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US Energy Department ending appliance efficiency standards
- insane_dreamer 2y agoSo this is what it's like to go backward instead of forward. China cannot believe its good fortune.
- littlestymaar 2y agoCIA Uncovers Chinese Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoTo the down-voters: sorry if you don't like it; doesn't make it less true. You can be sure China is strategizing on how to fill the leadership vacuum the US is leaving in its wake -- this just being one of many.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago“Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.” https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- userbinator 2y agoBackwards to no more cheap Chinese crap!
- jauntywundrkind 2y agoThese are the groups that insured that whatever we got was at least somewhat decent. Standards are amazing. Blowing them up merely creates permission for bad.
- userbinator 2y agoCompanies can always compete, and now they'll be free to compete on dimensions that previously would've been restricted by regulations.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoMore like the opposite. More Chinese crap.
- kyrra 2y agoThe title of the submission is nowhere in line with what the linked page even talks about. Flagging for out right lying. Titled when I wrote this comment is: "US Energy Department ending appliance efficiency standards" All the press release mentions is that they are not moving forward on new standards that Biden was pushing for while he was in office. Existing energy efficiency standards for appliances are still in effect. From the link: "will postpone the implementation of seven of the Biden-Harris administration’s restrictive mandates on home appliances.'
- insane_dreamer 2y agoThe title is in fact correct. They are ending the appliance efficiency standards recently set. It doesn't say they're ending "all" standards, which is what you're implying. So you can drop the "flagging for lying".
- SoftTalker 2y agoThe title was editorialized. That's grounds for flagging.
- Dylan16807 2y agoThey're ending ones that weren't even in force yet. The title definitely sounds like they're wholesale removing them. The title is very deceptive.
- scrose 2y agoThe article title is: "Energy Department Acts to Lower Prices and Increase Consumer Choice with Household Appliances", which says nothing of substance. The only part of the article that explained what was done states: "Today’s actions postpone the efficiency standards for the following home appliance rules:" Would a title of "US energy department indefinitely postpones efficiency standards for home appliances" sound less deceptive to you?
- Dylan16807 2y ago
- Mistletoe 2y agoThese press releases chill me to the bone with how 1984 speak they are. I’ve never seen whole agencies just completely gutted and replaced with nonsense like this before. The executive branch of the government was never meant to have this much power. We didn’t fight a war against a king so that we could just devolve to that again.
- Dylan16807 2y agoHow so? There's a tradeoff here between price and quality, and the different political parties have different preferences for what should be allowed. Obviously they're going to talk about the benefits and not the downsides of a particular choice, but that hardly strikes me as 1984.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoIt's not about quality, it's about reducing energy consumption, which is critical because ... climate change (among other things). Come on, I shouldn't need to explain this. Trump wants to bring back incandescent lightbulbs. And burn more coal.
- Dylan16807 2y agoEnergy efficiency is a quality metric. Come on, I shouldn't need to explain this. Even if you disagree with that for some reason, it doesn't really affect my point. It's a tradeoff and they want different rules about what options on the tradeoff curve are valid.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoNo, Trump wants to gut anything related to climate change initiatives because they were enacted by the previous administration. It has nothing to do with quality tradeoff curves. You don't even have to do a lot of critical thinking to get this; Trump has made it pretty clear.
- userbinator 2y agoIMHO this is a good thing if it ends the now-common practice of chasing after tiny gains in efficiency at the cost of shortened lifespans and more difficult repair. The list of specifications developed during the last administration have encouraged the sale of bathroom and kitchen faucets, residential toilets and sprinkler nozzles that just don’t work well. I think that's been a problem since before the last administration... Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20856036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20856036 http://www.freeexistence.org/highflow_toilet.html http://www.freeexistence.org/highflow_toilet.html
- anotherhue 2y agoYou want the Commando-450 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUt6BWeL1GE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUt6BWeL1GE
- nullc 2y agoI hope this means a move away from standards that result in serious usability impacts for moderate improvements. Examples I've personally experienced is that many/most driers now available require multiple attempts to get clothes actually try. Then there was the debacle of fedora enabling aggressive power saving in a difficult to disable way in updates, claiming it was mandated-- resulting in nonsense like remote hands incidents to unsuspend servers and users using TV as monitors perpetually needing to turn the TV on and off every use because TV's won't wake and the power saving functionality wasn't disclosed (if you could even figure out that this was WHY the screen kept failing-- and did so without sending a display to the landfill first). Energy efficiency when it comes at no impact to functionality is good (at least if it pays for its own landfill burden-- many home devices have more embodied energy in their manufacture than they'll ever use) but when it has a usability impact it really ought to have a good justification or even just not happen at all because people are capable of choosing more efficient devices when it actually makes sense to do so. (like the efficiency impact of a device run for 10 minutes a month is very very different from something that runs 24/7 and usually only the owner of the device knows the usage). Intrusive requirements also set back environmental causes by enlisting opposition by members of the public that are harmed by them-- which could easily have a greater long term impact than the benefit of the standard. (and if it's argued that these changes have gone too far, then I'd say it's likely an example of exactly that).
