So I submitted the summary and it was getting long, I didn't have enough room to add the counter arguments against this proposal (I may have made it look fairly unopposed). While the governator had his monicker on the linked documents, the New York Times [nytimes.com] has him likening this to water:
I am totally against protectionist policies because it never works. You have to understand that we get our water from outside California. We get it from the Colorado River, for instance. Why can we get the water from the Colorado River but we can't get renewable energy from outside the state? We get most of our cars from outside the state; why can't we get renewable energy?
We all believe in the importance of energy efficiency, but the CEC's proposed
regulation is simply bad policy that will do little to achieve energy
efficiency and a lot to destroy California jobs. The consumer electronics industry has been
trying to work with the CEC since day one on alternatives that would help
achieve energy efficiency without causing undue harm on California's economy.
But time and time again, we have been disappointed with the CEC's approach and
process.
I believe the article from the New York Times is about the bill passed by the California legislature to limit renewable energy from in-state sources. The governer's response, therefore, is focused on his support for receiving renewable energy from both inside and outside the state of California. The article doesn't really have anything to do with televisions.
As for the Consumer Electronics Association speaking out against a mandatory increase in energy efficiency in televisions, who saw that coming? An industry lobby is hardly where I would go for reliable advice on cutting down on energy consumption.
By the way, the other group opposed is named "Californians for Smart Energy" not "California citizens for smart clean energy," a difference I am sure we can all appreciate. According to their website, they are a group consisting of "consumers, small businesses, trade groups and associations." So, they are another industry-associated organization. Again, not the place to go for real advice on how to reduce waste.
who knows more about manufacturing TVs than the TV industry?
And who knows more about automobiles than the automobile industry? But, wait, the automobile industry protests practically every single time California wants to introduce stricter emissions controls. Nevertheless, California presses forward over their objections.
The result is that we have cleaner air and automobiles with higher gas mileage. The result of this TV law is that we will have TVs that don't consume as much energy. Just how is this a bad thing? Seriously...
I suppose it depends on what types of "cost" you evaluate. I like clean beaches, clean air, clean water, less disease and a longer lifespan.
All of these things have value for me. Therefore, the savings I accrue in terms of the things I value in laws that benefit the environment far outweigh any potential gains in paying five dollars less for a television set.
Furthermore, devices that use less energy provide savings in your electric bill. If you can't evaluate the savings in your future health costs by breathing cleaner air, then at least evaluate the savings in your immediate energy costs by using less electricity.
Jeezus H christ. Do you believe in a representative govt. or not ? Whose job is it to get the best value for money for the citizens, the people selling the shit, or the people ? Is it OK for corporations to exploit and pollute at will or should "the people" prevent them fucking us over like that ? You are free to be a criminal after all, but the consequences are dealt with by the state. Or do you suggest the criminals write their own laws ?
Pick a side and stick to it. Don't act like corporate hegemony is t
Uhh, are you responding to the right post? Which part of my post did you disagree with? Is it that I'm in favor of clean beaches, air, water, less disease and a longer lifespan?
Exactly where did you think I was suggesting that it's okay for corporations to "exploit and pollute at will?" It's funny this is the message you received from my post, since I was suggesting exactly the opposite.
I assure you that my post is in cogent English. If you read my statement carefully, there is no room for error in the
doubtful. Efficiency regulations have a long history of saving consumers money. Even if it costs 10% more, which is unlikely, you're going to save a significant amount of money in its usage and easily recoup that cost over the lifetime of the product. Most efficiency regulations save consumers money rather than cost them money.
I have a 40" television that consumes a rather obscene 220W. at my rates, after 5 years, the 10% extra cost would have to have made the thing consume zero energy over that time. There's no way that an LCD tv produced at the time mine was will last 15 years anyway, with with LED/LCD tvs coming out all without any californian intervention, so it's kind of moot.
Why is it that anything you don't like "will cost jobs"? We gonna need a ???? / Profit!!! thing for this. 1. Joe Sixpack doesn't look at consumption when he buys a TV. 2. So you impose some standards by law. 3.???????????? 4. Jobs are lost!!!
So what? Jobs were also lost when cars replaced horses and the buggies, jobs were also lost when typography machines were invented and people no longer had to duplicate by hand or place letters by hand on a form to print a page?
Maybe in a few years solar cells will be cheap enough and have performance good enough that each house will have them on their roofs so should we then ban them because jobs in power plants will be lost ?
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday September 19, @06:37PM (#29479693)
Yes, demand for electricity is shrinking. And our electric grid is so underused that we're planning to shut parts of it down.
Get a grip. I live in California. We don't have enough power plants to meet demand, so electrical generation costs are ridiculous. Our electrical grid hums and arcs for several hours a day. The fact is that we're using a lot more electricity than we can economically provide with our current infrastructure, and the other fact is that improved efficiency will give us additional electrical capacity more quickly and more cheaply than infrastructure improvements alone.
Jobless, middle-aged PG&E workers can't become DSP programmers overnight
Why shouldn't middle-aged workers be able to enroll in a college, university, or vocational program just like a younger person? Yes, they might have family to support, but the government ought to provide an income replacement program for people out of work due to the kind of structural unemployment [wikipedia.org] you describe. This subsidy would support them while they retrain. (I imagine it'd be based on the number of years of previous work exper
It will just be made up by people needing to turn their heating higher to compensate.
