[Bat-man]

Our Government want to ban products that use stanby mode on new electrical products to help reduce electricity usage.
To me this is a bit rich as I swealter in winter (excessive heating) when at our local government offices and freeze in summer (excessive cooling). Yet my TV using <1 watt in standby.
What do people think about this proposal?

[RMCF]

Originally Posted by Bat-man

Our Government want to ban products that use stanby mode on new electrical products to help reduce electricity usage.
To me this is a bit rich as I swealter in winter (excessive heating) when at our local government offices and freeze in summer (excessive cooling). Yet my TV using <1 watt in standby.
What do people think about this proposal?

Didn't hear about these plans.

But on the subject of 'standby mode' I watched a docu one night with David Attenborough and he had an expert on home energy conservation chatting.

He said that 10% of a houses energy is wasted by applicances being in standby mode. Personally I thought this sounded a bit OTT. How could a TV only use 10 times more energy when its actually on versus having a little red light lit up?

But to be serious, I think that it did raise valid points such as lowering your thermostat by 1C saves x% on your electricity bill and emissions. But we really need the ENTIRE country to be buying into this if its going to work.

I always thought that if the earth is in such desperate trouble as they make us believe then more draconian measures surely would be justified. Why not force everybody to drive cars under 1200C; why not ban cars that do less than 50mpg from the roads; why not force manufacturers to make energy efficient applicances eg you see fridge freezers with an energy rating of 'G' when others are 'A' - ban these!!

Back to cars - could you see the yanks being told they can't bring gas guzzling 8mpg SUVs any more!!

Having said all that, another docu was more chilling. It basically spent 50mins telling you how much the West was trying to do to cut down on emissions and how we are making slight improvements. Then to end on it told us that with the consumer boom in China and India all our efforts are watsed as these people now want all the CE products, cars etc that will just finish the planet off once and for all!!!!!

[unique]

its probably a good thing, as altho each item might only draw a small amount of power, when you count all the items in your house it adds up, and then count all the items in the uk. some items can draw a third of power of normal use. if you think of all your tv's, videos, dvds, cds, amps, stuff in the kitchen, bedroom, etc, it all adds up. i saw something that said something like if all the unnecessary stuff was turned off rather than on standby, then the power saved would be about enough to allow to full cities to be turned off, or two powerstations, or something like that. basically these items waste a lot of power, and they all add up on your electric bill, so you could save a few quid if they werent wasting power

on top of that idea, they might have other plans to save wastage like the things you mention, this idea might be part of a bigger plan/package

[unique]

Originally Posted by SOK

Didn't hear about these plans.

But on the subject of 'standby mode' I watched a docu one night with David Attenborough and he had an expert on home energy conservation chatting.

He said that 10% of a houses energy is wasted by applicances being in standby mode. Personally I thought this sounded a bit OTT. How could a TV only use 10 times more energy when its actually on versus having a little red light lit up?

But to be serious, I think that it did raise valid points such as lowering your thermostat by 1C saves x% on your electricity bill and emissions. But we really need the ENTIRE country to be buying into this if its going to work.

I always thought that if the earth is in such desperate trouble as they make us believe then more draconian measures surely would be justified. Why not force everybody to drive cars under 1200C; why not ban cars that do less than 50mpg from the roads; why not force manufacturers to make energy efficient applicances eg you see fridge freezers with an energy rating of 'G' when others are 'A' - ban these!!

Back to cars - could you see the yanks being told they can't bring gas guzzling 8mpg SUVs any more!!

Having said all that, another docu was more chilling. It basically spent 50mins telling you how much the West was trying to do to cut down on emissions and how we are making slight improvements. Then to end on it told us that with the consumer boom in China and India all our efforts are watsed as these people now want all the CE products, cars etc that will just finish the planet off once and for all!!!!!

in order to power the little red light the entire circuit board needs to be live, and thats what draws the power. the LCD display, CRT, amp power etc might not be used, but the rest of the machine is, awaiting you to press the on button

also think of all the computers that are turned on all day when not in use, standby mode still uses a lot of power

[Bat-man]

I re-iterate. My TV uses <1watt in standby yet government buildings are overheated in summer and over cooled in winter - Megawatts!
Edit Also what happens to OTA software updates at night?