- userbinator 2y agoNo kidding. This stupid "climate change" BS is finally getting the cut it deserves.
- nullc 2y agoWell I think you might kind of be making my point-- not because I agree with you: I don't, I think man's ongoing impact on the atmosphere and climate is an important issue. And collectivist humanity is smart enough and wealthy enough to spare some resources on protecting our own future. But it's not an issue we're going to move the needle on with any amount of mandatory no-flow showerheads. Intrusive regulation makes environmental concerns into people's enemy. Because stuff costs money everyone already has an incentive to conserve. We can enhance that though lower impact methods like disclosure, monitoring, optional eco modes that can easily be disabled. I suspect that considering the long term impact if there is virtually any public backlash these efforts are ultimately net negative.
- tjpnz 2y agoMy home appliances meet a number of international energy efficiency standards including those set by the EU. If the US wants that to be somebody else's responsibility that's ok; but China et el aren't going to invest in separate production lines without it just for the US.
- rurp 2y agoThis announcement is written so poorly that it might be one of the rare cases where linking to the primary article is suboptimal. > the Department of Energy will postpone the implementation of seven of the Biden-Harris administration’s restrictive mandates on home appliances. > Today’s actions postpone the efficiency standards for the following home appliance rules: I honestly don't know if they are suspending new fuel efficiency requirements or all requirements for the given appliances.
- sister_shotgun 2y agoThey aren't suspending anything. They're postponing. Your second quoted sentence is consistent with your first unless you change the word "postpone" to "suspend" in your mind while you're reading it.
- yodon 2y agoIf you want to understand the impact this kind of energy rule had while in effect, read up on the Rosenfeld Effect[0]. Arthur Rosenfeld was the driving force behind California and US energy conservation regulations in the 1970's and early 1980's. His direct personal impact on energy cost savings in the US is unbelievable, even before you inflation convert it to modern dollars. Disassembling an old refrigerator from before the days of those yellow stickers is a mind blowing experience. Refrigerators commonly had heater wires attached to their outer panels. Why? It was cheaper to manufacture refrigerators that had heaters on their outer panels than refrigerators that had adequate insulation (the heaters prevented the outside of the refrigerator from getting cold enough to cause water to condense on the outside of the refrigerator). It was cheaper to make them with heater wires, but unbelievably more expensive to run them that way. Consumers paid a huge price for that tiny reduction in manufacturing cost, and had no way of knowing that was happening. Those yellow stickers changed that. Cutting waste, fraud, and abuse? Show me another individual who has come anywhere close to the direct financial savings that Rosenfeld, a PhD Physicist, delivered. The article below primarily talks about his impact on reducing California's spending on energy, in large part because it's easier to quantify, but his impact nationally is undoubtedly much higher. [0]https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2017/01/27/art-rosenfeld-californias-godfather-energy-efficiency-90/ https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2017/01/27/art-rosenfeld-californ...
- zegerjan 2y agoThe EU Banning inefficient vacuum cleaners had a similar effect. Though I'm not aware who is responsible for the policy.
- k310 2y ago"Someone" has a serious phobia regarding shower heads and gas stoves. My house came with a gas stove with three pilots that heat up the house on those 110 degree days and I can't find the shutoff (it's behind the stove somewhere) to shut the damn thing off without killing the furnace and water heater. Consolation might be if I sell the abomination, some deranged (pun unintended) person may overpay for the nostalgia. As for the alternative, PG&E more than doubled my electric rates, though I did get a stovetop Wolf oven, never having had an oven that was accurate. My former Breville quit one day after the warranty expired. I believe the cause was a 29 cent inline fuse buried between panels past about 30 screws holding the back on. I never found the fuse. Can't win.
- ides_dev 2y agoI’ve never read a press release by a US government agency before, so it may be the standard, but the language in it strikes me as petty and childish, especially the last piece; “sprinkler nozzles that just don’t work well”. “The people, not the government, should be choosing the home appliances and products they want at prices they can afford.” - you still get to choose which appliance you have in your home, but the government is there to help ensure that appliance is reliable and efficient.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago>you still get to choose which appliance you have in your home, but the government is there to help ensure that appliance is reliable and efficient. I suspect that many people have the opposite experience and blame the government for inefficient and unreliable products. I most often experience and hear others complain about water efficient washing machines.
- userbinator 2y agoThe "high efficiency" ones also tend to be far more complex and unreliable as a result. There's plenty of complaints on HN about them too.
- sister_shotgun 2y agoMisleading title. You say "ending standards." Press release says "postponing implementation of Biden_Harris mandates."
- xnx 2y agoI'd be all in favor of removing thousands of individual regulations if they were replaced by a single rational carbon/pollution tax, but that is wishful thinking.