WASHINGTON, DC, October 30, 2008 (ENS) – Televisions meeting the federal government’s new, more comprehensive energy efficiency specification will be available in stores nationwide, starting on Saturday. TVs that meet the new Energy Star specification will be up to 30 percent more energy efficient than conventional models.

“EPA encourages consumers to look for the Energy Star label when buying new televisions,” said U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. “Energy Star’s new specifications for televisions are turning the channel on energy guzzling sets.”

There are about 275 million TVs currently in use in the United States, consuming over 50 billion kilowatt hours of energy each year – about four percent of all households’ electricity use. This is enough electricity to power all the homes in the state of New York for an entire year, according to federal government calculations.
All brands of new TVs must be more energy-efficient if they want to carry the Energy Star label. (Photo credit unknown)

If all televisions sold in the United States met the new Energy Star requirements, the savings in energy costs would be about $1 billion annually and greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by the equivalent of about one million cars, Johnson said.

The Version 3.0 Energy Star TV products specification was finalized on February 4, 2008. It requires energy efficiency when televisions are on, as well as off or in standby mode.

It also requires the use of external power supplies that have earned the Energy Star label, where applicable. This new specification is important since televisions being sold now are larger, in use more hours a day, and offer more vibrant pictures, which can increase the amount of electricity they use.

In fact, some of the largest, high resolution televisions can use as much as 500 kilowatt hours per year.

The new specification applies to all brands of television sets. Manufacturers have qualified their models ahead of the November 1, 2008 effective date. Energy Star qualified televisions can be found at most stores where electronics are sold.

Consumers who want to buy new TVs are encouraged to ask their sales associates for newly qualified Energy Star sets to ensure they are getting a television that qualifies under this enhanced specification.

Even more energy efficient televisions are on the way. Energy Star has just added energy-efficiency guidelines for digital cable ready televisions with a point of deployment, POD, slot.

These TVs add the functions of a cable box to the television set by using a card that users can get from their local cable operators. Energy Star qualified versions of these TVs are not yet available, but look for them in the future.

The Energy Star program was introduced by the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Energy Department in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based partnership to reduce energy use through efficiency standards.

Today, the Energy Star label can be found on more than 50 different kinds of products as well as buildings and new homes. Products that have earned the Energy Star label prevent greenhouse gas emissions by meeting strict energy-efficiency specifications set by the government.

Federal government data show that in 2007, Americans using Energy Star products saved $16 billion on their energy bills while reducing greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 27 million vehicles.

To see ENS previous coverage of the new Energy Star TV specification, click here [www.ens-newswire.com].

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When Independence Day rolls around each year, it’s only natural for us TreeHuggers to think about the different things that can mean. While it’s a nice excuse to meet up with family and friends, have a barbeque and maybe shoot off some fireworks, one of the first things that comes to our green-loving minds is independence from traditional (oil-based) sources of energy. By some accounts, energy independence is becoming a national imperative [www.treehugger.com]; here are some examples of some of the ways that locales around the country are beginning to celebrate (and could potential use in future celebrations of) their own energy independence.

