"Bryan Scholtes" wrote in message
...
How about driving less? If oil is the problem, why are we looking for
more, or ****ing people off by not looking? Oill will only get more
expensive no matter how much we find, because eventually it will be
very hard to get at. You may differ on when that will happen, but it
is inevitable.

That day's already here. The price has risen enough to make the
energy-intensive tar sand extraction process economically feasible.
Conservation is the only way we're going to be able to stretch out our
existing supply of oil. We're still wasting incredible amounts of money in
lots of our endeavors. The power required to keep all the cable TV boxes
around the nation going is astounding.

http://www.dailytech.com/Study+US+Ca...ticle22007.htm

Box makers say that the cable companies don't pay the electric bills for the
boxes, and so demand instant availability over a "wake from sleep" device
that could save millions of watts of electricity.

According to the study, there are 160 million set-top boxes in the U.S.,
and this number is increasing. These boxes run 24 hours per day, even when
they're not being used. The study found that add-on DVR's use an additional
40 percent more power than the set-top box. The Natural Resources Defense
Council found that these boxes consume $3 billion in electricity per year in
the U.S., and 66 percent of this power is drained when no one is even using
it. Also, one high definition cable box and one high definition DVR use
about 446 kilowatt-hours per year, which is 10 percent more than a
21-cubic-foot refrigerator that is energy efficient.

More than a big refrigerator.

--
Bobby G.