The EPA has revised its guidelines for what it considers energy efficient computers, and Intel says it will follow the new Energy Star standard.

The EPA says the new standard will reduce energy use by 65 percent, saving $1.8 billion in energy costs over the next 5 years, and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions equal to that of 2.7 million cars.

If you think that PCs don't suck up most juice, you're wrong, as they consume 58 billion kWh per year, or about 2 percent of all electricity. If the government standardizes on Energy Star PCs as they replace their existing computers, they could knock off 2 billion pounds of emissions per year.

The new rules are going into effect on July 2007, and Intel says its new Core 2 Duo processors can be used in Energy Star PCs.

Hopefully PCs will enhance their sleep modes so that they can use just a trickle of power while not on, and be awoken for timed downloads or start the work day. I'd love for my desktop to automatically jump to attention just before I wake each day instead of wasting my time booting up and grabbing my email and RSS feeds.

Another electronics device that could use Energy Star efficiency is the growing category of DVRs like TiVo. I feel guilty that my box is always on at night (and noisy too), but I don't see a way to put it to sleep if there aren't going to be any shows recorded.I couldn't find any DVRs on the Energy Star website, but they are podcasting (how hip!) hints on reducing the electricity use of your electronics devices.