Plasma screen TVs: The next environmental threat?

I've got a 720p 42" plasma screen at home. It was a housewarming (literally) present from my folks. It has a whopping 400W rated max power consumption. I think one of the reasons they got the plasma screen was because it cost considerably less than a similar LCD TV. I watched the Olympics on that thing and "24" looked really sweet.

I have outfitted nearly every room in our house with compact florescents and my electricity bill is still extremely low. That TV is about the only energy-sucking vice I still have. Well - that and my high performance car (but it's a 4 cyl).

I will be watching the new Ken Burns series on that TV.

Maybe when I finally cash in my retirement account I can afford a more energy efficient TV.

Wow, nice housewarming gift...I got a drill.

energy efficient? like the new Chevy that's suppose to get over 200 miles per gallon? they forgot to tell you that it takes even MORE petroleum to produce the electrical charge to DAILY charge those oil eating energy saving beasts.

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forrestranger
energy efficient? like the new Chevy that's suppose to get over 200 miles per gallon? they forgot to tell you that it takes even MORE petroleum to produce the electrical charge to DAILY charge those oil eating energy saving beasts.

Yeah, I love the way everyone seems to quote mpg on plug-in cars. Apples, oranges...

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eeek

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forrestranger
energy efficient? like the new Chevy that's suppose to get over 200 miles per gallon? they forgot to tell you that it takes even MORE petroleum to produce the electrical charge to DAILY charge those oil eating energy saving beasts.

Yeah, I love the way everyone seems to quote mpg on plug-in cars. Apples, oranges...

Very little grid power is petroleum generated. In California it's almost mostly natural gas, with nuclear, wind, and hydro in the mix. Other states are primarily coal powered.

Trying to figure it out is really complicated. Not to mention that home energy pricing gets tricky since most customers get tiered rates under a baseline and higher prices over that baseline. I understand for this kind of technology there's a push to get some utilities to charge peak and off peak rates since most of these will be charged overnight.

I'm getting the suspicion that plug-in hybrids might have problems in the long run because the batteries aren't going to last as long as the current crop of hybrids. The currenty hybrid technology gets the batteries to last an exponentially longer life by keeping them within a very small range of charge between 40-75%. You can literally go hundreds of thousands of cycles like this with little capacity degradation, and even with degradation the batteries don't need to operate for long periods of time like a plug-in hybrid would in city driving. If you've got to use the capacity down to 10% and charge it up to 98%, then it's only going to be able to take maybe 1000 cycles before there's a steady drop in capacity.

It's almost like doing taxes, isn't it?

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Very little grid power is petroleum generated.

That's not the point. Claiming 200+ MPG is simply a lie.

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eeek

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Very little grid power is petroleum generated.

That's not the point. Claiming 200+ MPG is simply a lie.

True, but I was also responding to the earlier comment that it uses more oil. Perhaps natural gas which produces CO2 when burned, but not oil.

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y_p_w

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eeek

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forrestranger
energy efficient? like the new Chevy that's suppose to get over 200 miles per gallon? they forgot to tell you that it takes even MORE petroleum to produce the electrical charge to DAILY charge those oil eating energy saving beasts.

Yeah, I love the way everyone seems to quote mpg on plug-in cars. Apples, oranges...

Very little grid power is petroleum generated. In California it's almost mostly natural gas, with nuclear, wind, and hydro in the mix. Other states are primarily coal powered.

Trying to figure it out is really complicated. Not to mention that home energy pricing gets tricky since most customers get tiered rates under a baseline and higher prices over that baseline. I understand for this kind of technology there's a push to get some utilities to charge peak and off peak rates since most of these will be charged overnight.

I'm getting the suspicion that plug-in hybrids might have problems in the long run because the batteries aren't going to last as long as the current crop of hybrids. The currenty hybrid technology gets the batteries to last an exponentially longer life by keeping them within a very small range of charge between 40-75%. You can literally go hundreds of thousands of cycles like this with little capacity degradation, and even with degradation the batteries don't need to operate for long periods of time like a plug-in hybrid would in city driving. If you've got to use the capacity down to 10% and charge it up to 98%, then it's only going to be able to take maybe 1000 cycles before there's a steady drop in capacity.

It's almost like doing taxes, isn't it?

Isn't it possible to get these new little hybrids to also charge to a consistent mid-value using the onboard small engine?

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bpnjensen
Isn't it possible to get these new little hybrids to also charge to a consistent mid-value using the onboard small engine?

