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California Moving Forward With Big-Screen TV Power Restrictions
Hugh Pickens writes "The Los Angeles Times reports that California regulators are poised to pass the nation's first ban on energy-hungry big-screen televisions just as they did with refrigerators, air conditioners and dozens of other products since the 1970s. 'We would not propose TV efficiency standards if we thought there was any evidence in the record that they will hurt the economy,' said Commissioner Julia Levin, who has been in charge of the two-year rule-making procedure. 'This will actually save consumers money and help the California economy grow and create new clean, sustainable jobs.' California's estimated 35 million TVs and related electronic devices account for about 10% of all household electricity consumption, but manufacturers quickly are coming up with new technologies that are making even 50-inch-screen models much more economical to operate. Sets with screens of up to 58 inches would have until the start of 2011 to comply with a minimum efficiency standard, with more stringent rules being introduced two years later. If all TVs met state standards, California could avoid the $600-million cost of building a natural-gas-fired power plant, says Ken Rider, a commission staff engineer. Switching to more-efficient TVs could have an estimated net benefit to the state of $8.1 billion, the commission staff reported."
Hugh Pickens writes
I most certainly did not!
Where are the jobs going to be created? Best Buy and Walmart. Considering all TVs are now designed and produced overseas I can't see were any jobs would be created?
Conservative, mod down for violating
We do need to think about our future energy needs both with respect to the environment and energy security. What we don't need is silly government micro management of our lives. So yes that means we need to subsidize nuclear, wind and solar power. The problem is that the greenies block everything. They block nuclear energy and they even block solar energy. Diane Feinstein plans on banning solar panels in the Mojave Desert even though that is one of the best places for them. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/20/MN4T19OTBJ.DTL And then the greenies don't want to allow wind power on mountains in Vermont and New Hampshire even though no-one lives on the top of a mountain. They dig their heads on the sand and pretend that with a growing population we can just conserve our way out of this crisis - which is of course way out of reality. Then they try to impose draconian restrictions on the rest of us. I can just imagine the next step - banning video games because of energy use.
In an unrelated story, Best Buy and other several home electronics retailers announced plans to relocate stores to Reno and to the I-15 State Line.
How about taking the tvs out of the prisons? That should save quite a bit of electricity.
Glad i don't live there. ( and hope their stupidity doesn't spread ).
Oh, and i don't even own a big screen tv...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
lets see, if the California government gets out of both the energy and consumer appliance size regulation game then capitalism could take over they could possibly build, I don't know, a clean solar power plant out in the Mojave? Maybe even put some wind power in away from the hippies? Then the downward trend of TV power consumption could continue on its current path and there wouldn't be a lot to worry about.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
...tell you how much electricity your TV set can use or how much water your toilet can use per flush, has the power to do anything.
Hugh Pickens writes
I most certainly did not!
Oh, yes you did!
...get that ID today.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
how about doing something about cable / sat boxes as well? Why can't they go into a lower power mode / HD spin down when off / not recording something?
Mandating low consumption TV sets, or low consumption lightbulbs (here in Finland it's now forbidden to produce incandescent bulbs) is as dumb as mandating low consumption cars. It makes the whole process of enforcement and monitoring more complicated, more expensive and prone to corruption.
The logical and simpler solution is to increase the price of electricity and/or gasoline, to reflect the real cost of the commodity, through taxes. That way, there is a natural economic pressure to decrease the consumption of EVERY appliance. And if someone has the money to pay for the electricity consumed by his/her CRT TV, then let them. Their money can be used to find better sources of abovementioned commodities. I.E. invest in research of algae-produced combustibles.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
why don't we just ask that all power supplies must have a 90%+ efficiency? at least we'll know we use the electricitym and don't just waste it...
I think this new law could fast-track the development of larger OLED flat panel TV's.
Since OLED's don't need backlighting, by definition it means very efficient power usage even on flat panel TV's over 50" in size. Don't be surprised that LG, Samsung, Panasonic and Sony start pouring in billions of dollars in R&D to overcome the current technical issues and get these larger OLED flat panel TV's into production by 2012 at latest. And unlike LCD TVs, OLED TVs will have extremely fast response times, which means no motion blurring issues even with fast action scenes.
