Imagine a scenario in which thousands of households in your community teamed up to following the energy-saving suggestions of the federal government... setting thermostats low in winter and high in summer ... turning off lights and exhaust fans when not in use ... air-drying dishes ... opening and closing draperies to take advantage of the sun. And from these responsible actions, saving $1.6 million over the course of a year.

Next, imagine hearing that the Department of Energy spent exactly that much just because employees didn't bother to use low-energy settings on their computers or turn off their monitors after work.

Now, imagine that it's not your imagination.

In fact, $1.6 million barely scrapes the surface of how many tax dollars the Dept. of Energy actually wasted last year by not following many of the suggestions on its own Web site. The department did such a lousy job that it failed its own energy audit (pdf) earlier this year.

The root of the problem, it seems, is the age-old suspicion that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Heating and cooling, the DOE Web site preaches, makes up about 43 percent of the typical utility bill. But by "combining proper equipment maintenance and upgrades with appropriate insulation, air sealing, and thermostat settings, you can cut your energy use for heating and cooling, and reduce environmental emissions, from 20% to 50%."

This doesn't work, of course, if you keep forgetting to change the thermostat during non-work hours, don't have the necessary automatic controls or simply never learned how to use the ones you have.

Forgetting to turn off your computer monitor or lower the thermostat overnight may seem trivial, but DOE's own report (pdf) estimated that the department could save over $11.5 million annually in utility costs by following its own suggestions. That's enough to power almost 10,000 homes each year and make your community's wasted efforts seem a little more worth it.