EU to ban high-energy hair dryers, smartphones and kettles - Telegraph

Someone should point out to those idiots that it takes x joules to boil a kettle of water, and delivering those joules at 2,000/s instead of 3,000/s isn't going to save a single joule of energy. In fact as the kettle loses heat on the way from cold to boiling, and getting to boiling point will take 50% longer, a 2,000w kettle will actually radiate (waste) more energy than a 3,000w kettle.

Exactly. The closer the energy output via thermal transfer, to the energy input from the heating element, the longer it will take.

Buncha idiots.

Maybe they are hoping it will promote innovation in the same way cfl and led have done for lights. I don't know, for kettles maybe better elements insulated sides.

What's the issue with smartphones ...? I can't imagine any smartphone developer out there is saying, 'we need to make them consume more power' ...

CFLs suck ass but now are being supplanted by LEDs, as you pointed out, and one could argue that legislation helped there.

Back in the 80s, in CA, they introduced strict emissions controls, and they essentially crippled cars for a few years - catalytic converters were seen as evil, and all the extra 'smog' stuff under the hood sapped power from the engine. Fast forward 20 years and now we have engines that run clean and deliver way more power ... so I guess this is a case of legislation causing the mfr's to move in the right direction.

But kettles and hairdryers ... ?

Glad I don't live in the EU anymore, but the spill-over will no doubt affect the rest of us at some point.

- and vacuum cleaners.

The wife is upset about the vacuum cleaners and kettles; "BUT HAIR DRYERS!, bring on the EU referendum!"

Someone told me something interesting recently, I have no idea how true it is. Apparently, the largest growth in energy usage is cell phone tower power supply, in particular backup power supplied by diesel generators.

Ebola, terrorists, volcanoes, all very important but deary me if you can't get a couple of bars on your cell phone then there's trouble!

I am reminded of the Gavin & Stacey episode where some of the characters tried to organise a protest against a new phone mast but couldn't call people out when the contractors arrived because they had no coverage. Very well observed that I thought.

Pretty soon they will be banning the emulsified high fat offal tube ...

One of the many reasons I left it and settled on a farm in Southwestern North Carolina.

BTW, leaving the EU would make no difference, as the UK (or whatever would be left of it by then) would have no choice but to remain in the European Single Market / EEA and so market harmonization regulations such as these would remain mandatory for the UK to adopt, we'd just no longer have any say in the drafting of them.

Get your point, but UK seems to have managed OK driving on the wrong side of the road and having funny shaped plugs....

Can't get upset about something that only gets used once a year or so....