Energy vampires are lurking around every corner of your house, and unfortunately light, crosses and garlic have no effect. The only way to eliminate these silent suckers is with a stake to the cord—the power cord that is. 

Appliances, electronics and chargers that draw energy even when they are turned off are known as energy vampires. Every year these nasty appliances will drain your electricity and your wallet if you let them. Luckily, stopping the constant trickle of wasted energy is as easy as unplugging the offender.

The most common vampire appliances are electronics. When you think you have turned them off, they are actually in standby mode so they can power-up quicker and/or receive signals from a remote control. Here are things to look for when identifying energy vampires. Read more >>

I read an article a couple of weeks ago and was shocked to learn that US businesses lose more than $2.8 billion a year just from leaving their computers on overnight. What’s worse is this wasted electricity pumps more than 200 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year. That’s the rough equivalent of adding 4 million cars to US roadways.

Lucky for the environment, and our pocketbooks, this problem is easily solved—just turn off your computer before you leave work. If everyone in the world did this just one night, we would save enough energy worldwide to power the Empire State Building (both inside and out) for more than 30 years! Talk about easy ways to save energy and the environment.

PCs, even in sleep mode, are big consumers of electricity (even newer computers will consume 40 watts of power during the night in “sleep” mode, not to mention more power hungry, older computers). So what can you do to help? Follow these power conscious guidelines at work and home. Read more >>