Jeff Wisnia wrote
David Nebenzahl wrote
Rod Speed wrote
David Nebenzahl wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Bill wrote

The clock on my range has never kept correct time, yet it keeps
running and using electricity. (Small amount, but many little
things like this can add up.)

No they cant.

Yes, they can, and do.

Nope, not with an electric range where the time you have one of the
plates on for has a MUCH more important effect on the electricity used.

The fact that the burners use a lot more electricity doesn't change
the fact that things like clocks, wall warts, etc., still use small
amounts of electricity, and when added together constitute a
significant fraction of energy usage.

The point is that if the clock isn't serving any useful purpose, then
disconnecting it to save electricity (an admittedly small amount, but
see above) is a good thing to do.

Has anyone thought about how much wasted electricity we'd be saving now if the utilities could have forseen the
eventual spike in energy cost and used heavier conductors for their runs?

Yes, the power companys do that all the time.

I'd expect that the added cost of the copper or aluminum needed to reduce resistive losses in all those distribution
wires by making them thicker would get paid off pretty fast at today's fuel costs.

Fraid not, essentially because the price of copper has increased dramatically too.

(It's a good thing Edison didn't win out, or we'd still be
distributing electricity at 110 volts DC throughout our power
systems, with even greater transmission losses. G)

Nope, that would never have survived the dramatic increase in the use of electricity.