Sure that could be done, but I thought the big selling point of plug-in hybrids was that they would have bigger batteries that achieved decent range on battery power alone. Using an internal combustion engine isn't a terribly efficient means of charging a battery. Large scale commercial powerplants are generally more efficient at turning their potential energy into electricity. Frankly a self contained internal combustion engine vehicle is a fairly inefficient tool. I understand that typical energy content for a modern engine ends up with maybe a third going into propulsion, a third going into the radiator as waste heat, and a third going nowhere. Of course that waste heat does mean essentially free heating of the interior.

The current hybrids achieve excellent battery life because they're programmed to prevent the batteries from draining or charging too far. With a plug-in hybrid the dynamic would seem to be trying to get maximum range on battery power alone (before the ICE kicks in) to take advantage of more efficient commercial power sources.

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y_p_w

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bpnjensen
Isn't it possible to get these new little hybrids to also charge to a consistent mid-value using the onboard small engine?

Sure that could be done, but I thought the big selling point of plug-in hybrids was that they would have bigger batteries that achieved decent range on battery power alone. Using an internal combustion engine isn't a terribly efficient means of charging a battery. Large scale commercial powerplants are generally more efficient at turning their potential energy into electricity. Frankly a self contained internal combustion engine vehicle is a fairly inefficient tool. I understand that typical energy content for a modern engine ends up with maybe a third going into propulsion, a third going into the radiator as waste heat, and a third going nowhere. Of course that waste heat does mean essentially free heating of the interior.

The current hybrids achieve excellent battery life because they're programmed to prevent the batteries from draining or charging too far. With a plug-in hybrid the dynamic would seem to be trying to get maximum range on battery power alone (before the ICE kicks in) to take advantage of more efficient commercial power sources.

I do not disagree with any of this. During a longer drive, though, could the gas engine not be programmed to just keep that charge at a comfortable 70% +/- or so?

But wait a second - assuming that the experimental Volt does what they claim - goes 40 miles on an initial full charge and then must rely on the gas engine to recharge the battery until the tank is empty - and that it gets 200+ miles per gallon in city - that means that for the next couple hundred miles beyond that first charge, the ICE is still delivering enough charge to the battery to significantly exceed what any other ICE does with a direct linkage to the drive train. The ICE may be an inefficient tool, but is it not possible that firing an electric motor is a much more efficient way to transmit the energy to the tires than the drive train?

If I am not somehow missing something here, AND the initial charge of power can come from **any** other source besides fossil fuel, then it may still be a valid claim that the vehicle would achieve such an mpg rating.

Of course, most of this argument may go away if they have made this claim for trips only less than about 50 miles between charges, and longer trips are not in the cards (how big is that gas tank anyway?). Still, for that short length of trip, if you can get your initial charge from solar or wind, then the high figure is still probably valid. Even on the Prius, the gas + electric figure for long distance is much better than most current models of vehicle with gas alone (although I miss my 41 mpg Tercel...)

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bpnjensen
Isn't it possible to get these new little hybrids to also charge to a consistent mid-value using the onboard small engine?

The Chevy Volt is pretty much an electric car with a gas engine to charge the battery. Not quite the normal hybrid.

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forrestranger
energy efficient? like the new Chevy that's suppose to get over 200 miles per gallon? they forgot to tell you that it takes even MORE petroleum to produce the electrical charge to DAILY charge those oil eating energy saving beasts.

Petroleum-based electricity generation in the U.S. accounts for only about 2% of the total:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation
(See first figure in article.)

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szalkowski

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forrestranger
energy efficient? like the new Chevy that's suppose to get over 200 miles per gallon? they forgot to tell you that it takes even MORE petroleum to produce the electrical charge to DAILY charge those oil eating energy saving beasts.

Petroleum-based electricity generation in the U.S. accounts for only about 2% of the total:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation
(See first figure in article.)

That's probably using heating oil to create steam. I frankly don't know of any place in California to get heating oil. I know of some steam-powered locomotives that use heating oil, but those are mostly recreational - like at the California Railroad Museum or the Tilden Park Steam Trains east of Berkeley. Nothing quite like the smell of burning heating oil. That - or maybe the smell of JP5 permeating US Naval vessels.

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y_p_w

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szalkowski

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forrestranger
energy efficient? like the new Chevy that's suppose to get over 200 miles per gallon? they forgot to tell you that it takes even MORE petroleum to produce the electrical charge to DAILY charge those oil eating energy saving beasts.

Petroleum-based electricity generation in the U.S. accounts for only about 2% of the total:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation
(See first figure in article.)

