Vampires that suck us dry at night

The "vampire load" on the grid consists of those little electronic devices we leave plugged in that glow and get slightly warm to the touch. DVD players, computers on standby, phone chargers, really anything with a transformer consumes energy even when turned off. Sometimes they use 75% as much power as when they are on! In Australia, these account for 10% of residential power use, according to a government survey. I'd guess it is a bigger share of commercial use, as printers, Xerox machines, lights, and computers are routinely left on every night.

To some energy wonks, this is a well known problem. There was some attention devoted to it during the blackouts in NY, including a NY Times article and an appleal by Mayor Bloomberg to conserve. There is a contest for copy machines that use the least amount of power when on standby. And one fantastic suggestion by another blogger is that Microsoft set all its machines to default to the highest energy saving mode, thereby saving the an estimated 45 million tons of CO₂ emissions per year. But for most of us, this problem is not high on our priority list.

Since energy efficiency and conservation should be a high priority, what are some steps we can all take? Here are a few cloves of garlic to keep the vampires away:

• Set your computers to power saving modes that turn off the display and harddrives after some idle period
• Turn off lights and devices when not in use. Weren't we all taught this as kids?
• When possible, unplug things when not in use. Phone chargers, IPod docks, and laptop power adapters don't suffer when they are unplugged