...is BACK,
and he saw himself on a 50 inch TV and thought - "too much detail", ban all 50" inch TV's, I got to look good on TV. ;)
(Spoken with Arnoldish accent of course)
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
It may depend on the box and the provider but a number of cable/sat boxes that I have seen need to be "always on" (i.e. they need to be powered up and receiving signal) so that they can pick up new software updates and possibly also new encryption keys.
Instead of banning power hungry appliances, what if the commissars passed a regulation that citizens of California not buy anything that they cannot afford to operate. Oh, but wait. Most people do that anyway.
OK, since no one really needs commissars to tell them how to run their lives, why don't they just go away and leave us alone. Then if California needs more power generation capacity, someone will provide it, unless some meddlesome commissar gets in the way.
I wonder if California is bankrupt because of these "regulators".
Is it true that in some parts of California it's illegal to dry your laundry outside? That in parts of a state that is predominantly hot and dry the only legal way of getting your clothes dry is to heat them and rotate them in a sealed metal drum?
Compare with TV usage here:
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/energyconsumption.html
It's a bit less than a big TV, but if you've got free air drying outside your door, you can use it for zero-carbon, zero-cost drying. Except of course all that laundry flapping around is going to bring down the price of houses in the neighborhood, because prospective buyers will think you're all too poor to afford dryers. Conspicuous consumption at its most brillant.
[Or at least that's the reason I understand for outside laundry lines]
From TFA:
The payoff could be big for TV owners, said Ken Rider, a commission staff engineer. Average first-year savings from reduced electricity use would be an estimated $30 per set.
Now CA's electricity prices are higher than many states, maybe even as much as double. If the TV set costs you "a few bucks more" then you'll come out ahead thanks to the California regulations.
So, to recap: you'll save money, and you'll reduce (unnecessary) demand on the grid which will help prevent building new gas fired power plants. What's the problem again?
Support a few technologists in Washington.
... this picture on the screen
I have a 28" Philips CRT TV. Now play around on that site and check out the power consumption of a 37" LCD, which has roughly the same height as my CRT, but is wide-screen.
With CRTs, the viewable image is about 1" smaller than the TV's advertised diagonal, so your 28" Philips has a 27" viewable image. Then to get the same image height, you have to multiply by sqrt(16*16+9*9)/sqrt(12*12+9*9) = 1.224, which gives 33 inches. So you probably don't need a 37" class LCD TV; you could do fine with one of the 80 cm TVs that U.S. retailers are selling as 32" class.
No.
California's insane ballot initiatives and the 2/3rds requirement in the Legislature are one problem. Any change in tax policy is held hostage by one or two insane "conservative" state legislators.
California's three-strikes rules mean that the prison system costs the state 10 billion dollars, roughly half of the state's deficit. Even at that level, it is underfunded for the size of the prison population (conditions in California's prisons are still constitutionally inhumane).
California's economic productivity consistently ranks in the top three among the states. Also, among states, it is one of the top net contributors to federal coffers. In other words, it funds libertopian states like Alaska.
The problem is the right wing in the California; demagoguery in ballot initiatives, theocratic demands in the legislature, and right realist philosophy in criminal justice.
Wondering is fine, but you need to follow it up with real data.
Switching to more-efficient TVs could have an estimated net benefit to the state of $8.1 billion, the commission staff reported.
Imagine how much would be saved if California simply outlawed all TVs.
Really how low can the energy requirements go?
I have a old TV I rarely use in thing its a about 20 inches I have had it since 1995 it still works fine. I noticed that it says it requires over 600watts!
I have a Rear projection TV that I purchased in about 2001 43 inch, it only requires 480 on surge to startup and it looks less than 190 watts to run.
I ran it off a Voltage inverter and a car battery during long winter blackout, I never gave a second thought to how much power the TV used and I was VERY surprised and thankful at how little it did use during that time of emergency.
