Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Plasma TV’s – Another Victim of Global Warming Hysteria

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Thanks to Luke Walker for links to the following articles:

Government to ban plasma TVs?

Your new TV may soon be a consumer relic

Plans to ban plasma TV’s

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Woody says

    For all you people in Australia who want to save the Earth by getting rid of your plasma televisions, the people in the U.S. will be glad to take them off of your hands. I heard a comment from the left’s favorite enemy, Ann Coulter, yesterday in which she said, “Only liberals think that they can reduce the temperature of the Earth by buying flourescent bulbs.”

  4. Steve says

    I think this is a case of the press releases and news articles blowing the facts out of proportion.

    What they are thinking of doing is setting a minimum energy performance standard for televisions. This is already done for most other large appliances, such as fridges, washing machines, aircon etc.

    There is a huge variation in the energy efficiency of televisions, which is especially pronounced across plasma TVs, which tend to be higher energy consumers THROUGH VIRTUE OF BEING MUCH LARGER typically than conventional TVs.

    Setting a minimum standard will mean that the worst performing TVs will become obsolete (which they would have done anyway over time). It ensures that all NEW plasma TV designs for sale in Australia will meet minimum energy performance standards, which the TV manufacturers are certainly capable of doing.

    So nobody is trying to ban plasma TVs, they are just being required to be more energy efficient.

    Can read the discussion paper here:

    http://www.energyrating.gov.au/library/details200710-tv-meps-labelling.html

    TAke note of this: just as there is apparently climate alarmism in the press, there is also conspicuous indignation and exaggeration of what can or is being done to mitigate global warming.

  5. Luke says

    The interesting thing about plasmas (that many of really do crave coz they do look good) is that in one purchase it wipes all the benefit from energy efficiency saving in other improving whitegoods around the house in one single purchase.

  10. Steve says

    “..wipes all the benefit from energy efficiency saving in other improving whitegoods around the house in one single purchase.”

    That’s a big generalisation that would often be completely incorrect. Depends on how efficient your plasma is, how big it is, how much you watch TV, and how much potential for energy efficiency there was in other parts of the house.

    If you had an efficient 42″ plasma (200Watts when on, 1W in standby) and only watched 1.5 hours a day on average, then you would use about 120kWh a year. The average Australian house uses about 7,000-10,000 kWh a year in total, so using a plasma like this doesn’t make much difference at all.

    Maybe if you had a 50+” plasma (averaging 450 Watts when on), and watched 6 hours a day your line might be true Luke (you’d use about 1000kWh a year on your TV then).

    Got to be careful of these rules of thumb.

  12. Steve says

    heh heh heh.

    The report says that the Australian average is about 3 hours per household (although the data is a bit sketchy), which means there would be many 1.5 hours a day households out there.

    what is scary is that it is 8 hours on average in the USA. Haven’t they discovered the Internet yet?

  13. Luke says

    Think we need some serious watching and powered on TV stats. Many families have TVs on dawn till dusk. Maybe 2 TVs always on !!

    Anywa all I have said is that the modest savings (not total) of electricity from white goods efficiency improvements are compromised by energy hungry plasmas. I read it on the internet. Giggle.