Green Wombat

As California faces another drought, the state has sued the federal government over its refusal to let the Left Coast set strict water-efficiency standards for washing machines. Five years ago, the Legislature passed a law requiring that washers sold after 2007 use 8.5 gallons or less per cubic foot of capacity, declining to six gallons by 2010. That means a typical household would nearly halve the amount of water it uses annually to wash clothes – from 15,366 gallons to 8,271 gallons. And more efficient washers use less electricity and natural gas.  But it would effectively mean that consumers would need to switch to more expensive  water-saving front-loading machines. That didn’t sit well with washer makers. The trade group that represents GE (GE), Whirlpool (WHR), LG (LPL) and other manufacturers lobbied the U.S. Department of Energy to deny a waiver that would allow California to enact standards stricter than federal requirements. Which, of course, was a bit schizophrenic as these companies make handsome profit margins on front-loading washers and promote their water-and-electricity saving features as good for the planet in the age of
global warming. (For the record, the Green Wombat family uses a front-loader.) "Opponents predict The End of the Laundry World as We Know It if DOE grants a waiver to California," wrote an attorney for the California Energy Commission last year in a petition to the Department of Energy. "Their assertions are premised entirely on the dubious proposition that the California… standard will eliminate every single top-loading washing machine."

California long has set higher appliance efficiency standards – it’s why Californians’ per capita energy use has remained flat while the population has soared – and the feds routinely grant waivers. But in this case the energy bureaucrats, who by the way promote the use of efficient front-load washers, listened to the appliance industry. Late last week the California Energy Commission sued DOE in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, asking that the state washing machine standard be upheld. "Less water use in California clothes washers will eventually save enough to supply a city the size of San Diego every year," said Energy Commission Chair Jackalyne Pfannenstiel in a statement today. We’re going to need every
drop:  today’s papers report that  the Sierra snowpack – where we get most of our drinking water – is at its lowest level since 1988.

Then again, maybe the DOE’s denial is a bit of red state-blue state politics. After all, front-loaders are de rigueur in peacenik Europe and have caught on here in the coastal strongholds among ecosexuals and other treehuggers who like their appliances green and well-designed.

A tip of the hat to Vindu Goel, Green Wombat’s former colleague at the San Jose Mercury News, for the tip about the lawsuit.

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A bill to ban energy-hogging incandescent light bulbs in California cleared its first legislative hurdle Monday. The California Assembly’s Utilities and Commerce Committee voted 7-2 to approve the legislation (AB 722) sponsored by Van Nuys Democrat Lloyd Levine. The bill would prohibit the sale of 25 watt to 150 watt traditional light bulbs beginning in 2012. While the bill doesn’t prescribe what should replace the bulbs, its backers hope people will switch to compact fluorescent lighting, which uses 70 percent less electricity than incandescents, and that consumer demand will lower the cost of LED lighting. A legislative analyst estimates that a bulb ban would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California by 1.82 million metric tons. Light bulb manufacturers like General Electric (GE) oppose an outright bulb and favor setting energy efficiency standards. Philips (PHG), however, is backing efforts to phase out incandescents. The bulb bill goes to the Appropriations Committee next and then to the full Assembly.

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photo from www.antiqueradio.org

Here’s a another reason to kill your television: when over-the-air TV signals go digital in February 2009 consumers with old-fashioned televisions will need to buy converter boxes that will consume up to 3 billion kilowatt/hours of electricity a year, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report. Digital-to-analog converter boxes will be a must-have if you want your Sony (SNE), Sharp or any other pre-digital set to work. The EPA wants consumer electronics manufacturers like LG (LGL) and Motorola (MOT) to build energy-efficient boxes, and today announced Energy Star specifications that the agency said would cut the devices’ electricity use by 70 percent. If all converter boxes meet the Energy Star standards, Americans could save more than "$1 billion in energy costs, and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of 1 million cars," the EPA said. The converters are expected to hit the market in late 2008.

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Laptop and desktop computers will need to get greener to qualify for a coveted Energy Star rating from the federal government. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has unveiled new power consumption standards that take effect July 20, 2007. The EPA claims by raising the energy efficiency bar, computers that carry its green seal of approval will be an average 65 percent more efficient than their conventional counterparts. According to the feds, if U.S. businesses bought only Energy Star computers, they’d save $1.2 billion in electricity costs over the next five years. If the government follows its own advice, it would eliminate 2 billion pounds of greenhouse gases a year.

Computer makers whose products qualify can emblazon the Energy Star logo on their cases – and are required to display the logo on the startup screen. Of course, they also can cash in on the cachet of being ecologically correct  – no small advantage these days. (Curiously, though, most companies whose computers currently carry an Energy Star rating don’t seem to promote that fact.)

Now, this is all good and green but there’s an ozone-hole-over-the-Antarctic-sized gap here: the Energy Star program does not apply to computer servers, those supercharged electricity hogs that power Google and much of our economy. Sun Microsystems has been trying to capitalize on the efficiency of its servers with a green-themed advertising campaign – a postcard the company sent me this week highights the fact that a large server farm uses as much energy as a city of 40,000 people. But by including servers in the Energy Star program, the feds could give corporate buyers a quick and verifiable measure of energy efficiency and perhaps spark more competition among server makers.

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