This is getting rather off-topic, but... On 15 Apr 2012, at 23:02, Robert Greene <gre...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
> This is very unlikely to be true, that one can justify > getting a new TV to save electricity for the sake of the world. > To save on your own bills will also take a very long time. > > People seldom do the arithmetic on this. When the first > gas crisis occurred(in the 1970s) I did some calculation > of how long it would take to recoup the purchase price > of getting a more fuel-efficient car. After that, I kept > right on driving the car I had--it was going to take forever > in terms of the lives of cars. This is a matter of degree. It's also a matter of ecology vs. economy. There are many things that are cheaper, but not environmentally sound, which is also one of the problems with greenhouse gas emission trading: it's in some cases profitable to generate bad stuff, then destroy it, and then sell the so obtained emission credits, than not generating the bad stuff in the first place. So obviously, since the production and disposal/recycling of a product has an energy and carbon footprint, too, it would be foolish to throw out a brand new CRT and replace it with a LED TV "to save the planet." On the other hand, if you have an aging CRT, that eventually you plan to replace, then when to do this can very well be based on energy cost, particularly if indirect energy consumption is taken into account, too. And of course, it depends how much TV you watch. If all you do is watch the evening news, then there's little point. If you have a waiting room, and the TV runs from 7:30 till midnight uninterrupted, it's a different story. So it's a matter of degree and math, whereby the almighty $ doesn't necessarily reveal what is the most ecologically sound moment to switch devices, only when it's the most economical moment, and the two, unfortunately, are not congruent. > Saving energy is good. Stop having children--that is where > the real energy and carbon footprint is. True, although that's generally not a problem in "1st world" countries where populations only remain stable through immigration, and otherwise would be declining. Anyway, this is taking quite a detour, because all I was saying that there are other considerations, besides the lower amount of space taken up by a flat screen TV that make people switch, among them picture quality and energy consumption. So I didn't single out the latter, just pointed out that these two are additional factors besides less space, and a more fashionable look of the device. Ronald _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
