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For most consumer appliances, it’s vastly more wasteful and energy intensive to run them for 20 years than to replace them at ten. That’s true for cars, refrige

For most consumer appliances, it’s vastly more wasteful and energy intensive to run them for 20 years than to replace them at ten. That’s true for cars, refrigerators, washing machines, and obviously IT. That’s because energy efficiency does tend to improve. The lack of appliances that last this long is itself a result of better production: if you have some large number of components, each one must have a 50 year expected lifetime if you want a chance for the machine to work for even a decade. It’s improvements in precision and knowledge of materials that tightened down the variability for individual components, making it possible to construct something that is likely to survive the decade, then see everything failing at around the same time. Cutting down on over-provisioning in this manner obviously saves resources and costs, as well.

southerntofu 5y ago
> For most consumer appliances, it’s vastly more wasteful and energy intensive to run them for 20 years than to replace them at ten. That might be true in terms of CO2 and energy efficiency, although the only sources i've found on the topic gave very opposite results. But no study that i know of accounts for pollution (waste water and polluted surroundings of extraction sites, refinement sites, assembly sites, and "recycling" sites) so i'm tempted to argue that anything we don't manufacture is better for the environment than better efficiency. > The lack of appliances that last this long is itself a result of better production: if you have some large number of components, each one must have a 50 year expected lifetime if you want a chance for the machine to work for even a decade. I strongly disagree with this interpretation. First, because industry routinely employs bad parts and bad design on purpose (planned obsolescence, eg. televisions placing heat-sensitive capacitors near heat sources). But also because an individual part failing is in my view OK as long as this part is standard and easy to source. There are some environmental/logistic concerns if you want to repair old devices given the gazillion incompatible spare parts they each use. But if they all used standard parts, we could and should have repair shops run as a free public service to avoid throwing stuff away. This in itself would do more for the environment than any "green new deal" would ever do.
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  The mechanism I described isn't one to disagree or agree with. It's math: For <x> even parts with chance of failure on any given day <y> (including some variability <z>), the expected first failure is at some point long before <y>, because P(no parts fail within the first two years) = 1 - P(<y>)^((number of parts) * (number of days)) Improvements in <z> have a huge impact here, quite obviously.
  - bfdm 5y ago
    Sure but its fine for individual parts to fail if the manufacturer will repair/replace that part. Spares of easily user-replaceable parts can even be included with the product, like spare fuses often were. It's not necessary to achieve zero failures, but it creates incentives for manufactures to use higher quality parts. I am supportive of setting minimum lifespans for certain classes of products and to expwct manufacturers to be liable for that performance.
    - afiori 5y ago
      it is not the main point but requiring the manufacturers to repair an item after 50 years cannot be done. the factory that built that refrigerator heat pump from the 70' is unlikely to still be making it. as of today it would be already a big improvement if the was a law saying: "if a part is no longer produced or sold by the IP owner then it is legal to recreate and sell clones of that part"
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        > the factory that built that refrigerator heat pump from the 70' is unlikely to still be making it. Yes but why? Why do we have 400 different models of heat pump for every fridge out there? I can understand that once every decade or so a new tech comes out that's worthy of developing parts from. But even then the new parts could be retrofitted into existing designs. > "if a part is no longer produced or sold by the IP owner then it is legal to recreate and sell clones of that part" That would be a huge improvement. What would be an even better improvement would be to abolish so-called IP entirely and to mandate actual durability for all parts sold. Think about lightbulbs: the parts/socket are standard (no IP involved), every factory can produce them, and yet we still have crazy bad durability.
danuker 5y ago
> vastly more wasteful and energy intensive to run them for 20 years than to replace them at ten I recently bought a new washing machine. It is twice as efficient as the old one that broke down irreparably after 12 years. I chose it by summing machines' cost, and the projected cost of each one's electricity needs going 10 years in the future, if prices go up by 10% per year, and picking the cheapest total one. The cost of the machine itself ended up being 1149 RON, and the cost of the electricity would be 938 RON, which is almost the cost of the machine entirely. So it is indeed important to consider efficiency and updating an old machine, and compare with what you have. As long as the improvement in power efficiency keeps up, it will not make sense to keep an appliance for 50 years. But once that improvement stops, so does the reason for replacing them.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