I have new a 24 inch HD LCD monitor I have never seen anything so clear and bright and sharp and the bonus is that it draws about <65watts!
Why are they legislating this?
When things are already moving in the correct direction, how much lower can you go?
I thought three strikes was only for "violent" felonies while half the prison population is there for nonviolent sale and possession of drugs.
End Prohibition Now!
Just the latest example of where Government creates a problem where it didn't exist before in order to propose a solution which nets them more control/power. The Government mandated the switch to digital TV (SD/HD widescreen) and large formats from the lower power consumption CRT analog format. As usual they didn't think past their asses as to what the consequences would be. Now suddenly their prior mandates are bad and must be changed to "save the world" (sarcasm free of charge). All Government regulation is for one purpose and one purpose only - to grow Government and Government Control and Power. I can't wait for the revolution to begin (no sarcasm intended).
Forget STBs, the don;t tend to use much power in use, not *that* much (typically). Perhaps they should do something about the ever-increasing power consumption of PCs. Some of these are used to stream video to the TV now, and they all tend to have a huge CPU and especially Graphics card requirements that are not necessary for this job (or the job of most home users - emails and web surfing).
California might make much more of a splash if they announced that instead. The computing (software) companies might also make sw that gets back to the old days of efficient use of computing resources instead of sucking up everything in sight to power the same old textboxes using a different framework. (yes, MS, looking at you).
They won't get such a thing passed, but it would start a very interesting debate :)
I thought, wow, Vizio made in america. A quick google of vizio manufacturing got the first result as (from USA today)
"Vizio CEO William Wang says he can undercut his competition because his overhead is low. The company has about 85 employees, most of whom work in technical support or engineering. Vizio outsources manufacturing to low-cost, for-hire factories in Asia, as many other electronics-makers do. The company plans to spend $35 million on advertising this year -- "nowhere close" to its larger rivals' budgets, Wang says."
January 7, 2009:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1083795&cid=26362801
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
Lead, tetraethyl lead, polychlorinated biphenyls, DDT, mercury, methylmercury, friable asbestos, BPA ...
there's no end to the good things corporations would bring you-the-consumer if it weren't for we-the-people interfering.
Be grateful and participate in our government. It's you. The corporation isn't.
Oh, and remember -- don't lick your fingers:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48084/title/Science_%2B_the_Public__Concerned_about_BPA_Check_your_receipts
"... "When people talk about polycarbonate bottles, they talk about nanogram quantities of BPA [leaching out]," Warner observes. "The average cash register receipt that's out there and uses the BPA technology will have 60 to 100 milligrams of free BPA." By free, he explains, it's not bound into a polymer, like the BPA in polycarbonates. It's just the individual molecules loose and ready for uptake.
As such, he argues, when it comes to BPA in the urban environment, "the biggest exposures, in my opinion, will be these cash register receipts." Once on the fingers, BPA can be transferred to foods. And keep in mind, he adds, some hormones -- like estrogen in certain birth-control formulations -- are delivered through the skin by controlled-release patches. So, he argues, estrogen mimics like BPA might similarly enter the skin...."
Just remember -- better living through chemistry, but they didn't say _whose_ living would be bettered.
KaChing!
One more restriction, one more reduction in freedom. Americans may be brave but we are no longer free.
Given the growing size of TV screens, they are going to outpace CRTs for power consumption, if they haven't already. A few people using such power hungry screens is not an issue, but when everyone does then suddenly out power sources aren't up to the task.
Any restriction is going to have be in the form of a ratio, that can easily be evolved as technology evolves. For example with TV screens (or even monitors) it would be something of the form of Watts/Pixel or Watts/Square Inch and lights it would be Watts/Lumens. I would like to see TV screen specifications specifying both the watts/pixel and the total power usage for an hour. The watts/pixel would represent the total power usage of a pixel for the size of the TV, so that if you added up the number of pixels in the TV they would equals the rated total power usage. The idea here is that for a matching technology both large and small screen should be consistent with power usage per pixel, with only the total wattage changing due to pixel count. Actually maybe it be both watts/pixel and watts/square inch to avoid manufacturers cheating.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I've been kicking around this theory. I think I'll unveil it on SlashDot first, then maybe go for wider publication and peer validation. It could revolutionize _everything_.
