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Response To California's Large-Screen TV Regulation
An anonymous reader writes "It's great that unelected bureaucrats in California are clamoring to save energy, but when they target your big-screen TVs for elimination, consumers and manufacturers are apt to declare war. CEDIA and the CEA are up in arms over this. Audioholics has an interesting response that involves setting the TVs in 'SCAM' mode to meet the energy criteria technically without having to add additional cost or increase costs to consumers. 'In this mode, the display brightness/contrast settings would be set a few clicks to the right of zero, audio would be disabled and backlighting would be set to minimum. The power consumption should be measured in this mode much like an A/V receiver power consumption is measured with one channel driven at full rated power and the other channels at 1/8th power.' This is an example of an impending train wreck of unintended consequences, and many are grabbing the popcorn and pulling up chairs to watch."
It's about time the government focuses on real issues, like how big your television screen is. I mean, if California was facing one of the worst financial crises in history or something, it would be totally absurd theater meant to detract from the fact that our legislative body has failed us deplorably. But since California is in fine shape, with no farmers in the Central Valley going without water, without widespread corruption, brutality, and incarceration - well, there's no reason not to focus on such an important and substantial issue.
Hey Sacramento - if I want a bigger television, I'll drive out of state to get it and you won't get any tax money out of it. Suckas!
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Yeah, I know, there the issues of a black market or keep folks from crossing over to another state to buy them....
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
If you want people to use less electricity charge more for it and use the tax to fund something good like public transit
New TVs, whether plasma or LCD, consume FAR less electricity than the old fashioned CRTs. My TV is one of the old ones, a 42 inch Trinitron that uses over 200 watts of energy, probably over four times as much as an LCD of the same size.
Maybe California should subsidize the purchase of new TVs for Californians who still use CRTs?
Free Martian Whores!
"In fact, by the time the first wave of CEC regulations enter into effect in 2011, Energy Star 4.0 will be in place."
"In short, the differences between the two are not dramatic--the CEC's requirements are ultimately not any more stringent than the Energy Star guidelines."
"According to its analysis, many popular HDTV models already meet the CEC's requirements for the year 2011, and some LED models--which have made a selling point of their energy efficiency--already meet the CEC's Tier 2 standard."
Stay calm, people. The Governator is not coming to steal your teevees.
Actually that's not funny. After all, the pigs already use infrared sensors to search homes without a warrant looking to bust up harmless pot farms. Maybe they'll add cool televisions to their targets when they invade our privies.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Today, the Energy Star 3.0 spec limits active power consumption for a 32-inch HDTV to 120 watts; the impending Energy Star 4.0 spec, which goes into effect in May 2010, drops that to 78W; and the spec for Energy Star 5.0 (due in May 2012) is 55W. For a 50-inch set, the current Energy Star 3.0 spec limits power consumption to 353W; for Energy Star 4, that drops to 153W; and for Energy Star 5.0, that drops to 108W.
The mandatory Tier 1 CEC spec for 2011 says a 32-inch HDTV's maximum power consumption must be no more than 116W for a 32-inch model; the Tier 2 spec for 2013 drops that to 75W--higher than the Energy Star 5.0 spec, which will be introduced six months earlier. For a 50-inch HDTV, the Tier 1 CEC spec will require the maximum power consumption to be at 245W; the Tier 2 CEC spec drops that to 153W.
The standards are not only necessary (its a suprisingly large fraction of the household power consumption in CA), but imminently doable.
Roughly 25% of the TVs on the market ALREADY meet the 2013 specification, with 50% meeting the 2011 specification.
The key is "LCD with LED backlight". Such TVs easily meet the spec and are of good quality.
LCD's with conventional backlights needs to change the backlight technology, but they are doing this anyway: LED backlights are better for longevity as well as power consumption.
Who this hurts is those who have bet on Plasma technology, as plasma can effectively not meet these requirements, but plasma is dying anyway, as LCD screens keep getting bigger and faster reacting while being cheaper than plasma TVs.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Maybe they'll add cool televisions to their targets when they invade our privies.
Why are they invading your toilets?
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Trying to save the planet by reducing energy usage is like trying to save a river by not drinking.
We are not going back.
Reasonable reduction, recycling programs, and common sense are certainly part of the picture, but the answer to the energy problem will be a technological one. We need to start rolling out more sensible power generation facilities.
If we pretend we can get by on coal and making TVs dimmer, we will pollute the atmosphere to the point it can't support us.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
there's just too many people on planet earth
So the only way to cure the planet is to kill the people. You'd best do the honourable thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku#Ritual
Let me know how that works out.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
The best way to fix overpopulation is what we're doing. Encourage economic prosperity which in turn reduces the number of new children born. This method is already working in Europe and has always worked well in the United States.