I think you're confused! In much of California it will result in additional lower energy consumption due to reduced usage of air conditioners. Also, even if you should live in parts of California where for some part of the year you have significant heating requirements you will still end up with a net gain in energy efficiency because this is not true all year round. Also heating should not be a huge expenditure if you properly insulate your home which will also help with hot summers. In Sweden and Germany, for example, there are strongly enforced rules for how much heat loss per square meter of a buildings outer surface is permissible. This has led to buildings that are nice and cool even in 90F summer weather as long as you close the blinds during the daytime and open the windows at night. And yes, we do have 90F summer days during most summers in Germany. I now live in Southern California and I don't even turn on any lights, if I don't have to, in summer, because every little bit helps in keeping the air conditioner usage to a minimum. I also bought a Philips eco tv to not heat up my place more than necessary when I watch something on my large-screen tv. Unfortunately there are many people that are either too ignorant or lazy to estimate life-time costs of running an appliance and/or they're total idiots and believe conservative talk show hosts rather than the overwhelming majority of climate scientists concerning global warming.
One the one hand you accuse Joe Sixpack of being too ignorant to estimate the life-time costs of running an appliance while at the same time neglecting to mention that government interference in the electricity market (especially in California), by fixing the price too low for example, encourages wasteful use while at the same time discouraging greater efficiency by minimizing the gains that can be realized from purchasing more efficient appliances. Yes, California tried deregulation before and got burned (
The energy commission estimates that people will save about $18/yr on their electric bills in the first year. According to 2005 census data [DOC WARNING] [google.com] there are approximately 12million households in CA. Let's assume each household has only 1 TV (probably a low estimate). The lowest PG&E charges me for 1kwh of power is $0.11 (up to 100% of my baseline), the highest is $0.25 (130% or higher of my baseline). Let's assume an average somewhere around $0.16/kwh (that's what my last bill averaged to, anyway).
That means that each year, each household is saving ($18/yr / $0.16/kwh) = 112.5kwh/yr.
Which means that the state of California saves (112.5kwh/house * 12million homes) = 1,350,000,000kwh/yr
Now, let's be realistic. Not everyone's going to run out and buy a new TV year 1, but let's say even 1% of households do. Heck, let's save 0.5% of households do.
1,350,000,000kwh/yr * 0.005 = 6,750,000kwh/yr
Not an insignificant amount of energy by any means.
That's like a million bucks worth of electricity. Per year.
Enough to employ 10 lobbyists, or 3--5 lobbyists and their commensurate grafting presents. But not nearly enough to even ramp down a single oil plant. A single, small wind turbine will produce 6 million kWh in about six hours of good wind.
Why not just make people pay the full price of the electricity they're using so they can leave lights, heating and AC on 24/7 but it's only they who are suffering.
Because being rational doesn't get you reelected. It's better to spread around progressive ideas so you look like you have accomplished something.
We pay a bunch for the electricity too. We also pay a tax when we buy a display to cover the disposal of that display (around $16 last time I bought something). Of course what I wonder is why we didn't just mandate garbage companies to deal with electronic waste, thus raising the cost of disposal in a way that can adjust to free market demands. We would benefit from additional efficiencies, and adapt to changes without having to write new legislation.
Because all the morons polluting up the planet by leaving their AC on 24/7 make the rest of us suffer. Seriously, if it were only a matter of economics, there would be no alternative energy movement.
Because a lot of the cost of energy use is negative externalites. Who pays to clean up the pollution caused by energy production? Further increased demand for energy increases the price for energy which affects everyone too.
The "full price" you're describing doesn't include the cost of damage to human health and the environment from mercury and other heavy metals, acid rain, greenhouse gases, mountaintop removal, smog, etc.
Some *small* part of that cost is included now via regulation, requiring cleaner smokestack technology e.g., which the utilities pass on to customers. But much of it is *not* regulated or otherwise included in the price the end-user pays.
Efficiency and decoupling have helped California to consume electricity far more thriftily than the rest of America. At the time of the 1973 oil shock, California used about 17 percent less electricity per person than the country at large. Since then, as Rosenfeld likes to point out in a chart that has been dubbed âoethe Rosenfeld Curve,â per capita electricity use in the nation has increased by about 50 percent to about 12,000 kilowatt-hours annually. Meanwhile, over that same period, per capita electricity use in California has remained absolutely flat at about 7,000 kilowatt-hours per year. That means the average Californian today uses about 40 percent less electricity per year than the average American.
James Sweeney, who runs Stanford Universityâ(TM)s Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, has calculated with Anant Sudarshan, a colleague, that much of that difference can be explained by factors such as Californiaâ(TM)s temperate climate, less heavy industry, and even smaller-sized households. But, Sweeney says, the stateâ(TM)s policy decisions still account for a substantial amountâ"roughly one-fifth to one-fourthâ"of the gap in electricity usage between California and the nation. The focus on efficiency has produced huge savings: though per kilowatt electricity rates are higher in California than in most other places, consumers pay lower electricity bills because they use so much less power than people elsewhere. A few years ago, the California Energy Commission calculated that the stateâ(TM)s efficiency efforts had preempted the need for 24 large-scale power plants and saved state consumers $56 billion.
