• New energy rules for domestic devices
    25 replies, posted
[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30643357#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa[/url]
What a joke. An average vacuum cleaner is used like 1 hour a week tops. Even if was 5 000 W, it's still nothing. Next they will limit the amount of toilet paper you can use when you take a dump to save few trees.
[QUOTE=AntonioR;46841671]What a joke. An average vacuum cleaner is used like 1 hour a week tops. Even if was 5 000 W, it's still nothing. Next they will limit the amount of toilet paper you can use when you take a dump to save few trees.[/QUOTE] yes all 500 million eu citizens only use a single vacuum cleaner between them for one hour every week
So long as they can easily wake back up again, and we don't end up with narcoleptic hoovers.
I like this, it forces companies to work on more efficient electrical drives, just like the lightbulbs a couple years back.
I've always wondered why more devices don't have standby modes. In an effort to stop our bills being so high, me and my housemates turn a lot of stuff off at the plug just because not everything has standby modes (and I turn my PC off at the plug because I have no idea what the standby draw on it even is, should probably check that). If Dyson him-fucking-self thinks that lowering the power draw of vacuums won't kill their performance, then we better start work on that. Horribly inefficient machines.
[QUOTE=toxicpiano;46841745]yes all 500 million eu citizens only use a single vacuum cleaner between them for one hour every week[/QUOTE] Lol. One vacuum cleaner per household that works for an hour a week is nothing compared to, for example, air conditioner(s) which works few hours a day and is also a ~2000W device.
Fuck off EU, these low energy vacuum cleaners are total garbage that makes it take twice as long to clean with and still leaves shit on the floor. Not like you're going to even save much energy anyway, my PC on average uses as much power per day as 3 hours cleaning, not to mention my shower which consumes a whole 10kW and I like long showers, what next a ban on hot showers? seriously who the fuck gives them advice because I want to kick them hard in the balls.
[QUOTE=Chryseus;46843019]Fuck off EU, these low energy vacuum cleaners are total garbage that makes it take twice as long to clean with and still leaves shit on the floor. Not like you're going to even save much energy anyway, my PC on average uses as much power per day as 3 hours cleaning, not to mention my shower which consumes a whole 10kW and I like long showers, what next a ban on hot showers? seriously who the fuck gives them advice because I want to kick them hard in the balls.[/QUOTE] Chill man what the hell. I believe the idea is to get companies to innovate and find more efficient ways of achieving the same thing. Just like the bulb ban, after a bit of floundering with horrible fluorescent tubes, harsh white/blue light and buzzing technology improved sufficiently to provide yellow glow for far less energy. Obviously current home vacuum technology, scaled back in energy will not be as effective. I'm not saying this is a great way to do it but it is a step. Also the shower thing is pretty stupid and shows how little you understand of what they are trying to do. There are only so many ways you can heat up water and while there is obviously room for improvement there heating water will always consume a lot of energy. So instead of getting people to take cold showers they are trying to cut back on energy use with alternative ways.
[quote]The European Commission said the move would save an average household about £32 a year.[/quote] That's not a lot at all.
[QUOTE=Chryseus;46843019]Fuck off EU, these low energy vacuum cleaners are total garbage that makes it take twice as long to clean with and still leaves shit on the floor. Not like you're going to even save much energy anyway, my PC on average uses as much power per day as 3 hours cleaning, not to mention my shower which consumes a whole 10kW and I like long showers, what next a ban on hot showers? seriously who the fuck gives them advice because I want to kick them hard in the balls.[/QUOTE] People that are more qualified than you give them advice, this isn't about saving money, if we want to eventually transfer to a more sustainable system then we're going to have to start making small changes. This change is literally nothing as it is happening whilst your gadgets are idle. As if your high energy consumption is anything to gloat about? You are a fool if you think there aren't going to be caps put on energy consumption and things alike in the upcoming years.
