The cost of 'vampire energy'? 100 Million Tons of Oil

Many are using more gadgets than ever in homes and most of the appliances are left in standby mode and consume energy even when they are not in full use. The amount of energy consumed in standby mode accounts 4% of total energy.

GOOD Magazine calls this waste of energy as “Vampire Energy”. But this term was originally coined by President George Bush in 2001, who called it “Energy Vampires”. He wanted to reduce the energy consumption of the power plugs and said it was draining the power too much and wanted to make all appliances and gadgets comply to Energy Star requirements.

GOOD Magazine defines this Vampire Energy as the following energy that is wasted:

Even when household appliances are turned off, most are still using some electricity. Appliances are either in passive standby mode (the clock on the microwave is still ticking) or active standby mode (the VCR is off, but programmed to record something).

Every household has a variety of appliances and gadgets, the printers, computers, cable or satellite box, CD players, digital clocks, microwave, iPods and in some cases there are multiple appliances (or gadgets) in the same home.

Most of the appliances are left plugged to the power source and they drain power even if when not in use, with the LED display ON and other program controls still active (that activates the coffee maker at a preset time).

GOOD magazine created this chart and calculates how much energy is wasted in an average US household in standby mode. The main culprits from the charts are the computers, plasma TV or plasma monitor, game console.

Click here for more energy details. Plasma TVs alone costs $25 per year in energy even when you don’t use them the whole year.

The chart doesn’t include the mobile phones, iPods etc., they also add to this “vampire energy” costs. According the Wikipedia article, this standby energy comprises of 4% of total electricity consumed in the US, which is equivalent to 100 million tons of oil used to produce this energy.

If the appliances are not in use for a prolonged period of time it is best to unplug the power source, the time function may get affected because of this but you can easily adjust it later.

Do you have a Count Dracula at home?