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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."
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 don't need to spin the the HD 24/7 power it down when not needed.
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
you do realize that if you multiply a nickel times several hundred million people EVERY DAY you get a pretty sizable number. Try thinking large scale next time and maybe you'll start to understand what's going on here.
This guy actually researched and wrote an article, unlike Piquepaille who copied and pasted from others. No shame in giving links to your own original work.
Don't watch television!
Yes it is flamebait. What is even worse is that it is wrong.
Plus it ignores other damaging effects of wasting energy. Like the 40 billion per month in the balance of trade deficit. Or the fact that it allows people who don't like us very much to control our economy. Or the shear waste of burning something that could be used to made far more valuable stuff.
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!"
And you sound like a selfish idiot.
Cantankerous old coot since 1957.
"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.
Using 2001 numbers from: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/recs2001/enduse2001/enduse2001.html
Setting global warming aside, this is still a bit of an issue. If "off" electronics can actually be expected to average around, say, 5-15W, it's not to hard to imagine that most households are probably looking at about 50W (esp. if one includes "wall warts", etc) being consumed by things that aren't in use. Given that the average household averages about 1kW power consumption, this would indicate roughly 5% of residential power consumption, or about 57 billion kWh annually. That's an awful lot of power to be wasting.
Sure, that number may be a bit high. On the other hand, if you look at the source, you'll see that they are listing 7.3% of energy use going to unsurveyed devices. This goes to all kinds of things, but most of them are only on for a max of 30min/day (hair dryers, power tools, etc), and probably (though it isn't clear*) "off" electronics. And keep in mind these number are from 7 years ago, which would be mostly before the advent of the always-kinda-on home theater.
So a huge problem? Not really, but a fairly serviceable one. And if we are going to be doing wind power and all that jazz, it'd be nice to have to make 5% less of 'em.
*The survey does cover things like VCR/DVD, but it doesn't specify if the data includes sleep mode draw or not.
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.
kissing the asses
Are we talking cute college environmentally-minded girls' asses? Or living in a tree, non-leg-shaving, greenpeace girls' asses?
THL phish sticks
OMFG. That was awesome!
THL phish sticks
WTF is that?
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
Er, we do. (Just not for humans)
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?
holding up that neo-Stalinist litho print of Obama
Be serious. He just uses a Macbook.
THL phish sticks
Setting aside the truth or otherwise of global climate change, there is also the issue of the geopolitical effects of the West's dependence on foreign energy sources. The dependence can and should be addressed in two ways: reduction of energy use and developing domestic sources of energy.
Reducing the sleep-state power usage of devices addresses the first of these issues.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
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.
Got to love the free market folks. That companies are going to self regulate to keep themselves alive and thrive. The poster mentioned that the POSTED power conumption was .1watt, but AVERAGED 15Watts in standby. So the company lied, which prevents a knowledgeable consumer from purchasing the product that best suits their needs. The poster never said that the government should tell you what to do, but maybe they should actually test published numbers.
And really, if people/companies etc will always do whats in their best interest to survive, why do we have stoplights and street signs and speed limits..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
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.
saw a quote somewhere that said: "The main stream media is as liberal as the conservative capitalist companies that own it." I think that pretty much sums it up.
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]
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.
Sure, I can't stop you being a pig when it comes to your power, but I can point out that it does indeed affect me through the environmental waste you are manufacturing. Do you really think that you making icecream with your air conditioner and leaving all your appliances on isn't generating small armies of carbon emissions?
Disbanding the EPA's EnergyStar program would save energy and money.
Also, a lot of people actually do care about what they pay for in terms of electricity and make use of things such as the EPA EnergyStar program. You aren't the only person that might use it. I know that you are inevitably more important in your mind than anyone else, but spare a moment for the unfortunate folks that aren't you and maybe shed a little compassion their way. Maybe they want to make use of the things you so carelessly flaunt.
How would skate boarders feel if there was a whole government agency set up to reduce skate boarding?
But it's not like that at all. As a skater I would have no problem if someone came out and said "these wheels/trucks/deck will last twice as long as the xxxxxx ones you got". It's not an attack on skating, it's simply providing information so that I can make a more informed choice.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
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.
No you don't. Not compared to the other sizeable numbers you'd be working with when multiplying other things by several hundred million people every day.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Secondly,
If you want to be a much better troll (cause at the moment, you just come across like a rather overweight middle aged man, living in his parents basement and angry at the world because of all the opportunities that he didn't get) you should learn to either bait people with apparent (or real) obliviousness to the real world - for example: "I can't really save 15 cents by turning off the light in the room, it would cost more than that to turn it back on again". Clearly a fallacy, but one that might invite a slapdown from someone who takes the bait.
