Battle Continues Over California TV Restrictions

This is getting pretty heated, can not wait to see how this turns out.  While I agree with cutting energy costs, I do not agree with CAs method of purposing mandates before the technology is ready.  That is just wrong and is what the CEA is saying, CA needs to listen and perhaps move the date or lower the standards.

It appears that they are trying to be fair with a rating under the Energy Star one, and excluding 58 inches or bigger.  However,  the sets that would be included would cause the economic issues as the CEA is saying.

If this goes into CAs favor and the restrictions go through, what is stop other states or even the government from imposing the same restrictions before the technology is ready??

I guess for now we will just need to wait and see..

A LED DLP set consumes half as much power as a plasma set. If everyone in California upgrades their CRT TV’s to a plasma the state needs to have more power plants built and more transmission lines strong across the state. This is great is you want to promote global warming and air pollution but down right silly at a time when people are replacing tugnsten bulbs with CFL lamps and trying to make wiser use of available resources. CEDIA and CEpro should be encouraging installers to direct their customers toward solutions that provide performance with minimal impact on the environment and future generations. And to not do so when there are perfectly viable solutions available at equal cost is indefensible. On another note, I had occasion last month to visit my local TV repair shop and saw that they had dozens of plasma units waiting to be repaired, and only plasma units. Heat and electronics don’t mix in case that is news to anyone. So encouraging customers to buy plasma and do unnecessary environmental damage, and possible necessitate more power plants and more power lines and more likelihood that they will be needing to haul their set down to the shop for repair (or worse, ending up in a landfill), if not really providing good customer service.

Maybe I am missing something, but if I am going to buy a new TV, and one uses less energy than another, why should that choice be made by somebody other than me, the purchaser?

The issue here is not about preventing the need for more power plants, saving the enviroment or saving money on producing power for customers, it is about a state mandating something without making sure that the result is acheiveable.

Additionally, will there be restrictions on other energy consuming products as well??

Will they be putting a limit on the power consumed by appliances??

Will they request that customers replace their existing high energy consuming products??

Will customers be limited to the amount of appliances that they can have in the home??

Where willl it end??

Going green and convincing customers to go green is something that we all should do, but it should be us and not the government at any level.  This is especially true based on the current technology which limits the amount of units that can be sold that meet the requirements.  There is also the cost of revenue to integrations dealers, lost jobs to integrators and manufacturers in CA.

I am all for going green, but if the result is a negative impact on an already failing economy, then I say we need to work it out and verify that the resut is acheiveable..

I absolutely detest government intervention in the free market system. In most cases, it always ends up making things worse.

However, I call BS on this knee-jerk reaction of “we can’t do it because the technology isn’t there”!

Vizio seems to think the technology is there, and I’m sure this ban will light a fire under everyone to fast-track energy-saving features.

Come on, they’re already excluding sets larger than 58”!

I don’t think any of the LCD manufacturers are going to have much trouble meeting these requirements. It’s mainly the energy-hogging plasmas that are going to be hurt. Well, if you really want the “better picture” of a plasma, just buy one that’s larger than 58”. I’m sure you’ll be seeing them if this passes.