Pablo's well-intentioned work undone (again) by spectacular inaccuracy or misdirection. I'll correct the two most egregious examples.

...but [standby mode] continues to use "vampire" electricity at a scale of around 5 watts...

When will this lie die?! The huge 52" Sony Bravia on special last weekend uses less than 0.1 W when in standby mode. That's about standard across the industry; some devices use far, far less. 0.1 W is not even 1 kWh for a whole year, let alone the 35-something that you quote.

...people are no longer settling for a modest 19-inch TV. Now you can get a massive, 82-inch LCD television.

The problem with this statement is that you say it as if 82-inch LCDs are a clear-and-present threat to the environment. Pablo, me old chum, anything upwards of 70" costs upwards of TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS! And while it's certainly true that the ($2,000) 52" Bravia mentioned above sucks 300 W when on (up from the 1999 CRT average, but not by as much as you quote) almost every other appliance that's been changed over in the last decade uses much less juice. Spectacular examples include: the fridge, the A/C unit, the water heater.

Making people feel guilty for staying at home for their entertainment is, surely, not on-the-whole an environmentally friendly thing to do? James Lovelock, for one, feels that the rise of tele-commuting and gaming (one of the things you can do on your widescreen TV) are of substantial net environmental benefit.

LCD sets are just starting to switch from using fluorescent tubes for their backlights to using LEDs. Not only should that improve their color performance, it should also cut their energy use. The electronics which drive LCD sets are also becoming more sophisticated, and will consume less and less power going forward.

If OLED sets ever become commonplace they'd also substantially cut power consumption, but those are at least 5 years off (and seem to have been "5 years off" for the past decade).

And even if it were 5 watts, that is not very much. Also remember that in the winter, the power you use contributes to heating your house. In the summer, if you use AC, it is multiplied up by several times because it has to be removed inefficiently. If you worry about small amounts of power consumption, emphasize conservation in the summer.

2ndGenerationPilot is only partly right about the stand-by power used by large, flat-screen TVs. It is true that many new EnergyStar flat-screen TVs draw virtually no watts when turned "off".

But as in my work as an energy auditor, I have personally measured 42" LCD TVs that draw 55 watts when turned off. In my experience, 0-watt EnergyStar flat-screens are still the exception, not the norm (judging by what I actually see in peoples' homes, not by what's currently on sale).

Combine that with the 800+ watt consumption I've measured for some 52" TVs when they're turned on, and it's easy to calculate that the typical large-screen TV consumes more kilowatts-per-year than the typical refrigerator.

So if you're shopping for a new TV, be sure to demand that the seller disclose both the operating and the standby wattage. But good luck: most manufacturers don't bother to publish either one. I wouldn't go shopping for a TV without my handy-dandy Kill-A-Watt power meter. The salesperson may think you're weird, but you're the one paying the electric bills for the next 5-10 years, not them!

Larry

55 watts! Wow! That should certainly be stated on the label in big red letters. What a waste, especially in the summer.

Most cable/satellite set-top boxes (STBs) consume practically the same amount of power whether "on" or in "standby". This is typically around 40 watts for a non-DVR box, with DVRs adding another 10 watts. Twenty-four hours a day, whether you're watching or not. That's 350-440 kilowatt-hours per year.

Since most consumers get their box from the cable supplier, there is rarely even a choice to request a more energy efficient box, and the older, less efficient boxes will be out there for years.

Of course, there is zero incentive for the content providers to supply more efficient boxes, as they don't have to pay for the energy consumed by them.

Seems to me a small rechargeable battery would be more than sufficient to provide the five watts of power required to run your electronics while in sleeper mode. I'm sure any first-year EE student could tell us how long a given size battery would continue to run without input from the remote, and design one that would run for, say, two months on a full charge. This is far from rocket science, and would probably raise the cost of a big screen TV by about fifty cents, if that.

Of course, if the EPA were to make this sort of thing mandatory (or even a requirement for the coveted Energy Star rating), industry would whine and cry, ramp up their support for anti-environment Republicans, then back down once some first-year EE student built such a system into a TV at a cost of about fifty cents, and tried to put the thing into the public domain, only to find out that some electronics company already had a still-active patent on it. Funny how capitalism works, isn't it?

Using a battery wouldn't help - how would you _charge_ the battery?

If you get a big flatscreen, how does that change your behavior? If it makes you stay in more, and go to the movies less, then the flatscreen is likely a net positive for the environment, given that most (albeit not all) people would drive to the movies.

The battery would charge when the TV is on, then operate the standby mode and turn on the TV on request.

Pablo,

OK--My wife and I recycle with a nearly religious fervor; we drive a Prius; I take public transportation EVERY WORKING DAY; we donate to environmental & wildlife organizations; we vote for environmentally-friendly candidates; I caulk windows; we have programmable thermostats--can I please just have one goddamn flatscreen to feed my film fix?

I knew none of this. I guess I can unplug it when I go out. Still, had a known all this I might have gone smaller or plasma. And here I am avoiding using paper towels.