[Miyazaki]

200 million or so tvs in the UK I bet. If they are all left on standby, I bet we are wasting far too much energy.

I, for one, agree that it should be banned. People can't be trusted to look after the environment.

[Noggin1980]

Being disabled it would be a complete Nightmare for me.

[Nick_UK]

Originally Posted by Bat-man

Our Government want to ban products that use stanby mode on new electrical products to help reduce electricity usage.
To me this is a bit rich as I swealter in winter (excessive heating) when at our local government offices and freeze in summer (excessive cooling). Yet my TV using <1 watt in standby.
What do people think about this proposal?

Maybe we ought to write to our MP's and suggest how much power we would save if the MP's car park underneath the House of Commons had its central heating turned off ! A centrally heated car park - who needs that ?

[Eddy Boy]

never use standby so no great loss for me sounds like a good idea.

[JohnG]

Originally Posted by Games Guru

I, for one, agree that it should be banned. People can't be trusted to look after the environment.

And the Government can be trusted ?

[Bat-man]

I suppose what I'm getting at is polititians go for the 'sound-bite' option when, in reality, there are huge consumers of power who need to be addressed first.
When cleaning a car you leave the tiddly bits until last and tackle the major dirt first.

[lostinspace]

The cynic in me says that if we all use less electricity, they'll put the prices up to protect the dividends of those idiots so greedy they bought shares in something they already owned.

[AgentCool]

A better, and more productive, idea would be to ban SUVs for non-agricultural users. The number of 4x4s you see in the 'Parent & Child' bays at Sainsbury's is astonishing.

[GBDG1]

Just because it doesnt have standby it doesnt mean that you wont be able to use the remote control. It just means that the remote will acctually turn it on and off. So no great loss to anyone, disabled or not.

[Ed Selley]

I'm cautiously in favour but feel that the policy needs to be carefully applied. For example, I can see no reason at all why a $ky box can't be fully powered down but the "soft start" facility on some valve amps (that I am sure many enviro envangelists would consider a stand by function) is designed to preserve the valves themselves which take more energy to produce than it does to preserve the existing ones in situ.

I'm pleased to say that as a company we are good at switching off. If I am in early, I come in to a dark office with balnk screens rather than the all too often seen "ghost town" of live units with nobody present.

[lostinspace]

Originally Posted by markwpage

A better, and more productive, idea would be to ban SUVs for non-agricultural users. The number of 4x4s you see in the 'Parent & Child' bays at Sainsbury's is astonishing.

Tooright!

Wish I'd posted that first.

[unique]

Originally Posted by Lawrenzini

Just because it doesnt have standby it doesnt mean that you wont be able to use the remote control. It just means that the remote will acctually turn it on and off. So no great loss to anyone, disabled or not.

in order for the unit to pick up the remote control it needs to be powered.

however, it could be possible that some small battery charge could be incorporated in the item so the remote can still turn it on. a rechargable battery like the one that keeps the clock going in a pc, however that would mean a complete redesign of most products

i suppose there could be rules of special circumstance for disabled people. you could also use a powersupply with a remote control built in, such as the power timers you get for heaters etc, which would allow the unit to be powered off that way

[unique]

Originally Posted by lostinspace

The cynic in me says that if we all use less electricity, they'll put the prices up to protect the dividends of those idiots so greedy they bought shares in something they already owned.

actually most of the money made by electric companies is made by commercial supply of power, and comparably little profit is made by the consumer supply. but due to "fair trading rules" they can't combine the two profit margins to reduce consumer supply. some guy on the tv was explaining this a while back

mind, the estimated wastage is about 10%, so it's not like it's a tremendous difference to the power companies

[cdrider]

I agree that something needs to be done to help the environment but if I turn the DVD player off at the mains it loses all me setting like speaker volumes etc. Catch 22 really

[mjn]

One of the biggest wastes of electricity are shop/showrooms, who leave their lights on, even when they're shut, especially over night.

[Leej]

Originally Posted by Bat-man

Our Government want to ban products that use stanby mode on new electrical products to help reduce electricity usage.

Will probably save some houses from burning down too as people will unplug them.