OK, stick with me. What if... man I'm sweating about this, it's so monumental. OK, hold it together RightSaidFred99, hold it together.
Ready. OK. What if we charge more for goods and services, including power delivery, when we have an interest in seeing those goods and services used less. I think this came to me in a fevered peyote dream or something, but I am willing to bet (just a small amount of money - it's only a theory) that if California raised the price of power just a little bit that usage would go down. They could find the "sweet spot" (new term I coined) between price and availability of the resource and find some sort of balance.
Now the really crazy thing about this radical, revolutionary, mind-blowing idea of raising the price to quell demand is that it affects not only large TVs but _everything_! It might make people turn off their lights and lower their utilization of other power-using appliances!
Here is the problem I have with energy efficiency. We need to work on production not consumption. Human progress is marked by our ability to produce and control larger amounts of energy. The big moments, fire, steam, steel(blast furnaces), oil, hydro, nuclear, rockets. I cannot imagine a future where people are better off producing less energy. We need more. Nuclear is the next obvious step. It has only been regulations that have been in the way. I am a capitalist but as such property rights are important. You can't let a power plant pollute because that harms my property. All manufacturing cannot be allowed to cause a measurable increase in pollutants on neighboring property. That means coal plants would be allowed but they can't put out measurable quantities of pollutants. Also if we stop our world empire we would stop subsidizing the costs of oil. Oil companies and shippers would have to pay for their own security and that would be rolled into the cost of oil. Nuclear is the most power dense solution especially if regulations for reprocessing are removed. We can truly move into the next stage of humanity if this technology is allowed to progress.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Banning certain gadgets that are judged by the powers that be to have "unreasonable" energy consumption is as pointless as it is wrong headed.
Firstly, as long as demand for consumer products continues to grow exponentially any efficiency savings will just be eaten up by increased demand.
Secondly, while society has a right to limit the amount of carbon each individual pumps into the atmosphere in an act of collective self-preservation, it has no right to tell individuals how to use their carbon allocation.
What we need is carbon rationing, and a massive program of alternative energy research and construction. This kind of crap is just an attempt to make people feel like the climate crisis is being handled and provide a talking point without doing anything so politically dangerous as actually addressing it.
Also program guide information, changes in the subscriber's service, and in some cases, the boxes are polled individually about PPV or other premium services buys. Add in that the STB vendor is always under lots of pressure from the cable companies to shave a few bucks off the price of the box, and that the cable companies weren't paying for the power, and there's zero incentive to use low power (more expensive) parts or go to the trouble of having the controller shut off power to unneeded components.
...so that they can pick up new software updates and possibly also new encryption keys.
And so they can push messages to the box advertise the constant wresting pay per view people seem to buy.
Buy or build a PC with Atom processor, I heard they don't use much power. I was considering to build such a PC to use as a router (with a big case and 12-24V power supply and some batteries as a on-line UPS for it), but I use an old PC now (which I already had and did not need to buy).
I am all for more efficient software though. Games can use a lot of resources, but regular software, like text editors and Operating Systems should use as little resources as possible, not like Vista.
Representatives of some TV makers, including top-seller Vizio Inc. of Irvine, said they would have little trouble complying with tighter state standards without substantially increasing prices.
Oh, I see. They would have little trouble increasing prices.
Let's see, what TVs are made in the US? Oh, yeah. None. None at all. The last US TV manufacturer I believe was Magnavox with the Quasar brand. Zenith bit the dust before that, as did RCA, GE, and every other single manufacturer of consumer electronics. None of this stuff is made in the US any longer because it is not cost effective to do so. Primarily because of labor costs - why pay someone $30,000 a year to build TV sets when the same job pays $1500 overseas?
