AfterDawn: News

Tax on plasma displays proposed

According to a leading expert on Climate Change issues, Governments around the world should explore possibilities of placing taxes on Plasma TVs and other power-hungry devices to promote more energy efficient designs. Plasma screens are much bigger than cathode-ray tube TVs and consume about four times the power on average. Professor Paul Ekins, who studies the economics of climate change, said placing a tax on these screens would reflect their "greater climate change burden."

A CRT TV costs about £25 (GBP) per year to run and causes 100kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on average, compared to plasma's running costs of £100 (GBP) per year, accounting for 400kg of C02 emissions on average. Obviously, there is no easy comparison because of the size difference between plasma displays and others.



"At the very least you might think that government would provide some differential incentives to accelerate the development of more energy-efficient diode screens and encourage their take-up," said Professor Ekins, co-director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). "Once plasma screens are bought, they are likely to be there for five years at a minimum - perhaps 10 years, perhaps longer."

The issue of climate change has made "power consumption" an important consideration when buying new consumer electronics equipment for many consumers. Display technology currently being developed for the CE market like surface-conduction electron-emitter displays (SED) and Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) screens tout lower power consumption than their rivals as a selling point for consumers.

Source:
BBC News

Written by: James Delahunty @ 20 May 2007 18:28

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• 28 comments

• AparoidX

  I find that to be absurd. Why tax people who use plasma displays just because they hog up more energy?
  
  Doesn't that just mean they should tax those who use more energy than others?
  
  Yeesh.

  20.5.2007 19:06 #1

• mspurloc

  So that must be why Gore uses 5 times as much energy as anyone else in his state. He's busy reading The Drudge Report.
  

  20.5.2007 20:28 #2

• elfman12

  Oh there'll be a lot more of this coming down the pike if these pressure groups get their way.
  
  (gets up on soapbox...)
  
  Anyone who thinks that the "man-made global climate change" movement isn't primarily political, well, they are simply fooling themselves.
  
  (hides under desk to avoid incoming Birkenstocks hurled by greenies... -joke-)

  20.5.2007 21:24 #3

• ripxrush

  Quote:(hides under desk to avoid incoming Birkenstocks hurled by greenies... -joke-)
  LMFAO that was good there elfman!

  20.5.2007 22:53 #4

• ChromeMud

  I have a 4x4 !
  
  <RUNS>

  21.5.2007 06:13 #5

• borhan9

  People will try to make money anyway they can find.

  21.5.2007 14:02 #6

• mspurloc

  Yeah, but I'M making it.
  They're just taking it.

  21.5.2007 14:22 #7

• Unfocused

  I fail to see how taxing the consumer promotes the manufacture to create a more "energy efficient" design. Any fines imposed on the manufacturer will just end up getting passed on to the consumer.

  22.5.2007 20:12 #8

• hughjars

  Originally posted by Unfocused:I fail to see how taxing the consumer promotes the manufacture to create a more "energy efficient" design. - Then you need to get out more & look around at how people actually behave. :P
  
  It's because if it is a significant enough level of tax (rather than something barely noticable) it is a proven means of changing consumer behaviour.
  
  For instance in the Republic of Ireland they put a (actually fairly small) tax on the plastic bags their shops used give away 'free'; by placing this charge/tax the consumer has reduced their consumption of those plastic bags by 90%.
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2205419.stm
  
  It does work.
  
  Originally posted by Unfocused:Any fines imposed on the manufacturer will just end up getting passed on to the consumer. - .......and the consumer may well change their buying habits and go elsewhere until the manufacturer changes their ways.
  
  This is nothing new, regulations have been imposed for environmental reasons on enormous numbers of products all around the world - as this US administration has been finding out there's no escaping it if you want to sell into the various markets all around the globe (interestingly this has also led, in places, to some individual US states imposing stricter regulations than the central Gov in the US).
  
  Cars are a prime example where effective regulations have demanded and forced cleaner running vehicle are in almost every developed country (although trying to convince us that they are 'green & great' now cos they now poison us less than before isn't much of a convincing argument to me).
  
  Environmentalism isn't about finding 'tree-huggers' or out-of-time hippys funny or odd,
  it's about not wanting to live in a health hazzard or wishing to pass on a toilet to our kids - that will cost far more later to sort out than sooner.
  
  As for global warming?
  I'll leave that one to Dr. James Baker of the American NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
  
  Quote:"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of dynamics".
  http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensus.htm
  
  - Check the link and see the host of names and organisations backing this view.
  
