EU energy efficiency regulations

Dear Riscimas,

Now we are getting there!

See and know ... Two vital words in the context.

I try to cut to the minimum what I see as wasteful. I cut much further than many. My electricity is three hundred pounds in credit based on a £42 per month transfer. This credit has built up over two and a half years. I am happy with it, though if it is still that high at Easter I may cut payments to £40 per month.

So you will see that I am at the careful end, especially considering that all my heating is in this consumption.

I do not know what the law makers know. I do not have their access to the data that they can command. But if there is an examination of this data, and it requires that things change - as happened concerning incandescent lamps - then I am all for it.

That is all. I support change where the big picture is understood.

This will only affect future electrical domestic units, and not the current items in use. The current ones remain and can be used legally however the owners want.

I support turning off, as has been clear for many years. I hope to perhaps persuade others to the position, but have not had complete success in this.

Naturally if the law is brought to the party, then I assume that my sense of what I see is not so wide of the mark in the big picture that the makers of law have at their fingertips. 

I can equally understand that some may find laws like this an interference. I agree that in a respect it is. But laws banning smoking in pubs is also such an instance. Initially I thought this was a truly dreadful idea, but because the law changed, I examined the situation and could see that the law makers had it right. Sometimes it takes a law change to shake what one sees!

ATB from George

George, I don't smoke. Never have. I also hate the smell of smoke. Always have.

Still, I oppose such laws, given they concern private establishments and I don't give myself the right to say what people should or should not do in their private property. I don't feel entitled to a smoke-free pub - if there isn't one, so be it.

The basis for such a law is precisely utilitarianism, where someone makes assumptions about the utility of something. As much data as lawmakers have access to, there's plenty that they will never have and need to make arbitrary decisions about.

The problem with that is that you are forced to comply, whether you agree or not, in the name of someone's assumptions about what's better for each individual based on a fictional "average" individual.

I know this is once again off topic, but as you will know, not everyone is in the position to be choosy about the job they take. I have had a brief period where I was in the position of not being able to avoid doing certain jobs [short term via an agency] that I would definitely never have chosen by me for potentially enjoying the work.

Bar staff may be smokers, and they may not. 

The law was introduced mostly to stop involuntary secondary smoking by people who had little choice but to work as bar staff. I repected that as a good reason for the ban even though I was quite sad to think that never again would I enjoy a nice pint and rolly by the fire in my favourite rural pub. The Talbot at Knightwick. They have a website.

In reality the bar staff used to come front of house and join in, but not every place had such a great or happy staff behind the bar. Many town "bars" are staffed by people who move on quite fast as they can find something they would actually be reasonably happy doing.

I found the logic inexorable. Eventually I reconciled to sitting outside in the summer only in pubs. 

Times change and I adjusted to the situation. Even I who was so against the change saw the value of it after the fact. 

As a side note I took up smoking as I enjoyed being round people who were smoking. I always found the smoking section in any given situation was peopled with a slightly different, more mellow type of person. I took up smoking at the age of thirty five, and consider that if it takes me thirty five years to be killed off by it, then I'll be seventy. I reasoned that by seventy I would have lost the will to live! I do not smoke a lot, and hand roll them. My last spirograph recorded me as having lungs of a typical capacity of someone ten years younger than me who did not smoke. Must be the bike! But I enjoy a cigarette, and even on special occasions a pipe.

Make of that what you will.

ATB from George

About 10,000 years ago humans began farming and developed money.

It's been downhill for sustainability and the other species (not useful to us alive) we share this planet with ever since.

Because the snowball has been rolling for 10,000 years, it's now very large and travelling very quickly.

You can turn off your hi-fi if you think it will make a difference.

Olly

"I can live with my conscience at that level............"

Funny, everyone else uses exactly that same criteria to make judgements on what they will or won't do.

Murderers, people using their deceased mother's handicap-parking permit, people ignoring speed limits, making personal copies at work, affairs with other's spouses, pedophiles, incandescent light bulbs, audio replay usage.