Perhaps the jobs being referred to would be TV investigators. California could lead the nation in environmental impact jobs by employing people to ride bicycles around checking up on people's TVs and maybe other appliances. If they found larger than permitted TVs or other energy-wasting appliances they could be confiscated. That would lead to more jobs - people driving the trucks to collect these appliances and more people to ... well, I guess sell them to other states.
The problem is, the electricity crisis is just about upon us. We hear constantly about large power companies proposing to build new coal generating plants to meet the growing demand. When was the last time you actually saw one of these plants being built? Maybe in the 1970s? Obama has vowed to tax such plants into oblivion also, so even if they got through the environmental regulations somehow they would never actually be built. Nuclear isn't happening in the US for political reasons - there are no real reasons not to build these plants - except it would take too long and we will be in a shortage of power long before any nuclear plant came on line.
So California might have the right idea with having applicance police. I seriously doubt they would actually do that, but someone is going to have to do something to stop the growth in electric power consumption. The population in the US keeps growing from immigration and we keep finding new and exciting ways to consume electricity.
Good plan in my opinion.
Quite often, one can produce your product using component A or B. A is cheaper, but less environmentally friendly. Component B is more expensive.
As the price of a TV does not depend on the selected component (not significant), the cheaper option is selected. Volume starts making a difference.
Conclusion, environment is sold out to maximize profits.
You want to create TV electricity police for a near zero potential long-term benefit?
Some might suggest that you just like policing every aspect on everyone's life in the tiniest detail. Or maybe you just want votes from the TV police union. Either of those are problems. The small acts of oppression pile up into a big totalitarian heap.
And that assumes your ultra-rosy scenario is true. What's the track record for government involvement actually lowering the cost of things?
California could avoid the $600-million cost of building a natural-gas-fired power plant,
This is simple, make Californians pay for the new power plants needed to feed their TVs.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
... build me a nuclear power plant you technologically defunct hippies!
Creating jobs is the mantra of job-killers.
Seems to me, an increase in power needs, necessitating the building of another power-plant (nuclear has no carbon print) creates more jobs than hiring managers to oversee the shipping of LCD's made in China.
Unless, of course, those new jobs are the special power consumption police.
We do need to think about our future energy needs both with respect to the environment and energy security. What we don't need is silly government micro management of our lives.
I agree here.
So yes that means we need to subsidize nuclear, wind and solar power.
Here I disagree. There should be no subsidies. Let people pay the full cost of the energy they use and they're more likely to be conservative.
The problem is that the greenies block everything.
What's with the FUD?
greenies don't want to allow wind power on mountains in Vermont and New Hampshire even though no-one lives on the top of a mountain.
Here is one who supports geothermal, solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources. And most of those I know also support them. Googling falcon geothermal or solar or wind site:slashdot.org you can see where I have repeatedly supported renewable energy. For instance with the " Wind Could Provide 100% of World Energy Needs" thread I posted a number of tymes in support of alternative energy. I have also posted the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States which details the wind potential of various parts of the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to supply the 48 continuous states with power. In some of my posts I posted I supported the Solar Grand Plan. In it they conclude solar energy could "supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Currently, energy generation is heavily subsidized by tax payers. If you have unrestricted consumption and subsidized energy generation, it ends up being the furthest from a free market because people don't have to bear the costs of what they use. The best would be not to subsidize energy generation at all, but that's politically impossible. That leaves only one choice, unfortunately.
The main thing I hate about liberalism is that it assumes we are all stupid up front.
You hate the wrong thing about liberalism. It does not assume people are stupid, it assumes they are intelligent enough to make their own decisions.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I don't see how being forced to live on a perpetiual energy diet, while your elected officials tout your states efficiency as the primary reason TO NOT BUILD MORE INFRASTRUCTURE is a win in any way whatsoever.
Right now, much of this infrastructure is paid for by taxes and energy generation companies can externalize a lot of costs. This completely distorts the market. If everybody actually had to bear the cost of their energy usage, they'd conserve a lot more automatically.
Unfortunately, it's politically impossible to turn the energy market into a free market. That's why we have to balance massive subsidies with at least some common-sense regulations.