> it’s vastly more wasteful and energy intensive to run them for 20 years than to replace them at ten I am very skeptical: Washing machine has two functions: Spinning and heating water. heating is 99% efficient, and electric motors are like 95% efficient - where is the improvement coming from? Is is smart features? What do they do, instead of spinning left it spins right? What about an oven or a kettle, there is no possible improvement, and I bet the shoddily made ones are actualyl less efficient and worse insulated.
- WillPostForFood 5y ago
  Washing machines continue to evolve—they're gentler on clothes and more efficient than ever, and they use 70 percent less energy than they did in 1990 The most water-efficient models in our ratings use an average of 10 gallons of water, 75 percent less than older models. https://www.consumerreports.org/washing-machines/best-eco-friendly-washing-machines-consumer-reports-tests-a5430738463/ https://www.consumerreports.org/washing-machines/best-eco-fr...
  - zarzavat 5y ago
    This is just the amount of power the washing machine uses while it is on. You need to know the energy required to manufacture all of the components and the duty cycle, to know if it makes sense to replace an appliance for a more efficient one or not. For example even if my phone charger were to get twice as efficient, it’s drawing very little power, given that it spends most of its time unplugged: it uses a fraction of a watt. That means that I would have to use it for an extremely long time to get near to the amount of energy used to manufacture a new one.
    - Xylakant 5y ago
      Washing machines pull considerable power and the power scales with the water usage: They use warm water, either from a tap or using a heating element. Heating water is energy intensive, and the hot water quite literally goes down the drain. Current machines use about 50liter per cycle, heating that from 10 to 30 degrees consumes around 1.2kWh, to 60 it’s ~3 kWh. Doubling the amount of water obviously doubles the energy needed. A machine for a small family may see around 100 cycles per year, so the savings are substantial. This doesn’t take into account the savings in drinkable water which has most likely been through an energy-intensive process as well.
DoneWithAllThat 5y ago
jamil7 5y ago
Is this true? Manufacturing a new washing machine sounds resource intensive.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  It probably is, but diminishing returns could make the difference negligible in the future. I expect cars to be a good example of that, the difference between a 2012 car and a 2022 car emission wise will not be that great.
  - bagels 5y ago
    Well, there was a revolution in electric cars in that time, so may e not the best pair of dates.
    - cinntaile 5y ago
      "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." Of course I am talking about cars that use the same fuel type.
  - bobbob1921 5y ago
    For gas-only cars this is mostly true, but what if that 2012 car is gas powered and the 2022 is an electric or hybrid? (And compare the efficiency of electric or hybrid cars in 2012 vs in 2022)
saiya-jin 5y ago
Yes and no. Random pick - we have Braun kitchen blender that is running for 15 years, we use it daily, looks like new apart from few small scratches on plastics. I see no reason to replace it, new stuff doesn't look better, doesn't work better and doesn't last more (probably the opposite). Tons of things are like that. Yes new fridge will save a bit more electricity (compared to already savvy one from 15 years ago) but the amount of energy and material that go into creating new one, and the amount of waste it produces when disposed of, are non-trivial and not handled well even in richest western societies. I don't agree with 20 years warranty, many things like batteries and capacitors just don't last that long. But some form of longer warranty would definitely motivate manufacturers to focus more on quality.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > I don't agree with 20 years warranty, many things like batteries and capacitors just don't last that long Some capacitors can last just as long depending on their specs. For batteries, it's more complicated but longer warranty would probably incentivize R&D for durable batteries instead of smaller/stronger batteries, which would be a great win for the environment (see also: supercapacitors). But the point is most devices are designed to be thrown away, not repaired. If your devices had apparent screws, and easy-to-replace parts, it could be repaired very easily by any skilled laborer (preferably as a public service, but it could also come from a local private workshop). Unfortunately, i don't know a single way to incentivize manufacturers to produce easy-to-repair products apart from extending warranty significantly: when they hold the responsibility to do repair on 100% of units not just the 0.1% people actually care to return (which will likely be replaced not repaired), they may be interested to make stuff easier to repair for everyone else.