1) Hawaii is moving toward energy independence [www.treehugger.com], doubling up on energy independence efforts: they received funding to explore a sugar-to-ethanol project, to (hopefully) put to use some of their vast sugar cane crop and keep the fuel production local, and has plans to build a 40 megawatt wind farm on Maui, which would provide enough clean energy to power thousands of homes on the island.
2) In Minnesota, the Corn Plus ethanol plant in Winnebago [www.treehugger.com] added wind turbines to its facility earlier this year, moving closer to its ultimate goal of using no outside energy in the processing plant, providing about 4.2 megawatts, or about 45 percent of the plant’s electricity.
3) At the national governmental level, the House of Representative’s new select committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is holding hearings on employment in the green economy [www.treehugger.com], hoping that green energy jobs will lead to both more green energy and more money for companies on the independence bandwagon.
4) Further, the US Department of Energy has three possible scenarios [www.treehugger.com] for the introduction and widespread use of fuel-cell vehicles, adding up to anywhere from 2 million to 10 million cars on the road by 2025.
5) These developments are not lost on institutions of higher education; four schools in the University of Wisconsin system [www.treehugger.com] announced a plan to achieve energy independence within five years. Under a pilot program, UW-Green Bay, UW-Oshkosh, UW-River Falls, and UW-Stevens Point will rely on a variety of potential renewable energy sources including: solar, wind, fuel cells, renewable fuels, and biomass, as well as implementing an aggressive conservation strategy to lower energy demand.
6) In one of the more striking examples of the future of energy independence, windy but oil-rich Texas has surpassed California [www.treehugger.com] in wind power production, making the it largest producer of the renewable energy in the country.
7) Looking down the road, Eprida (that’s Earth, People, Research, Innovation, Development, Acknowledgement) offers a revolutionary new sustainable energy technology [www.treehugger.com] that could potentially help solve several of the world’s energy crises simultaneously. Their closed-loop system removes CO2 from the air by putting carbon into the topsoil where it is needed to nurture and keep it fertile. The process creates hydrogen rich bio-fuels and a restorative high-carbon fertilizer while removing net carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Confused? Check out a snapshot below

These are all meaningful developments, but all exist on a large scale, and can be a little difficult to contextualize on a micro level. Stay tuned for more ideas that can help you achieve energy independence on a smaller scale, as a family or individual.

Ed. note: Twice a week, we’ll run a ‘Best of TreeHugger’ post, featuring a rundown of the best ideas, stories, products and people that TreeHugger has covered in the past.

One of the quickest, easiest changes you can make to help the planet and your home be a little greener is as simple as changing a light bulb. In fact, that’s it: change a light bulb, replacing your incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). They use about 70% less energy than the traditional incandescent bulb, while giving off the same amount of light and lasting up to 10 times longer. How does that help? If your home requires less energy, that means less energy has to be produced, and when the vast majority of the energy in our country is produced by burning coal and other dirty fossil fuels, that’s a very good thing. So good, in fact, that both California [www.treehugger.com] and Australia [www.treehugger.com] have banned the outdated incandescent in favor of CFLs.

But can one bulb really make a difference? If every household in the U.S. replaced just one incandescent light bulb with an energy-efficient CFL, it would eliminate the equivalent of the emissions created by one million cars [www.treehugger.com]. And that’s just one bulb; most homes have fifteen, twenty, thirty or more. A global switch to efficient lighting systems would trim the world’s electricity bill by nearly one-tenth [www.treehugger.com]. The carbon dioxide emissions saved by such a switch would, it concludes, dwarf cuts so far achieved by adopting wind and solar power. Wow. But that’s not all; though more expensive to buy, CFLs will save you cash on your energy bill by using less and lasting longer than incandescents, so when the entire lifecycle is considered, CFLs win in a landslide.

So we’ve established that this is a good thing, but how do they work, and how can we maximize their use? TreeHugger has answers [www.treehugger.com] for these questions and more, including where to get them. Speaking of selling bulbs, would you believe Wal-Mart is aiming to sell one million of the bulbs in a year [www.treehugger.com]? It’s true, and they’re even on track to do it [www.treehugger.com]. There’s a new campaign in the US to track nationwide bulb use at 18seconds.org [www.treehugger.com], so you can keep up with the Joneses.

CFL skeptics point to the small amount of mercury in each bulb that can escape if they’re broken, but the myth that CFLs contain more mercury than incandescents is actually untrue. In an ironic twist, compact fluorescent bulbs are responsible for less mercury contamination [www.treehugger.com] than the incandescent bulbs they replaced, even though incandescents don’t contain any mercury. The highest source of mercury in America’s air and water results from the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, at utilities that supply electricity. Since a compact fluorescent bulb uses 75 percent less energy than an incandescent bulb, and lasts at least six times longer, it is responsible for far less mercury pollution in the long run. A coal-burning power plant will emit four times more mercury to produce the electricity for an incandescent bulb than for a compact fluorescent.

So, as you can see, changing a bulb nets a big payoff from a small investment; for more on greening your lighting, we recommend How to Green Your Lighting [www.treehugger.com], one of TreeHugger’s many guides to greening your life.