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I understand that a company might skimp on reducing emissions, but why skimp on a carbon monoxide detector and an automatic shutoff? It would maybe increase the

by V__ 3y ago

I understand that a company might skimp on reducing emissions, but why skimp on a carbon monoxide detector and an automatic shutoff? It would maybe increase the production cost by what, 5 dollars? But be good for marketing and avoiding the possible negative PR if one's branded generator would kill someone. If the 'free market' can't even do the bare minimum, it's no wonder everything gets regulated to hell.

jjeaff 3y ago
This is a perfect example of a market failure where you need some government intervention because the general public is not great at assessing risk level, or even knowing about some risks. If companies could sell generators with a big sticker on them that says "with new feature that prevents shark attacks" now that might actually get people interested in buying it over the competition. But a CO shutoff probably doesn't get many people interested.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > This is a perfect example of a market failure where you need some government intervention because the general public is not great at assessing risk level, or even knowing about some risks. No, it's a perfect example of how the government's standard response to a small number of people being stupid and irresponsible is to punish all of the not stupid, not irresponsible people. I don't need a CO detector and automatic shutoff on my portable generator because I have a clue and won't run it indoors. And, as other commenters have pointed out, a CO detector and automatic shutoff are now two more things that can break on my generator--probably right when I need it most, when the power is out. But if this regulation passes, I won't have a choice; I'll have to suffer the consequences of the cluelessness of others. How is that fair? How does it even make sense? Why penalize the actual mature adults just because a few people can't be bothered to be mature adults?
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Life isn’t fair. Laws protect the broad population interest. One person’s inconvenience is someone else surviving. Regulation written in blood and whatnot. A vocal minority will complain, this will get built into the supply chain, and a decade or two from now, only older folks will complain. For everyone else, they’ll wonder why they didn’t have them before. So it goes. Notice how much safer cars are versus decades ago. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/21/generators-carbon-monoxide-shutoff-switch-texas-cpsc https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/21/generators-carbon-mo... > Portable generators are one of the deadliest consumer products on the market, killing about 80 people in the U.S. each year and poisoning thousands of others.
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > Laws protect the broad population interest. No, they don't, they "protect" the irresponsible at the expense of everyone else. > Your inconvenience is someone else surviving. That's the wrong way to describe the situation. First, it might be more than an inconvenience to me: the CO detector or automatic shutoff might break when my power is out, and now my generator, which would have worked perfectly fine without this stupid regulation, is gone in the middle of an outage when I was depending on it working. And that can have serious consequences. Second, you don't know for sure that the irresponsible will survive even with this regulation. As someone else upthread pointed out, someone irresponsible enough to run their generator indoors will still do it even with these protective devices (in fact they'll be more likely to because they are stupid enough to think that the devices make it safe, which it isn't), and that could still kill them. > So it goes. Indeed, that's how it's been going for decades in the US. And as a result our society is a mess. When people no longer have an incentive to not be stupid, you will get more and more stupid people. Not a good recipe for a functioning society.
      - rhaway84773 3y ago
        Right, so it’s everyone’s responsibility to be completely up to speed with the safety requirements of everything they buy. You bought a toy for your kid that happened to include lead. Too bad. You were IRRESPONSIBLE! You should have read all the fine print before buying it. Your local baker’s muffin has arsenic in it and you ate it and died? IRRESPONSIBLE. You should have known that the presence of arsenic is a possibility. You should have checked with the baker if they added it. That’s a ridiculous approach. Also, this isn’t new fangled technology. It exists and is widely deployed and there’s no evidence it increases failure by any meaningful amount.
  - Kirby64 3y ago
    "suffer the consequences" ? You're acting like it's a foregone conclusion that these systems will fail. In reality, they largely will be fine and may add marginal cost to each system. You could make the same argument for many, many safety related things (seatbelts, air bags, house related code requirements for electrical, etc). It's just the burden we all have agreed to bare.
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > You're acting like it's a foregone conclusion that these systems will fail. No, just that it's a risk that I would not choose to take for myself, but would be forced to take because of other people's irresponsibility if this regulation passes. > In reality, they largely will be fine and may add marginal cost to each system. Who gave you the right to make this tradeoff for me? Why can't you focus on the actual irresponsible people and figure out how to help them be less irresponsible? Why put a regulation in place that just gives them even less of an incentive to be responsible (because after all Big Brother is watching over them so they don't need to be)? > It's just the burden we all have agreed to bare. No, it's the burden that do-gooders have forced on the rest of us for no good reason, but simply because, in our current political system, they can.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - p1mrx 3y ago
      > You're acting like it's a foregone conclusion that these systems will fail. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ "There are more than 38 million residential carbon monoxide detectors installed in the United States. We tested 30 detectors in use and found that more than half failed to function properly, alarming too early or too late. Forty percent of detectors failed to alarm in hazardous concentrations, despite outward indications that they were operating as intended." If you look at Figure 2, some of the sensors failed safe (generators die) others unsafe (people die)
