Tsk, tsk, what a waste

If you haven't thought about it, consider how much electricity is wasted each year powering entertainment devices at home, particularly considering the proliferation of set-top boxes in the last few years.
A recent NY Times article (brought to my attention by my father, who now watches for interesting news related to energy) describes how they tested a cable box and DVR and found that it consumed more than the same electricity as an Energy Star rated 21 cubic ft refrigerator (and yes, I checked their numbers and they look reasonable).  The interesting part is how little electricity new fridges consume (Believe it or not, less than 500KW annually), making entertainment consoles the up & coming energy hogs on home owner bills. Doing the math and extrapolating out to the entire U.S., the claim is that all these devices use as much power as the state of Maryland.

Also noteworthy is the California angle, yet again demonstrating its leadership in the energy efficiency.  Credit for this really goes to Arthur Rosenfeld, after whom the Rosenfeld Effect was named.  Basically, regulators continually force manufacturers to "push the envelope", creating ever more efficient devices, and despite lots of initial kvetching, they manage to meet the successively tougher regulations.

Hopefully this will may you think  when you walk past your cable box or DVR and leave it on... until manufacturers help do something about it.