Energy Star Program Needs an Overhaul 306
Martin Hellman writes "DeviceGuru.com ran my piece raising questions about the EPA's Energy Star program. For example, an Energy Star compliant TV that claims to draw 0.1 watts in sleep mode appears to do that — but only seems to sleep about 25% of the time that it is 'off.' The other 75% of the time it draws about 20 watts, for an effective sleep power draw from the user's perspective that is 150 times what the manufacturer claims. Based on the observations described, it is also questionable how many PC's really are sleeping when their screens are blank, even if the user has turned sleep mode on. Given the billions of dollars and tons of CO2 that are at stake, this situation demands more attention."
Phantom power has it's use. (Score:4, Interesting)
You do want your TV to respond to your remote control, download it's clock-setting and other background data, and be ready to boot up in a timely manner? Don't ya?
We can reduce it, but this is something that ain't going to zero.
Re:Phantom power has it's use. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why the heck does a TV need to download the time or background data or Boot up?
For the remote you could just have a very low power pic listen for the remote and turn the the set. user a super cap to run it and every few days if you don't use the TV have it power it's self up and charge the cap.
Re:Phantom power has it's use. (Score:2, Interesting)
A couple of solar cells on the top of the TV or a supercapacitor should be able to power the remote control sensor. The rest can wait until the TV is turned on.
Bane of all standards testing (Score:4, Interesting)
Suggesting that the testing regime is faulty is a stretch. As with all the other qualms mentioned in the article, you have to question whether the manufacturer provided a proper product, rather than one designed to pass, followed by production of one with "faulty firmware".
There isn't a whole lot of restriction out there for this type of practice in any standards testing. At least, you can get away with it, most of the time. I doubt there are many people charged with testing retail devices to see if energy star compliance is maintained. I'd guess that was the major problem.
Re:How about fixing cable / sat DVR's and boxes (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm getting a bit tired of this.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Using 2001 numbers from: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/recs2001/enduse2001/enduse2001.html [doe.gov]
Setting global warming aside, this is still a bit of an issue. If "off" electronics can actually be expected to average around, say, 5-15W, it's not to hard to imagine that most households are probably looking at about 50W (esp. if one includes "wall warts", etc) being consumed by things that aren't in use. Given that the average household averages about 1kW power consumption, this would indicate roughly 5% of residential power consumption, or about 57 billion kWh annually. That's an awful lot of power to be wasting.
Sure, that number may be a bit high. On the other hand, if you look at the source, you'll see that they are listing 7.3% of energy use going to unsurveyed devices. This goes to all kinds of things, but most of them are only on for a max of 30min/day (hair dryers, power tools, etc), and probably (though it isn't clear*) "off" electronics. And keep in mind these number are from 7 years ago, which would be mostly before the advent of the always-kinda-on home theater.
So a huge problem? Not really, but a fairly serviceable one. And if we are going to be doing wind power and all that jazz, it'd be nice to have to make 5% less of 'em.
*The survey does cover things like VCR/DVD, but it doesn't specify if the data includes sleep mode draw or not.
How about an audit first? (Score:3, Interesting)
Before going crazy overhauling, let's audit the devices that are out there. Then you can assign marketing labels (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum) in case you can't read the numbers. (Numbers would be watts per day, assuming constant usage)
Just create something the FCC registration process/database, and let certified labs submit their own engineering reports on the TRUE power consumption. I've never seen any Energy Star audit reports.
Why tons of CO2? (Score:4, Interesting)
There would not be billions of tons of CO2 at stake if we were not generating electricity with coal. Inefficient electrical devices are almost irrelevant to that problem, and pretty much miss the point. Energy efficiency and CO2 production are only weakly related, much like the case with cars, and it is kind of irritating that people so often conflate the two. If everybody in the US switched to commuting in a Prius tomorrow, it would have a negligible impact on total CO2 production (the vast majority of CO2 comes from electricity generation), but it is often sold in those terms. If you get your electricity from nuclear or some other type of green power, there is negligible CO2 impact from having slightly less efficient electrical devices.
If you want to reduce oil consumption you might buy a Prius, and if you were actually serious you would move to a high-density urban area or lobby cities to allow them to be built.
If you want to reduce CO2 production you might buy more efficient "green" electrical devices, and if you were actually serious you would lobby for nuclear (and other non-CO2) power plants.
Part of the reason many environmental policies accomplish so little is that they are largely about symbolism over substance (see: Kyoto). Most people, including many nominal environmentalists, care more about looking like they care than actually solving the problem, particularly if the solution forces them to materially change their lifestyle or preconceptions. It is a cheap and mostly symbolic way to get social approval without actually having to be responsible for enacting useful changes that would actually make a difference. Everyone is so busy trying to prove how green they are that almost no one is actually, well, making the world green.
