Unplugging thoughts

I was roaming around on-line looking for something else entirely and ran into this... Interesting and makes you think about what you could be saving!

posted by kcguy6935 on www.askmehelpdesk.com/energy
In response to the question "Does unplugging appliances and TVs save significant energy as opposed to just turning them off?"

There are many variables to answer your question there are some items I would not unplug but many I would. Anything that has standby power, a clock uses energy if it is plugged in. I have a meter called a KILL-A-WATT and what it does is you plug it into the outlet and then you plug an item into it, it will tell you what amount of energy is being used by the item so you can see a clock on a microwave is much like some answers have said and is minimal (2-4 watts)but also that some tv's, computers, dvds, vcrs use as high as 60 watts. With that being the case let me tell you about an example and you see if you are close to them I will even say that my example the family of four buys all energy efficient items and have no big phantom load items. We will say each item they have puts out a meager 5 watts.
The family has 4 cell phones with 4 chargers =20W
Two cordless home phones and the associated answering machine/chargers =10W
Two TVs =10W
Two Dvds=10W
a gaming station (wii,xbox,play station, whatever)=5w
2 computers =10W
with a printer and either a router or at least one usb device=10W
Charging stations for power tools or rechargeable batteries, dustbuster misc =10W
Beard trimmer that sits by the electric toothbrush=5W
3 alarm clocks, a clock on the microwave= 20W

I'll stop here but when you think about this is not only realistic but in some households a very incomplete list, and it is a very low energy profile as you can tell for your self buy a Kill-a-watt meter plug it in check out those dvds and vcrs some use almost as much energy off as they do on. In my example they are the equivalent of leaving on a 110w light forever, you pay for electricity by the kilowatt/hour in one day the example family wasted 2.64 kw at an inexpensive rate of a dime a kw that is only 26.4cents x 365 days in a year= $96.36 so if you get cheap electricity and you have less items than the example family and if all none of your phantom loads are 5W and not as high as the 60w I have seen you only wasted around $100 dollars. Not to mention if everyone does this now we need to build a new power plant better figure taxpayer money to build that in there.