Rosenfeld says the past generationâ(TM)s gains indicate the state can improve its energy intensity (the amount of energy required to produce each dollar of GDP) by about 30 percent every decade. âoeEfficiency,â he says with a twinkle, âoeseems to be a renewable resource.â
And there is the initial lesson from Californiaâ(TM)s energy experience: efficiency is the foundation of any effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. As California has learned, the most cost-effective way to replace coal or natural gas or petroleum isnâ(TM)t to rely on solar or wind or biofuels; itâ(TM)s to squeeze more work out of less energy.
France accomplished this by building a large number of nuclear power plants. I'm not going to go into the whole debate over nuclear waste and everything, because that's getting way off topic. It can also be provided by a clean and cheap source like hydroelectric. Hydro can be broadly split into two categories based on whether or not it uses a dam.
Conventional dam based hydro is a dream for grid operators (since they can take the energy more or less whenever they want it and at very short notice). Unfortunate
There be other places to buy yer electronics matey. This law will create markets blacker than the old man's beard and five times the size! By me whiskers this is the worst idea since they made grandma's medicine illegal!
This law will create markets blacker than the old man's beard and five times the size!
Except, no, it won't. TV manufacturers will be forced to comply with California law as a de-facto nationwide standard because of the size of the market. So, unless you buy products directly from Korea, "black markets" will not be an issue.
How is mandating energy efficiency a bad idea? Is it also a bad things that California has the best track-record in mandating greater energy efficiency in automobiles? Is it bad that California mandates energy efficiency and alternative energy use in power consumption? Explain how this is de-facto "bad."
I think we all deserve better TVs frankly and I think it is fair to say that the TV industry as a whole has failed to step up. We still have brand new TVs which draw almost as much power "off" as they do turned on with the sound blazing... Hopefully California will encourage more TVs to be produced with these kind of energy saving features by default around the world.
Yes, I too hate the "nanny state" and government intervention but when an industry or consumers fail to act in a responsible fashion at points a government has to step in... I mean lead paint in kid's toys, god knows what in our food, labelling on products to give the consumer more information, sometimes the nanny policies are good for society.
consumers fail to act in a responsible fashion at points a government has to step in
If you argue that consumers should be dictated to by the government, aren't you really arguing in favor of a sort of totalitarianism. Who gave you or any other Fed the right to say what is responsible and what is not. That is not among the enumerated powers we have granted to the Congress in our Constitution.
Maybe he's arguing that industry should be dictated to by consumers, through the government the consumers elect? That's what government is supposed to be -- the collective will of the people voting for it.
Your Constitutional argument is meaningless because this is a state action, not a federal one. Per the Federal constitution California can mandate that new televisions come with a rubber duckie if they want.
"Maybe he's arguing that industry should be dictated to by consumers, through the government the consumers elect? That's what government is supposed to be -- the collective will of the people voting for it."
What the consumers purchase is a direct expression of their will. What a government composed mostly of appointed officials whose agendas are not directly set by the people is something different.
Yeah, California is the land where individual rights and freedoms are forgotten.
You really have only a few choices left under such a regime: - Escape while you still can, - Live there as a criminal, - Get a government position and be above the law, - Or just learn to do what you're told.
I think we all deserve better TVs frankly and I think it is fair to say that the TV industry as a whole has failed to step up. We still have brand new TVs which draw almost as much power "off" as they do turned on with the sound blazing...
Either you don't know what you're talking about or you are lying to push a political position. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you simply know nothing about modern electronics.
First, modern TVs use much less power than older TVs. The move away from CRTs alone made a big improvement (ignoring projection TVs), and even within the CRT space, things improved a lot over the years when they built those.
Second, power consumption when idle is almost invariably a tiny fraction of the active power consumption if you're looking at anything built in the past few years. Anything with the Energy Star logo is required to draw <1W standby, compared with 200W or more for a large LCD set. Even with non-Energy-Star-certified plasma sets, they typically draw low single digit Watts. Either way, there's typically at least a factor of 100 difference in power consumption between standby power and active power consumption in most modern TVs.
So citation needed. Find me a recent TV that draws almost as much power when idle as it does when turned on. The backlight alone for an LCD set is between half and 2/3rds of its power consumption, so good luck.
...for example, motor vehicle emissions laws which allow an officer to stop your vehicle on suspicion that you have non-CARB-certified equipment on your car or if your car is "modified for racing." Apparently CA whalehuggers aren't aware of those of us who like to drive our cars fast...at the racetrack or dragstrip. Or that many car enthusiasts have the best-running (and thus cleanest running) cars on the road, asshats who gut their catalytic converters excepted.
If stopped, you're told to open your hood and allow the inspection. If you refuse, you're immediately arrested, your car is impounded and towed to the nearest CARB inspection facility. You better hope and pray that everything in your engine compartment is original or has a CARB stamp on it or your car (yes, the entire car) will be confiscated and you'll be facing thousands in fines. The CARB stamp is just a massive tax / attempt to discourage aftermarket parts, because it is irrelevant whether the modified car passes emissions standards, and CA charges a fortune to certify parts.
Unreasonable search and seizure anyone? Oh, look, a baby seal. Welcome to the People's Republic of Kalifornia, the most legislated state in the nation, and sadly, that fucks over the rest of us, since product manufacturers don't want to be unable to sell in that market.
