I wonder what the total number of kW hours required to say, run the Apollo 11 mission. One factor would be in the fuel required, but I also mean in running the whole operation, manufacturering components, running control rooms, processing fuel, moving the rockets around, etc etc.

Which brings me to the fact that I just got a "Kill-A-Watt", after reading this blog post. I haven't tested everything yet (nor will I ever hah), but here are the results for the things I have:

• iPhone charger: 0.0W when no iPhone connected, 6W when charging (the classic "you should unplug wall warts when not in use" thing doesn't necessarily apply!)
• ReadyNAS NV (old sparc model, 3 WD and 1 Seagate 1TB disks): 50W
• Samsung 24" LCD: 45W, or 0W when in powersave mode
• Q6600 2.4ghz computer with single 7200rpm disk, GeForce 8600 GT, UAD-1 PCI-E card, idle: 115W, full load (with UAD-1 going): 185W.
• Sony VPC-Z12 laptop (dual core i7, SSD, 13" 1920x1080 screen, full brightness): 17W when idle in "speed" mode. 35W when idle and charging battery, 77W under full CPU load while charging battery.^*
• Updated: Brother laser printer/scanner/fax: 6W idle
• Updated: Thinkpad X60 (1.83ghz C2D): idle 23W, 28W with full brightness setting
• Updated: PS3: 1W off, 100W idle, 120W in RE5.
• Updated: LG 36" LCD: 0.5W off, 45W on
• Updated: 24" C2D iMac: 125W idle, screen at full brightness, 146W full load
• Updated: ZT lunchbox amp: 18W cranked but not playing anything, 23W when playing loud

The biggest thing that struck me is that my laptop, under normal use conditions, is using less power than desktop's monitor ALONE. Wow. I'll test more things soon, I get to reboot once again to remove the Kill-A-Watt from my desktop now.

*I should also mention that this laptop is really wonderful, despite lacking home/end/pgup/pgdown keys, which makes me sad. It weighs only 3LBs, and is fast (i7 dual core, 4 threads, goes up to 3.2ghz or so in singlecore mode automatically), and even has an optical drive built in.