Uh oh, another vaguely political post on CrunchGear. As you already know, the Consumer Electronics Association, the trade group that organizes CES, is fighting tooth and nail against possible regulations that would see California essentially ban the sale of power-hungry HDTVs. This mostly affects plasmas because they consume the most electricity of the different types of TVs out there.
The California Energy Commission, the body responsible for the investigation, says certain types of TVs ought not to be sold because they consume just too much electricity. As a matter of fact, TVs account for 10 percent of all energy consumption in the state. Mandate that manufacturers get their act together, and create TVs that don’t require crazy amounts of electricity to run, and everyone wins: consumers pay less for their monthly electricity bill (consumers would save, on average, $30 in the first year by switching to more energy efficient TVs), the green crowd gets to feel like it’s saving the planet, California doesn’t have to spend money generating all that electricity, etc.
Well, one group may not benefit: the manufacturers themselves. Some of them are complaining that having THE GOVERNMENT mandate how efficient their TVs need to be will stifle innovation, raise prices (because they’ll have to change their manufacturing methods or whatever), etc. (I say, if not the government, then who, the “market”? Ha! Markets work when everyone has access to perfect information, among other things, otherwise things can get out of hand. See: this past year on Planet Earth.)
The Commission disputes the idea that changing energy standards will necessarily raise prices for consumers.
You should note that Vizio, the little company that came out of nowhere, has no problem with the new regulations, should they pass. Easy for it to say, seeing as though it makes only LCDs, which aren’t very power hungry.
Keep in mind that this isn’t a done deal yet. You’re not going to walk into Best Buy tomorrow and find that all the plasmas are gone. Should it even pass then I imagine it’ll take some time before it actually affects your buying ability.
so pretty soon So Cal will stand for Socialist California? they don’t want you to set off cool fireworks, have stricter emissions requirements than the damn federal government and now they don’t want you to have big TVs? OK plasma TVs that usually don’t even last as long but still, its a compromise of my rights… right?
Hmm… Best Buy and other electronic retailers, pull plasmas and send them to New York and Utah, while pulling LCDs from other states and sell in California (jacking up the price of course and blaming it on the regulation).
In 2008 Cali imported about 25% of it’s required electricity. (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf65.html)
Yeah, this plan makes a lot of sense. It’s like they think that moving the electrical generation out of Cali (which hasn’t built a new powerplant since 1980) will improve their environment.
Thus we must accept idiocy in government.
Lame. That whole state’s off its rocker.
Wait a minute here, doesn’t California have more pressing issues like suppressing the water supply for farmers to grow crops (because of the poor little smelts can’t handle the runoff), massive unemployment due to ridiculously high taxes for massive social programs, a budget that can never be balanced, and a governor that is all brawn and no brain? Seems to me that HDTV power consumption should be the lowest priority on the list of these concerns.
Hey, but wait a minute, isn’t the same thing happening with our federal government? They want to “fix” health care the same way they did social security and medicare, hand out trillions of dollars to banks that really didn’t need it but received it due to campaign contributions, turn the car companies over to the unions, force people to drive in three-wheel electric death-mobiles, and transfer wealth from those who earned it to those who did not earn or deserve it for that matter. This is what happens when you have the nuts running the asylum…
This is another example of how California is way ahead of the curve on this type of legislation.
Back in the 70s California was considered nuts to mandate emission standards on vehicles. Now we take this for granted, nay, couldn’t imagine vehicles without smog control.
Same goes for smoking ban in public places in the 90s. Imagine someone today lighting a cigarette in the break at the office or during a meeting.
These new TVs consume a lot of energy when they are “off”. California is, once again, breaking new ground on this and that is a good thing. Ah, and yes, the affected industry must protest.
Absolutely insane. At a time when the state can barely stay solvent, they are worrying about big screen tv’s? They need the sales tax revenue and the revenue from energy taxes from those same TV’s.
PS – they wouldn’t have energy problems if they would allow a new nuclear power plant and learn to manage their grid properly. Prime example of an overbearing government run amok – and look what happens.
And crunchgear, if “the market” doesn’t fix the energy consumption problem, then maybe it doesn’t need to be fixed.
Laughable.
Would help if you would note the bill number so we can refer to it writing our CA reps.
Or to read the full text of the bill.