That's probably using heating oil to create steam. I frankly don't know of any place in California to get heating oil. I know of some steam-powered locomotives that use heating oil, but those are mostly recreational - like at the California Railroad Museum or the Tilden Park Steam Trains east of Berkeley. Nothing quite like the smell of burning heating oil. That - or maybe the smell of JP5 permeating US Naval vessels.

Yepp! Actually it's either Class C bunker oil or recycled motor oil that is used nowadays for steam fire-ups; that's what the Niles Canyon RR and GGRM's 2472 use when steam up. Coal isn't used at all in California, and hasn't been used except for a brief time in the 1860's or so - after that it was oil all the way.

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bpnjensen

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y_p_w

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szalkowski

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forrestranger
energy efficient? like the new Chevy that's suppose to get over 200 miles per gallon? they forgot to tell you that it takes even MORE petroleum to produce the electrical charge to DAILY charge those oil eating energy saving beasts.

Petroleum-based electricity generation in the U.S. accounts for only about 2% of the total:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation
(See first figure in article.)

That's probably using heating oil to create steam. I frankly don't know of any place in California to get heating oil. I know of some steam-powered locomotives that use heating oil, but those are mostly recreational - like at the California Railroad Museum or the Tilden Park Steam Trains east of Berkeley. Nothing quite like the smell of burning heating oil. That - or maybe the smell of JP5 permeating US Naval vessels.

Yepp! Actually it's either Class C bunker oil or recycled motor oil that is used nowadays for steam fire-ups; that's what the Niles Canyon RR and GGRM's 2472 use when steam up. Coal isn't used at all in California, and hasn't been used except for a brief time in the 1860's or so - after that it was oil all the way.

I remember seeing coal sold at a supermarket in my youth. It was sold as a cleaner burning alternative to wood in fireplaces.

I believe there used to be coal mines in the Bay Area. I think some can even be toured.

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I believe there used to be coal mines in the Bay Area. I think some can even be toured.

Any idea where these might be?

---

The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

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Frank Furter

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I believe there used to be coal mines in the Bay Area. I think some can even be toured.

Any idea where these might be?

Here's the most prominent one (they called coal "black diamonds" although there was also sand mining for glassmaking and sand casting):

http://www.ebparks.org/parks/black_diamond
http://www.localhikes.com/Hikes/BlackDiamond_7362.asp
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/22/SPGPIERM181.DTL
http://www.cocohistory.org/bray-38-08-22.html



This trail is called Coal Mine Ridge, but there's no mention of where the mine could be:

http://www.bahiker.com/southbayhikes/cmr.html

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y_p_w

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Frank Furter

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I believe there used to be coal mines in the Bay Area. I think some can even be toured.

Any idea where these might be?

Here's the most prominent one (they called coal "black diamonds" although there was also sand mining for glassmaking and sand casting):

http://www.ebparks.org/parks/black_diamond
http://www.localhikes.com/Hikes/BlackDiamond_7362.asp
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/22/SPGPIERM181.DTL
http://www.cocohistory.org/bray-38-08-22.html



This trail is called Coal Mine Ridge, but there's no mention of where the mine could be:

http://www.bahiker.com/southbayhikes/cmr.html

I believe the most tourable coal mine is at Black Diamond Mines Regional Park in Contra Costa County. Coal Mine Ridge is here:

http://baynature.org/places/coal-mine-ridge

But again, no mine discussion.

Yes, Black Diamond Mines near Pittsburg is an interesting place to visit, esp. in the Spring. For an interesting historical fiction read set in the area check out 'The Green Age of Asher Witherow' by M. Allen Cunningham.

but can you imagine the power outages when everyone charges their cars at once???? lol

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forrestranger
but can you imagine the power outages when everyone charges their cars at once???? lol

Hopefully they will just pull the plug on Las Vegas and Reno when that occurs.

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forrestranger
energy efficient? like the new Chevy that's suppose to get over 200 miles per gallon? they forgot to tell you that it takes even MORE petroleum to produce the electrical charge to DAILY charge those oil eating energy saving beasts.

Most places yes, but not here in California - we have very little energy from oil. Most from natural gas (still a fossil fuel, I know), hydro, nuclear and some solar and wind. Hopefully, this will become even less. IF we can get solar on people's rooftops, we can probably get that charge on the car to almost a net zero on the oil sourcing.

i'm just gonna piss everyone off and throw a plastic carton of milk in the garbage can instead of the recycle!

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forrestranger
i'm just gonna piss everyone off and throw a plastic carton of milk in the garbage can instead of the recycle!

It wouldn't matter if you did that here. The trash is all sorted by the trash company.

"Newman!"