More Climate Change Lunacy (Only In California)

This story is from the Los Angeles Times. The general intent of the story is that those Plasma televisions are contributing to Global Warming Climate Change, because they are large users of electrical power.

It’s drawing a long bow at best, and to show you just why, I’ve included this pie chart of household electricity consumption, and this is the average for the U.S. If you click on this smaller image, it will open in a larger window. This chart is taken from that huge database from the Government’s Energy Information Administration.

Admitted, this is averaged out over the whole of the U.S. but it is worth noting because of the percentages quoted in the LA Times article. What I want you to look at specifically is the clever use of statistics in the article that seem to say a lot, but actually distract from the real figures. Nowhere does it say the actual usage when compared to what this chart does tell you.

Plasma televisions might be larger users of electrical power than ordinary televisions, but in the overall picture, that percentage you see in the chart for average TV usage of 2.9% will rise by only a small amount. Colour televisions of the old style, those with the Cathode Ray Tubes, (CRT) and the newer ones with Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) probably make up the bulk of those TV’s in the U.S. but even so, Plasmas would still not be the largest users of electricity in the household.

You can also see that lighting makes up a relatively small percentage of power usage in the home, so another of those misleading things comes to light, that of changing all your household light bulbs for the newer technology compact fluorescent lights will result in very little change in household electrical consumption.

The four largest users in the home are water heating, space heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration. These are household staples, and it is worth noting that no one is calling for cutting back on the usage in these areas. Most air conditioners are of the reverse cycle type these days, meaning they can be used for cooling in the Summer and for heating in the Winter, so that figure there for air conditioning should not be confused with that for space heating, which is basically for electrical heaters only, those of varying types and sizes.

These four areas virtually cannot be cut back on, and no Government in their right mind would even consider calling for widespread cutbacks in household electrical usage in those areas.

So, getting back to the article, what they are effectively doing is preying on the guilt factor, in a cynical attempt to raise revenue, because even though it really may have a marginal application when applied to the environment, it really is an attempt by that State to just raise revenue by imposing a new tax, appealing to that guilt factor and quoting the environment to make it sound acceptable. The money raised from the new tax will not be poured back into an attempt to make Plasmas use less electricity. The underlying intent might be to impose a tax just out of reach of the average person, so that they think twice about purchasing a plasma, the intent that less plasmas will be purchased in California, therefore using electricity, the end result being that the Government does not need to construct any new and expensive power plants. While electricity consumption is increasing in the U.S. by an average 2.5%, and with California the most populous State, that percentage would apply there as well, and in all probability, is increasing by a larger percentage rate than for the whole Country. On the other side of the ledger, electrical power production in California is steadily decreasing and has been since the mid 90’s, so in California, there is probably a deficit in reality, so they need to find ways to cut back on electricity consumption, and little things like this will probably have minimal, if any, effect.

They will appeal to that guilt factor in all of us, the rationale being that having a Plasma is considered a luxury.

There’s no money to be made in taxing those big four users of electricity, because the outcry would be long and hard, and impact most on those at the lower end of the economic scale.

So, the Government will fiddle around at the edges by suggesting you change your light bulbs, and not purchase Plasma televisions.

In the big scheme of things, a few less Plasmas will have very little effect at all on how much electricity is consumed, considering that those huge coal fired and nuclear power plants will still operate at close to their maximum running capability, because the nature of them is that they cannot just be wound back in speed at less usage times, and more importantly, cannot be run up to higher speeds at high demand periods.

At high demand periods, those extra plants that do come on line can be run up to speed quickly to produce the extra power are those ‘Peaking Power’ units, which include those solar plants and wind plants, because the coal fired and nuclear plants are already taking up the ‘Baseload Power’ requirements.

Peaking Power Plants are those that include Solar Power, Wind Power, and Natural Gas turbine Plants. Considering that TV’s are only turned on when you get home from work, those times when Peaking Power Plants come on line, then any electricity consumption savings will only mean that less of these plants will need to come on line.  This really just indicates the erroneous nature of this release from the Government. At best it indicates a misguided poorly thought out policy. At worst it is just a cynical attempt to raise revenue by appealing to your better nature and using the environment to do just that.

Again, what it also effectively highlights is that old adage I’ve been saying for so long now.

It has nothing to do with the environment. It’s just about the money.