southerntofu 5y ago

> For most consumer appliances, it’s vastly more wasteful and energy intensive to run them for 20 years than to replace them at ten. That might be true in terms of CO2 and energy efficiency, although the only sources i've found on the topic gave very opposite results. But no study that i know of accounts for pollution (waste water and polluted surroundings of extraction sites, refinement sites, assembly sites, and "recycling" sites) so i'm tempted to argue that anything we don't manufacture is better for the environment than better efficiency. > The lack of appliances that last this long is itself a result of better production: if you have some large number of components, each one must have a 50 year expected lifetime if you want a chance for the machine to work for even a decade. I strongly disagree with this interpretation. First, because industry routinely employs bad parts and bad design on purpose (planned obsolescence, eg. televisions placing heat-sensitive capacitors near heat sources). But also because an individual part failing is in my view OK as long as this part is standard and easy to source. There are some environmental/logistic concerns if you want to repair old devices given the gazillion incompatible spare parts they each use. But if they all used standard parts, we could and should have repair shops run as a free public service to avoid throwing stuff away. This in itself would do more for the environment than any "green new deal" would ever do.

KarlKemp 5y ago
The mechanism I described isn't one to disagree or agree with. It's math: For <x> even parts with chance of failure on any given day <y> (including some variability <z>), the expected first failure is at some point long before <y>, because P(no parts fail within the first two years) = 1 - P(<y>)^((number of parts) * (number of days)) Improvements in <z> have a huge impact here, quite obviously.
- bfdm 5y ago
  Sure but its fine for individual parts to fail if the manufacturer will repair/replace that part. Spares of easily user-replaceable parts can even be included with the product, like spare fuses often were. It's not necessary to achieve zero failures, but it creates incentives for manufactures to use higher quality parts. I am supportive of setting minimum lifespans for certain classes of products and to expwct manufacturers to be liable for that performance.
  - afiori 5y ago
    it is not the main point but requiring the manufacturers to repair an item after 50 years cannot be done. the factory that built that refrigerator heat pump from the 70' is unlikely to still be making it. as of today it would be already a big improvement if the was a law saying: "if a part is no longer produced or sold by the IP owner then it is legal to recreate and sell clones of that part"
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      > the factory that built that refrigerator heat pump from the 70' is unlikely to still be making it. Yes but why? Why do we have 400 different models of heat pump for every fridge out there? I can understand that once every decade or so a new tech comes out that's worthy of developing parts from. But even then the new parts could be retrofitted into existing designs. > "if a part is no longer produced or sold by the IP owner then it is legal to recreate and sell clones of that part" That would be a huge improvement. What would be an even better improvement would be to abolish so-called IP entirely and to mandate actual durability for all parts sold. Think about lightbulbs: the parts/socket are standard (no IP involved), every factory can produce them, and yet we still have crazy bad durability.

danuker 5y ago

> vastly more wasteful and energy intensive to run them for 20 years than to replace them at ten I recently bought a new washing machine. It is twice as efficient as the old one that broke down irreparably after 12 years. I chose it by summing machines' cost, and the projected cost of each one's electricity needs going 10 years in the future, if prices go up by 10% per year, and picking the cheapest total one. The cost of the machine itself ended up being 1149 RON, and the cost of the electricity would be 938 RON, which is almost the cost of the machine entirely. So it is indeed important to consider efficiency and updating an old machine, and compare with what you have. As long as the improvement in power efficiency keeps up, it will not make sense to keep an appliance for 50 years. But once that improvement stops, so does the reason for replacing them.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

> it’s vastly more wasteful and energy intensive to run them for 20 years than to replace them at ten I am very skeptical: Washing machine has two functions: Spinning and heating water. heating is 99% efficient, and electric motors are like 95% efficient - where is the improvement coming from? Is is smart features? What do they do, instead of spinning left it spins right? What about an oven or a kettle, there is no possible improvement, and I bet the shoddily made ones are actualyl less efficient and worse insulated.

