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Efficiency Gains Could Prove Proposed Plasma Ban Shortsighted
hihopes writes "As the EU calls for a ban on plasma TVs, a leading Harvey Norman executive said that the issue should be left to vendors, who at the recent CES Show in the USA showed an array of low-powered TV display screens."
Before everyone starts wetting themselves, calm down. While the frothing-at-the-mouth article states:
The EU is not actually thinking about banning a particular technology, but:
Source. The new, more efficient Plasmas mentioned in TFA will presumably be fine under the legislation.
I now return you to your anti-EU anti-regulation frothing-at-the-mouth posts.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
The answer is, "not very much"
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-3.html
No they didn't. Check your sources.
The EU has mandated a phaseout by 2012, it's up to member states how they implement that. In the UK, for example, the government and retailers are working together on a voluntary programme.
You can make a comparison with the regulation of fridge and freezer power consumption a few years ago. The EU put limits on how much power they could draw (banning the lest efficient types) and required that fridges and freezers should display their power consumption band (A for very efficient, F for terrible) prominently in the showroom.
People love having numbers to compare when chosing between products, so they now very much favour efficient models. Manufacturers are competing to get better efficiency ratings, something that wasn't given that high a priority in the past. Notice that the US benefits too, since these new efficient models are sold there as well. Thanks to EU regulation, you now have much more efficient fridges.
As a result, the consumer wins. For almost no effort (just a little light regulation) we now have much more efficient appliances, a noticeable reduction in our energy bills, and a drop in national CO2 output.
What's happening here is the same thing, but with TVs. You can expect this type of regulation to spread to other electrical appliances in time. And it's been such a success I can see the US picking up this type of regulation as well.
As a British citizen I have to agree.
If there was one change I could make to the regulation of the media I'd say it should be to make them more accountable for what they write.
One example I recall is that the BBC and many other media outlets reported that in the killing of Stephen Pakeerah, a copy of Manhunt was found in the killers belongings and hence there was an inference that it was partly to blame for the fact the kid killed him by beating him to death with a hammer. The police however came forward and corrected the media saying actually, the copy of Manhunt was found as part of the victims belongings completely and utterly destroying the attempt to link Manhunt to a murder by the press.
Unfortunately, not a single media outlet posted this correction. If I had my way I'd make sure the media had to post corrections like this on the front or the back page of the paper where it's clearly visible. Also, I think it's only reasonable they should have had to pay compensation to Rockstar the game's publisher for possible loss of sales or damage to their reputation.
Instead though, they did exactly as you say, they posted what were outright lies and when the truth came forward they just ignored it so that the majority of the public were simply left believing the original, outright false story. What makes it worse for me, is when the BBC reprinted the lie that Manhunt was to blame I sent a formal complaint in. I never heard anything back, but instead saw the same lie repeated a further 2 times in later articles.
The media seems to think it's above the law and in all but a few (i.e. Max Mosley) cases, that seems to be sadly somewhat true. I still don't understand why it's okay for the press to follow someone around, possibly even tresspass to take photos of someone wherever they go yet if your average joe does it it's stalking- how is what the press does in any way not stalking? What they do fits the exact definition perfectly.
Coal plants emit more radioactive material and also kills more people yearly from respiratory diseases than people died in Chernobyl.
When energy efficiency comes into play, EU usually does not "ban" something, but it tries to inform people so they can make beter choice (=support "free market at play" argument). The second method is to establish some minimum/maximum value (such as for emissions from vehicles) to push manufacturers research better options. EU own wording is:
The energy demand in households accounts for 25% of the final energy needs in the EU. Electricity used for domestic appliances in households show the sharpest increase. Higher standards of living and comfort, multiple purchases of electric appliances and the growing need for air-conditioning are main reasons for this trend to prevail. Energy consumption by consumer electronics and new media as Internet is also steadily growing.
The response is to act in two complementary ways:
* Energy Labelling of household appliances: Seen that the market of household appliances such as washing machines, dishwasher, oven, air-conditioning systems etc. are highly visible to the consumer, the intention is to increase consumer's awareness on the real energy use of household appliances through a liable and clear labelling in their sales points.
* Minimum Efficiency Requirements: Compulsory minimum efficiency requirements will encourage producers of household appliances to improve the product design in view to lower the energy consumption at their use.
Electric appliances in EU are labelled according to their energy consumption. When you go to buy refrigerator or washer, you will find such standardized label on the device. Many people use these labels (or in effect device energy efficiency class) to choose better. Following page shows such label:
http://www.greenlabelspurchase.net/ha-eu-energy-labelling.html
Actual EU legislation is here:
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/demand/legislation/domestic_en.htm
Now, to put things in perspective: average electricity usage per year is 4000..16000kWh in US (source: Wikipedia), ~3000kWh in UK (source: electricity company), ~1600..2200kWH in PL (source: electricity company). In Poland this would calculate to 300-500USD (depending on exchange rate, which varies wildly).
According to studies done in Poland, TV is the fourth largest household electricity consumer. The first is refrigerator (33%), 2nd lighting and small appliances (25%), 3rd washing machine (10%). This assumes that you use gas for cooking.
Classic 21" TV (max ~55W) uses about 7-8% of energy consumed per year (in UK/US this might be much more), so you end up paying around 30-50USD per year just for TV electricity. Using large LCD (42", max ~200W) almost quadruples that number (yes, I know that depending on settings LCD might use less energy). Using Plasma (max ~400W) makes the situation even worse (yes, there are some optimization techniques claimed by manufacturers). You end up paying 4-7x as much for new TV as you used to.
Given these calculations it is clear that EU has started to do something about TV efficiency, as more and more people buy LCD/Plasma.
And computer? it's under 3%. Less than an electric kettle.
Looking at the 50-inch plasma screens, the lowest is 163W and the highest is 609W. That's quite a range. Maybe it really is worthwhile setting legally enforced efficiency standards, because it's clear the industry hasn't sorted the issue out.