I can live with MY conscience.  It gets scary at times because we never know what measure others find acceptable.  And then the tendency to have others conform to MY self-imposed limits or MY ordering of an acceptable segment of the above random mentions.

Dangerous territory.

Jeff A

Dear Olly,

I doubt if it will make a difference what I do.

I doubt the snow ball can avoid landing in the see to disintegrate ...

But I have a hope that there will be something for future generations, even if I suspect that there will be a calamity that may much reduce the human population, [and this may lead to human extinction] in a time scale of less than the end of the 21st Century.

Because I have passion and a glimmer of hope, I try my best to be careful, but equally it is not entirely irrational to think something along the lines of I am old. The Human Race is probably in serious trouble. What iOS the point t of worrying? There is nothing I can do about it?

Now if that mentality were Universal then there really would be no hope, but it is possible to bring at a least a partial success to this, I hope. Even though I do not expect to live to see it.

ATB from 

George,

i suggest the electric grid would less challenged a very teeny weeny bit less is all -

in the big scheme of things : )

I know the pukka pie chart above is past it's sell by date, but i don't think the results have changed that much over the past decade, and not much point piffling around with a fraction of less than 1% from peoples who like listening to their home audios, if the main cause of electrical use is over 80% on heating space and water.

We'd be far better off now if they kept the utility companies nationalised, so the the enthuses of importance could be 'people driven' and placed upon ecology, instead of flogging them off to privateering capitalists who have a overwhelming priority to make big bucks profits for there big fat bank accounts.

The re-nationisation of the utilities, especially electric, gas, and railway, is essential if we are to change the fabric of social thinking into eco friendly culture.

Before that happens, power from the grid is only a consumer commodity.

Debs

True, but you don't have the "right" to have a job at a non-smoking pub - certainly not to the point of infringing on the rights of the pub owner.

Again, it comes down to thinking we either are owed something by others or not, or whether the not really rights of some (the potential employee's here) trump the actual property rights of the pub owner, as if those deserved less because they happened to own a pub.

See? People easily fall into this mode where they think they have the right to go about changing how others think by force.

George,

I only hope to be able to check in with you when you reach seventy and see how you feel about the will to live then.  I'm sure your perspective will change, speaking as someone approaching the number and feel great since I quit smoking about 12 years ago. 

That aside, I am an admitted capitalist who believes the market does a pretty good job in regulating prices by supply and demand.   If I take short, warm showers and leave my Naim on all day, I'd say that's a pretty good offset to someone who enjoys long, hot showers and turns his stereo rig off when not in use. 

For those that enjoy hot showers and warm amplifiers, they should pay for the usage.  The point being I should be free to make those choices, not the government. 

I'm with those who believe governments should not be dictating what appliances go to standby when not in use.  I don't disagree that the need exists to save energy and resources but am convinced a better results can be obtained by offering incentives to companies that build more energy efficient products. 

Being new to the forum I was going to ask whether it was advised to keep your Naim powered up 24/7 for optimal sound quality.  I think I have my answer and enjoyed the read as well.

George

There are lots of things we could do right now if we chose to, a massive reforestation programme in the tropics (where trees grow quickly and would sequestrate a lot of carbon) for instance - infinitely better for the human race, the climate and certainly for biodiversity than using the land to keep McDonald's in burgers or Unilever in palm oil.  

The human race is rather like the Americans in Churchill's famous observation and we will probably do the right thing, once we've exhausted all the alternatives - we have to be optimistic it won't be too late.

In the meantime we have too many "gesture" initiatives, especially from the EU - but they can't even do the short term economic stuff, so we really shouldn't expect much from them.

So in my world view (and even though the trees have been felled), not visiting McDonalds or buying products that contain palm oil (which isn't easy these days) are far more worthwhile things for me to do right now than turning off my NAP200 or sending my Ducati for scrap.

Regards

Olly

Does anyone have a right to a safe working place?

I happen to think that they do. 

