TV standby buttons will be outlawed

I find this incredible!

Also how about banning remote controls and save on battery production and disposal.

And how about banning advertising on TV, stop wasting our time telling us about shit we don't need.

And why not banning TV altogether? It's not like it's providing an essential service, is it?

Could bring back the old ARP wardens to look through peoples windows to see if the tell-tale LED is still on.

Put that light out!

Mandating that standby functions have to be implemented efficiently is one thing. I quite believe its possible to implement standby functions on a few 10s of milliwatts if the desire is there.

However I get the feeling this idea is to draw attention away from the failure to mandate better standards on business and commercial users. The drawdown from this segment is massive, and when you think of all those open plan offices built so as to require artificial illumination all day and all night - I can't help but think one of the best targets is there - not a standby button.

Poor Brits. Too bad you can't keep wasting energy like us Yanks! At least we're doing our part to hasten THE END!

Yeah so do I. More simply it may just be an act to appear that they are doing something about the comming crisis. It will look silly when we're coasting down the depletion curve and the government blames the standby button.

Microsoft are SO stuffed!

If enough people desire TV's that don't waste expensive electricity, manufacturers will provide them.

That's the beauty of the free market. No gun-backed coersion via nanny-state legislation needed.

wow. that is beautiful.

the free market should come up with a mascot like the easter bunny or santa claus. like maybe a little pixie elf called the "rational consumer" that runs around in a sparkly world filled with rainbows leading to magical pots of perfect products.

that would make it even beautifuler.

LOL agree.

I think the concentrated global corporate free market as we see it today (a far cry from Adam Smiths small city or town type market(s)) is best at providing people what "the company will" (through advertising) provide.

The mascot you describe is mass media advertising, the sparkly world and rainbows is the satisfaction from all the excess consumption. Yet study after study shows longer work hours for the same or declining standards of living coupled with higher levels of debt.

Back to topic. I think there is far more energy to be saved with insulation, full or partial solar heating of water and smaller houses than the dreaded standby button.

In addition to the 280 million euro they just had to pay the Europeans?

Of course the Europeans are sensible in setting the fine in Euros, they don't want any of those crap greenbacks.

The "beauty of the free market" does not ensure sensible solutions, if people act like cretins so will the market.

Some TVs have a standby function so that one you bring the telly back to life the picture is present almost immediately. These telly's on standby consume a significant fraction of the running power.

Other tellys (like my ancient Sony) take nearly 20 seconds to come to life. But then again, my telly uses only a few watts on standby, and manufacturers could make them use far less than that.

I wonder what people will think in say 40 years time when they read that we burned electricity to do ... precisely NOTHING.

"Back in the year 2000 they even had gadgets to burn electricity just to get ready to burn MORE electricity!"

What you think really doesn't matter when the government decides for you.

You are incapable of making decisions regarding "what is best".

Not to worry, a Decider somewhere surely has your best interests at heart. Well, that really doesn't matter either does it since you have no say in the matter?

Worry not young prole. It's all good.