tea and toast

There has to be an upper limit though...The big pisser is the limit on vacuum cleaners and hair driers.What a joke.Who wants to spend 30 minutes drying hair when it can be done in 10 with a nice powerfull one...

Some manufacturers were deliberately making inefficient vacuum cleaners to market them as 'high power'.

But most of these stories are just suggestions - not even proposals - which never happen.

Cheers

Really? You can't conceive of a toaster that would be more efficient than another? How about this, can a toaster be made that is *less* efficient? I've seen plenty of them. Toasters are made to maximize profits, not energy efficiency.

That would depend on the losses.

Double the power, and you're going to quadruple the losses in the mains wiring (from I2R). This would decrease the efficiency of "transfer energy to the water/bread."

It would, however, shorten the duration of the heating process, and thus decrease the amount of energy lost from the water/kettle to the air and surroundings (via conduction, convection, and radiation). This would thus increase the efficiency of the overall process of heating the water (or bread).

Exactly how these two opposing factors would trade off, would depend on the overall design of the system: the length and gauge and condition of the building wiring, design of the kettle (thermal conductivity of the wall, color, etc.), airflow, and so forth.

The design of the cutoff mechanism would also be relevant. If the kettle cuts off the heat as soon as the water reaches a boil, higher current might well win out. If the kettle tends to boil away water for some (fixed?) time after the boiling starts, higher current would simply result in more water wasted as steam and more power used unproductively.

It would be interesting to see if the EU bureaucrats have any actual facts (test data) to support their conclusion that higher-wattage appliances actually waste power/money when used as actually practiced.

The main issue is the underlying anti-humanism. Some trivial power saving is enough for them to legislate wasting people's time on a large scale, forever.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Though this particular example seems silly, I believe the idea is to keep in mind the humans that come after us.

I remember reading a book many years ago about the auto industry, where the author interviewed one of the head managers at Ford at the time, regarding what he felt about the environmental impact of the retooling of a majority of Ford's manufacturing plants in the late 1990s to build high profit margin SUVs.

The manager said something to the effect of "Well, it hardly matters, since Jesus is going to be coming back any time now, so we might as well enjoy ourselves before we get beamed up to Heaven."

Given how consistently well SUVs have sold over the past two decades (in the US at least), it seems a large number of Americans must share the philosophy.

or be dangerous

in the EU cars and motorcycles have to have running lights all the time, that makes perfect sense since it is safer,

then some moron decides a minuscule amount of energy can be saved by mandating running lights on the new cars must only be front lights,

after a while it is realized that it is dangerous causing people to drive around at night with no rear lights because they don't notice the lights isn't on

So now new cars must have running lights on the front but not the rear and the regular light must automatically turn on when it gets dark

-Lasse

And that explains Brexit.

Den mandag den 11. juli 2016 kl. 21.39.19 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:

how? the Brexit won't fix that, it'll just add yet another layer

-Lasse

You've been reading the story as understood by a Daily Telegraph journalist.

Far from it. The lies about Brexit were concentrated on areas that worried people more.

Why do you think that Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage bailed out as soon as the vote was won?

-- Bill Sloman, Sydney

I haven't noticed that. Presumably it is a country-specific rule.

The UK rules are given in

specifically rules 113, 115, 226

ensure all sidelights and rear registration plate lights are lit between sunset and sunrise

use headlights at night, except on a road which has lit street lighting

use dipped headlights, or dim-dip if fitted, at night in built-up areas and in dull daytime weather, to ensure that you can be seen

You MUST use headlights when visibility is seriously reduced, generally when you cannot see for more than 100 metres

Except for the tiny detail that there are no such rules in the UK!

Brussels has an unlimited appetite for regulating things. Messing with the Brits' tea and toast was over the line.

We had a beer with our oysters and cassoulet last night at a little French restaurant down the hill. The beer glass had a CE mark.

you are correct, I believe UK is special allowing but not requiring daytime running lights, but since it is part of the EU approval they probably have it anyway

-Lasse

But less safe for pedal cycles or pedestrians. Too many lights everywhere. It's an arms race.

Cheers

But they haven't. It's just a newspaper article.

Cheers

that's not what the studies show

-Lasse

Of course, there's loads more. Hard to see the mechanism whereby extra lights on motorised vehicles would improve cyclist safety.

Cheers

motorised vehicles with lights are easier to see so cyclist are less likely to drive out in front of them

-Lasse