The fewer people living in poverty, the less of an economic engine having lots of kids will provide and the problem will become underpopulation.
It is a question of freedom. The more power we give the government, the more they will take. The more power the take, the less we will have. At some point, we will realize that we are living in a tyranny and the only way to change things will be with guns. I'd rather stop this now, when no guns are necessary. All that you need to be free, is to be willing to have your neighbor be free as well.
I did say the disease is the life style of relentless consumption that we see nowadays in most of the industrialized world.
The biggest problem is that the pollution bill is footed by everyone in the planet. People buying (and throwing away) stuff should be forced to also pay for the pollution produced by the waste and manufacturing of the goods.
Kyoto was a first attempt at trying to get handle of that. It didn't go very far.
This is the same stupidity that energy gurus did to ceiling fans. They decided that, in order to save energy, all ceiling fans would have to go to the candelabra-sized base, from a standard full-size base bulb. Their thinking (if you can call it that) was that those bulbs are not made in anything over 60 Watts, so that's bound to save power, right? Okay, so let's see what they did: They eliminated the possibility of using almost any compact fluorescent bulb in a ceiling fan, because the choices of CFL bulb offered in that size base are extremely limited. So get rid of those wasteful 100 Watt CFLs (which consume 25 Watts of power) and install the efficient 60 Watt candelabra base bulbs (which actually use 60 Watts). Way to go.
(I mean I don't live in the States, let alone in California)
But if the Government wants to get serious about energy consumption, just put a system in place that gives users a fixed amount of Energy for the day. Give me a 1 hour warning that my juice is almost up - and I'll know to finish my round of Halo, go take a shower, and either go to bed or read a book with a flashlight.
I mean, my hot water tank won't last long enough for me and 3 room mates to take showers one after another, but its not like its a such a huge inconvenience that I can't survive. The same could go for energy.
That's no longer permitted in the US.
(Apart from being a good ruling for civil liberties and privacy, Kyllo's also interesting for its strange 5-4 split: the majority, pro-civil-liberties, opinion is by Scalia, joined by Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer.)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
LCDs (of 50") are nowhere near that. From a nice article:
Average plasma: 338 watts
Average LCD: 176 watts
http://reviews.cnet.com/green-tech/tv-power-efficiency/
The disease is overpopulation
[Citation needed]
Reply to That ||
I don't think it's overpopulation, per se. I think it is simply a matter of how much energy each human uses over their lifetime.
Think about it. Tribes in the forest use next to zero energy. They use rudimentary tools and what little carbon they create/release (breathing/fires) is easily absorbed by the environment.
The issue really is when you look to "civilized" society where we have cars (and all the manufacturing to make/sustain them), houses, "things", and simple energy usage to power tv's and other electronics.
Humans in the forest live just fine. At least in the sense of being born, living a happy contributing life (at least to their tribe), procreating and then passing on. The rest of us basically do the same thing, but we fill every gap in between with "things" to make life "better".
I'm no tree hugger and frankly I love my computer, tv, house, car, etc, etc, etc. I don't want to give up those things for a loincloth and a hut in the Amazon. But that is our basic problem as a species. We soak up so much more than we need to survive.
What can we do about it? Well, now we can't shut the box we've opened for ourselves. We can't just ask everyone to turn off everything, stop manufacturing anything besides huts/basic tools and start living as the natives do. We just can't go back now.
So now we're stuck finding a technological solution to a technological problem. We have things and we now need more things to fix the damage our current things are doing. Is this possible? I have no idea. Frankly, if we find some technological, easy, cheap way to create energy to reduce our footprint, I'd argue we'll just take advantage of it and make more things for ourselves and use more energy. No matter how much energy we make, I can guarantee you we'll, as a species, find a way to use it until we need more.
I have a feeling, we'll never "fix" our basic issues. We will never have a clean planet. We'll find a way to fix the current problem enough to keep living and then we'll do it again, and again. I hope I'm wrong, however.
We, in the US to use an often cited stat, use 25% of the World's oil - and we're what? 4% of the World's population?
The reason why the consumption around the World is increasing is because people in developing countries want to live like US. If 300 million people are using 25% of the oil, then that would mean that only 1.2 billion can use oil like we do.
I say, we here in the USofA lead by example. If folks want to live like US, let's show them how to live.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
This is a win-win-win-win solution for California.
1> These measures ensure that California's current power plants will be capable of supplying all the electricity nmeeded for the foreseeable future. There be no need for trying to find a safe place to put new power plants that will either vastly increase CO2 emissions or worse cause increased radioactive contamination from nuclear power.
2>In addition, it will vastly increase employment opportunities in the state. When you cross back into California with your illegal power-hogging bigscreen, you will be met by "inspectors" from the newly expanded agriculture department. They will confiscate your contraband and charge you with crimes against humanity. you will then be temporarily incarcerted in facilites which will require many new prison guards until such time as you can be deported for trial by the ICC in their Somalian facility.