[QUOTE=The President;46855565]You are a fool if you think there aren't going to be caps put on energy consumption and things alike in the upcoming years.[/QUOTE] If that happens people will be mad. Caps on energy? What the hell.
Of course people are going to be mad, people are mad about a lot of things, as if it matters. Until a more efficient and sustainable source has been found it seems a likely outcome. Non-renewables unsurprisingly don't last forever (discovery of new oil has been in decline for ages and oil production is beginning to peak, world consumption of oil is something like 30bn barrels a year and reserves are 267bn barrels in the best of countries - I know oil isn't the only source of energy but its such a good example) The energy it costs to make machines to harvest renewable energy sources just isn't efficient enough at the moment and some of their ERoEI is laughable with the little investment it gets. Caps on energy consumption will surely put in place will such a depleting resource, we won't be using it willy nilly to the last drop. Explain why it's so awful that idle machines are turned off??? Do you really need to use something so desperately in your house that you can't stand the boot up time
[QUOTE=The President;46855936]Explain why it's so awful that idle machines are turned off??? Do you really need to use something so desperately in your house that you can't stand the boot up time[/QUOTE] I don't believe anyone thinks it's awful that idle machines are turned off, but I find it irrelevant compared to other ways we can reduce energy consumption. I will again go back to air conditioners. It's like they are concerned about the 5 W consumption when it's in standby and not about 1000-2000w when it's turn on. Also if you look at the picture in the OP, proper house and building isolation is where I would focus. No matter how efficient the AC is, if the owner puts it in the house like this it's a waste of money and our energy reserves. [quote][img]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/80003000/jpg/_80003594_h5840099-house,_thermogram-spl.jpg[/img][/quote]
Then why does it matter if the idle devices are turned off if you aren't against the idea, it doesn't matter that it isn't the most amount of energy saved. Yes there are better ways but you aren't going to change a whole system that is so comfortable in society over night. Yes it's not the most considerable amount of energy saved but there is nothing wrong with starting of small especially with a rule that is so harmless. Better ways are often going to have a larger impact, idle devices over night have no impact whatsoever whereas aircon is obviously making someone feel a bit more comfortable and if people were told no aircon then they'd be a lot angrier, if it's implemented small bits at a time people won't be as shocked and hostile to the idea.
[QUOTE=The President;46856248]if it's implemented small bits at a time people won't be as shocked and hostile to the idea.[/QUOTE] Good luck with that, I still see people buying and using incandescent light bulbs on a regular basis, there are plenty of alternative ways to save huge amounts of energy that don't involve fucking over the consumer such as replacing our sodium and metal-halide street lighting with LED lights, but of course the government is too tight to actually do something smart like that. I'm all for reduction in energy usage but in this case lower energy vacuum cleaners perform worse, there is only so much you can do with good design before you end up sacrificing suction, not to mention the increased cost as well. [QUOTE=The President;46855936]Until a more efficient and sustainable source has been found it seems a likely outcome.[/QUOTE] We already have one, it's called nuclear.
[QUOTE=judgeofdeath;46841829]I like this, it forces companies to work on more efficient electrical drives, just like the lightbulbs a couple years back.[/QUOTE] except theres only so much efficiency that can be acomplished with a small electric motor, this pretty much forces everyone to adopt rare-earth consuming brushless neodymium motors which are not really all that good for the enviroment guess it'll force some companies to search for more ceramic combinations to be used in stators but others will just use the rare-earth motors
[QUOTE=The President;46855565]People that are more qualified than you give them advice, this isn't about saving money, if we want to eventually transfer to a more sustainable system then we're going to have to start making small changes. This change is literally nothing as it is happening whilst your gadgets are idle. As if your high energy consumption is anything to gloat about? You are a fool if you think there aren't going to be caps put on energy consumption and things alike in the upcoming years.[/QUOTE] This actually has any- and everything to do with saving money. The entire article is about saving money. The EU's decision is based on saving money.
imo fighting vampire drain is actually a pretty good thing
I would be crazy to use a vacuum cleaner that consumed less than 12 amps.
