Slashdot Mirror
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."
Linus Torvalds is a god damn thief!!! When I installed Linux it asked me for my credit card number. Two days later I got a call from Wachovia asking me if I had purchased $400 worth of Totino's pizza rolls and Mountain Dew (I hadn't). Let this be a warning to all of you out there on the Internet.
BTW FRIST POST
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.
You might want to work on improving your troll technique. Your post is out-there enough that people won't respond seriously, but it's not out-there enough to seriously offend people. Pick a side (start a long-ass discussion or annoy/disgust people) and go all the way with it.
You don't need to spin the the HD 24/7 power it down when not needed.
So I'm guessing that you'll also fall for my next scam where I claim I'm Steve Jobs or Bill Gates and ask you for your credit card number to pay for your subscription to using Windows Media Player or iTunes?
The burger you ate while typing that summary was made from a cow that emitted more damage causing methane than CO2 that my energy star monitors will be responsible for over the next 12 years.
Second, while CO2 is contributing to the hot house gas portion of contributing factors to global warming, it is not the worst or most worrisome contributor, and that is only among hot house gas causes. There are many other contributors that should worry you far more.
On top of that, you say CO2 like the Earth will get so hot in the next few years that we are in danger of bursting into flames any minute, when in fact, there is credible evidence to show that now only is global warming a cruel hoax on politicians and citizens of the world, but there is currently NO WARMING TREND happening.
So, which is it, should we assume you have been duped by the MSM, or are you really believing the hype, drinking the koolaid, and kissing the asses of the ill-informed?
Yeah, that is sort of like flamebait, but damn, enough with the global warming crap already. It's like soooo last year!
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
First off, its not your job, or the EPA, or DeviceGuru, or anyone else - its up to the people that buy the stuff.
Secondly, after Piquipaille ripped, bless his heart, people are now more than ever aware of click suckers like yourself.
Thirdly, the Slashdot astroturf detector is strong, and nobody will click your self-pimped link.
Fourth, although "150 times the power draw" sounds sensational, it's still only 20W, or 480W a day, or a nickel. If you want to save money, skip Starbucks, your TV in so-called "sleep mode" is not what's keeping you out of Beverly Hills.
Lastly, you should have picked any other day to submit, so that if your submission DID get picked, it wouldn't have been kdawson, who is at best a bot and worst a GNAA operative.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The television in question appears to be actively "on" in the sense that the tuner is on and is sourcing program guide information in standby. When the tuner is not, the consumption is as claimed.
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.
I record my sleeptalking
DeviceGuru.com? Moar like DeviceGayru.com amirite?!?!?
I would like to know how CO2 actually affects anything. Polar ice caps are increasing and we're in the midst of a 10+ year cooling trend. Please, explain to me how global warming causes colder temperatures. I must have missed that chapter in physics.
You carbon emission Nazis wont be happy until we only have farts as emissions.
Don't watch television!
From http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/product_specs/eligibility/tv_vcr_elig.pdf
4) Test Methodology: Manufacturers are required to perform tests and self-certify those models that meet the ENERGY STAR guidelines.
Self-Certify? You've got to be kidding.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Stop! I see the problem right there. Wachovia. They'll walk all ova' ya.
And with the recent acquisition, I must say, they're a perfect match for Wells Fargo. Last I checked neither of the two believed in paying interest on savings accounts.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
"Given the billions of dollars and tons of CO2 that are at stake, this situation demands more attention." Given the global cooling underway, burn as much coal as you possibly can! We need the heat.
WTF is that?
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
Tree huggers suck.
You know what would be cooler than the government telling me how to spend 15 cents? How about the government going and fucking itself.
I: unplug unsused electronics; hard-switch off powerstrips that supply electronics; buy appliances (other things being equal) based on the kwh numbers; have a pretty good baby freeze; don't need the government or bloggers trying to make choices for me. Free agency, kids.