[JohnG]

Originally Posted by leej

Will probably save some houses from burning down too as people will unplug them.

Even if they get rid of standby mode I would not bother unplugging anything as the plug sockets are always tucked behind somewhere and difficult to get at.

[Mr.D]

The information is too narrow and under researched . Whose to say that the thermal shock of turning components fully on and off doesn't lessen the lifespan of the product so much that the energy costs of producing more products to replace the failed ones is greater than the cost of having leaving them on standby.

Its like the issue of cars that automatically turn the engine off if the car is idling for longer than a minute , the energy cost in restarting the engine and the associated increase in failure time of components because of the increase in on off cycles end up being more expensive from an energy point fo view than leaving the car idling in the first place.

That's assuming that the whole issue of enviromental concern has been adequately researched and proven in the first place, pollution is one thing , global warming evidence is another . Scratch beneath the surface and for every study you find that suggests and enviromental effect caused by man gets contradicted by another that produces evidence to the contrary.

The idea that man has only had impact on the planet for the last 100 years is also somewhat dubious with lots of seemingly pristine natural habitats being the result of hunter gatherer activity . The enviroment at yellowstone for example was supremely mucked up by banning the hunting of grasseaters by the indiginous peoples whilst culling the local wolf population. No wolves too many grasseaters led to the habitat being overgrazed so the grasseaters were over culled which alongside forest fire prevention measures led to over forestation so that when forest fires finally occured they were huge conflagrations that completely killed off the seed life in the soil and left huge swathes completely barren.

The sooner we start regarding human impact as a natural part of the enviroment the better the understanding we'll have.

[Nick_UK]

Originally Posted by leej

Will probably save some houses from burning down too as people will unplug them.

The number of house fires caused by equipment in standby is miniscule, compared to the other causes (smoking, chip pan fires, kids playing with matches).

[Leej]

Originally Posted by Nick_UK

The number of house fires caused by equipment in standby is miniscule, compared to the other causes (smoking, chip pan fires, kids playing with matches).

Surely none would be better than miniscule.

[Nick_UK]

On our local TV last night they were talking about providing extra water for East Anglia to supply all the people that John Prescott wants to relocate here. The millions of gallons of water drained from the Fens every day is pumped down to supply Essex, and now we're being told that we have to pump water from Lincolnshire. I suppose Lincolnshire will have to get water from Nottingham, and so it goes on.

The problem is that water doesn't flow anywhere unless it's pumped, and the pumps use electricity

[Mr.D]

Originally Posted by leej

Surely none would be better than miniscule.

Consumer electronics have to pass very stringent fire safety tests. They are built so that any catastrophic component failure that could cause ignition would result in a bit of a noise and smoke but be highly unlikely to cause a fire. The material used inside consumer electronics is on the whole non-combustible , it might melt and smoke but its unlikely to prove a source of ignition.

[Nick_UK]

Originally Posted by leej

Surely none would be better than miniscule.

Yes, you could stop electrical fires immediately if you banned electricity from homes, but it is not a practical solution. I pay for my electricity, and I'll use it any way I want - I'm fed up with this government telling me what I can and cannot do. What's next ? A tax on appliances on standby ?

[Leej]

There is no real excuse for leaving stuff on standby. It's maybe just laziness, to save a few seconds having to go and switch it on.

Mind you i say that with tv's, video, dvd players, sky and amp all on standby.

[GETanner]

I've always wondered (and should I ever get a new build house, I'm having this done) why there is not a switch next to the light switch that turns off the power to the room.

You could have two rings per room. 1 is always on for units that must be on 24/7 such as a PVR, or anything that makes use of a timer. The other power ring is switched on and off by the switch at the door. This would have your TV, Hi-Fi units etc.

You walk into the room, flick the power switch and on comes the TV. Leave the room, flick the switch and all non-timer based power demands are now off.

The last edition would be two switches at the front door. Both master switches, one controlling the 24/7 power rings, the other the non-timer rings. Flick this switch(s) and regardless of the state of the individual rooms, all power is turned off.

Security systems would be wired to by-pass any such master switch.

Surely this is not hard to do bar running extra cables, adding a switch per room and having a few extra sockets per room from a new junction box?

G