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California To Adopt First US Energy-Saving Rules For Computers (reuters.com)

California regulators were poised on Wednesday to adopt the nation's first mandatory energy efficiency rules for computers and monitors -- devices that account for 3 percent of home electric bills and 7 percent of commercial power costs in the state. From a report on Reuters: The state Energy Commission said that when fully implemented, the plan will save consumers $373 million a year and conserve as much electricity annually as it takes to power all San Francisco's homes. Final approval of the standards, expected at a meeting in Sacramento of the five-member commission, caps a nearly two-year planning process that had input from environmentalists, industry, scientists and consumer groups. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental group that helped devise the standards, has said the new standards would cut greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion in power generation by 700,000 tons a year. The California standards set a benchmark for a machine's overall energy use and leave manufacturers the flexibility to choose which efficiency measures to use to meet it -- an approach that the NRDC says fosters innovation.

9 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Java? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does that mean California will ban the use of Java?

  2. Statistics by arth1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    California regulators were poised on Wednesday to adopt the nation's first mandatory energy efficiency rules for computers and monitors -- devices that account for 3 percent of home electric bills and 7 percent of commercial power costs in the state.

    Does these figures include or exclude the extra cooling needs due to the computers and monitors?
    If your computer burns 200W, if you live in the South, you likely spend an additional 300+W on cooling to offset that heat production.

    1. Re:Statistics by MrLogic17 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Typical California thinking. Not everyone is cooling their homes. For the past few months, the vast majority of my utility bill has been heating.
      Electronics (that I already manage power settings on, thank-you-very-much) giving off heat is a side benefit to me at least half the year - maybe more.

  3. Huh? by darkain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe I somehow absolutely missed it, but looking at both the summary and TFA, I cannot figure out just WHAT the hell these new "standards" even are.

    And really, with manufacturers shoving tablets that "act as laptops" which are meant to be desktop replacements and can be charged over USB cable, is evenergy efficiency of new computers even a concern at all anymore?

    1. Re:Huh? by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 4, Informative

      an approach that the NRDC says fosters innovation.

      So, similar to the EPA's fuel additive mandate for a compound that is unavailable to anyone, claiming a mandate "fosters innovation" is actually newspeak for "They're going to have to invent something that doesn't exist right now." The feasibility and cost of which is not even considered.

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
  4. Alternately .... by frovingslosh · · Score: 4, Funny

    as much electricity annually as it takes to power all San Francisco's homes

    So what you're saying is that we could avoid all of this if we just cut off all SF homes from the grid? Has anyone considered this option as an alternative? I never liked those people anyway. And they seem to be exactly the kind of people who are against the free market and are likely behind this. It would serve them right to have them do without electricity.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  5. Like what? Mandatory time out on monitors? by Tyr07 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All devices I've purchased have energy start compliance and saving features. Due to the annoyance of some features I have to disable them.

    Like power saving brightness settings that adapt to the room lighting. Because I have to keep fucking with the brightness from what the TV perceives as light level in the room. E.G Window shining light into the room but not directly on the TV so it dims but overall room brightness is much higher.

    Plus the time it took to get the right color and brightness / contrast I wanted. My computer is also high performance, and I used to notice significantly if a primary HDD powered down. It was a real pain. I have an SSD now and my storage drive I let spin down, but if they are nit picky on it, some content and programs cache significantly, which would let the HDD power down and it would drive me nuts getting lag spikes each time it spins up.

    So I obviously adjust the power down time. I also notice the lag when the processor clocks down when it thinks it can, but it was wrong and clocks back up. I don't like stutter. If I'm playing a game it's a death. So I don't let my CPU clock down most of the time. Occasionally I adjust the power settings when I know I won't be doing anything intensive for days, and do shut my PC down when not in use.

    But what else? Auto suspend? I mean that shit is annoying. It's been 20+ years and we still can't go to standby and back safely all the time depending on what programs are in use.

    I will shit bricks if they expect me to pay the same amount for stuttering shitty low power / power saving hardware. They can fuck off I won't buy it.

  6. Re:Just turn off the monitor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    You are more likely referring to the maximum load for all 3 of these. 90 W CPU's are labeled as such because that means they might reach as high as 90 W under a full load. However, many of these may not even be able to reach 75 W or 80 W when under a full load. And when you aren't encoding video or gaming, the load may be half that or way less.

    I'm not a gamer, but I believe it is the same story for the GPU as well. Those high numbers are only reached while being taxed. They won't be anywhere near that while you are working on a spreadsheet.

    Power supplies are also measured by the maximum amount of power they can supply. I can put a 1000 W PSU in my desktop, and it won't make it use any more power than it does now with a 300 W PSU. Ok, maybe a slight difference because of different efficiencies between the two, but they would be similar.

    Lastly, the comment before yours was talking about "standby power". When a PC goes into standby mode, it is essentially turning everything off and keeping just enough power to keep information in RAM, and providing a tiny bit of power for other things. As soon as your start to use the PC again and wake it up, it will jump up in power usage.

  7. Wrong Target... by FrankSchwab · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At least my computer and monitor, out of the box, go to sleep after a while.

    Please, , let them turn their attention to Cable and Satellite TV boxes that when turned "off" with the remote still pull 20+ watts. Let them turn their attention to items like the Roku 3, which didn't even have the concept of "off" (and which kept a moving logo on the screen permanently to keep your TV from turning off). Let them turn their attention to all the IOT thingies, for whom implementing low-power states is an even lower priority than providing basic security.

    --
    And the worms ate into his brain.