That's a pretty disappointing article, from an electrical engineer's perspective. Here's why:
1) it's based on a study that's limited to Northern CA, an area that only requires minimal heating and cooling requirements year-round
2) it doesn't put anything in perspective. "The equivalent of 50 large power plants." There's no context there. How many power plants do we have?
3) lots of "up to" and "can use." For example, a laptop that uses >25W, even when charged.
4) it ignores efficiency improvements in other areas. For example, CFL and LED bulbs use less than 1/4 of the electricity as an incandescent.
5) the article starts off by talking about idle load, but then starts talking about the power draw of a coffee maker (which is excluded from the study and has nothing to do with the results).
6) it talks about "overall" power generation and emissions
Down to raw numbers, though: The "idle draw" for the average household in the study was 165 watts. That's...actually not that much. When you look at a breakdown of the numbers, here's what you find:
The largest electricity uses (heating and cooling, lighting,
and refrigeration) accounted for just 15 percent of
always-on electricity consumption. Consumer electronics
(televisions, computers, printers, game consoles, etc.)
accounted for 51 percent, with the remaining 34 percent
attributed to other miscellaneous electrical load (MELs)
such as recirculation pumps, fishponds, aquariums, and
protected outlets in bathrooms, kitchens, and garages
There's three categories here:
1) (15%) heating, cooling, lighting, refrigeration: There's not a whole lot I can do about that.
2) (51%) consumer electronics: yes, there are savings there
3) (34%) Miscellaneous loads: can't do much about these, once you have them (and some are legally required, like protected outlets, smoke detectors, etc)
So let's run some numbers:
If 1300 kWh/year is 23%, then the average household uses 5652 kWh/year, or 471kWh/mo. For comparison, my first house in Houston (a whopping 1500 sq ft including the 2-car garage) consumed between 600 and 1,800 kWh/mo, depending on time of year. Let's say we averaged 900/month, or an average of 1.25kW. All of a sudden, that 165W drops from 23% of the bill to 13%. Considering that fully
half of that idle power is stuff you can't really do without, the "discretionary power consumption" drops to 6.5%.
It also means the yearly bill for these devices is actually $87 per household, or $7.25/month, or $0.20/day. And it still includes things like alarm clocks, microwaves, dishwashers, and ovens. I'm sorry, but
$0.20 per day is not enough to convince me to walk around my house multiple times each day turning off or unplugging things I might not use for the next several hours.
Does that mean I do nothing? Heck no. My (desktop) computer goes to sleep at night, as does the kids'. We turn off the lights before we go to bed. The thermostat turns down for the night in the winter. Certainly the cable companies, TV manufacturers, and game console companies have some work to do (we have none of the above). But before you get all hot and bothered about it, please put it in perspective.