Remember the clusterfuck that is MTBE, aka the chemical which reduces smog but pollutes the hell out of groundwater and is a known carcinogen? Guess who we have to thank for that?
What makes you think any of this is unconstitutional? The constitution places a lot of limits on what the FEDERAL government can do. State governments not so much.
If Californians behaved in a more rational manner less of this nonsense would be needed. Like if you have electricity supply issues build some power plants instead of exporting the electrical supply problem to Texas. If air pollution from burning gasoline is a problem, tax the hell out of gasoline. As far as street racers modding their cars in vio
Apparently CA whalehuggers aren't aware of those of us who like to drive our cars fast...at the racetrack or dragstrip. Or that many car enthusiasts have the best-running (and thus cleanest running) cars on the road
Last I checked, you could have the best running car on the road and still get 5 mpg.
I'm sorry that you dislike the penchant for people in California becoming annoyed at your self-righteous pollution of the atmosphere. We all happen to breathe your self-righteous fumes and are unable to jog in L.A. without becoming ill due to fumes such as yours.
If you don't support a strict effort to control such fumes and just don't realize how serious a problem they are, then I suggest you move to one of the many areas in the United States that never takes such things into consideration and you can fumigate yourself all you like.
Last I checked, you could have the best running car on the road and still get 5 mpg.
Last I checked, miles per gallon has nothing to do with pollution (and CARB stickers on aftermarket engine components don't get better mileage.) Witness cities in the 2nd and 3rd world where mopeds and motorcycles (which are not required to be inspected by CA) fill the air with choking smoke. You could be getting 40MPG and spewing NOx everywhere.
If emissions are so important, why does CA except from emissions testing COMPLETELY: Vehicles made in 1975 or prior, Diesel-powered vehicles (which includes the ENTIRE TRUCKING INDUSTRY), Natural gas powered vehicles weighing more than 14,000 pounds, Hybrids, Motorcycles, trains, planes? Why aren't airplane emissions regulated? Did you know that a jumbo-jet taking off puts more pollution into the air in one takeoff than many cars will in their entire service life? Airports aren't transportation hubs: they're giant kerosene burners.
I ride my bicycle every day in the city and emotards on their 1970's mopeds are spewing 1000 times more pollution than a car to look trendy and save money on gas, undoing all the work the rest of us are doing to cut our personal emissions. When I ride the subway, I see the commuter line roar by, its diesel engine belching a 3-foot-wide plume of blue diesel smoke..
I drive a car that is actually negative-emissions because its radiator is coated with catalyst. And, it's a heavily modified for performance. It's not CARB legal, despite being negative-emissions, because the company that made my exhaust (which has a catalytic converter) didn't bother to spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a CARB stamp. I take public transit to work, use the train to travel when possible instead of fly, and I bicycle 120 miles a week. So don't you fucking lecture me about emissions or saving the environment or the air we share.
And, incidentally, I don't live in CA. I live in a state which proxies their emissions laws off CA, which means I don't have any legislative representation in the matters which affect me as a citizen of a different state.
Am I the only one that finds it a bit ironic that the most polluted states are also the most environmentally conscious? I suppose that the arrow of causation probably goes from pollution towards environmental activism (rather than from environmental activism towards pollution), but STILL. Living in Virginia and looking at how other states do things, I'm often struck by just how hard-nosed and practical Virginia usually manages to be on most of the "core" issues (roads, taxes, regulation)--and how well it
It's not at all surprising. People react to pollution that they can see, smell, and touch. In less populated areas where smog just blows away, few are going to care what their emissions are doing. California has wonders like the LA basin. Smog stays trapped near the source. When people have to breath the smog they produce, they tend to care a little more.
But they have lots of time to force you to buy more expensive TVs in order to save a couple of watts of electricity.
Maybe Californians (who are not part of the elite, effete ruling class) should consider getting out while they still have something left to bring with them.
Yeah, next time they (voluntarily) buy a new tv they will have to buy something that will be more energy efficient. Oh fucking dear. And how much more expensive will it be ? No more expensive than the last one. Meanwhile California continues to exist on borrowed time because they have exhausted the Colorado river and will die of thirst within 20 years. Why don't you buy an island somewhere and expire quietly ?
The point is that the government wastes time and money on this sort of regulation when they could be using both to actually do something useful. Given CA's known bureaucracy, this is easily going to cost 10-20 million... for what, exactly? Is this even worth concern when the majority of new TVs are now LCD, which have minuscule power requirements compared to just about everything else in your house? No, it's not. It's wasteful. It's purposeless. It's feel-good regulation that does nothing for anyone's good. It's the sort of thing that is slowly running the state into the ground.
I don't live there anymore, luckily, but I still know this from experience.
The point is that the government wastes time and money on this sort of regulation when they could be using both to actually do something useful.
The California Constitution dictates that the budget must pass with a 2/3 majority in the legislature. In addition, the constitution stipulates you need a 2/3 majority in the legislature to raise taxes. Hence, the budget is impossible to pass and taxes are not raised. The republicans hold the budget hostage every year until they receive ridiculous concessions. It is basically the only time during the year when the republicans have any say in the legislature, and they use it to push through their entire
The water heater dosnt consume the most energy, If thats the case, why does the apartment building I live in use 30 therms of gas/month in may-october (water heaters for all apartments and cooking for 2 of the 3, and the shared clothes dryer) and ~150/month therms average in nov-apr when the heat is on. I wouldnt call that most of the energy.