  Check the recent UN report on global warming (now the reason for the systematic trashing of the UN in the US becomes clear).
  http://www.ipcc.ch/
  
  Just because the TV and other media outlets always put 2 opposing 'talking heads' on a show or article about this stuff does not mean that opinion is evenly divided.
  
  Serious science around the world believes that global warming is very real and that human activity is measurably effecting it and driving temperatures higher.
  
  Only the corporations who fear for their profit-margins (and their media shills and bought Gov's around the world) are still fighting the rear-guard action to try to blunt and delay any proper action on this one.
  
  .....so much so that they have been caught out trying to 'buy' any contrary view they can to try and present science evenly split & divided on the issue.
  http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/02/news/com...ience/index.htm
  [quote]

  23.5.2007 03:09 #9

• ChromeMud

  We should all learn from the past.
  Look what happened to the Dinosaurs.They farted so much that they caused the ICE-AGE to happen and wiped themselves out.
  So next time you go to the supermarket,avoid the beans!
  
  Plan ahead.Build a boat or buy one cuz Noah's Ark saved his ass!
  
  The Earth moves closer to the Sun every year so I suggest that everybody move to Australia so that we can swing the Earth out of orbit a nat's knacker.....thanx!

  23.5.2007 03:41 #10

• hughjars

  Oi!
  
  Pay attention, sit up straight & we'll have less of that at the back there ChromeMud!
  
  What you need is a good haircut, a smart suit and a decnt job young man!
  etc etc etc
  blah blah blah
  
  :D

  23.5.2007 08:53 #11

• ChromeMud

  @ hughjars
  Thanks for the advice but I'm too busy hugging trees
  at the moment. :-D

  23.5.2007 11:54 #12

• eatsushi

  Tax away.
  
  
  

  23.5.2007 12:11 #13

• mspurloc

  Originally posted by eatsushi:Tax away.
  
  
  I love that! "The Global Warming Swindle" settled all this for me. It's a crock and it's hurting people in developing nations the most. The Soviet Union and socialism failed, so all the Reds became Greens.
  Any more of this taxation nonsense and other talk, and I'm going to deliberately increase my Carbon load.

  23.5.2007 13:12 #14

• mspurloc

  Quote: As for global warming?
  I'll leave that one to Dr. James Baker of the American NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
  
  [quote]"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of dynamics".
  http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensus.htm
  
  - Check the link and see the host of names and organisations backing this view. [/quote]<BR>
  
  ---The "consensus" is faked. A good number of those names are used without permission and belong to people who left the organization because it and the UN are corrupt. See "The Global Warming Swindle."

  23.5.2007 13:15 #15

• hughjars

  Originally posted by mspurloc:The "consensus" is faked. A good number of those names are used without permission and belong to people who left the organization because it and the UN are corrupt. See "The Global Warming Swindle." - Actually 'The great global wearming swindle'was a swindle itself (and all in the name of ratings).
  
  One of the (few) serious scientific contrbutors went public as to how his comments had been misquoted and used totally out of context.
  
  Quote:The makers of a Channel 4 documentary which claimed that global warming is a swindle have been accused of fabricating data by one of the scientists who participated in the film.
  
  The Great Global Warming Swindle was broadcast on 8 March and has been criticised by leading scientists for errors, distortions and misrepresentations.
  
  The film has also been referred to the regulatory watchdog Ofcom which is considering a complaint from 37 senior scientists that the programme breached the broadcasting code on the misrepresentation of views and facts.
  http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2521677.ece
  
  - But don't feel bad about it, one TV show, or a couple of loud strident simplistic talking heads on a news/comment show or a docu film and you reckon you know cos you've been shown the truth, you're hardly alone in that.
  
  But you're not easily led are you?
  
  You look for the stories behind the story so you have a good grasp of what's going on right?
  
  FFS, I saw it on a TV show so that proves it.
  
  It would be funny in a tragic kind of way if you weren't telling the truth.

  23.5.2007 14:21 #16

• error5

  mspurloc: Don't forget the T-shirt:
  
  
  
  
  On sale for 9 bucks:
  
  http://estores.merchantpartners.com/pn1s...&products_id=14

  23.5.2007 14:52 #17

• hughjars

  Perhaps they have a more useful one for you?
  
  If you don't want to be taken for an edited by ddp don't talk like one.
  
  You got totally busted on that cr@p about 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'.
  
  Take it on the chin and move on.
  
  (......any other TV shows showing you 'the way' lately? LMAO )

  23.5.2007 14:56 #18

• ddp

  hughjars, you got a week ban for that, post edited

  23.5.2007 17:41 #19

• mspurloc

  [quote=hughjars]Perhaps they have a more useful one for you?
  
