Aux Armes, Citoyens ------- Formez vos Battailons !! Our kettles are being threatened !!
I just thought that some of you may be interested to read this news item from the The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper in Australia. http://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/eu-to-launch-toaster-and-kettle-crackdown-after-brexit-vote-20160510-gos4jh.html
Does anyone have a relative or friend in Australia that will be able to send us fast-boil kettles by post I wonder ?
You do realise that this is a piece of anti EU propaganda first published in the British newspapers which has been picked up in the colonial press. If you want to see the facts then look at this http://infacts.org/mythbusts/energy-saving-kettles-no-reason-blood-boil/
Having read the article referenced by Mr Gay, I notice that the article does not in any way deny that these kettle regulations are proposed. It seems that the changes are being based on reducing energy consumption, but that simply does not add up. Raising the temperature of a given amount of water to boiling point requires X amount of heat, so reducing the power of the kettle by half for example, just means that you have to run it for twice as long. Therefore there is no saving of energy whatsoever. The total amount of energy used to boil the kettle is exactly the same.
So as the proposed regulation clearly does not reduce the amount of energy consumed at all, then one wonders what the purpose of the regulations actually is ?
For the most part there is no need of kettles producing water at 100°C by reducing the temperature at which the kettle cuts off slightly say to 95°C would save energy as would reducing the volume of the kettle. The original article in the SMH was essentially the Australians poking fun at the whinging Poms. Frankly I couldn't give a tinker's cuss that some Kipper can't spread his marmalade on toast. He probably needs help doing it anyway.
I agree with you that it would be a good idead from the point of energy saving to 1. Provide kettles with a user adjustable final temperature cut off thermostat; 2. Require the body of the kettle to be more heat insulating; 3. Change the shape of the kettle to minimise the quantity of water needed to fill it to the 'minimum' level; 4. Educate people to only fill it with the amount of water actually needed.
However, the proposed regulations do NOT address any of those matters. What they are proposing to do is to limit the power (wattage) of the appliance which does not produce any energy saving whatsoever. All that achieves is to increase the time taken to heat the given quantity of water to whatever the end tempperature may be. Plainly this demonstrates the incompetance of those creating these daft proposals and gives reasonable grounds to ask the question as to whether we wish to be involved with an organisation staffed by such incompetants. Is it also not possible that the article was carried by the Australian newspaper for the information of the many British people who live in Australia, or perhaps it is just that EU incompetance is so mind bogglingly incredible that news of it has even reached the other side of the world.
As a side note, I also wonder whether it is appropriate to use derogatory terms when referring to those who support an opposing view to our own. Surely we can have a reasoned debate here without resorting to such terms as 'Kipper' and 'caMORONer'.
I think it rather sweet they're called kippers. They could be called far worse.