Giant Plasma Televisions Face Ban in Battle to go Green in Britain

Those giant flat-screened plasma televisions you see hanging around will soon be banned. Well, in Britain, that is. The energy-guzzlers will be banned as part of efforts to fight against climate change. The ministers told The Independent newspaper that minimum energy standards for televisions are expected to be agreed upon across Europe this spring and should lead to the phasing out of the most inefficient televisions. At the same time, a compulsory labeling system will be drawn up will be drawn up to identify the best and worst devices.

The moves, which follow last week's withdrawal of the 100W incandescent lightbulb, are part of a drive to slow the rapid growth of electricity consumption in homes by phasing out wasteful devices and introducing more efficient ones. Giant plasma televisions – dubbed "the 4x4s of the living room" – can consume four times as much energy as traditional TVs that used cathode ray tubes (CRTs). Source: The Independent

We have used technological advances to our benefit tremendously. Over the past 30 years, the number of electric appliances and gadgets in a typical home has almost trebled – from 17 to 47 – as a host of devices from scanners to security systems, cappuccino makers to computer game consoles have joined the more traditional kettles, irons, vacuum cleaners and cookers. The number of televisions in homes has also grown rapidly. There are reportedly 60 million of them, one for every person in Britain.

There is an obvious downside to this latest explosion of technology at our fingertips. The amount of power needed to run this electronic explosion has more than doubled in the same period, and the official Energy Savings Trust estimates that it will grow by another 12 per cent over the next four years.

The boom in flatscreen TVs, partly spurred by the digital changeover, is helping to fuel the increase, as is the growing size of the screens. The result is a high electric bill. Different makes and models of television vary in their use of power, but a 42in plasma television may use some 822 kilowatt hours a year, compared to 350kWh by an LCD flat screen of the same size. A 32in CRT, the biggest available, would use 322kWh. Manufacturers must respond by making their products greener.

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Power Struggle Brews As Environmentalists, Smart-Growth Advocates Seek to Influence Priorities of Barack Obama's Ecomonic Stimulus Plan

Green jobs in the Obama administration? Well, Barack Obama made that a campaign platform and now the expectations are that he will tackle that in the early years. But a power struggle of some sort is in the works. Environmentalists and smart-growth advocates are trying to influence the priorities of the economic stimulus plan set to be introduced in Congress next month. They are trying to shift the allocation of tens of billions of dollars to highways, bridges and other and other traditional infrastructure spending to more projects that create "green-collar" jobs.

According to media reports, the debate has centered on two competing principles in the evolving plan: the desire to spend money on what President-elect Barack Obama called "shovel-ready projects," such as highway and bridge construction, and other infrastructure to spending on more environmentally conscious projects, such as grids for wind and solar power.

Lawmakers opposed to the emerging-technology projects accuse their colleagues of using the financial crisis to push through pricey policy proposals that they say would do little to boost the economy in the immediate future.

"If we're going to call it a stimulus package, it has to be stimulating and has to be stimulating now. I think there are members of our caucus who are trying to create a Christmas tree out of this," said Rep. Baron P. Hill (Ind.), incoming co-chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of 51 fiscally conservative House Democrats.

The largest beneficiary of the shovel-ready construction projects would be labor unions. There are fewer of the green-collar jobs, a key focus of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi(D-Calif.). These projects often have the long-term potential to revolutionize the economy but tend to lack the short-term bounce of old-fashioned infrastructure work. Not as many of them involve union labor. Labor leaders have refrained from criticizing other stakeholders in the infrastructure debate, saying that the stimulus legislation will provide plenty of money to fund quick-starting pavement projects and environmentally friendly efforts.

"It shouldn't be one or the other," said Anna Burger, chairman of Change to Win, a union group. "In fact, we do have crumbling roads and bridges that need to be repaired. It's not about pitting one against the other. It's about how we find a sustainable economy." They also see opportunities for their membership in long-term "green" projects. "We're committed to green jobs and rapid transit and all the rest of it," said Terence M.O'Sullivan, head of the Laborers' International Union of North America. Source: MSN

I am positive that there will be some middle ground and the results pleasing to both camps. The government has allowed the infrastructure such as bridges, roads, for example, to go so long without maintenance that it will be expensive to repair and rebuild, but vital. The incoming administration has to see that a lot of money is filtered into the broken system to stimulate the economy on all fronts.