  Meh. Coming from a hate-filled guy who gets his news from Al Gore and The Independent, I don't think anything you say needs a response.
  
  You have a swell day now, Al Jr.!
  Have a wonderful, special day.

  23.5.2007 18:06 #20

• wetsparks

  anyone else notice that gore has a burned CD in that pic? I drew a big red arrow in case you didn't.
  
  
  
  EDIT: finally got the picture to show.

  24.5.2007 13:18 #21

• morguex

  I look at this global warming deal this way.
  There are 6 billion people on the planet, everyday we make more cars, tv's, computers, etc.
  And everyday industry puts more and more toxins into the air.
  We cut down more and more trees which help filter the air.
  We dump more and more toxins and chemicals into the oceans.
  We live out of balance with our planet, so either way someday something will happen, and I have a feeling it's not gonna be good.
  
  Rember people "We need the planet, The planet dosen't need us"
  
  Peace all

  25.5.2007 13:27 #22

• mspurloc

  Originally posted by morguex:
  And everyday industry puts more and more toxins into the air. We cut down more and more trees which help filter the air. We dump more and more toxins and chemicals into the oceans.
  I agree that we live out of balance with the planet and we should stop cutting down live timber whenever possible. However, the above statements don't track for the US. For one thing, trees themselves and in fact, all living carbon-based life forms put out CO2, and contain CO2 as well. Also, unless we're going to start living in trees, something's got to give. Unless we want mass executions, that is. As for "more and more" - in the US, industry is now cleaner than it's ever been and the damage done in the 70s and before has largely been undone by nature itself. The same is true for the oceans. In fact, the chief offenders in polluting the planet are Communist nations who won't comply with any agreements we might come to, anyway. China, not the US, is the world's primary polluter of air and water. Unless you fudge with the statistics as has been done recently by quite simply not counting China for various "reasons," all bogus.
  
  Fix China first, then maybe I'll go along. Until then, no more unilateral solutions, because they aren't solutions.

  25.5.2007 15:14 #23

• wetsparks

  Actually all plants take CO2 out of the air. Plants take the CO2, separate the Carbon from the two Oxygen and use the carbon to strengthen or build limbs while the oxygen is released back into the air.
  
  Also, the US is the biggest polluter by a long shot. If California receded from the Union, the US would still be the largest polluter and California would be second, with China third.

  25.5.2007 19:27 #24

• morguex

  Thank you wetspark, I was just about to say the same thing about plants and trees, no offense mspurloc, but i strongly disagree with your statement about "the damage being undone" by nature.
  
  As for your comment about "mass excutions" thats just kinda dumb.
  But we will has massive die offs of animals and humans if we don't wake up and see the true damage we are doing.
  Do a little research about the shrinking ice shelfs and glaciers and it hard to deny that something is happening.
  I live in Canada and I can't rember having so little snow in the winter and such hot summers as we have now the last 5-10 yr's
  Peace all

  26.5.2007 04:12 #25

• mspurloc

  I've done the research and all I find is deception coming from the overly-emotional, feeling-threatened enviro crowd. Too many people take the "shrinking glaciers" claims at face value. There's not one person who can prove this isn't a natural warming trend or that can prove human involvement has anything to do with it.
  
  So when you ask for proof and logic, they get emotional.
  They start calling their critics "Holocaust deniers" and calling for Nuremberg-style death trials.
  Not people you can have a discussion with, which is why they're losing traction.

  26.5.2007 05:10 #26

• bertf

  Especially for hughjars. AGW is a politically motivated religion. It's that simple. Pollution is a bad thing, waste is a bad thing. I reached these conslusions without having to buy into a pseudo scientific religious experience.
  
  Low energy lightbulbs will make no difference to your electricity bill. I reached this conclusion after having used the things throughout my house since they first came out (not because I am green, but because I am tight).
  
  Instead of receiving their pedal bin liners free with the weekly shop people in Ireland now have to buy bin liners separately. The refuse laws in Ireland have led to an explosion of fly tipping. Sheer genius.
  
  Recommended reading 'The Emperor's New Clothes'.
  
  The work your way up to more complex things, and then when you have come to understand how 'models' work you can laugh into your (organic?) beer when you read the latest and greatest predictions of doom.

  26.5.2007 23:12 #27

• Mez

  I agree with ChromeMud, when we air the brain farts of a moron like Paul Ekins we are headed for extinction. Most rulers in the world do not give a rat's ass about anything except how much loot they can aquire while they are in power.

  30.5.2007 04:03 #28