New Woodburner Regulations

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd suggest to read up about the reasons behind such legislation. Rather than making up your own.

[Andy Burns]

Measured in 'Air Watts' presumably? ISTR dyson making reference to the relevant IEC standard when the first limit on vacuums was introduced. Remember, it gets cut further in September ...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

PAL was developed at the request of the European Broadcast Union. The previous colour TV system, NTSC, had undergone extensive trials by the BBC etc and been found lacking.

There's an obvious reason why a German maker spent large sums developing PAL as a European standard (incidentally first used in the UK, before Germany) and that was they actually invested in industry, unlike the UK which preferred to pay out as much as possible to shareholders. Hence there being no UK owned electronics company these days, while the descendants of Telefunken are still going strong.

[Andy Burns]

Speaking of new regulations (and not really needing another thread) I hadn't realised that we are in a transition phase for cable regulations, which will end in July from when all power/data/fibre cables need to be "CPR compliant" and tested/marked in addition to their existing BASEC etc compliance.

[nospam]

Which was called Never Twice the Same Colour ;-)

[Andy Burns]

Are you suggesting that saving a few hundred watts for a few minutes per month is distinguishable from noise in the 2750 TWh EU electricity budget?

I'd even agree that lighting is a worthwhile target, but that maybe they pushed it a few years too early, how many subsidised CFLs lurk in the backs of cupboards when decent LEDs were only a few years down the track?

[Huge]

The executor of my estate will likely be dealing with the red/black cable I have "in stock" ...

[Huge]

I suspect those LEDs would never have been developed without legislation to push the process along.

[dennis]

The power limit only apply to certain types of vac too. Like domestic ones and not industrial/commercial.

[charles]

Not quite true. The BBC found NTSC quite useable - provided it was treated properly. A test was made by sending am NTSC signal by landline/microwave to Moscow & back - with no significant degradation. The BBC backed NTSC, but when the majority of countries opted for PAL, they used that system. One obvious indication of NTSC as the BBC's choice was the high stability crystals needed for colour reference were built for NTSC.

[RJH]

Most households have a vacuum - so you have to multiply your 'few hundred watts' by at least twenty million for the UK to begin to understand potential savings. And then multiply that figure by 27.

Mind, the 'few minutes' does suggest interesting priorities :-)

[Andy Burns]

Even if all 220 million EU households bought a new vacuum that used 400W less than their old one and used it for 2 hours a month, it would still be 2749.8 TWh

[NY]

But *would* it still be for 2 hours a month. If you simply reduce the motor power, without making that motor power produce more suction, all you are doing is meaning that the device has to be left on longer to do the same amount of work, because you have to keep going over the bits that a stronger suction would have picked up first time.

It's the same with kettles. It takes a fixed amount of energy to boil a given amount of water, so if you reduce the power, the kettle must be left on longer to boil that water - no saving of energy and certainly no saving of time (quite the reverse).

Better to encourage people to heat less water - don't boil a full kettle if your teapot only holds half a kettle-full. Or else encourage people to use the remaining hot water as part of the washing-up water.

[Capitol]

Whilst basically I agree with you, you must bear in mind that UK insurance companies own vast holdings of world wide shares. In that respect, private companies are much better at investing than most public ones. The normal sign of doom is purchase of a company by a hedge fund. The result is normally a shell with no assets. cf BHS, Little Chef and now Debenhams.

[Capitol]

NTSC is fundamentally a flawed system. I worked with NTSC sets and the necessity for a Hue control was a pain and it cannot handle reflections causing multipath signals. In hotel distribution systems, the picture was frequently unwatchable. Very few european volume electronics companies exist these days because their production costs are too high and they cannot compete in the world market place. .

[Capitol]

It;s interesting that Machine Mart publiush suction figures for cleaners IIRC.

[Capitol]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. More to the point, why should we reduce energy consumption?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Just as much as saving a few watts per light bulb. Or any other such savings.

You really think anyone would have bothered investing the hugh sums needed to develop LEDs etc without being pushed?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Got a tip for you, Huge. Blue equals black and brown red. You can now use new cable safely. Print this out and keep it for future reference.

[charles]

presumably because creating energy has costs to the environment