Re:Phantom power has it's use. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, they must hate me then. I power off my entire entertainment system when I'm going to be away from it for more than a few hours; just one switch on my UPS that every component plugs into. My power bill is about $5/mo lower when I do that than when I let the energy vampyres that are cable boxes/etc. have their way. So to save themselves $2.95 one time on my box I have to power down to save myself $5/mo which then causes faster burnout of even more expensive equipment which costs???/year...a stitch in time could save them some money down the road. Saving that cost on the cable box may look good on their quarterly report, but I'm not going to subsidize their laziness every month with my electric bill, so they can just suck on their faster equipment burn outs.
Thanks for your informative post.
Re:Bane of all standards testing (Score:4, Interesting)
> When the tuner is not, the consumption is as claimed.
Of course the report is that it is downloading updates via the tuner most of the time. Obviously that isn't needed and probably isn't normal. The problems here are that a) Sony eityher has a firmware bug or the local PBS station is hosing the broadcast of the schedule data, b) without a kill-a-watt being deployed nobody would ever know if their TV has a similar problem and c) Sony didn't provide a way to kill a feature that for most people is a waste of time and electricity.
A program guide in the TV is pretty useless for most people who already have a settop box (cable or sat) that provides guide data. For those on an antenna it is a perfectly aceptable feature to have so no problem including it, just provide a way for most owners to turn the darned thing off.
When you set the bar so low... (Score:1, Interesting)
Walk into any retailer (best buy we'll say) I dare you, try and find a refrigerator that is NOT energy star rated.
They might have one out 40 that isn't -- and that's probably just because the tag fell off.
I feel like the minimum requirements for an energy star tag are way too low if even the worst appliances make the cut.
Re:Phantom power has it's use. (Score:1, Interesting)
The ATSC channel is 19.4 Mbps, IIRC, so that's about 2 MB/s. Most of that is used for the video and audio streams, of course, but it's certainly no big deal to scatter some guide data in there.
The real problem is that the guide data is delivered by each channel, so you need to scan all the channels in order to download the guide data for each channel. This takes a non-trivial amount of time, since you need to tune to each channel, train to the bitstream, and then wait for a complete guide data packet to go by.
If you want a full guide available the instant you push the button, you need to keep scanning constantly, unfortunately. There are third party guide services that broadcast everything over one channel, which is an improvement.
Re:Phantom power has it's use. (Score:3, Interesting)
20 Watts is a LOT just to listen for a remote control and a time signal. There are 500MHz micro ATX computers w/ 64 MB of ram that only draw 5 Watts at full power.
I'm not convinced it even needs to listen to the time signal. Even a crappy clock should be able to keep within a few seconds even if the TV is turned off for a month. It can sync up when it's turned back on. Most TVs will be turned on daily. Some may be only weekly.
Of course, whatever the figure is, the manufacturer COULD have reported it more honestly.
Re:Phantom power has it's use. (Score:3, Interesting)
The savings is not the $2.95 cost of a switch... it's the lifespan of every coax connection in the area that's impacted. See, an RF network has enough energy to power a lightbulb... and just like a lightbulb things can burn out. If you remember V=IR from physics, you know that if the voltage stays the same, and a resistor is taken out of the network, up goes the current flow. Out burns the wire... and you don't have much of an idea where to look for the failure.
All of your street-or-so's traffic is on the same RF carrier... and that network is monitored closely to keep the signal level. By powering down, you're making it harder to do that, and that could be a "bad neighbor" effect on somebody else's TiVo.
Re:Phantom power has it's use. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Phantom power has it's use. (Score:1, Interesting)
At 15 cents per kWh, that's $26 per year.
I think that's his point. It's $26 per year. I make impulse purchases at that price range without blinking on a weekly basis. People pay half of that a month for their WoW subscriptions, why wouldn't they pay that a year for the convenience of an instant-on device?
Re:Why tons of CO2? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently you did not bother to actually understand what you posted.
Nope, apparently you didn't bother to read what I posted. Scroll down to the second graph - it's probably clear enough for you. Oh - and seeing you're hard of reading, I'll quote another relevant section:
Of the remaining 40% that is petroleum, about half is related to transportation in the broadest possible sense. Of that portion that is transportation, only a fraction has any relation to Joe SixPack's automobile.
Source please - or are you just pulling numbers out of your ass?
Note that I'm not saying we emit more C02 with our cars than through electricity generation, just that dismissing personal transportation as a source of C02 emissions (a magnitude less than electricity generation according to you) is stupid.
Re:I honestly have to disagree! (Score:1, Interesting)