Game Consoles Sucking Up $1 Billion in Energy Costs Per Year

[wraggster]

According to a study by the National Resources Defense Council, Americans use up about $1 billion worth of energy per year powering video game consoles, enough to power the entire city of San Diego.

It's a pretty staggering figure, but I'm willing to bet that figures on the power consumption of things like refrigerators and washing machines are even worse. Any serious appliance is going to suck up a lot of juice, but that doesn't mean we should throw them all out.

However, those folks who leave their consoles on all the time aren't doing their energy bills any favors. With the Xbox 360 consuming 119 watts in active mode and the PS3 consuming 150 watts, turning these systems off when you aren't playing is kind of an obvious move. But apparently a lot of people just leave them on all the time, leading to one very basic question: why? Both systems have features that'll shut down automatically after a certain amount of idle time, seems like a no brainer to turn that on if you're too damned lazy to turn them off yourself when done playing.

http://gizmodo.com/5120573/game-cons...costs-per-year

[goshogun1]

If lots of people are leaving the damn things on, that is totally stupid! I mean, outside of the PS3 for Folding@Home, there should be no freaking reason to do this. Also, don't people know that their poor systems overheat when left on for days on end?

[purinlove88]

Without turn off the plug, the appliance is still eating up electricity. If you turn the socket switch off you can potentially save 10% of electricity.