Office and network equipment swallow about 2% of the electricity used in the United States per year -- about 74 terawatts -- according to a government report. The 2% drain is offset by power management technologies such as software that puts computers into "sleep mode" when not in use that save about 23 terawatts of electricity per year.

Authors of a report released in August by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory estimate that if everyone were to use these power management tools, an additional 17 terawatts of electricity could be saved. So if you aren't using power management on your computer, printers, and other equipment, researchers say, it's worth investigating. Researchers note that even with power management tools, users should still turn off their computers at night. The exceptions, of course, are servers and other network equipment that need to be on constantly.

The report was produced in part to address a debate about the electricity required by the new digital economy, both now and in the future. An explanation of this debate and a link to the new report (at the link labeled "first comprehensive assessment") are available on the Laboratory Web site at http://enduse.lbl.gov/Projects/InfoTech.html.

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