Consumer Electronics Association Reacts to California Energy Commission TV Energy Use Mandates

[lighthouse10]

Governor Schwarzenegger is shooting himself in the foot!
This ban is wrong also in an overall energy savings perspective.


1.
Where there is a problem - deal with the problem!

Energy: there is no energy shortage
(given renewable/nuclear development possibilities, with set emission limits)
and consumers - not politicians - pay for energy and how they wish to use it.
Notice: If there was an energy shortage, its price rise would limit people using it anyway.
No need to legislate for it!


It might sound great to
"Let everyone save money by only allowing energy efficient products"

However:
Inefficient products that use more energy can have performance,
appearance and construction advantages
Examples (using cars, buildings, dishwashers, TV sets, light bulbs etc):
http://ceolas.net/#cc211x
For example, big plasma TV screens have image contrast and other
advantages along with their large image sizes.


Products using more energy usually cost less, or they'd be more energy
efficient already.
Depending on how much they are used, there might therefore not be any
running cost savings either.

Other factors contribute to a lack of savings:

If households use less energy,
then utility companies make less money,
and will just raise electricity prices to cover their costs.
So people don't save as much money as they thought.

Conversely,
energy efficiency in effect means cheaper energy,
so people just leave TV sets etc on more, knowing that energy bills are lower,
as also shown by Scottish and Cambridge research
http://ceolas.net/#cc214x

Either way, supposed energy - or money - savings aren't there.



2.
Taxation, while still wrong, is better than bans for all concerned.
This is not like a ban on dangerous lead paint!
It' simply a ban to (supposedly) reduce electricity consumption.
TV set taxation based on energy efficiency - unlike bans - gives
Governor Schwarzenegger's impoverished California Government income on
the reduced sales, while consumers keep choice.
This also applies generally,
to CARS, BUILDINGS, DISHWASHERS, LIGHT BULBS etc,
where politicians instead keep trying to define what people can or can't use.
Politicians can use the tax money raised to fund home insulation
schemes, renewable projects etc that lower energy use and emissions
more than remaining product use raises them.
Energy efficient products can have any sales taxes lowered, making
them cheaper than today.
People are not just hit by taxes, they don't have to buy the higher
taxed products - and at least they CAN still buy them.


----------------------
Why energy efficiency regulations are wrong,
whether you are for or against energy and emission conservation
http://ceolas.net/#cc2x
Summary
Politicians don't object to energy efficiency as it sounds too good to
be true. It is.
--The Consumer Side
Product Performance -- Construction and Appearance
Price Increase -- Lack of Actual Savings: Money, Energy or Emissions.
Choice and Quality affected
-- The Manufacturer Side
Meeting Consumer Demand -- Green Technology -- Green Marketing
--The Energy Side
Energy Supply -- Energy Security -- Cars and Oil Dependence
--The Emission Side
Buildings -- Industry -- Power Stations -- Light Bulbs and other
electrical products

[dadden]

I work as a stage hand and get to see the new technology before most other people do. I can tell you that the led tech that we are using is really amazing. It can color mix and has very precise color temperature and is dim-able. It also is very long lived, with one exception. LEDs don't like heat. It kills them deader than touching quartz lamp housings. This is the reason that it is still hard to get LED lamps that actually work as well as standard ones we currently use around the house. I have seen some and they are coming but it is going to be a while. I still like brutal quartz halogen lighting fixtures as well as HID.

I also agree about the BMW thing. I have driven them for over half a decade and I can't stand to drive anything else at night.
The indirect lighting is fantastic and with the LED sources it looks like you won't have to fix anything interior light wise any time soon.

Be fair about the ACLU. At least they will defend anyone that meets their mission statement. They have defended some pretty interesting and strange people. Not all of them were liberals.

Greenpeace are hypocrites and liars. Have been since the original founders lost control of the organisation. One of the guys was and still is a very good scientist. He got out early on when it became obvious that they weren't interested in actually fixing any of the problems that they complain about. All they care about now is accruing political clout so that they can parlay it into donations and fear monger respectable scientists into backing off or quitting. Unfortunately the Green movement in general has a lot of good facts but don't seem to want to actually deal with anything. The Liberal in me is quite sad about this.

Don't know anything recent about the Sierra Club. Last thing I heard was they were being controlled by some extremely conservative group that was using their credibility to manipulate Environmental Protection Laws or something. Even this sounded pretty far fetched so I stopped caring.

Brian.

[stevekaden]

Lots of commentary... I have no clue of Greenpeaces other agendas but the exxonsecrets site explains the shell game of intra-referencial obfuscation of fact by paid shills. Aka. Lieing to save Exxon profits.

No one in their right mind can argue against stemming the 350 billion a year leaving the country each year. To believe energy efficiency is not an effective way to think and act because it might be exploited is silly. Like to think the rich won't make more money because of taxes.

LED lights are still in their infancy, or maybe better. Watch some of "How things are made" and you quickly will realize it is manufacturing on the large scale, and quality management that will allow consumerization of those. Just as that put a mainframe+++ on a $2 chip.

As for LED traffic lights failing? I have no clue, but there must be a lot of foolish traffic engineers and city finance types who got fooled as they are very pervasive. I just saw my fist LED bulbs at Home Depot. Small expensive and claimed a 20 year life. But there and efficient.

Just as they are in LCD TVs. But they are their and can produce plasma level contrast levels at great efficiency.

[stevekaden]

BTW, what is killing new Nuclear energy is mostly the costs. Everything I am reading says the cost overruns are huge - before construction even starts. And there are other issues - like the possiblity of a serious accident hitting ground water. And while I am not anti-nuclear, don't tell me there have not been near misses in America, and certainly Chernobyl.

If we were to follow the French model, maybe it could work.

But, by far, simply conservation is a knock off first step. Like choosing to deliver TVs at home appropriate brightness instead of store level.