James di Paulo wrote in a message to All:
 JdP> How does one calculate or measure the phantom power consumed by 
 JdP> things like TV's, VSR's, Steros and telephone answering 
 JdP> equipment when on standby or idle? 
Best thing you can do is actuall measure it,  that's not too difficult if you 
have an appropriate meter to do so.  Just rig an outlet to plug the device 
into and wire your meter in series with it.
 JdP> What about computers, say a 100 mg with all the attachmants 
 JdP> (assume sound blaster, printers, etc turned off)?
Printers can have a pretty hefty draw if you're talking about a laser 
printer, dot matrix and inkjet don't seem to have all that much.  Their 
standby power isn't going to be a whole lot less than their operating power,  
the difference being the motors,  but even when not doing much stepper motors 
use some power to hold their position.
Sound blaster isn't much of a consideration,  unless you've got some really 
crazy high wattage amplified speaker setup (I have a pair of speakers here 
that cost me $5 and they do the job just fine).
As far as the rest of it goes,  again your best bet is to measure it.  You 
may or may not be able to use some of the power saving features that are 
built into newer equipment.  I've got 'em disabled here as they don't tend to 
work too well with a bbs setup.  The monitor is also going to have a 
nontrivial draw (100W?  150W?),  again mine has some power-saving stuff built 
into it but I haven't installed the software to deal with it as it's 
incompatible with some of what else I run here (Desqview, mostly).
Too many variables,  measure it...     
 JdP> Another...  If one buys a 10KW wind generator, assume the 
 JdP> impossible, 100% efficiency, is this equivalent to 300KWH per 
 JdP> month? (10K X 30 days.) 
Sure,  if the wind blows all the time at sufficient speed to produce that 
power level.  Do they specify a wind speed for that amount of power?  This 
*is* possible to some extent in at least some locations,  I remember a 
service station on the edge of the desert in California where the poles 
holding up the canopy had paint on one side,  bare metal on the other and the 
wind was fairly constant,  all the time.
You still need to figure that the thing is going to need some maintenance,  
and will probably experience some downtime for other reasons occasionally.  
Nothing mechanical is ever 100% reliable.  (If it were me I'd consider buying 
a couple of smaller units,  even though this would probably cost more.)
You also need to look at possible conversion efficiencies.  What sort of 
power does this thing put out,  12vdc?  120vac?  If it's dc,  then you need 
to look at battery charge control,  and conversion losses to get it to the 
120vac that some stuff is going to need,  that's not 100% efficient.
 JdP> If not, what is the monthly output?
Depends on a bunch of factors,  I guess...
--- 
---------------