3>As you will be unable to pay taxes/rent/mortgage your home/apartment will be seized by the state. As it is now owned by the state, there can be no possibility of it being foreclosed upon which will operate to further reinforce the rock solid stability of the CA banking industry.
4>The vastly increased payroll requirements of all the new state workers will of course consume the current budget surplus so that there will be no need for any tax cuts - and in the years following, the taxes paid by those state employees will result in further surplusses so that even more state employees can be hired.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Seems exactly like what the 50-hot beds of democracy should be doing; backing up a federal decision when they support it.
California is just hedging it's bets against manufacturers lobbying Congress and buying enough of them to get the 2011 regulations pushed back to 2013. They did the same thing with car emissions. They'd sign on to the government plan, but the fed's would always move the goal posts at the last minute. So, California just started creating their own regulations in-line with the federal standards they agree with, and then holding tight to them. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
More tempest in a teapot so that certain self-righteous individuals can get all worked about nothing and feel good about themselves.
After all, the pigs already use infrared sensors to search homes without a warrant looking to bust up harmless pot farms.
Not since 2001 (better late than never) -- http://www4.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-8508.ZS.html
Hello? The 70's are calling and wants its bugaboo-de-jour back.
Seriously, population isn't growing geometrically or even close to geometrically. The rate of increase has steadily been trending down for a decade or more, and (at least in the industrialized West) it looks as if population will top out around 2050 or so (IIRC).
Really!? Regulate the size of your TV?
How about how many doughnuts you can eat in a day? I'm sure fat people generate more co2 than a thin person. Plus they radiate more heat. Should we regulate that? How about a government controlled bedtime? If everyone was forced to go to bed at sundown we could save lots of energy.
Um.... toilet paper rationing? Do you really need more than a square per squat? (except fat people who would be TAXED for additional squares)
Water conservation! -regulate the number of showers per week!
Seriously, how much government are we (THE PEOPLE) going to allow?
What's the big deal with large TV's anyway. 12" CRT TV owner, and proud of it.
If you're single and rarely have friends come to visit, a TV the size of a laptop PC's monitor might work. But people with a family or a social life can't easily fit four grown bodies around a 12" TV with a comfortable viewing distance and angle.
California already has stricter emissions requirements on cars than other states. Just try and license a car you bought in another state in CA and you will discocer it has to be retrofitted to meet CA emissions standards.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
The other factors the strongly affect birthrate are education, equality for women, and availability of birth control. All of which are probably more important than prosperity, and many of which are not present in some prosperous countries (like the oil-rich middle-eastern countries).
Too many of the comments seem to come from Fox News viewers. All rant, no facts.
First, here are the actual regulations. All comments submitted (including e-mail rants) are on-line. Some of the better ones:
Other than Sony, most of the big players don't seem to have major problems with the requirements.
"The pigs?" What is this, 1967?
Do you call money "scratch" too?
There isn't enough land to go back to living a hunter gatherer lifestyle (or even a long-rotation agriculture lifestyle, or probably, any sort of pre-steam machine agriculture).
So there are too many people to do that, regardless of the willingness of those people to live that lifestyle.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
This is idiotic; what would stop someone from driving to AZ, NV or Oregon and buy a TV from another state?
Well, given that the two largest population centers (SF Bay, LA) are not a 20 minute drive to the border, how much money would be saved driving out of state? The cost of gas to drive to and from the border would outweigh the savings on a cheaper, less-efficient set. On top of that, the energy bill for the TV will be higher over its lifetime. If you are going to be buying a huge TV, then you'll need an SUV or a big truck, and that doesn't sound like a cheap tank of gas.
More prosperity leads to fewer people.
More prosperity also leads to increased emissions per person.
Which effect is stronger? If smaller prosperous families use more energy than large indigent ones, increasing prosperity might be a net negative for global warming.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Disclaimer: I'm all for "green" and the environment when it makes sense. [cents?]
The problem with "green" is that it is not always the right time to do it. California's economy is in serious trouble. (Not the serious like.. Oh my, we need a new governor; I mean serious like in a few years we may not have a higher education system or any small businesses left. I'm employed in what's left of our higher education system and I see federal receivership as a real possible end.)
But what does this have to do with television regulation? I'm renovating a house. I want to improve my home, my neighborhood and California. But we have a piece of regulation called "Title 24" that is a lot like the Television regulation proposed. What does this mean for my renovation... Lighting costs 500% of what it should. You must have high efficacy lighting. This means compact fluorescent and, no, you can't get cheap Type A incandescent fixtures and screw in a retrofit CFL bulb. You have to use the plug socketed CFL fixtures. So "green" lighting for my house costs $6000 while older incandescent would have cost $1000.
