Earth Day: Use Technology to Reduce Your Home Energy Use

Your appliances and devices may be sucking you dry while you sleep. In fact, the idle charger you keep plugged into the wall is drinking up electrical juice and probably costing you a few extra cents right this second. This is what we call "vampire energy" (sometimes referred to as "phantom power").

It's not new; energy efficiency programs have been spending billions for years to make consumers aware of just how much they're spending (and wasting) on electricity. Maybe it's even working. A couple of years ago the Institute for Electric Efficiency (IEE) reported that in 2011 energy efficiency programs in the United States saved 107 terawatt hours of energy nationwide compared with the previous year. That's enough to power almost 9.3 million homes for a year. (Earth Day bonus: that in turn saved 75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide generation at power plants.)

Utility companies offer many programs and tools to get you started; these programs comprised 86 percent of the savings mentioned above according to the IEE. If your company offers tools for saving power you'll save both money and energy, the latter of which could go to others who need it more...

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