If electricity costs money, and I use it, I pay for it. If I want to pay more to use more, that's between me and the supplier. Not bloggers, not the government, not you.
Disbanding the EPA's EnergyStar program would save energy and money.
How would skate boarders feel if there was a whole government agency set up to reduce skate boarding?
THL phish sticks
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.
"but seriously...it isn't clever"
I agree; in fact most of the people who do that probably couldn't define "Main Stream Media" (incidentally, Mainstream is one word, not two).
Of course, it's no more stupid than people who say "Right Wingers". Those people can't define it either; generally it means "something I don't like". And when it comes from somebody who is presently attending a University, well, it has a certain gravitas, if you know what I mean.
So from my viewpoint both of you are in the same boat, floating down some river, bickering with each other and using pithy phrases like "feminazi" and "yes we can!" to get your points across. No doubt you'll debate it in your blogs. Life is good, eh?
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.
zappepcs wrote:
Interesting argument. Of course, from what I can find, it looks like a cow can be made into somewhere on the order of 1000 burgers (assuming you're using all the meat for burgers, the numbers I can find are from 1000-2000 burgers). So, let's just settle on 1500 burgers. If you eat one a day, that works out to 4 years of burgers. So, assuming that the numbers you pulled out of thin air are correct and that your bizarre apples to oranges comparison is magically valid somehow, the cow is only three times as the monitor. Or maybe you only eat burgers twice a week...
Anyway, Michael Chrichton style, global warming is a hoax schlock aside, it's hard to imagine energy conservation being a bad thing. Even if it's only to save a few extra dollars a month on our utility bills and make our fossil fuels last a few more years (although, given your stance on global warming, I'm wondering if you're also one of those people who believe that oil running out is also a myth).
I want a little, tiny device, which I'll call the "shutter-offer," that plugs into the wall and has an AC socket that you can plug, e.g., a TV into. When the RMS current passing through the shutter-offer falls below 250 mA for one hour, it opens a switch, and it's as if the TV had been unplugged completely. When you walk into the room and want to watch TV, you push a button on the shutter offer to close the switch again. It's a hassle to remember to physically unplug your TV every time you're done watching TV, but it's not a big hassle to have to push a button on the shutter-offer before you turn on the TV -- and if you forget, the TV won't turn on, and you'll realize why.
This could be useful for a lot of other devices as well. I have a stereo amp that draws 20 W passively, and computer speakers that draw a similar amount of power if I don't remember to turn them off.
To make it really super convenient, you could have a wireless device similar to the keychain widget that remotely unlocks your car; this can be done with extremely low power, I think, since I haven't had to replace my car's keychain widget's battery in many years. You'd simply stick the wireless device on top of the power switch of the TV with some adhesive, and by pushing the button you'd simultaneously transmit a signal both to the shutter-offer and to the TV's power switch.
Find free books.
Your post is a set of trollish exaggerations, so force it to fit your views.
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.
No it not rather insignificant. The devices add up. And you don't know shit about most people. You are just stating that out of your ass. Show me someone who does not want to save money.
Some TVs have a guide that you can use to see what is on. And yes, there are actually TVs with built-in guides not using the cable box. It might be important to have that load in a timely matter rather than 15-20 minutes later.
Some TVs have that guide. This may be true. And if you knew anything about embedded computers, you'd know, that never on earth would any system need to load the data for your completely exaggerated 15-20 minutes. If you are talking about updating the guide from the net, it would go as fast as a browser loading a page. The TV would most probably only implement a cache with per-page refresh time values (like a browser). Why on earth would anyone implement a complex constant updating routine for powered-off state? It costs money, and you get the same results with the caching. On another note: I have never in my life seen a TV that needed to load that long, that I recognized it. And I have seen the oldest CRTs, where the tube gets slowly brighter (while already fully working), and the newest digital super-high-end TVs from my rich uncle that include every feature that you can think of, while still being from completely powered off in usable in the time i needed to get from the TV to sitting on the couch.
