California regulates 'energy vampire' appliances

Bakersfield Californian ^ | 12/15/04 | Don Thompson - AP

[Not now, Not ever!]

How long before they want us to turn in all our night-lights?

[Between the Lines]

It projects the regulations will save commercial and residential users more than $3 billion over 15 years.

Wait till you see the price tag for these new appliances before you tell them they are saving money. Saving electricity yes, saving money, I doubt it.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Talk about perrywis and pound foolish, they are worried about reducing the draw from 10 watts to 3 watts when their problem is in the THOUDANDS of MEGAWATT range.

Not only that, the fools in California are pusing for electric cars that you plug into the grid at night!

[FairOpinion]

Manufacturers will just stop selling appliances and cars in CA. It's not worth the trouble.

Then people in CA won't use cars or appliances and then entire industries will shut down and just think how much energy California will save then.

Then all the people will move out and they will save even more energy.

Well, there goes the world's 5th largest economy, killed at the altar of environmentalism.

[Professional Engineer]

Our top story tonight:

California Demand Repeal of Laws fo Physics

[Jaysun]

Consumers don't have to sacrifice anything.

Idiot. What about the price increases in appliances? Do they think that by simply waving their hand they can have appliances that use fewer watts when they're turned off? Do appliance manufactures have some guy in the back of the factory to whom they can yell, "Hey Chuck, do me a favor and tighten the watt waster thingy down to two".

Are they even sure that it's possible to drastically reduce the number of watts wasted? If so, it's going to cost some money and will almost certainly effect the performance of the appliances.

Hey California, while you're at it, why not wave your hand and mandate that cars get 200 miles per gallon?

[zarf]

One of those hidden secrets of saving money. By shutting off the TV via a power strip it's astonishing how much money you can save over a years time on energy costs.

If you can manage it, leaving the water heater on for just 3 hours a day supplies hot water for a day and a half (for a small family but NOT during winter!). Doing these 2 things ha saved me almost $400 a year.

[BurbankKarl]

how much is the TV tax now? $25 recycling tax on every TV in CA? Why be surprised they will charge more? The power strip idea is a good one.

[Willie Green]

Doing these 2 things ha saved me almost $400 a year.

Just imagine how much more you can save by disconnecting the doorbell and making visitors use the knocker instead!

[spinestein]

" The average California household has 10 to 20 of the devices that cost consumers up to $75 a year in wasted electricity "

With the savings from the new regulations I can afford to buy a new muffler for my Lexus......in 4 years.

[SedVictaCatoni]

Well, do the math. The article said that each household has 10-20 devices which consume power while on standby, which sounds about right. If each one saved seven watts, that's about 105 watts per household. California has about 11 million households, so that's 1,115,000,000 watts, or 1.15 thousand megawatts. Since you asserted that their problem is in the "thousands of megawatt" range, this sounds like one partial solution which avoids constructing any more generating capacity.

[Myrddin]

This reminds me of the 1999 to 2001 energy crisis in California. Instead of building more capacity, the politicians were urging everyone to "conserve". That's a fine objective, but there is a problem. The net savings in energy from 10 "gung ho" households is negated by the arrival of a single new consumer. You can't conserve your way out of the energy crisis. The daily flood of illegals will more than compensate for all the savings.

On a practical note, I work very aggressively to cut power consumption on my railcars. They consume about 21 watts from a 12 volt battery. The battery is recharged by a bearing generator that produces 24 watts at 50 MPH. I have to do some serious paring down of power drains. That is going to take lots of analysis and probably some hardware and software modification. My payback is a more robust system that doesn't continually wipe out batteries. It is a small scale effort. It's going to cost some money, but I don't have a competitor in the marketplace.

Mandating lower power consumption is going to cause some pencil sharpening in the engineering and marketing departments. If dropping the California marketplace is causes less impact to the company bottom line than re-engineering the product for the whole marketplace...at a higher price point, then California won't be getting product. Business is in business to make money. They will find the optimal solution.

[SedVictaCatoni]

I've just discovered how much power I saved by switching to compact fluorescents instead of incandescents. Unfortunately, to a lot of people around here, anything which smacks of conservation is TEH LIBARAL PLOT'S TO DESTROY AMERICA.

[spinestein]

All right, that caught me off guard. I literally spit diet Code Red Dew on my desk and some got on my keyboard. Good one!

[ItsForTheChildren]

So if I understand this right, California fixes their current problem and still has no growth capacity. Good thinkin'.

[ItsForTheChildren]

Are all "energy vampire" appliances now going to carry a "suck rating"?

[steve86]

If you can manage it, leaving the water heater on for just 3 hours a day supplies hot water for a day and a half

I can't quite imagine that since I can run a 50 gal tank out on my own (in the shower), but you must be frugal.

We actually went a step further and put in on-demand water heaters - one for the whole house and one supplementary for a shower -- no need to heat a tank at all. There is no tank.

[spinestein]

Calm down, cowboy. :^)


Conservation is cool. We all do it!