ATB from George

Dear Mike,

As a fifteen year old I had a cancer scare. White blood cell count indicated bone cancer.

I was off my feet for six weeks. In fact it was an infection on my right hip joint. I was never told I was clear .... The infection just cleared with time and Nature's strength.

But I know very well how I would handle the situation now or in the future with complete certainty.. Just as I did then. I point blank refused any treatment. I was sent home after two days in the old Worcester Royal Infirmary. 

I have always been somewhat phlegmatic and Fatalistic concerning myself and the reverse with those I love.

It is hard to judge a person from their posts on the forum, but you have me well and truly wrong on this. As a side note, the surgeon who discussed my liniment demise in front of me, wrote a letter to my GP saying that he had never seen such stoic strength of attitude in an adolescent before, and the truth was that if it had been the big C, that there was no real hope of recovery.

I know myself and see the World less comprehensively.

ATB from George

I agree with the thrust of this, but some of us need to lead in the issue of the right thing as we see it.

ATB from George

Dear Jeff,

If you examine my consumption and carbon footprint it is about a third of the average UK resident.

This may not be sustainable, but it is an aweful lot better than most. No doubt if I lived in a cabin by a Norwegian trout lake, I could have a sustainable carbon footprint, cutting my wood for heat, fishing my food from the lake, and growing potatoes in the short Norwegian summer. But unfortunately the human race would need to be between one billion and one and half billion for everyone to be able to live a sustainable existence.

I expect that human population will be less than one billion by the end of the century, but all I can do is what I can actually do. It is a heck of a lot more than what most people are doing to save on finite resources.

Said in good faith. ATB from George

I think they should be able to make up their own minds about it - does a smoker who was quite happy to indulge in smoking while working at the bar have less of a right to a job that pleases him than others? Is it not one's right as a smoker and a bar owner to provide jobs for those that enjoy such things?

I don't think anyone has a right to a specific job the way they want it, I'm afraid. We all make compromises at some level, so, again, we come down to arbitrary lines of what one accepts as "safe" or not.

Dear Ric,

Yes, it is food environment, and smoking has no business in a food serving or production environment. Straight answer.

ATB from George

That is a decision for the customer to make - whether I choose to eat at a place where they smoke or not doesn't have to be your call.

Dear Ric,

So we have a reached a point where we have a profound but honest disagreement!

Time to agree to disagree and let the World take its course!

Best wishes from George

George, I don't mind disagreement at all - it's an utilitarian world view that tends not to allow for it, don't forget.

Cheers

Dear Ric, 

Not at all. I agree that a full variety of views is preferable to a mono-culture for certain. What I think is that it is splendid to share a disagreement without personal rudeness, and of course we live in a democracy where we have some say in the direction of government, if not a complete one.

At least we are free to debate and have some effect on the way things are ...

ATB from George

Jon,

Many thanks, measurements would be very helpful, and I for one, would be most grateful to see them, whether as a recall or new measurements.

My main issue is to see how large this issue is. Are we talking about standby power on Naim running at 10% od global power consumption in which case I might concede that George has a point, or are we talking less than 0.1% or perhaps less than 0.0001%. We also need to know for certain whether the energy used by Naim kit in idle mode is used solely for the benefit of subsequent musical enjoyment, or does some of it at least heat our houses and provide a useful base load for our nuclear power generators.

Ah, I see that Debs has posted a useful pie chart showing power consumption in the UK. 3% on home entertainment. 

So, with jon's 150 watt quiescent consumption for something like 20 hours per day = c.3 kWh, I can enjoy 4 hours of "full-strength" Naim each evening………and reduce my heating consumption by about 3 kWh per day as well.

After 4 pages of discussion, I know I am missing something ! George ?

We could all burn whale oil lamps at night to reduce power consumption, but that would probably rile Greenpeace and introduce hitherto unaccounted for variables into the already complex carbon footprint model.

naim_nymph, thanks for the graph, I agree a lot, bravo, ciao