  - glimshe 3y ago
    When you die, you can't switch to the other brand. The market mechanism works poorly here. You frame this as stupidity, but I think a more accurate characterization would be ignorance. Not everybody has the education of the average HN contributor. Also, some people have mild mental/intellectual deficiencies or simply below-average IQ (I guess that's the people you call "stupid", but they are people too - and one day you might end up learning a bunch from one of them)
    - quickthrowman 3y ago
      Where do we draw the line—should gas grills have a carbon monoxide detector and shutoff valve to stop the flow of propane if someone is grilling indoors? What about cars? It’s hard for me to fathom how somebody could possibly think operating an internal combustion engine inside of a building is not going to kill them. Lastly, a generator is used in emergency situations. If a safety feature that is unnecessary for 99.99% of people means your generator can’t start, that’s not good either.
      - pdonis 3y ago
        > Where do we draw the line You are assuming that "we" have to draw a line somewhere. "We" don't. Individual people should be making their own decisions about these things. > It’s hard for me to fathom how somebody could possibly think operating an internal combustion engine inside of a building is not going to kill them. It's hard for me too. But for a small number of people, it seems to be the case. As the saying goes, "You can't make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious." But it's even harder for me to fathom how, given the above, people still somehow believe that government regulation will magically fix the problem, and ignore the fact that such regulations, as I've said, punish all the rest of us who are responsible adults for the irresponsibility of a tiny few.
      - rhaway84773 3y ago
        Are hundreds of people drying every year due to these gas drills? Ok, then yes. We draw the line based on observed effects. The observed effect is it’s costing the US $1Bn every year and the additional cost will pale in comparison. If you want to disagree with those numbers fine. If you think saving $1bn per year and tend to hundreds of lives at the cost of a few hundred thousand is not worth it. Fair enough. That’s why you elect legislators who have to approve and/or can disallow these rules. The lines are drawn by your elected representatives based on costs and benefits. That’s where you draw the line.
  - V__ 3y ago
    > to a small number of people being stupid and irresponsible is to punish all of the not stupid, not irresponsible people Uninformed does not necessarily mean stupid. Besides that, where would you draw the line? Can't this argument be made more or less for every safety-feature ever? Why dictate seatbelts when you can just drive safely and not be stupid. Why have protective equipment etc?
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > Uninformed Nobody who buys a portable generator is uninformed about the required safety precautions. They're stated explicitly in the user manual. > Can't this argument be made more or less for every safety-feature ever? Yes. And the answer is the same for all of them. The fact that in our current society, many such regulations are already in place, does not make those regulations good ideas. It just means our society is not a sane society. Which should be obvious to anyone paying attention anyway.
      - nonplus 3y ago
        > They're stated explicitly in the user manual. Not everyone using a generator in a crisis bought the generator. Not everyone where a generator is being used in a crisis even speak the same language.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    > I have a clue and won't run it indoors. You say you have a clue, but unfortunately, someone looking at you can't tell if you actually have a clue or if you're an idiot that doesn't. And idiots without a clue will happily claim that they have one. The device is already covered in very clear warning labels that someone without a clue could use to get a clue. (The problem is people who are too smart, and think they have a clue but actually really don't. Which is unfortunate because they look the same as the other people, but loudly think the rules don't apply to them.) Which leads to the other way we accomplish this, which is to allow people to sit through a course and take a test in order to get a license to do certain things, like drive or fish or remove asbestos or have pyrotechnics. The challenges of modeling exactly sufficient airflow accurately isn't a short course, so regulation requiring a sensor is the least bad answer.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
p1mrx 3y ago
> It would maybe increase the production cost by what, 5 dollars? If this rule passes, owners would need to replace their CO chemical sensor every 5-7 years, and it's likely that the manufacturers will charge more than $5 to ship the part. If I were making generators, I would encourage the CSPC to adopt the rule in order to create an ongoing "printer ink" style revenue stream. Alternatively, they could just declare the generator EoL with no replacement sensor, so owners have to buy a new one after 7 years. They're saving lives and printing money, what's not to love?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
hex4def6 3y ago
CO sensors have a limited lifespan before they must be replaced typically every 5 years or so. Wen, $53: https://wenproducts.com/products/gn625ix-1430-co-sensor-module-for-wen-gn625ix https://wenproducts.com/products/gn625ix-1430-co-sensor-modu... Generac, $169: https://gen-parts.com/products/generac-generator-part-10000046048-kit-co-sense-module-service https://gen-parts.com/products/generac-generator-part-100000... This is a not-insubstantial continuous cost adder. And given these modules are almost certainly proprietary, you're at the mercy of the manufacturer in terms of parts availability and cost. I would expect manufacturers to love this; this has basically converted generators into a subscription service (albeit with a 5-7 year renewal period). And, a potential avenue for planned obsolescence. All they have to do is stop producing the replacement sensor, and those generators will be bricked. And before you think about trying to disable it: The regulations specifically require that the generator ensure the sensor is functional, or the generator must prevent itself from running. The generator wiring etc must be tamper resistant, not accessible by regular tools, to prevent a user from attempting to bypass it. So, now the generator will have some portion of it as tamper-resistant, by law. I wonder how that will affect reparability?

