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Here's a funny story from the NY Times about lurking vampires in our homes.

"Households across the land are infested with vampires. That's what energy experts call those gizmos with two sharp teeth that dig into a wall socket and suck juice all night long. All day long, too, and all year long."

Essentially, modern electronics that you turn off after using really aren't turned off.

"As a country we pay $1 billion a year to power our TV's and VCR's while they're turned off," said Maria T. Vargas, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program, which sets voluntary standards for energy use, and grants its ratings to the most efficient products.

There are billions of vampires in the United States, drawing more than enough current in the typical house to light a 100-watt light bulb 24/7, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, a research arm of the Energy Department.

All those adapters are called "wall warts," and many suck out of the wall more than half of what they deliver to the device, hence the vampire analogy - "I vant to drink your vatts!"

The answer to the wasteful problem lies in industry-wide standards, which would require manufacturers to build appliances with low consumption while in standby. We're slowly addressing this problem, but we can facilitate the movement by demanding products that use less power on stand-by.

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