9/09/2007

Praise for the Tories - Who says I am not "fair" or "open minded" ?


Well done to the Tories for proposing something from one of their policy groups that is sensible, achievable, and isn't all about trying to give well of people tax cuts.

It seems crazy that standby can not be got rid of completely. I saw on BBC2's Dragon's Den last year two people who had invented a simple device that would allow the "Standby" button to be replaced with something that would turn off the device completely, but due to the sort of red tape problems that were involved patents and copyrights, the device never got the launch the entrepreneurs on the show wanted, and so the product has never hit them market.

It needs government to have a real desire to legislate to get rid of standby. With 2.25% of this country's electricity use being TV's, videos, DVD's and set top boxes on standby, in effect, not being used, the Tories are right to propose the banning of "standby".

I read the Jock Coats, another Lib Dem blogger has criticised the Tories for announcing this policy as their own because the government made similar statements about Standby buttons 13 months ago. The problem is, as I see it, that like much of Labour's policy announcements, this has been ignored. Hopefully the Tories agreeing with Labour on this and taking some of the limelight, it might encourage Labour to actually do something about it.

7 comments:

Jock Coats said...

Actually it's a European Union competency - you can't apparently ban something unilaterally that is legal for sale in another part of the union - and the Commission announced plans to bring forward legislation last autumn.

Joe Otten said...

My TV uses 1% of the power on standby than it uses when on. Any comparably new set will probably do the same. Keeping a CRT warm so that a set comes on quickly is disappearing faster than the CRTs themselves.

Often as much as 60% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Jock Coats said...

More on the complexities of this here.It would appear that it makes a nuce soundbute, but will be difficult in practice. For example, what if a manufacturer wants to provide "standby" and manages to do so with little or no power draw from the mains - would that be banned? The article in that link suggests that it needs more even than EU action to achieve this - that it needs an international agreement in order that all manufacturers can know what they can and cannot do to their products for sale in Europe.

Nich Starling said...

I got the 60% figure from a book we used at school last year.

Joe Otten said...

Cool. Did the book have a reference for the figure?

Anyway "up to 60%" is entirely compatible with an average of 1%. And it's the average that matters.

It always used to be "up to half"; I guess somebody found a worse model.

Anyway, I had a telly once, years ago, with a genuine 'off' button on the remote. It can't be that hard.

I do agree we should take some reasonable against power wastage on standby, but I object to the degree of obsession shown over tiny savings when potential large savings (like how much the TV uses when it is actually on) go ignored.

Of this 2.25%, I would guess that the bulk is set-top boxes because they are often actually doing something - sky boxes at least - the standby mode is not entirely real, it just means it is not showing you a picture.

Ban standby and stuff will get left on more. A couple of percent more and the savings will be wiped out.

Nich Starling said...

I think it was on an infomrtion leaflet/booklet we had last year in science and yes, I think the 60% figure was in relation to set top boxes.

Joe Otten said...

Surely in "science" you should be measuring standby consumption rather than taking it on trust. Get each kid to bring in a mobile phone charger or something.

Or are all electrical experiments banned by health and safety these days?

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