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."

Comments

Not banning plasmas.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Before everyone starts wetting themselves, calm down. While the frothing-at-the-mouth article states:

Despite several plasma vendors including Panasonic who are the worlds #1 manufacturer showing plasma power reductions of up to 40 percent, the European Union wants to ban the display technology.

The EU is not actually thinking about banning a particular technology, but:

The countries are close to agreeing upon new energy performance standards for TVs that large plasma displays will not meet. Plasma models typically use about 50 percent more energy than LCD models. The new standards, which will go into effect this spring, will pull the least efficient TVs from shelves and start a labeling system that ranks the efficiency of the remaining models.

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.

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[caitsith01]

I now return you to your anti-EU anti-regulation frothing-at-the-mouth posts.

I'm no free market radical, but this does seem like a good example of something that is best left to the market.

There is a direct and increasing incentive for consumers to buy lower energy use products. Therefore there is a direct incentive to reduce the energy use in these panels. Therefore the market is likely to either produce lower energy use plasmas, or LCDs or other similar technologies which have plasma-like quality.

The time and money no doubt involved in this regulatory process might be better spent on improving the level of mandatory information disclosed in relation to all electrical products so that consumers can (voluntarily) make an informed decision.

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[rrohbeck]

You'd be right if the energy cost of a large TV was noticeable in end users' wallets. But it's not.

It's the usual thing about internalizing energy costs. Energy is way too cheap for the market to have much of an effect. Why else would the US need gas mileage standards?

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[jo_ham]

The post below me makes a succinct point. No one (or at least, not enough people for it to be significant) look at the power consumption as a primary attribute for a TV set.

They're not going let the power consumption be the deciding factor between two competing screens. Maybe it's starting to be in the back of people's minds, but in the vast majority of cases, a TV draws so little power in the grand scheme of things (regardless of what the true value actually is) that they don't even consider the cost of electricity to run it, thus manufacturers don't have to worry about it, unless they have some mandatory figures to aim for.

It's not difficult to engineer the panels to be low power (within sensible limits), it just might cost a little more, that either adds to the retail price, or is eaten as a cost by the manufacturer. Either way, it's more beneficial in the grand scheme of energy saving on a national/global scale.

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[Enleth]

Well, assuming that I understand the summary correctly, one of the most important points of this regulation actually IS improving the level of mandatory information - the rest is just throwing out the most blatantly inefficient devices, and I wouldn't be actually surprised if those same devices tended to be badly engineered in general, so it's possible that nothing of value will be lost anyway...

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[Eivind]

Energy-costs aren't high enough that it makes a difference to the end-consumer, in many cases.

Let's look at the maths for a fairly typical consumer wanting a new 50" TV, watching it for an average of 4 hours/day.

Alternative A: Plasma, $2000, 450W. Alternative B: LCD, $2500, 200W.

Now, 4 hours a day for a year is around 1450 hours, so A will consume around 650Kwh and B will consume around 290Kwh. The difference is 360Kwh, where I live this power will cost you about $40.

In -principle- he'll have saved back the 500 extra he paid for the TV in 12 years, assuming he keeps it that long...

But it just plain doesn't register in the wallet anyway. If we say he -does- keep the TV for 10 years, then the total bill for TV these 10 years looks something like this:

A: $2000 + $70(power)*10 + $40(cable)*120 = $7500

B: $2500 + $30(power)*10 + $40(cable)*120 = $7600

In this particular example, the plasma even ends up being the cheaper alternative. Even if plasma and lcd cost the same, the plasma would still cost only $400 more over the 10-year period, or put differently $3 more each monthh.

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[im_thatoneguy]

There's also the commons.

I own a bigscreen TV. And I have no clue what so ever what sort of effect it has on my energy bill.

And even if I did know, I would still be willing to spend the money... after all it's a bigscreen TV it's not a frugal purchase, it's like buying a sports car. :D

That all being said if everyone was willing to spend the money but that expenditure had a detrimental effect on the commons (In say the need to build another nuclear reactor, the need to improve transmission lines, etc) I should be stopped for my own good.

"Why should I spend more on an energy efficient TV when Bob across the street saves $500."

This is a beef I have with commuters. I'm always hearing demands from people who live 50 miles from work that I need to spend 20 billion dollars on highway improvements. Meanwhile I spend an extra $400 a month to live close to work and drive less than 10 miles and don't touch an interstate.