Energy Star requires power consumption of less than 1 watt in standby to qualify. Wasn't there a scandal that came up on slashdot not long ago (I don't remember exactly when but within the last year) where sets with the energy star logo actually had a much higher average standby consumption than the energy star measurements due to powering up the tuner for EPG updates?
There was. I even did a search for you. I can understand why you didn't do it yourself, I used an astounding THREE, not one, nor two, but three, search terms to find the article. "slashdot \"energy star\"". Here you go: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/08/1322228 [slashdot.org]
And look at how great the car companies are doing in the USA! I hear GM, Chrysler and Ford have record profits! Oh wait... Congress "had" to bail them out?... We are in a recession, it makes no sense to increase regulations (and therefore increase expenses) when the average person has a huge cash flow problem. Lets see here, the house you invested in now either might end up being a loss, or at the very least hard to sell today. The stocks you invested in? Most are probably losses if you were to sell them to
Counterpoints (Score:5, Informative)
I am totally against protectionist policies because it never works. You have to understand that we get our water from outside California. We get it from the Colorado River, for instance. Why can we get the water from the Colorado River but we can't get renewable energy from outside the state? We get most of our cars from outside the state; why can't we get renewable energy?
With Reuters outlining some challenges [reuters.com]. Aside from that, you have some groups like the CEA speaking out against it [reuters.com] and a surprisingly negative response from the California citizens for smart clean energy claiming that it cuts jobs for citizens [reuters.com]. A rep from them said:
We all believe in the importance of energy efficiency, but the CEC's proposed regulation is simply bad policy that will do little to achieve energy efficiency and a lot to destroy California jobs. The consumer electronics industry has been trying to work with the CEC since day one on alternatives that would help achieve energy efficiency without causing undue harm on California's economy. But time and time again, we have been disappointed with the CEC's approach and process.
Re:Counterpoints (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe the article from the New York Times is about the bill passed by the California legislature to limit renewable energy from in-state sources. The governer's response, therefore, is focused on his support for receiving renewable energy from both inside and outside the state of California. The article doesn't really have anything to do with televisions.
As for the Consumer Electronics Association speaking out against a mandatory increase in energy efficiency in televisions, who saw that coming? An industry lobby is hardly where I would go for reliable advice on cutting down on energy consumption.
By the way, the other group opposed is named "Californians for Smart Energy" not "California citizens for smart clean energy," a difference I am sure we can all appreciate. According to their website, they are a group consisting of "consumers, small businesses, trade groups and associations." So, they are another industry-associated organization. Again, not the place to go for real advice on how to reduce waste.
Parent
Re:Counterpoints (Score:4, Insightful)
who knows more about manufacturing TVs than the TV industry?
And who knows more about automobiles than the automobile industry? But, wait, the automobile industry protests practically every single time California wants to introduce stricter emissions controls. Nevertheless, California presses forward over their objections.
The result is that we have cleaner air and automobiles with higher gas mileage. The result of this TV law is that we will have TVs that don't consume as much energy. Just how is this a bad thing? Seriously...
Parent
Re:Counterpoints (Score:5, Insightful)
Higher cost. Seriously...
I suppose it depends on what types of "cost" you evaluate. I like clean beaches, clean air, clean water, less disease and a longer lifespan.
All of these things have value for me. Therefore, the savings I accrue in terms of the things I value in laws that benefit the environment far outweigh any potential gains in paying five dollars less for a television set.
Furthermore, devices that use less energy provide savings in your electric bill. If you can't evaluate the savings in your future health costs by breathing cleaner air, then at least evaluate the savings in your immediate energy costs by using less electricity.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Pick a side and stick to it. Don't act like corporate hegemony is t
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Uhh, are you responding to the right post? Which part of my post did you disagree with? Is it that I'm in favor of clean beaches, air, water, less disease and a longer lifespan?
Exactly where did you think I was suggesting that it's okay for corporations to "exploit and pollute at will?" It's funny this is the message you received from my post, since I was suggesting exactly the opposite.
I assure you that my post is in cogent English. If you read my statement carefully, there is no room for error in the
Re:Counterpoints (Score:5, Informative)
doubtful. Efficiency regulations have a long history of saving consumers money. Even if it costs 10% more, which is unlikely, you're going to save a significant amount of money in its usage and easily recoup that cost over the lifetime of the product. Most efficiency regulations save consumers money rather than cost them money.
Parent
Re:Counterpoints (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a 40" television that consumes a rather obscene 220W. at my rates, after 5 years, the 10% extra cost would have to have made the thing consume zero energy over that time. There's no way that an LCD tv produced at the time mine was will last 15 years anyway, with with LED/LCD tvs coming out all without any californian intervention, so it's kind of moot.
Parent
Re:Counterpoints (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Joe Sixpack doesn't look at consumption when he buys a TV.
2. So you impose some standards by law.
3.????????????
4. Jobs are lost!!!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So what? Jobs were also lost when cars replaced horses and the buggies, jobs were also lost when typography machines were invented and people no longer had to duplicate by hand or place letters by hand on a form to print a page?
