Your power bill is standing by

Bet you never thought that 10 percent of your energy bill goes for so-called standby power - stuff like computers, cellphone chargers, digital video recorders and cable boxes that always stay on. The irony, of course, is that standby mode was developed to cut energy consumption. "Miscellaneous" devices makes up a category of products the EPA didn't even track 25 years ago. From Forbes.com:

Digital video recorders and cable/satellite converter boxes are among the most profligate. These devices, known as "set-top boxes," draw a constant 30 or more watts of power, says Noah Horowitz, a senior scientist with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental advocacy group in San Francisco. By contrast, refrigerators draw only 40 watts. The problem, he says, is that these boxes don't ever shut off. "To the extent there's an off button, all it does it dim the LED, which is half a watt," he says. TVs, by contrast, are quite chintzy, often drawing less than four standby watts, though in-use wattage can balloon to 240 watts for plasma sets.