Commuting to work 80 miles round trip has additional costs than just the energy consumed. The tax payer also picks up the tab for high way improvements, expensive on/off ramp and traffic solutions etc. It's the same with any energy expenditure. The costs don't always get passed along with the energy bill-- even with propper education. And you can be certain that if Joe Next Door is saving money and not doing the 'right thing' there is a serious disincentive to do the right thing yourself.

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[ShakaUVM]

This is a beef I have with commuters. I'm always hearing demands from people who live 50 miles from work that I need to spend 20 billion dollars on highway improvements. Meanwhile I spend an extra $400 a month to live close to work and drive less than 10 miles and don't touch an interstate.

The people living further away are paying 36 cents + 8% in taxes on every gallon of fuel they spend. It's a tax that scales with usage, and is reasonably fair in that regard. The vehicle registration tax (or I guess it's called a fee here in California, since that way they can raise it without a 66% majority vote) is a little more unfair, though I guess it's closer to a property tax that scales based on the value of your car.

I think the EU's ban is rather silly. I support the EnergyStar stickers that show people how much they'll be paying a year in energy costs for an appliance, since that will indeed encourage people to buy more efficient appliances, but just banning them is silly. If I'm willing to pay the money to power my appliance, and the power company is making a profit off me, who exactly is losing? In France, it'd even be coming from nuclear power, so the hippies worrying about CO2 emissions and the like have nothing to worry about.

Seriously, it's the magic of the invisible hand that issues like that are taken care of.

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[Decado]

One of the problems is that having low energy requirements could potentially limit the chance for new technologies to develop. If for example plasma TVs cannot meet the new requirement they may well be scrapped, but potentially if they can remain on the market it is possible that in 5 years time that technology will have developed to the point that plasma TVs use much less energy than the LCD TVs.

A system which prevents any technology from co-existing also prevents that technology from developing which is a bad thing.

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[The Lord of Chaos]

If I'm willing to pay the money to power my appliance, and the power company is making a profit off me, who exactly is losing?>

Joe Next Door loses when electricity rates go up in reponse to the increased electricity demand. They likely won't come down until years after a new generation plant is built to pay off the cap-ex. So your increase in demand is being subsidized by your Joe Next Door paying more for the same amount of electricity, or by his reduction in electricity use to maintain the same agregate demand.

Seriously, it's the magic of the invisible hand that issues like that are taken care of.

In this case, the pressure to improve power efficiency would have been delayed while waiting for the invisible hand to stop scratching its ass.

On the broader issue of global warming, waiting for the invisible hand to correct the market is a non-starter. By the time market pressures build enough for people to notice, the damage has been done. The damage needs to be done (ie population reduction due to decreased food production) for there to be a market pressure.

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[wkk2]

10 years? Without lead solder I doubt they will last that long. Going after standby power seems more productive.

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[JasterBobaMereel]

They are not banning plasmas - they are banning very inefficient devices of all types, these tend to be some of the older designs of plasmas...

They are also forcing manufacturers to label new TV's showing how much energy they use so people have a choice ....

They would also prevent the sale of any new technology if it were very inefficient, but that is a good thing surely?

Looks all good to me .... another "EU bans xxxxx" which turns out a) they are not and b) it is a sensible decision....

Re:Not banning plasmas.

[commodore64_love]

>>>Sales taxes are a form of regressive taxation because they take proportionally more from the poor.

"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will start to believe it." A regressive tax is a tax where people (for example) pay 20% income on their first $20,000, 10% upto $100,000, and 5% on anything above that. It is the exact opposite of a progressive tax.

Sales tax (and gasoline tax and bridge/tunnel tolls) are examples of FLAT taxes, because everybody pays the same amount regardless of income.

Why not just tax energy use?

[pin0chet]

It's never made sense to me why governments think that micromanaging things like what lightbulbs can be sold or how much power TVs can consume is a smart method for curbing energy use.

If your goal is to improve energy efficiency, economists have figured out a remarkably simple and efficient method: tax electricity use. A 25% surcharge on each kilowatt-hour used would cause people to buy more energy-efficient products, meaning companies would shift resources toward building less power-hungry devices. A simple energy tax has the same ultimate effect as regulating efficiency across myriad consumer electronics, but without the need for a massive government bureaucracy.

Tough call

[mcrbids]

"Let the market decide" is almost religious dogma in the United States. And it's not a completely unfounded idea. People tend to buy things that provide a better quality of life at a lower cost, and companies tend to provide things that are more profitable, so cheaper and better quality wins over more expensive and crappier.