You could also opt for attacking a single group in some way, based on things like gender "EnergyStar is only for girls and dishwashers!", perhaps on racial orientation "EnergyStar is only for Jewish girls and dishwashers!", perhaps on political stance "EnergyStar is only for Left Wing Jewish girls and dishwashers" or go all the way and add sexual preference, personal grooming and maybe double up on some of the previous "EnergyStar is only for obese hairy Jewish homosexuals with left wing ideals and their designer dishwashers!"
You can see how this is building up to a very small percentage of people. The narrower your anger is directed, the more likely that your words will cause anger in the group. For example, a obese, hairy, Jewish homosexual with left wing ideals with a designer dishwasher would likely me quite unamused by your comments, however you are narrowing your target demographic down as well. It's all about finding that sweet spot between focused rage and maximum audience - after all, if you are talking about someone else, it's unlikely that someone totally not what you described will have feelings of wrath induced by your tirade.
Now, this is slashdot, so please leave trolling to the experts - and as a good percentage of folks here are actually quite environmentally concerned, maybe leave the silly assault on someone at least trying to make a difference there alone.
Now, I am aware you didn't invite this lesson from me, but then again I didn't ask to have to be the one to do it. As a result, we are both unhappy with the situation. Please in future, either do a better job of it which would result in both of us being more satisfied, or maybe just leave the talking to the adults.
Also, switch off your monitor when you are done at the PC, it will waste power otherwise.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
But all that "wasted" power is turned into...... Heat
Imagine all the BTU's that are not needed from your
central heating unit due to this "free" heat from all
your electronic appliances. Imagine all the $'s you
are saving.... oh, wait.... is it summer time ? Well
scratch the previous paragraph
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.
supply, so relax. Granted, we are far below the optimum 7,000 ppm of the cenozoic, but plants are still hanging on, nonetheless.
I think you're having difficulty separating groups of people. There are scientists, doctors, and the media. Of those, only the media said we would all die of bird flu. I don't recall much being said by nonmedical scientists, and I certainly don't recall any "consensus" (though I doubt you're familiar with what scientific consensus even is), but if you asked just about any expert what the real risk and potential transmission vectors are for a particular case, they would tell you.
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.
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.
hmmm. You are publicly and openly building on previous trolling work. Is this open source trolling?
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.
-
The problem is that people don't understand how their energy is being used.
I get a bill and it says that I used X kwh last month. Ok, but how much of that was really wasted, and how much of it was stuff that I really wanted? Maybe last month was hotter / colder, or grandma visited and left the TV on all the time (she does, too, and it pisses me off. She actually sleeps with the TV on.) How can you tell where the energy is going? It's opaque to the consumer.
You could make it 'simpler' by listing the amount of energy used per device in the house. Then the consumer could look at it like they do with their phone bill, and say 'crap, I spent $5 last month on that TV in the spare bedroom and nobody was even in there!'. No, I don't expect this to happen but it would be nice. The best we have right now is the kill-a-watt, and, frankly, that's a pain in the ass to put everywhere. So, the consumer has to fall back on reading the labels, and if they are lying, then we have no idea at all where the energy is going.
Here's an idea: make all devices produce a unique signal (like ethernet over powerline) that transmits their current energy consumption? And your circuit breaker box could have a kill-a-watt-like device that sums it up for you? Well, that would sort of defeat sleep mode, since it would require all devices to be active enough to be sending signals.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
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.
Of the three people you quoted, I count one scientist, who made a quite accurate statement. Perhaps you're confusing "possibility" with "certainty".
BBC article: Quotes one scientist, who says we can only guess at the effect.
Spiegel: Scientist; you'll note almost every statement is about "possibility" and mentions uncertainty.
Satay: Nonscientist
Boston: Duplicate of your direct Webster quote.
Do you really think that a couple of scientists saying that a serious outcome is a possibility means that scientific consensus is that that outcome is a certainty?
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.
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The other thing is that I look at my energy bill and as much as I hate to say it, I think the value is pretty amazing. For all of the crap I have in my house sucking power off the grid, I pay just under $3.50 a day. Granted we use gas for heat & hot water - but a couple of computers, TV & DVR, lights, oven, laundry, refrige, etc all for a couple of bucks. I still got Kill-a-watt for Christmas & have been going through my house, trying to cut down - but that's just the tweaker in me. If it weren't for a need to optimize because of some OCD tendencies, I wouldn't for a second think that my electric usage is something that needs attention.
Vote Quimby.
$13 is Coors Light territory (shudder). I buy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale cases for $26.