Maybe in a few years solar cells will be cheap enough and have performance good enough that each house will have them on their roofs so should we then ban them because jobs in power plants will be lost ?
Re:Counterpoints (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, demand for electricity is shrinking. And our electric grid is so underused that we're planning to shut parts of it down.
Get a grip. I live in California. We don't have enough power plants to meet demand, so electrical generation costs are ridiculous. Our electrical grid hums and arcs for several hours a day. The fact is that we're using a lot more electricity than we can economically provide with our current infrastructure, and the other fact is that improved efficiency will give us additional electrical capacity more quickly and more cheaply than infrastructure improvements alone.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why shouldn't middle-aged workers be able to enroll in a college, university, or vocational program just like a younger person? Yes, they might have family to support, but the government ought to provide an income replacement program for people out of work due to the kind of structural unemployment [wikipedia.org] you describe. This subsidy would support them while they retrain. (I imagine it'd be based on the number of years of previous work exper
Re:Counterpoints (Score:5, Insightful)
It will just be made up by people needing to turn their heating higher to compensate.
I think you're confused! In much of California it will result in additional lower energy consumption due to reduced usage of air conditioners. Also, even if you should live in parts of California where for some part of the year you have significant heating requirements you will still end up with a net gain in energy efficiency because this is not true all year round. Also heating should not be a huge expenditure if you properly insulate your home which will also help with hot summers. In Sweden and Germany, for example, there are strongly enforced rules for how much heat loss per square meter of a buildings outer surface is permissible. This has led to buildings that are nice and cool even in 90F summer weather as long as you close the blinds during the daytime and open the windows at night. And yes, we do have 90F summer days during most summers in Germany. I now live in Southern California and I don't even turn on any lights, if I don't have to, in summer, because every little bit helps in keeping the air conditioner usage to a minimum. I also bought a Philips eco tv to not heat up my place more than necessary when I watch something on my large-screen tv. Unfortunately there are many people that are either too ignorant or lazy to estimate life-time costs of running an appliance and/or they're total idiots and believe conservative talk show hosts rather than the overwhelming majority of climate scientists concerning global warming.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One the one hand you accuse Joe Sixpack of being too ignorant to estimate the life-time costs of running an appliance while at the same time neglecting to mention that government interference in the electricity market (especially in California), by fixing the price too low for example, encourages wasteful use while at the same time discouraging greater efficiency by minimizing the gains that can be realized from purchasing more efficient appliances. Yes, California tried deregulation before and got burned (
Re:Counterpoints (Score:5, Interesting)
That means that each year, each household is saving ($18/yr / $0.16/kwh) = 112.5kwh/yr.
Which means that the state of California saves (112.5kwh/house * 12million homes) = 1,350,000,000kwh/yr
Now, let's be realistic. Not everyone's going to run out and buy a new TV year 1, but let's say even 1% of households do. Heck, let's save 0.5% of households do.
1,350,000,000kwh/yr * 0.005 = 6,750,000kwh/yr
Not an insignificant amount of energy by any means.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's like a million bucks worth of electricity. Per year.
Enough to employ 10 lobbyists, or 3--5 lobbyists and their commensurate grafting presents. But not nearly enough to even ramp down a single oil plant. A single, small wind turbine will produce 6 million kWh in about six hours of good wind.
Regulations! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Considering the energy savings, a slightly dimmed future is more like it.
Why regulate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why regulate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because being rational doesn't get you reelected. It's better to spread around progressive ideas so you look like you have accomplished something.
We pay a bunch for the electricity too. We also pay a tax when we buy a display to cover the disposal of that display (around $16 last time I bought something). Of course what I wonder is why we didn't just mandate garbage companies to deal with electronic waste, thus raising the cost of disposal in a way that can adjust to free market demands. We would benefit from additional efficiencies, and adapt to changes without having to write new legislation.
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Re:Why regulate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because all the morons polluting up the planet by leaving their AC on 24/7 make the rest of us suffer. Seriously, if it were only a matter of economics, there would be no alternative energy movement.
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Re:Why regulate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because a lot of the cost of energy use is negative externalites. Who pays to clean up the pollution caused by energy production? Further increased demand for energy increases the price for energy which affects everyone too.
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regulation has worked in California (Score:5, Insightful)
The "full price" you're describing doesn't include the cost of damage to human health and the environment from mercury and other heavy metals, acid rain, greenhouse gases, mountaintop removal, smog, etc.
Some *small* part of that cost is included now via regulation, requiring cleaner smokestack technology e.g., which the utilities pass on to customers. But much of it is *not* regulated or otherwise included in the price the end-user pays.
In the meantime, conservation has paid proven dividends in California [theatlantic.com]:
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
France accomplished this by building a large number of nuclear power plants. I'm not going to go into the whole debate over nuclear waste and everything, because that's getting way off topic. It can also be provided by a clean and cheap source like hydroelectric.
Hydro can be broadly split into two categories based on whether or not it uses a dam.
Conventional dam based hydro is a dream for grid operators (since they can take the energy more or less whenever they want it and at very short notice). Unfortunate
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Waste isn't cool ppl.
You have obviously never done a sub 13 second quarter mile. Gone over 80 in a boat.
The fact is that _waste is cool_.
Very, very cool.
