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Energy Star Program Needs an Overhaul
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."
Even if the TV does need to have some background processing going on, there's no reason it can't have a timer to turn on once a week or whatever is needed.
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Speaking of drinking the koolaid. Why is it that wackaloon right wingers always insist on using "MSM"? I know enough of them to know that they are talking about the main stream media like it is some vast liberal conspiracy...but seriously...it isn't clever...it is actually pretty stupid. But hey, you go ahead and call me when that "MSM" stops running advertisements 24/7 for some of the most evil right wing run megacorps around and then we can talk about how much of an evil liberal conspiracy it is.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
So, unplug and replug your TV every time you want to watch it. I honestly don't care if my TV uses 20 Watts when it isn't turned on or not, that is a rather insignificant part of my electric bill for a major part of my (and most people's) life.
At 15 cents per kWh, that's $26 per year. That's like having to buy a case of beer for your TV every six months.
If it's technically feasible to have the TV *not* consume 20W, I'd prefer to keep the beer money for myself.
20 minutes? I'd say a whole weeks worth of listings data is no more than a megabyte. What's the bandwidth on an HDTV channel? Something immense I'm sure. Store the channel scan results in flash, no need to rescan each time. Download a meg of text, parse and store it, and you're up and running in two or three seconds.
Are you FUDding for an energy company or something? Several hundred million devices suddenly using 200 times less power has got to be worrying the publicly traded energy companies.