Then unplug and replug in your TV, the rest of the world wants TVs to boot up instantly.
Am I right guessing that you ignore connector strips with real power switches, including foot switches with a 2 m cable, so you can put it somewhere else. And remote controlled power outlets (if you're really lazy). And am I right in assuming you do this because else your "arguments" would be worthless? Again you don't know the rest of the world.
The fact that you don't watch TV much [...]
That's not what he said, and therefore no fact. He just does not consider it that important. And I consider people who consider TV to still be important, to be strange.
For most of the people that that TV manufacturers cater to, they don't want to wait. They want the TV to turn on quickly and using the remote, no matter if it costs a few extra watts of electricity. For people like you, well theres always the option of unplugging and replugging in the TV.
This is a repetition of what you already said. Do you think you can persuade us because you can't convince us? Because you can do neither.
You are now officially a troll. Go find a therapist or something to cure your misdirected urge to be right at all costs.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Where the hell do you get your information? Your grampas trick knee? Some of you idiots just claim that the world is cooling not heating, but they must be wrong because other idiots just say it's getting warmer but they must be wrong because it's Bushes fault. First off, Global warming is the effect of the earths average temperature rising and changing the environment, which could cause parts of the world to get colder, dumbasses.
Second, the article it self is about what Energy Star is meant to represent. People look for the Energy Star logo if they are interested in saving power or on a save the world kick. Not about the truth or myths of global warming. If an Energy Star device can draw on average the same as a non Energy Star device, then what is the point other then misleading advertising.
20 watts by it self is very little but over all if a 10,000 tv's were sold that drew that, 146MWH would be consumed, at $0.10 per kwh, thats over $1400 spent on keeping your tvs off. Now expand that to the millions of devices that are wasting power in America just so you don't have to wait a few seconds to watch your precious tv. Think of that effect every month.
Now think if the manufacturer changed the design to actually draw .1 watt at only a small cost increase of a few dollars, spent only once, think of the power and money that would be saved and you wouldn't have to do a bloody thing!
...its not your job, or the EPA, or DeviceGuru, or anyone else - its up to the people that buy the stuff....
So, should Mr Hellman not write about a Government program that doesn't work as it should? (Paging Woodward & Bernstein: Nobody needs your help to figure out what Watergate means.)
Should the EPA not make a program that makes manufacturer's claims verifiable and easy to interpret? Rather, should "people that buy the stuff" each bring their own meter to the store and run each device through all its modes? (And don't share the results, because that's not their job.)
You have a valid comment about hyperbole. Too bad nobody will notice it in the middle of your venom about click suckers, self-pimping, and GNAA operatives.
Your post has already harvested too many of my clicks. If you hope for a continuing flame war, I will not participate because I am quite sure THAT'S NOT MY JOB.
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.
If the electric bill doesn't make it clear, then I fear for this country. (The bill basically says: here's your usage in KwH, the price per unit of usage, and your amount due.)
If you use less energy, you pay less money. I don't know how to make it any simpler.
I learned this in 9th grade - we were literally taught how to read an electric bill, back when coal-fired power was around 5 cents/KwH. Now it's more like 10 cents/KwH.
As to free bulbs at Costco, you sometimes get what you pay for. The common CF bulbs don't have big enough holes in the plastic housing for ventillation, so you have to be careful where they are mounted. IKEA bulbs are a bit better, and seem to last longer. But they cost more.
I'm still waiting for LED bulbs.
Both the global warming and global cooling arguments are bullshit. I'm going to eat all of the animal flesh I want, fart it back out, and then I'm going to run the fireplace full-blast after I drive my Escalade home.
Global this, economy that, blah blah. All bullshit. The only constant in this world is that people are goddamn beasts who are not to be trusted. Take your hard-earned dough and launder it so that the stock market fucks or the banks can't take it.
For one, Joe Average Citizen could be informed about their options, then take personal responsibility for their behaviour.
