California Publishes Television Efficiency Standards For 2011

eldavojohn writes "It's been nine months since California announced their intentions to create new standards on energy-consuming televisions in their state, but yesterday the California Energy Commission finally released the first draft of the regulations. (More information straight from the horse's mouth.) If you live in another state, you may be unfamiliar with California's history of mandating power usage among anything from dishwashers to washing machines to other household appliances. This has also led to California pushing to ban incandescent light bulbs. From their FAQ on TV Efficiency Standards: 'The proposed standards have no effect on existing televisions. If approved, they would only apply to TVs sold in California after January 1, 2011. The first standard (Tier 1) would take effect January 1, 2011, and reduce energy consumption by average of 33 percent. The second measure (Tier 2) would take effect in 2013 and, in conjunction with Tier 1, reduce energy consumption by an average of 49 percent.' The Draft from December 2008 is available on their site (PDF, with a shorter 'Just the Facts' flier for those of you without two hours to burn). There's no indication whether that's what they're going with, or if it's been updated since then."

Re:Counterpoints

[pegasustonans]

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.

Re:About time...

[Entropius]

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.

Re:other states

[pegasustonans]

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."

Re:What happens when...

[Darkness404]

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 today. If you are going to try to regulate the market (which is a bad idea in and of itself) at least do it in a period of prosperity, that is when people have the money to spend, if the price of goods go up, the average person is going to spend less, the less they spend the worse the economy gets.

You Can Still Order Them Online

[Game_Ender]

What's being left out is that its not illegal to own such a TV, only sell one in California. This means people who want larger TV's or a better picture at that cost of more energy consumption (like Plasmas) will just buy the TV's out of state through something like Amazon or BestBuy.com.

The only thing the CEC should do, if anything, is mandate labels on the TV's which list the average cost to run each TV. This way consumers could make the choice about which kind of TV to purchase.

Re:Counterpoints

[QuoteMstr]

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 experience and on previous income, like a pension, but with a limited duration.)

This program would be good for the economy, and good for the conscience.

Re:CA also has a history of unconstitutional laws.

[Fished]

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 usually works. Not that VA is perfect... but compared to California or Massachussets? How can you live in those places?!

Re:Counterpoints

[mariushm]

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:Why televisions, though?

[petermgreen]

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:Counterpoints

[smoker2]

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 the forgone conclusion, and you have to persuade people away from it. The people are right, whatever the corporations say or want.

Re:Counterpoints

[maino82]

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.

Re:Counterpoints

[zippthorne]

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.