by V__ 3y ago

jjeaff 3y ago

This is a perfect example of a market failure where you need some government intervention because the general public is not great at assessing risk level, or even knowing about some risks. If companies could sell generators with a big sticker on them that says "with new feature that prevents shark attacks" now that might actually get people interested in buying it over the competition. But a CO shutoff probably doesn't get many people interested.

pdonis 3y ago
> This is a perfect example of a market failure where you need some government intervention because the general public is not great at assessing risk level, or even knowing about some risks. No, it's a perfect example of how the government's standard response to a small number of people being stupid and irresponsible is to punish all of the not stupid, not irresponsible people. I don't need a CO detector and automatic shutoff on my portable generator because I have a clue and won't run it indoors. And, as other commenters have pointed out, a CO detector and automatic shutoff are now two more things that can break on my generator--probably right when I need it most, when the power is out. But if this regulation passes, I won't have a choice; I'll have to suffer the consequences of the cluelessness of others. How is that fair? How does it even make sense? Why penalize the actual mature adults just because a few people can't be bothered to be mature adults?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Life isn’t fair. Laws protect the broad population interest. One person’s inconvenience is someone else surviving. Regulation written in blood and whatnot. A vocal minority will complain, this will get built into the supply chain, and a decade or two from now, only older folks will complain. For everyone else, they’ll wonder why they didn’t have them before. So it goes. Notice how much safer cars are versus decades ago. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/21/generators-carbon-monoxide-shutoff-switch-texas-cpsc https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/21/generators-carbon-mo... > Portable generators are one of the deadliest consumer products on the market, killing about 80 people in the U.S. each year and poisoning thousands of others.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > Laws protect the broad population interest. No, they don't, they "protect" the irresponsible at the expense of everyone else. > Your inconvenience is someone else surviving. That's the wrong way to describe the situation. First, it might be more than an inconvenience to me: the CO detector or automatic shutoff might break when my power is out, and now my generator, which would have worked perfectly fine without this stupid regulation, is gone in the middle of an outage when I was depending on it working. And that can have serious consequences. Second, you don't know for sure that the irresponsible will survive even with this regulation. As someone else upthread pointed out, someone irresponsible enough to run their generator indoors will still do it even with these protective devices (in fact they'll be more likely to because they are stupid enough to think that the devices make it safe, which it isn't), and that could still kill them. > So it goes. Indeed, that's how it's been going for decades in the US. And as a result our society is a mess. When people no longer have an incentive to not be stupid, you will get more and more stupid people. Not a good recipe for a functioning society.
    - rhaway84773 3y ago
      Right, so it’s everyone’s responsibility to be completely up to speed with the safety requirements of everything they buy. You bought a toy for your kid that happened to include lead. Too bad. You were IRRESPONSIBLE! You should have read all the fine print before buying it. Your local baker’s muffin has arsenic in it and you ate it and died? IRRESPONSIBLE. You should have known that the presence of arsenic is a possibility. You should have checked with the baker if they added it. That’s a ridiculous approach. Also, this isn’t new fangled technology. It exists and is widely deployed and there’s no evidence it increases failure by any meaningful amount.
- Kirby64 3y ago
  "suffer the consequences" ? You're acting like it's a foregone conclusion that these systems will fail. In reality, they largely will be fine and may add marginal cost to each system. You could make the same argument for many, many safety related things (seatbelts, air bags, house related code requirements for electrical, etc). It's just the burden we all have agreed to bare.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > You're acting like it's a foregone conclusion that these systems will fail. No, just that it's a risk that I would not choose to take for myself, but would be forced to take because of other people's irresponsibility if this regulation passes. > In reality, they largely will be fine and may add marginal cost to each system. Who gave you the right to make this tradeoff for me? Why can't you focus on the actual irresponsible people and figure out how to help them be less irresponsible? Why put a regulation in place that just gives them even less of an incentive to be responsible (because after all Big Brother is watching over them so they don't need to be)? > It's just the burden we all have agreed to bare. No, it's the burden that do-gooders have forced on the rest of us for no good reason, but simply because, in our current political system, they can.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - p1mrx 3y ago