Kind of expensive though.
other states (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:other states (Score:5, Interesting)
This law will create markets blacker than the old man's beard and five times the size!
Except, no, it won't. TV manufacturers will be forced to comply with California law as a de-facto nationwide standard because of the size of the market. So, unless you buy products directly from Korea, "black markets" will not be an issue.
How is mandating energy efficiency a bad idea? Is it also a bad things that California has the best track-record in mandating greater energy efficiency in automobiles? Is it bad that California mandates energy efficiency and alternative energy use in power consumption? Explain how this is de-facto "bad."
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About time... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think we all deserve better TVs frankly and I think it is fair to say that the TV industry as a whole has failed to step up. We still have brand new TVs which draw almost as much power "off" as they do turned on with the sound blazing... Hopefully California will encourage more TVs to be produced with these kind of energy saving features by default around the world.
Yes, I too hate the "nanny state" and government intervention but when an industry or consumers fail to act in a responsible fashion at points a government has to step in... I mean lead paint in kid's toys, god knows what in our food, labelling on products to give the consumer more information, sometimes the nanny policies are good for society.
Re:About time... (Score:4, Insightful)
consumers fail to act in a responsible fashion at points a government has to step in
If you argue that consumers should be dictated to by the government, aren't you really arguing in favor of a sort of totalitarianism. Who gave you or any other Fed the right to say what is responsible and what is not. That is not among the enumerated powers we have granted to the Congress in our Constitution.
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Re:About time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe he's arguing that industry should be dictated to by consumers, through the government the consumers elect? That's what government is supposed to be -- the collective will of the people voting for it.
Your Constitutional argument is meaningless because this is a state action, not a federal one. Per the Federal constitution California can mandate that new televisions come with a rubber duckie if they want.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Maybe he's arguing that industry should be dictated to by consumers, through the government the consumers elect? That's what government is supposed to be -- the collective will of the people voting for it."
What the consumers purchase is a direct expression of their will. What a government composed mostly of appointed officials whose agendas are not directly set by the people is something different.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, California is the land where individual rights and freedoms are forgotten.
You really have only a few choices left under such a regime:
- Escape while you still can,
- Live there as a criminal,
- Get a government position and be above the law,
- Or just learn to do what you're told.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So I take it you're in favor of leaded gasoline and are opposed to catalytic converters.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So I take it you're in favor of leaded gasoline and are opposed to catalytic converters.
No, just slavery, wife beating and the holocaust.
Re:About time... (Score:4, Informative)
Either you don't know what you're talking about or you are lying to push a political position. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you simply know nothing about modern electronics.
First, modern TVs use much less power than older TVs. The move away from CRTs alone made a big improvement (ignoring projection TVs), and even within the CRT space, things improved a lot over the years when they built those.
Second, power consumption when idle is almost invariably a tiny fraction of the active power consumption if you're looking at anything built in the past few years. Anything with the Energy Star logo is required to draw <1W standby, compared with 200W or more for a large LCD set. Even with non-Energy-Star-certified plasma sets, they typically draw low single digit Watts. Either way, there's typically at least a factor of 100 difference in power consumption between standby power and active power consumption in most modern TVs.
So citation needed. Find me a recent TV that draws almost as much power when idle as it does when turned on. The backlight alone for an LCD set is between half and 2/3rds of its power consumption, so good luck.
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CA also has a history of unconstitutional laws... (Score:5, Insightful)
...for example, motor vehicle emissions laws which allow an officer to stop your vehicle on suspicion that you have non-CARB-certified equipment on your car or if your car is "modified for racing." Apparently CA whalehuggers aren't aware of those of us who like to drive our cars fast...at the racetrack or dragstrip. Or that many car enthusiasts have the best-running (and thus cleanest running) cars on the road, asshats who gut their catalytic converters excepted.
If stopped, you're told to open your hood and allow the inspection. If you refuse, you're immediately arrested, your car is impounded and towed to the nearest CARB inspection facility. You better hope and pray that everything in your engine compartment is original or has a CARB stamp on it or your car (yes, the entire car) will be confiscated and you'll be facing thousands in fines. The CARB stamp is just a massive tax / attempt to discourage aftermarket parts, because it is irrelevant whether the modified car passes emissions standards, and CA charges a fortune to certify parts.
Unreasonable search and seizure anyone? Oh, look, a baby seal. Welcome to the People's Republic of Kalifornia, the most legislated state in the nation, and sadly, that fucks over the rest of us, since product manufacturers don't want to be unable to sell in that market.
Remember the clusterfuck that is MTBE, aka the chemical which reduces smog but pollutes the hell out of groundwater and is a known carcinogen? Guess who we have to thank for that?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What makes you think any of this is unconstitutional? The constitution places a lot of limits on what the FEDERAL government can do. State governments not so much.
If Californians behaved in a more rational manner less of this nonsense would be needed. Like if you have electricity supply issues build some power plants instead of exporting the electrical supply problem to Texas. If air pollution from burning gasoline is a problem, tax the hell out of gasoline. As far as street racers modding their cars in vio
Re:CA also has a history of unconstitutional laws. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently CA whalehuggers aren't aware of those of us who like to drive our cars fast...at the racetrack or dragstrip. Or that many car enthusiasts have the best-running (and thus cleanest running) cars on the road
Last I checked, you could have the best running car on the road and still get 5 mpg.