This is a serious impediment to purchasing these lights. The same is going to be true for the televisions. They will be more expensive because they will have to be built with more sophisticated technology. People will balk at buying them. Oh.. wait... they don't have a choice because it's a draconian state law; so the only choice is not to buy a TV... or move to where you can. More people will move to any other state to avoid this crap (we are currently having a mass exodus of talented, skilled people and families). Manufacturers will move their manufacturing and marketing to areas more conducive to sales (again... already happening without, yet another, regulation).
And the end result is that California's economy and culture will slip into an even deeper disaster.
"Green" regulation gets myopic... "Since it's better for the environment it MUST be done, at all costs." Well, other factors of equal and greater importance, such as "will we be able to educate our children", exist and should be considered first. It might be the right time to regulate the banking industry but it is certainly not the time to regulate, yet another, consumer oriented product that in the last decade has already seen leaps and bounds of improvements in efficiency just based on natural evolution of the product's technology. Remember tube TVs?
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
I've always said that if we could just get everyone to agree not to have children for the next 100 years or so, all the other problems facing the human race would solve themselves.
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
You're a little late. Back in May, the Obama administration adopted California's fuel efficiency regulations for passenger vehicles. There are also new efficiency standards for applicances, introduced in February, and new lighting efficiency standards, introduced in June.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Well, there were a few things that were highly illegal to sell in Utah: hardcore pr0n, beer with an alcohol content of over 3.2%, actual fireworks, and gambling.
The cities of Wendover, Nevada and Evanston, Wyoming both manage to do a very brisk trade in these things - they are both nearly a 2-hour drive in opposite directions from Salt Lake City. The majority of these towns' incomes come straight out of the wallets and purses of Utah citizens.
Now, these commodities are fairly cheap, and certainly not worth the gas and time if one did a cost-benefits analysis... yet folks happily lay out the time and resources because they're 'getting away with something'. If they're willing to go to that length for warm beer or a box of bottle rockets? Imagine what folks are willing to do for a 51" plasma screen that isn't (in their eyes) gimped by government edict.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I think what you call "people" are like aliens from outer space. Consuming earth's resources...pillaging them..as if there is no tomorrow. Breeding and growing.
Dibs on whichever ark is carrying the telephone sanitizers.
"The disease is overpopulation - there's just too many people on planet earth, and even if you do cut back energy usage, you can't economize fast enough to keep up with geometric population growth."
The inevitable collapse from overpopulation is always just around the corner. And we face dire consequences (this time for sure!) unless we immediately institute arbitrary and draconian measures to control even the most basic human actions.
Your premise is based on two incorrect assumptions:
- Available resources are in constant decline
- Population always increases geometrically
Both are wrong. They've been wrong since Malthus proposed them. They've been shown to be wrong so many times that it's difficult to understand why otherwise intelligent people keep repeating them uncritically as though they're unassailable facts.
California is basically the only reason we have efficient washers and dryers, wallwarts with switching power supplies instead of transformers, consumer electronic devices which actually have low power modes, and vehicle requirements that vastly improve safety and mileage over federal standards. It has all been beneficial in reducing per-capita energy consumption (and water consumption too when it comes to washing machines).
The problem the U.S. has is that most people can't see beyond the end of their nose when it comes to shaping policy. It's really unfortunate that the Feds can't get their act together and it takes action by a state like CA to actually get something done. It's doubly unfortunate that CA regulations designed to give industries upwards of a decade to make changes aren't allowed to take effect until the very last minute by idiot politicians who think they are doing industry a favor when all they are really doing is making our industry non-competitive with other countries and creating massive shocks to the system that are totally unnecessary.
-Matt
No, it's 2009 and really... nothing's changed since 1967. They're still pigs.
Everyone, please read the article. The summary is a deliberate prevarication (three dollar word for "lie"). There is no plan or proposal to " target your big-screen TVs for elimination". Under the proposed California regulations anyone can sell or buy and size TV they like now and in the future. In fact the proposed regulations are unremarkable: they are essentially the same as the voluntary Energy Star program, considered to be well within reach by the industry. The CEC mandate simply makes them mandatory instead of voluntary. The better TV manufacturers (e.g. Visio) are in full compliance, and fully support both the standards, and making them mandatory. The only whiners here are companies that wish to hawk cheap inefficient TVs, and ideologues who feel that any government regulation is inherently evil in principle.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
There's a difference between prosperous in terms of GDP and prosperous in terms of having an empowered middle class. You can have a country with a staggering GDP yet a massive, poverty-stricken underclass and serious quality-of-life problems simply by balancing it with a few obscenely rich folks.
--srj/mmv