If there are options to prevent things from automatically going into standby, go for it. We use solar, and even with my computer left on most of the time we still sell energy back to the state power company. Not to mention TVs and other things that are left running in the house. I'm lucky to live where I do, as my parents were able to outfit the house with Solar. Sadly not everyone lives in the right environment for Solar.
Yet another case of band aid solutions that will probably escalate into serious irritants over time. The aforementioned insulation is a no brainer. Setting up your house for proper ventilation, and adequately insulating the walls literally saves hundreds, and even thousands of dollars per year on heating and AC bills. But there's far bigger things to look at. What about the tens of thousands of dollars schools waste on keeping all their damn lights on year round? Empty parking lots filled with lights, or even just pointless street lights in general. Or maybe they should look at some aspects of heavy industry. There's more than a handful of plants that can pull a megawatt. You shave even 10% off of a few dozen of them, and you're literally saving millions a year. This is especially true when dealing with things that produces a lot of steady heat like sever clusters. In fact, why don't you go ask google how they are constructing their latest datacenters with custom motherboards, hard drives, and looped ventilation systems designed to recycle heat. They quite literally have to pump cold air into the office spaces to keep them tolerable in the winter because they are so efficient at recycling raw heat. Those things actually have multi million/billion dollar impacts, and don't inconvenience anyone as much as some "green" microwave that won't let you run it on high for more than 4 minutes, because who would ever want to thaw a chicken.
But surely they would always be in use anyway? I keep my computers and server on all the time and they will be using the internet 24/7 as would mobile devices.
[QUOTE=Chryseus;46858300]Good luck with that, I still see people buying and using incandescent light bulbs on a regular basis, there are plenty of alternative ways to save huge amounts of energy that don't involve fucking over the consumer such as replacing our sodium and metal-halide street lighting with LED lights, but of course the government is too tight to actually do something smart like that. I'm all for reduction in energy usage but in this case lower energy vacuum cleaners perform worse, there is only so much you can do with good design before you end up sacrificing suction, not to mention the increased cost as well. We already have one, it's called nuclear.[/QUOTE] Yeah Nuclear really is as efficient as our current sources, to generate the 10 tera watts we use in fossil fuels would require 10,000 nuclear plants, go build 10k nuclear plants somewhere. Did you not think if nuclear was so efficient more countries would have implemented it by now given the relative abundance of Uranium?? Even with the known Uranium reserves 10k Nuclear plants would only last 10-20 years with that supply. It's really such a minute thing I'm not sure why anyone would give a shite.
WTF did I just read? 1. You don't just replace entire 10 TW with nukes, you do in gradually and with other power source for peak load. And 10k nuclear plants aren't that many anyway, if several big plants replaces a lot of small plants. 2. Nukes are good. But the radiation scare are bad, so NIMBYs everywhere. 3. Some reactors [I]designs[/I] could use alternative fuels like thorium or waste fuel. China is building one though
[QUOTE=The President;46860754]Yeah Nuclear really is as efficient as our current sources, [b]to generate the 10 tera watts we use in fossil fuels would require 10,000 nuclear plants[/b], go build 10k nuclear plants somewhere. Did you not think if nuclear was so efficient more countries would have implemented it by now given the relative abundance of Uranium?? Even with the known Uranium reserves 10k Nuclear plants would only last 10-20 years with that supply. It's really such a minute thing I'm not sure why anyone would give a shite.[/QUOTE] More like 1,000 large plants (10GW), and that isn't an unreasonable number given that there are over 500 coal plants in the US alone, we have at least a 50 to 100 year reserve of uranium 235 and enough uranium 238 for use in breeder reactors for several thousand years, not including alternative fuels. Not that we should generate our entire power from nuclear, wind, hydroelectric and solar are great as well.
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