That said, you've got the SmartStrip, which senses when you're not using the equipment and shuts off the main power.
Then you've got the WattStopper, which senses when you're in the room and turns on the power strip. When you're gone from the room, it turns off the strip.
Now, if someone were to combine either of these technologies with say, a UPS, you'd have a truly awesome product! Because I don't know about most folks, but when I pay a few grand for my A/V toys, I like to make sure they've got steady and clean power.
[End Of Line]
First off, either unplug your life from electric power or understand that that moving back to 1850 is going to be ... well, impossible. In order to decrease the energy usage of the country we are going to have to really go back to 1850 - you can't "conserve" your way out of the current situation.
If we aren't going to build increased generation capacity, we are going to just have to start turning stuff off. Forever. And by all accounts, we aren't going to build generation capacity. We might replace some existing capacity with "greener" solutions, but there will be no new capacity.
Unplugging everything is the only reasonable solution. The other alternatives are things like Chicago gets electricity but LA doesn't and non-starters like that. Can you envision a planet where the rich have electricity and the poor do not? How about a US where the suburbs have power but the cities do not? This is the sort of future we can expect with half-measures of trying to make luxury appliances more "energy efficient" and trying to make up for our lack of capacity by trying and failing to conserve our way to more capacity.
Worrying about incandescent vs. CFL and whether the TV is really off or not is a smokescreen. It will take some pretty couragous people to unplug everything, but the alternative is where 90% of the people have no electricity and 10% do.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The government has been hiding free energy devices acquired from extra-terrestrials for decades in order to enrich the cloaked people who really control the Bush patsies.
Now, however, it is a new day in America and Obama will embrace the emancipation of free energy and cordial relations with beings from outer space. Amen.
Three years ago, all the top scientists, institutions and their worshipers here and in the media screamed, wailed and hollered in a global circle jerk for six months that 50% of us would be dead from the Avarian Bird Flu by now. Skeptics were modded down, out argued and the fact that there was 'scientific consensus' was used as irrefutable evidence that they were right. A hundred million birds were uselessly slaughtered, economies around the world were damaged and families and communities decimated on the sage and infaliable advice of the leading 'scientists' in the field.
Who was anyone to argue with 'scientific consensus' their worshipers cried.
And of course 'scientific consensus' was 100% completely and utterly wrong.
Do we ever hear a peep about that? Did anybody every stand up and say they over stated the case? No.
Was anybody fired, did anybody lose tenure or was anybody publicly shamed for acting like hysterical fools? No.
They just moved right back on to their old favorite, Global Warming..errr...Climate Change.
And here are.
supply, so relax. Granted, we are far below the optimum 7,000 ppm of the cenozoic, but plants are still hanging on, nonetheless.
The word you were trying to use should be discrete. Your set-top box has no need to pull its punches.
If you want zero energy draw, then unplug the damned $THING and put up with wonky operation when you do plug it in to use it. Most manufacturers won't be bothered to do more than pay lip-service to these so-called "energy star" standards, which by the way have about as much authority as the Better Business Bureau does -- which is to say squat.
The Energy Star program was never about actually reducing electricity use. It's all about feeling good, as most "green initiatives" are. If they wanted to *actually* reduce electricity use, they could just tax electricity. Bam! Done. Same with gas mileage standards and gasoline use.
Turns out it would hurt the economy to actually lower our resource usage. If the Energy Star program was stringent enough to actually significantly reduce overall electricity usage, it would hurt the economy just as much as an electricity tax that would cause the same drop in usage, and probably much more due to the complex bureaucracy required as opposed to a simple tax.
I find the lack of real "sleep" for these devices saves on the energy required to heat my home... as there's always a trickle input from the TV, Computer, wallwarts for cordless phones etc... Them wallwarts get quite warm as well... all in all, this means I need to buy less wood and coal for my nice open fire...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
and 21 watts when "on". I was shocked. I'm putting it on a bus strip with a real power switch.
