that consumer electronics consume 11 percent of residential electricity and 4 percent of total U.S. electricity.

The buck does not stop there. Today, the population is just beginning to appreciate many other hidden costs in environmental pollution that we end up paying for one way or another. If interested, the subject is fascinating and important, but, as illustrated here, you needn’t know a wit about it in order to save a lot of money.

Recently, most levels of government are recognizing the need to conserve energy and industry is competing to educate you to spend your energy dollars efficiently. A case in point is the Environmental Protection Administration’s Energy Star compliance program. Just in terms of computer power management, check out this report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Conservation efforts such as this are quite encouraging, but increased efficiencies in power usage are continuing to be offset by sales of more and more consumer electronics to ever growing populations now beginning to afford their purchase.

So adults and children of every generation should habitually turn off electronic devices and lights when not in use. Those multiple plug strips purchased to protect sensitive electronic gear from power surges are a convenient way to cut all power to them with just one switch. Then, ask about both the operating and standby costs of every energy-consuming product you think of buying.

Even if you think only in terms of reducing your electric bill, you will decidedly be assisting in your county’s fight to become more energy independent and less polluted as well. It’s a win-win alternative to the status quo.

-Written by Roger Whitcomb, reprinted with permission from PlanetWatch.org

I was raised as a child watching my mother hang clothes on the line to dry outside. As I grew older, it was my job to freeze my fingers while removing the jeans from the line in the middle of the winter. I really didn’t think much about conserving energy, or the smell of the towels after blowing in the wind all day. I just thought my mother had to be insane for hanging out jeans in the middle of the winter.

Now that I’m the mother and am washing the clothes for my family, hanging the laundry outside to dry really appeals to the “frugal girl” in me. It also appeals to the “tree hugger” in me and I love the smell of my towels after a day of Mother Nature blowing her wind across them. It’s a little extra work between hanging up the clothes and then removing them from the line, but things that are worth doing aren’t always easy. I don’t take it quite as far as my mother did though – I do run the dryer in the winter

If conserving energy and reducing your carbon footprint appeals to you then check out this awesome website Planetwatch.org. Tom Seeley turned me on to their newsletter and now I look forward to seeing it arrive in my Inbox.