This past summer when we were having the heat wave and power failures in Queens, I started to do some calculations on how much power all of the cable boxes in New York City might be consuming even when they were supposedly switched off, because they never really turn off. For my birthday last year I got this device that measures how much power something uses (Kill-A-Watt), and it showed that my Scientific Atlanta built Time Warner leased cable box uses nearly as much power switched off as it does when it is switched on (17W) (so what is the on/off button for? I guess because it is supposed to have one?)

So I came across this interesting article on standby power in electronic devices. Good to see that other people are thinking about this, and what a large problem in really is. Also interesting to note from the article that our current president Bush actually did something useful for the environment in 2001 by dictating that the federal government should purchase low standby power devices.