[SGVLUG] help save the world, pwr off game consoles

[Dan Kegel]

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Stan Slonkosky <stan.ke6zc at gmail.com> wrote:
>> There are also other tools than requiring absolute
>> compliance.   One could levy a tax for
>> all consumer appliances that is proportional to
>> the amount of power they use in excess of the
>> Energy Star limits.  Or, more simply, proportional
>> to the amount of power they consume, period.
>> Industry would probably prefer the former :-)
>
> Why? People already pay for the power they use. That is incentive
> enough for them to conserve.

Power is currently cheap because it doesn't factor
in the cost of future pollution and global warming.
Raising the price of power to accurately reflect that
is hard, and would retroactively penalize people
for inefficient devices they bought in the past.
It might be fairer to have a tax on purchase of
engergy-inefficient devices; that would gently
nudge people into reducing their future
power consumption with minimal disruption to their
lives.

I suppose this is wandering into politics, so I'm killing this
thread on my end.
- Dan