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German digital signage ban prompts confusion

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Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#161

Post by adrianN »

tpmx wrote: post #109
adrianN wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can always create methane or ammonia from hydrogen. That's a solved problem. The only research left to do is to bring down the price.

I.e. the "only" remaining problem is to do it at large scale at a reasonable cost.

Right now there is little demand for storage because we don't have sufficient renewable generation capacity. It is no surprise that storage technology hasn't been deployed at large scale and is still relatively expensive. But since we know how to build MW scale electrolyzers it's really just a matter of building more of them.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#162

Post by fyvhbhn »

adrianN wrote: post #68
tpmx wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Add a few days of storage" This is very non-trivial and will take decades longer than building nuclear power.

Building enough nuclear power plants to power a country also takes decades and is very non-trivial. The quicker we reach 90% carbon-free, the more carbon budget we have left to figure out the remaining 10%. Renewables are the quickest, cheapest way to do that.

Large scale nuclear power with current tech isn't feasible, because of the lack of good uranium sources

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#163

Post by polycaster »

morsch wrote: post #69
phartenfeller wrote: post #32

Here in Germany, there was recently a leak in the news. It said that a single LED sign consumes as much energy as 10 single households[0]. Of course, the companies don't want to give any official information. That is pretty high for no real value for society in my opinion... [0] https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/led-reklame...

Average power usage for a 1 person household in Germany is 1300 kwh/year (roughly, numbers vary, but not to a degree that it matters). That's about 150W sustained. So 1500W for a large sign, that's like 150 high power LED light bulbs, I guess that checks out. Anything that reduces ads in the public sphere is fine by me.

Not sure where this number comes from.

Statistisches Bundesamt says it's 1,958 kwh. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Enviro...

Interestingly, for 2 person households they state 3,196 kwh and for 3+ person households 4,919 kwh. Energy consumption scales worse than I expected. I assumed there would be more synergy in shared households.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#164

Post by phartenfeller »

sidkshatriya wrote: post #102
phartenfeller wrote: post #32

Here in Germany, there was recently a leak in the news. It said that a single LED sign consumes as much energy as 10 single households[0]. Of course, the companies don't want to give any official information. That is pretty high for no real value for society in my opinion... [0] https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/led-reklame...

> That is pretty high for no real value for society in my opinion... There is a widespread belief that Advertising serves no purpose to humanity. Advertising is like anything in life: In high doses it is harmful. In lower doses it is useful. If there are regulators in your country that prevent advertisers from making false claims, even better. Advertising has helped me hone onto products and services in my whole life…

Good point, ads can be really useful. For me, the question is how much we are exposed to it, in which context, and the transparency about things being ads.

Examples: - Obvious ads vs. sneaky product placements - There should be spaces/times without ads allowed

Another thing that makes me wonder is big know companies (soda for example) constantly making ads. This is not the case of "Hey we made something new" as literally everybody knows the product for years. This constant cognitive exposure has some similarities to propaganda. We are not allowed to forget them.

> But there is a space for advertising that is gentler, honest and educational.

This pretty much sums it up really good.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#165

Post by foepys »

morsch wrote: post #153
xxs wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>1300 kwh/year this is extremely, extremely low. No heating, no cooling, no hot water, no car charging. A fridge alone tends to be over 400KW/h. Edit: polycaster listed close to 5kWh/year for 3+ household. 1person being 2k. So, extremely low estimate.

Well, infamously, German households tend to generate heat using gas, and not electricity. AC is rare. EVs are rare. Either way, I wanted to know what the actual power draw of those signs is, and since it was given in multiples of a (German) single household, well, that's probably about the number they are working with.

> Well, infamously, German households tend to generate heat using gas, and not electricity.

This often only applies to heating the rooms. Boiling/heating water for cleaning dishes and bathing is often done via electricity in a boiler.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#166

Post by morsch »

puchatek wrote: post #145
moffkalast wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone lauds LEDs for being super energy efficient, but the reality is that they really aren't. It's just that they are being compared to even worse light sources that were so bad at efficiency it's hard to really grasp how much they sucked.

If they are so inefficient then where does the wasted energy go?

Where it always goes, waste heat. In the case of LEDs, about 50% to 60% of the power draw escapes as heat. Of course, incandescents are much worse.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#167

Post by andrepd »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #120
sidkshatriya wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is pretty high for no real value for society in my opinion... There is a widespread belief that Advertising serves no purpose to humanity. Advertising is like anything in life: In high doses it is harmful. In lower doses it is useful. If there are regulators in your country that prevent advertisers from making false claims, even better. Advertising has helped me hone onto products and services in my whole life…

> There is a widespread belief that advertising serves no purpose to humanity. This is highly political and that 'belief' is indeed often ideological. Free flow of information and awareness of products and services on offer is an important aspect of an open society and free market economics.

Free flow of information is when big companies can wage psychological warfare on you without your consent.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#168

Post by andrepd »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #142
r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And beliefs that an open society, free flow of information and free market economics are good things are of course highly political and strongly ideological. They are just largely uncontested (at least amongst the types of people who read hn)

> They are just largely uncontested I think this has a lot to do with the fact that the alternatives that have been tried have historically been either failures or catastrophes.

So much to be said about that trope... Are there seriously people who still believe in TINA? What a bleak way to see the world.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#169

Post by legulere »

xxs wrote: post #129
morsch wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average power usage for a 1 person household in Germany is 1300 kwh/year (roughly, numbers vary, but not to a degree that it matters). That's about 150W sustained. So 1500W for a large sign, that's like 150 high power LED light bulbs, I guess that checks out. Anything that reduces ads in the public sphere is fine by me.

>1300 kwh/year this is extremely, extremely low. No heating, no cooling, no hot water, no car charging. A fridge alone tends to be over 400KW/h. Edit: polycaster listed close to 5kWh/year for 3+ household. 1person being 2k. So, extremely low estimate.

We are using 1000 kWh per year as a couple including hot water. With that we are very low in Germany, but even that is really without much optimization (though we lack some energy-intensive devices like a clothes dryer).

Newer devices sold in the EU are relatively energy efficient. A typical fridge-freezer combo uses 150kWh.

Re: German digital signage ban prompts confusion

#170

Post by madduci »

xxs wrote: post #129
morsch wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average power usage for a 1 person household in Germany is 1300 kwh/year (roughly, numbers vary, but not to a degree that it matters). That's about 150W sustained. So 1500W for a large sign, that's like 150 high power LED light bulbs, I guess that checks out. Anything that reduces ads in the public sphere is fine by me.

>1300 kwh/year this is extremely, extremely low. No heating, no cooling, no hot water, no car charging. A fridge alone tends to be over 400KW/h. Edit: polycaster listed close to 5kWh/year for 3+ household. 1person being 2k. So, extremely low estimate.

As household made of 4 persons, with me permanently in Home-Office, have a consumption of roughly ~2300kWh/year, including heating, in Germany.

Waschmaschine and Dryer are almost on a daily basis used (the dryer is used less during hot season)

If you tend to buy energetic-efficient devices, your power bill is lower, in front of higher costs for the equipment.

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