We recently completed our study on the energy used to charge a BlackBerry. We found that the energy wasted is as high as 10 times the energy used. The waste is from the trickle charge to the fully charged BlackBerry, and the poorly designed charger using energy while plugged in. To eliminate this vampire power, disconnect the BlackBerry when fully charged and unplug the charger. Please do not consider a "smart power strip" to automate this.

I am always suspicious when I hear emotive words emerging to describe what I once knew by more mundane and descriptive application of the English language. Considering that our business is energy saving, I knew something was up when I read that Vampire Power could account for up to 5% of a household energy bill.

How much electricity does your BlackBerry (insert your PDA here) really use each year? To answer this question we need to understand and measure three components of energy use. The first component is the electricity consumed by the charger to recharge the battery. This will depend on how much the BlackBerry was used. I chose a Friday, where I had been somewhat busy, and the BlackBerry showed 50% charge remaining.