Game Consoles Sucking Up $US1 Billion in Energy Costs Per Year

According to a study by the National Resources Defence Council, Americans use up about $US1 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 favours. 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. [NRDC via EcoGeek]