But one thing that many of the "free market everywhere" people miss completely is the idea of the tragedy of the commons. I don't need to try to explain it as it's already explained well elsewhere. But it's one concept that the "free market" Libertarian types completely ignore, at their own peril.

In this case, people are notoriously bad at figuring long term expenses that are sustained and slightly elevated. People will tend to pay $10,000 over the life of a car for a "cheaper" model that costs $4,000 less. They'll tend to buy the plasma TV that costs $300 less than the $2000 LED TV that lasts twice as long and uses 30% less electricity.

And this affects the commons because power is increasingly a rare resource being squandered to provide a 5' wide screen typically viewed 15 feet back that provides the same viewing aspect ratio as a 19" TV at 4 feet at 11x the power. Power that isn't then available for running manufacturing plants, hospitals, and other things that generate real wealth, and require a tax-funded power plant to compensate for.

On the other hand, regulations take a long time to change, and marketplaces can change quickly. A bad law, once past, might take a decade to be redacted or canceled by jurisprudence, but the technology regulated by the bad law may render the law moot in 2 years due to other market forces.

I tend to feel towards deregulation, since I'm American. But I can see that Plasma tech just might be a bad idea!

Re:Tough call

[pin0chet]

There are several fallacies here. First, the idea that watching TV doesn't constitute "real wealth" is false. The very manufacturing plants you admit are valuable exist solely to provide goods and services that consumers demand. No, TVs aren't necessities, but that doesn't mean they aren't of economic value. Value is in the eye of the beholder, and lots of people quite clearly get utility from their television sets. So televisions are just as much a form of wealth as any other good.

Second, power plants are in almost all cases privately funded, at least in the U.S. The money you pay each month to your local electricity provider is going to a privately owned firm, albeit one that likely enjoys rate-of-return protection granted by government. Power is not running out, either. Will the cost of energy today persist as fossil fuels become more difficult to obtain? Probably not, but lots of neat forms of energy become viable once prices rise. By the time oil, uranium, coal, and natural gas resources all begin to dwindle, new technologies will have made new forms of elecricity generation economically feasible.

You claim that people tend to underestimate long-term costs and overestimate short-term gains. The LED example, however, actually shows that people are making the right decisions by sticking with plasma. The amount of electricity required to power a TV is still quite inexpensive--around 3 to 5 cents per hours--and so it'd take years to make up for a $300 price difference. And since pretty much any TV currently sold is going far past its obsolescence, it's fairly unimportant how long a TV will last. 8 years of 12 years are both very long timeframes among the modern consumer.

Figures?

[1u3hr]

Having read TFA, in two pages complaining about restrictions on power use, that the only data we were given on the electricity consumption that is the centre of the problem were vague comparisons:

• "Some of the larger models can take as much electricity to run as a fridge freezer they say."
• "a new range of plasma screens that used 40 percent less power than current models."
• "lower than some LCD TV's and significantly lower than a great deal of domestic appliances."
• "new models that have cut power consumption by up to 50%"

For God's sake HOW MANY FUCKING WATTS DO THEY USE? When they studiously avoid giving any numbers in a two page article, one has to assume it is not good.

Re:Figures?

[Jason Pollock]

The answer is, "not very much"

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-3.html

typical british media, anti-EU rant

[petes_PoV]

They love to present the EU as the creator of "loony rules" and regulations. Then they twist the actual statements to suit their own biases. This content is fed to a gullible and ill-informed public to stir up the rabble.

What's worse is when other lazy journalists pick up on the headlines and make further embellishments, without checking any of the source material. Even when these stories are categorically denied, the lasting impression - from the "drip, drip" effect is to produce an anti-EU sentiment, which suits a few (usually foreign) media owners, to further their own goals.

In the end, we get the media we deserve - but boy, do we pay for it!

EU does not ban, it informs people, pushes manufs.

[Moskit]

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.

What if gas taxes don't cover all of the costs?

[bigtrike]

If the gas taxes don't cover all of the taxes of increased vehicle usage, then you're actually subsidizing driving, which tends to encourage people to do it more.

I would suspect this is the case, as that $0.36+8% would cost you about $0.015/mile, while your typical self sustaining toll road, which cannot receive federal funding, seems to cost 5-10x that amount. The rest of the money must then come from general taxes, and is therefore encouraging driving via government handout.

In Europe, Nuclear power is heavily subsidized to keep the air clean, so excessive power usage is actually costing the rest of the taxpayers money.

The invisible hand only works when the cost of goods is the actual cost to the public.