Wide Angle: A Smart Green TV You Can Leave Be
June 08, 2009
This being the big week when finally--finally!--all televisions switch over to digital, it's the perfect time to look at energy-efficient TVs.
I recently discovered that this summer Sony is coming out with a new super-energy-efficient TV called the Bravia VE5. While Sony isn't the greenest electronics company on Greenpeace's 2009 list (PDF), it has moved up two places since last year and did garner praise for its new TV models.
The VE5 will be the first TV to have hot cathode fluorescent lamps or HCFLs, senior marketing manager Nate Kraft told me. Conventional LCD TVs use cold cathode tech--thin, but not very efficient. Hot cathodes, while efficient, tend to be bulky, so Sony combined the two to get the best of each. The VE5 also has a presence sensor. That means the TV can be programmed to automatically go to a dark screen or shut off completely when no one is around. The features make it 50 to 65 percent more energy-efficient than other Energy Star rated sets the same size. It will come in 40, 46, and 52 inches and cost in the $2,000 range.
Kraft says that electronics companies have been working on using energy-efficient organic light-emitting diodes or OLEDs, but an 11-inch OLED TV still costs $2,500. Maybe one day there will be a great green TV small and cheap enough to replace my minuscule Magnavox hand-me-down. Until then, energy-efficient flat screens will have to stay in my dreams.
Photo: The Sony Bravia VE5. Credit: Sony.
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Comments
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What do we do with all of the out-moded and broken TVs? Is there anything better than putting them in a landfill? I suggest we build them into rock walls, but seriously, what's to be done with them? Any recycling efforts about?
tx
Lori
Posted by: Lori Cuthbert | June 08, 2009 at 03:14 PM
Thanks for the TV info Alyssa. I think I'll stick with our old clunker too. Still waiting for the true green TV machine to come along and wow me without also emptying my pockets.
Posted by: Larry O'Hanlon | June 09, 2009 at 11:26 AM
No standards in television are taking into account new antenna reception designs {more like radio telescopes) than before. The new antenna for fringe range indoors or outdoors do not yet exist and older designs are compromises of previous standards including amplified antennas.
Posted by: Mattel Myers | June 13, 2009 at 07:33 AM