I'm sorry that you dislike the penchant for people in California becoming annoyed at your self-righteous pollution of the atmosphere. We all happen to breathe your self-righteous fumes and are unable to jog in L.A. without becoming ill due to fumes such as yours.
If you don't support a strict effort to control such fumes and just don't realize how serious a problem they are, then I suggest you move to one of the many areas in the United States that never takes such things into consideration and you can fumigate yourself all you like.
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MPG != pollution (Score:4, Insightful)
Last I checked, you could have the best running car on the road and still get 5 mpg.
Last I checked, miles per gallon has nothing to do with pollution (and CARB stickers on aftermarket engine components don't get better mileage.) Witness cities in the 2nd and 3rd world where mopeds and motorcycles (which are not required to be inspected by CA) fill the air with choking smoke. You could be getting 40MPG and spewing NOx everywhere.
If emissions are so important, why does CA except from emissions testing COMPLETELY: Vehicles made in 1975 or prior, Diesel-powered vehicles (which includes the ENTIRE TRUCKING INDUSTRY), Natural gas powered vehicles weighing more than 14,000 pounds, Hybrids, Motorcycles, trains, planes? Why aren't airplane emissions regulated? Did you know that a jumbo-jet taking off puts more pollution into the air in one takeoff than many cars will in their entire service life? Airports aren't transportation hubs: they're giant kerosene burners.
I ride my bicycle every day in the city and emotards on their 1970's mopeds are spewing 1000 times more pollution than a car to look trendy and save money on gas, undoing all the work the rest of us are doing to cut our personal emissions. When I ride the subway, I see the commuter line roar by, its diesel engine belching a 3-foot-wide plume of blue diesel smoke..
I drive a car that is actually negative-emissions because its radiator is coated with catalyst. And, it's a heavily modified for performance. It's not CARB legal, despite being negative-emissions, because the company that made my exhaust (which has a catalytic converter) didn't bother to spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a CARB stamp. I take public transit to work, use the train to travel when possible instead of fly, and I bicycle 120 miles a week. So don't you fucking lecture me about emissions or saving the environment or the air we share.
And, incidentally, I don't live in CA. I live in a state which proxies their emissions laws off CA, which means I don't have any legislative representation in the matters which affect me as a citizen of a different state.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
People care most about polution in their back yard (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not at all surprising. People react to pollution that they can see, smell, and touch. In less populated areas where smog just blows away, few are going to care what their emissions are doing. California has wonders like the LA basin. Smog stays trapped near the source. When people have to breath the smog they produce, they tend to care a little more.
Meanwhile, CA unemployment is at 12.2% and rising (Score:4, Insightful)
While the California government overlords spend their people's time and money worrying about a few watts of electricity, the unemployment rate in California hit 12.2% and continues to rise [bloomberg.com]. The San Joaquin valley continues to suffer under a drought, but the water that would normally be used to irrigate the crops is being used to protect an endangered minnow [wsj.com]. This has resulted in nearly 40% unemployment in some agricultural communities and will lead to higher food prices for produce across the US -- yet another burden heaped on poor and middle class families.
But they have lots of time to force you to buy more expensive TVs in order to save a couple of watts of electricity.
Maybe Californians (who are not part of the elite, effete ruling class) should consider getting out while they still have something left to bring with them.
Re:Meanwhile, CA unemployment is at 12.2% and risi (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Meanwhile, CA unemployment is at 12.2% and risi (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't live there anymore, luckily, but I still know this from experience.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The point is that the government wastes time and money on this sort of regulation when they could be using both to actually do something useful.
The California Constitution dictates that the budget must pass with a 2/3 majority in the legislature. In addition, the constitution stipulates you need a 2/3 majority in the legislature to raise taxes. Hence, the budget is impossible to pass and taxes are not raised. The republicans hold the budget hostage every year until they receive ridiculous concessions. It is basically the only time during the year when the republicans have any say in the legislature, and they use it to push through their entire
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The water heater dosnt consume the most energy, If thats the case, why does the apartment building I live in use 30 therms of gas/month in may-october (water heaters for all apartments and cooking for 2 of the 3, and the shared clothes dryer) and ~150/month therms average in nov-apr when the heat is on. I wouldnt call that most of the energy.
Re:Why televisions, though? (Score:5, Informative)
I call BS on the 60-100W figure. A quick Google search:
Modern televisions use only a small fraction of the power in standby mode (typically less than 10W). A modern HD LCD television may use only 1W or less when in standby mode (compared to 80W-125W during standard operation). [wikipedia.org]
Various [lbl.gov] charts [lbl.gov] showing a range from 0W-16W
Energy Star requires power consumption of less than 1 watt in standby to qualify. [cnet.com]
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Energy Star requires power consumption of less than 1 watt in standby to qualify.
Wasn't there a scandal that came up on slashdot not long ago (I don't remember exactly when but within the last year) where sets with the energy star logo actually had a much higher average standby consumption than the energy star measurements due to powering up the tuner for EPG updates?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There was. I even did a search for you. I can understand why you didn't do it yourself, I used an astounding THREE, not one, nor two, but three, search terms to find the article. "slashdot \"energy star\"".
Here you go: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/08/1322228 [slashdot.org]
Have a nice weekend!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)