    > You're acting like it's a foregone conclusion that these systems will fail. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ "There are more than 38 million residential carbon monoxide detectors installed in the United States. We tested 30 detectors in use and found that more than half failed to function properly, alarming too early or too late. Forty percent of detectors failed to alarm in hazardous concentrations, despite outward indications that they were operating as intended." If you look at Figure 2, some of the sensors failed safe (generators die) others unsafe (people die)
- glimshe 3y ago
  When you die, you can't switch to the other brand. The market mechanism works poorly here. You frame this as stupidity, but I think a more accurate characterization would be ignorance. Not everybody has the education of the average HN contributor. Also, some people have mild mental/intellectual deficiencies or simply below-average IQ (I guess that's the people you call "stupid", but they are people too - and one day you might end up learning a bunch from one of them)
  - quickthrowman 3y ago
    Where do we draw the line—should gas grills have a carbon monoxide detector and shutoff valve to stop the flow of propane if someone is grilling indoors? What about cars? It’s hard for me to fathom how somebody could possibly think operating an internal combustion engine inside of a building is not going to kill them. Lastly, a generator is used in emergency situations. If a safety feature that is unnecessary for 99.99% of people means your generator can’t start, that’s not good either.
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > Where do we draw the line You are assuming that "we" have to draw a line somewhere. "We" don't. Individual people should be making their own decisions about these things. > It’s hard for me to fathom how somebody could possibly think operating an internal combustion engine inside of a building is not going to kill them. It's hard for me too. But for a small number of people, it seems to be the case. As the saying goes, "You can't make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious." But it's even harder for me to fathom how, given the above, people still somehow believe that government regulation will magically fix the problem, and ignore the fact that such regulations, as I've said, punish all the rest of us who are responsible adults for the irresponsibility of a tiny few.
    - rhaway84773 3y ago
      Are hundreds of people drying every year due to these gas drills? Ok, then yes. We draw the line based on observed effects. The observed effect is it’s costing the US $1Bn every year and the additional cost will pale in comparison. If you want to disagree with those numbers fine. If you think saving $1bn per year and tend to hundreds of lives at the cost of a few hundred thousand is not worth it. Fair enough. That’s why you elect legislators who have to approve and/or can disallow these rules. The lines are drawn by your elected representatives based on costs and benefits. That’s where you draw the line.
- V__ 3y ago
  > to a small number of people being stupid and irresponsible is to punish all of the not stupid, not irresponsible people Uninformed does not necessarily mean stupid. Besides that, where would you draw the line? Can't this argument be made more or less for every safety-feature ever? Why dictate seatbelts when you can just drive safely and not be stupid. Why have protective equipment etc?
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > Uninformed Nobody who buys a portable generator is uninformed about the required safety precautions. They're stated explicitly in the user manual. > Can't this argument be made more or less for every safety-feature ever? Yes. And the answer is the same for all of them. The fact that in our current society, many such regulations are already in place, does not make those regulations good ideas. It just means our society is not a sane society. Which should be obvious to anyone paying attention anyway.
    - nonplus 3y ago
      > They're stated explicitly in the user manual. Not everyone using a generator in a crisis bought the generator. Not everyone where a generator is being used in a crisis even speak the same language.
- fragmede 3y ago
  > I have a clue and won't run it indoors. You say you have a clue, but unfortunately, someone looking at you can't tell if you actually have a clue or if you're an idiot that doesn't. And idiots without a clue will happily claim that they have one. The device is already covered in very clear warning labels that someone without a clue could use to get a clue. (The problem is people who are too smart, and think they have a clue but actually really don't. Which is unfortunate because they look the same as the other people, but loudly think the rules don't apply to them.) Which leads to the other way we accomplish this, which is to allow people to sit through a course and take a test in order to get a license to do certain things, like drive or fish or remove asbestos or have pyrotechnics. The challenges of modeling exactly sufficient airflow accurately isn't a short course, so regulation requiring a sensor is the least bad answer.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

