Commentary

In an article in today's Wall Street Journal, reporter Rebecca Smith runs the numbers.  She assumes 12 cents per kilowatt hour electricity and a TV set that is used for 5 hours a day.  Regardless of your electricity cost, a plasma TV purchase could easily wipe out the electricity savings you achieved by installing compact fluorescent bulbs.

Complicating the problem is that the EPA Energy Star ratings that some of these TVs receive refers to how much electricity they use when they are in standby mode, not how much electricity they use when they are on. 

That's like rating a Ferrari as ‘affordable’ because its floor mats are inexpensive. 

What do I have in my house?  Mea culpa.  A plasma TV.  What I should have done is buy an LCD TV which are available in the same sizes as the plasma TVs, take up the same 6 inches or less space, but do not hog as much electricity as the plasmas.  We use the TV more like 5 hours a week during football season rather than 5 hours a day but I wish it was more efficient, nonetheless.