We did it again! Yup, my very own State of California has once again been the first to ring the Stupid-Bell in an attempt to lead the Nation into yet another set of ill-advised legislations destined to cost its population jobs, cash and freedom of choice.

Previous debacles include the insistence, years ago, that all gasoline dispensed in California have an additive (MTBE) to reduce the environmental effect of leaded fuel, only to just a few years later slap warnings on all the pumps that the same additive "may be hazardous to the environment". We shine too, for being the most (and longest) "duped" state during the infamous Enron power grid swindle. Where were the watchdogs then ? ...!

Undoubtedly you have read about our most recent embarrassment, the enactment into law of "Standards" that will require most flat panel televisions sold in the State to be 33% "more efficient" by 2011 and 50% more-so by 2013.

Consider for a moment the perspective of the Manufacturer. He has every natural motivation to design for power efficiency. (A), it plays to an ever more aware "green" population. All other considerations being equal, today's buyer might just opt for the least power-hungry set......and (B), perhaps more compelling, sets that draw the most power generate the most heat. Heat is by far the guiltiest culprit for device (set) failure. Returns or on-site warranty repair are hugely expensive to original sellers. Truth is, if the manufacturers were left alone, advances in energy efficiency would progress just fine, thank you. 

It's hard to know where to begin to show the folly of this most recent California knee-jerk.

Let me start by confessing to some possible complicity in all of this. Clear back in WSR issue #118 (March, 2007), I wrote an article entitled "A Convenient Truth", grabbing a twist on Mr. Gore's movie. In it I described a consulting assignment that I was party to (California P. G. & E. hired an ecology-centric consulting firm, ECOS, who then hired the ISF to conduct some TV mode vs. power draw testing). Thankfully, I am pleased to report that what we found (and reported) bore little or no correlation to what happened last week. Please don't blame us............L

What we found of course, is that how much power a set draws is very much a function of what "user" mode it's in (Movie vs. Sports vs. Vivid, etc.) and what's on the screen at any instant in time. Bright pictures, i.e. the polar bear in the snowstorm, draw much more power than the deserted street scene at midnight. Since the set's are all shipped in "torch mode", (contrast and brightness turned up wide open, and the menu defaulted to Vivid), and many people don't touch those settings for 10+ years, so much of the state's power grid could be saved by simply shipping the sets defaulted to a tamed down collection of settings......not unlike where they would be post an ISF calibration. A properly calibrated set, of course, would not only render the "Director's Art", it would do so with optimum power efficiency.

A very odd statement in the press release from the California Energy Commission went as follows; "Californians buy four million televisions each year and they deserve the most energy efficient models available"  ........well, Arnold, if that's what you really meant, that would be the iPhone. What should have been said of the aforementioned households is; "God bless you for buying ANYTHING in the face of the 10.8% statewide unemployment we have crafted for you, and, for your thanks and willingness to help us out of this mess, you should be allowed to purchase sets anywhere on the continuum between smallest power supply and best image quality"............indeed, with today's technology, that disparity is rapidly closing.

Instead, they wrote the wrong prescription. Here's the thing.

These contraptions we call televisions are, at their core, just light machines. Throughout the genus, some kind of light source excites some kind of display technology and we get to see pretty pictures. We want to see the best pictures we can, and we'd prefer to do that leaving the smallest carbon footprint - it's really that simple! Since we can transform what comes out of the wall outlet into light many different ways, if something must be regulated, without destroying image quality, it should be light output.