p1mrx 3y ago

> It would maybe increase the production cost by what, 5 dollars? If this rule passes, owners would need to replace their CO chemical sensor every 5-7 years, and it's likely that the manufacturers will charge more than $5 to ship the part. If I were making generators, I would encourage the CSPC to adopt the rule in order to create an ongoing "printer ink" style revenue stream. Alternatively, they could just declare the generator EoL with no replacement sensor, so owners have to buy a new one after 7 years. They're saving lives and printing money, what's not to love?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

hex4def6 3y ago

CO sensors have a limited lifespan before they must be replaced typically every 5 years or so. Wen, $53: https://wenproducts.com/products/gn625ix-1430-co-sensor-module-for-wen-gn625ix https://wenproducts.com/products/gn625ix-1430-co-sensor-modu... Generac, $169: https://gen-parts.com/products/generac-generator-part-10000046048-kit-co-sense-module-service https://gen-parts.com/products/generac-generator-part-100000... This is a not-insubstantial continuous cost adder. And given these modules are almost certainly proprietary, you're at the mercy of the manufacturer in terms of parts availability and cost. I would expect manufacturers to love this; this has basically converted generators into a subscription service (albeit with a 5-7 year renewal period). And, a potential avenue for planned obsolescence. All they have to do is stop producing the replacement sensor, and those generators will be bricked. And before you think about trying to disable it: The regulations specifically require that the generator ensure the sensor is functional, or the generator must prevent itself from running. The generator wiring etc must be tamper resistant, not accessible by regular tools, to prevent a user from attempting to bypass it. So, now the generator will have some portion of it as tamper-resistant, by law. I wonder how that will affect reparability?