All "efficiency" does is let you live with less, when your goal should be to FORCE an energy solution by accelerating the usage of non-renewable resources,
The trouble is that we need those non-renewable resouces for a lot of other purposes, but the long-term value of those resources is beyond the time horizon of markets.
If anyone suggested raising prices/taxes they would be bashed for "hurting families." Remember when gas prices were high and the spineless buffoons were talking about cutting the federal gas tax just to appease the incessant whining? Yeah.
I'm tired of California spoiling things for the rest of us. Maybe some of the smaller states need to come out with some silly restrictions that would drive California crazy for once. Perhaps a few crazy laws on things exported from them for a change. I'm sick and tired of seeing tags that say, "Known to cause cancer in the state of California." I actually bought a power tool with that sticker once. This nutty idea of banning black cars... just wait.
I read a convincing article on how when you consider all costs, nuclear is the most expensive option per kilowatt.
The Nuclear industry is Hooked on Subsidies.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You obviously don't have a PG&E (Pacific Gas and Energy) bill. California, by thoroughly fucking up deregulation (like it's fucked up most other things governmentally) already punishes you dearly, to the tune of $20/month, for using a big-screen TV. Another fucking bureaucracy will have only the effect of driving up taxes, slowing progress and making people effectively poorer. It's the same thing with trying to make your car more fuel efficient. You can't in california. You can only put in CARB certified aftermarket parts, and the certification cost is so high that almost nobody does it, even though the stock OEM designs are a compromise between many variables, some I don't care about. So no, I can't make my truck more fuel efficient, because the "high performance" intake isn't certified.
fucking california. I'm leaving as soon as my enlistment's up.
DishNetwork boxes (back when I had that) could be turned off, but if you turned them completely off it took ~5 minutes before it would come back on. Meaning... it would come back on nearly instantly, but take 5 minutes to connect with the satellite, figure out which satellite it's connecting to, download program guide data, etc etc. Stupidly, my box was also a DVR, meaning it had a HD in it-- why it didn't just cache this data in the HD, probably just poor design or too much modularity.
Comment of the year
Many of them do that, but some that do (the Motorolas) exhibit severe HDCP handshaking bugs when waking up, with the recommended "fix" being to leave the box on 24/7.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
some atom boards have suck video can't do HD that well with alot of cpu power.
Driving home tonight, I noticed dozens of buildings (mostly office buildings and hotels) that are uplit with thousands of watts of light. Car lots--even _empty_ car lots--are ridiculously bright, even after closing time. Billboards are nearly universally lit from below by lights that are pointed _straight up_, wasting the majority of the light they generate. My home city recently installed huge acorn-style streetlights every 30 feet along both sides of major thoroughfares. Why do governments focus on light bulbs and TV sets when our night skies are lit so brightly we can't even see stars anymore?
That would be nice. We've got two DVRs in our house. When I measured them on the killowatt, I found that they pull about 50 watts on or off. That's stupid. Even if they need to listen for programming changes, they should be able to spin down the drive or reduce the cpu clock or something.
I've taken to turning one of them off at night by pulling the plug (via power strip switch). Takes a while to warm up in the morning, but I don't care. But this 50 watts an hour is costing me $15/month per DVR at California's top rate of $0.46 per KWh. It's enough for me to seriously consider cutting my DirecTV subscription entirely.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
The government can't tell you how much electricity your TV can consume, or how much water your toilet can flush.
If you have an old TV or an old toilet, the government can't force you to get a new one.
If you build a new television set from component parts in the basement of your own home, and this set consumes 20 amps of power, the government can't stop you.
What they can do is regulate the production, import, and sales of TVs and toilets. Which is exactly what they are doing.
Then the government should pass that price along to producers or consumers of electricity according to their production or consumption of it.
What they're doing here amounts to the government singling out specific behaviors and lifestyles in a discriminatory fashion.
Shame on the citizens of California for standing for this. Were its major population centers not captured in large clouds of smug, I suspect they wouldn't.