WillPostForFood 5y ago
Washing machines continue to evolve—they're gentler on clothes and more efficient than ever, and they use 70 percent less energy than they did in 1990 The most water-efficient models in our ratings use an average of 10 gallons of water, 75 percent less than older models. https://www.consumerreports.org/washing-machines/best-eco-friendly-washing-machines-consumer-reports-tests-a5430738463/ https://www.consumerreports.org/washing-machines/best-eco-fr...
- zarzavat 5y ago
  This is just the amount of power the washing machine uses while it is on. You need to know the energy required to manufacture all of the components and the duty cycle, to know if it makes sense to replace an appliance for a more efficient one or not. For example even if my phone charger were to get twice as efficient, it’s drawing very little power, given that it spends most of its time unplugged: it uses a fraction of a watt. That means that I would have to use it for an extremely long time to get near to the amount of energy used to manufacture a new one.
  - Xylakant 5y ago
    Washing machines pull considerable power and the power scales with the water usage: They use warm water, either from a tap or using a heating element. Heating water is energy intensive, and the hot water quite literally goes down the drain. Current machines use about 50liter per cycle, heating that from 10 to 30 degrees consumes around 1.2kWh, to 60 it’s ~3 kWh. Doubling the amount of water obviously doubles the energy needed. A machine for a small family may see around 100 cycles per year, so the savings are substantial. This doesn’t take into account the savings in drinkable water which has most likely been through an energy-intensive process as well.

DoneWithAllThat 5y ago

jamil7 5y ago

Is this true? Manufacturing a new washing machine sounds resource intensive.

cinntaile 5y ago
It probably is, but diminishing returns could make the difference negligible in the future. I expect cars to be a good example of that, the difference between a 2012 car and a 2022 car emission wise will not be that great.
- bagels 5y ago
  Well, there was a revolution in electric cars in that time, so may e not the best pair of dates.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." Of course I am talking about cars that use the same fuel type.
- bobbob1921 5y ago
  For gas-only cars this is mostly true, but what if that 2012 car is gas powered and the 2022 is an electric or hybrid? (And compare the efficiency of electric or hybrid cars in 2012 vs in 2022)

saiya-jin 5y ago

Yes and no. Random pick - we have Braun kitchen blender that is running for 15 years, we use it daily, looks like new apart from few small scratches on plastics. I see no reason to replace it, new stuff doesn't look better, doesn't work better and doesn't last more (probably the opposite). Tons of things are like that. Yes new fridge will save a bit more electricity (compared to already savvy one from 15 years ago) but the amount of energy and material that go into creating new one, and the amount of waste it produces when disposed of, are non-trivial and not handled well even in richest western societies. I don't agree with 20 years warranty, many things like batteries and capacitors just don't last that long. But some form of longer warranty would definitely motivate manufacturers to focus more on quality.

southerntofu 5y ago
> I don't agree with 20 years warranty, many things like batteries and capacitors just don't last that long Some capacitors can last just as long depending on their specs. For batteries, it's more complicated but longer warranty would probably incentivize R&D for durable batteries instead of smaller/stronger batteries, which would be a great win for the environment (see also: supercapacitors). But the point is most devices are designed to be thrown away, not repaired. If your devices had apparent screws, and easy-to-replace parts, it could be repaired very easily by any skilled laborer (preferably as a public service, but it could also come from a local private workshop). Unfortunately, i don't know a single way to incentivize manufacturers to produce easy-to-repair products apart from extending warranty significantly: when they hold the responsibility to do repair on 100% of units not just the 0.1% people actually care to return (which will likely be replaced not repaired), they may be interested to make stuff easier to repair for everyone else.