I determined this with a watt-meter.
that. Damn thing takes over a minute from the time I push the power button before it will even open the door to load a movie.
I leave it on across weekends when I know we will view more movies or when it especially cold outside.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Negatory. In 2002 tUSA consumed the following energy (quads) source:
8.1 nuclear power
2.6 hydro
2.3 biomass
23.2 nat gas
22.6 coal
39.2 oil
The oil goes almost universally for transportation. The coal goes almost universally for electricity [as does hydro and nuclear power]. About 20% of nat gas goes for elec, the rest for industrial and residential heat processes.
If everyone switched to a Prius tomorrow, our fuel consumption would go down by [pulled out of my butt] 60%. That means our CO2 emissions would drop by at least 30% [since nat gas, hydro, and nuke have lower C02 per unit energy]. That, sir, makes you quite wrong.
Additionally, the statement
has me scratching my head too. When we burn fossil fuels we get CO2. The energy efficiency is the percentage of CO2 that goes toward useful work is it's energy efficiency. Every joule, kWh, gallon of gas, etc that's not wasted is CO2 not spewed in the air for no useful purpose. No sir, energy efficiency and CO2 are directly related.
Finally (with asbestos underwears on) I'd remind you that nuclear power is not CO2 free. Not only is there plenty of CO2 involved in the construction of the plant itself thanks to the loads of concrete, construction equipment, etc., but the nuclear fuel doesn't come from flowers grown in the front lawn -- it has to be mined, often in Australia, and then shipped to the power plants. Less CO2 than coal? For sure. Than nat gas? Yip. But, not zero. Will nuclear power be part of the get-off-carbon solution? I'm not sure. If wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and efficiency are enough to get us by, I hope we don't build more nuclear. If those other things aren't, let the new generation of nuclear power begin, but only as much as can't be provided by these other non-carbon means which don't rely on dangerous fuels from other nations.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
I'd just be happy to get my kid to turn off the friggin' bathroom light.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Consumer Reports identifies a loophole in the Energy Star program.
Sent from my iPhone
Pretty inefficient way of heating your house don't ya' think? ;)
Illiterate? Write for free help!
I have a couple friends at the EPA who recently hired an electrician to come in and update some things. They got into a big discussion about Energy Star being a load of crap. People who work with this stuff know that Energy Star has been a farce for a long time.
-
People react in the strangest way to very large numbers. The question isn't how many tons of coal are wasted on these devices (which is a very large number). The question is what percentage that contributes to the total (which is a very small number).
At an average draw of 15W (20W 75% of the time), if we assume your TV is always supposed to be off/sleeping, we're talking 10.8kWh/month; roughly $1 on your electric bill. Not "nothing", but still only about 1% of my energy usage. (Probably less; tough to estimate since some of my energy usage is gas rather than electric.)
Reduce a 1% contribution by 99%, and you've still only saved 0.99%. Scale that up to millions of homes, and you've still only saved 0.99%. Now multiply that by the percentage of energy use that's residential (vs. industrial or commercial)...
Not saying it shouldn't be improved; if you can add up a bunch of small improvements, it can make a difference. But let's not dazzle ourselves with the "tons and tons of CO2"; that only shows a failure to understand the scale of the issue. And, let's not forget to look or hidden energy costs that come with chage -- i.e. if manufacturing the set is more expensive, then more energy will have gone into it, so we'll need to know how many months it takes to break even on that cost.
$26 buys 2 cases of your TV's beer of choice?
You definitely need a new TV.
But...but...but...AAAAAALLLLLL GOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRE!
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
if not the mainstream media?
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Eh...
My room at home got really cold in the winter, because it was diagonally across from the heater, so the air just didn't get that far before losing its heat.
So I overclock my video card, play Counterstrike for a couple hours, and my room was comfortable!
Overnight I'd leave BOINC running, for the same reason.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
$13 is Coors Light territory (shudder). I buy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale cases for $26.