Last Updated on July 26, 2021
Computer manufacturer Dell will no longer be shipping high-end Alienware gaming PCS to liberal-controlled states such as California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to new restrictions on “energy efficiency” implemented in July 2021. California will begin banning “computers with high-speed networking capability, multi-screen notebooks, notebooks with cyclical behavior, and monitors with high refresh rates” in December.
Prospective buyers perusing the selection of Dell PCs on the Alienware website were greeted with the following stipulation attached to higher-end listings: “This product cannot be shipped to the states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to power consumption regulations adopted by those states. Any orders placed that are bound for those states will be canceled.”
Sorry, gamers.
Your government screwed you. pic.twitter.com/f2iFz8uqBD
— Marie Oakes (@TheMarieOakes) July 26, 2021
Shortly after news of the situation broke on Monday, Dell told British tech website The Register that “Yes, this was driven by the California Energy Commission (CEC) Tier 2 implementation that defined a mandatory energy efficiency standard for PCs – including desktops, AIOs and mobile gaming systems. This was put into effect on July 1, 2021. Select configurations of the Alienware Aurora R10 and R12 were the only impacted systems across Dell and Alienware.”
California first approved restrictions on computers which do not meet liberal standards of energy efficiency in 2016, claiming that such mandates would “save more than 2.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year – equivalent to annual electricity use by all the homes in San Francisco – and avoid 730,000 tons a year of climate-disrupting carbon pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants.”
The first set, or Tier 1, of requirements took effect in January 2019. Tier 2, which took effect in July 2021, extends the mandate to desktop computers and mobile gaming systems and devices. On December 9 of this year, the Tier 3 restrictions will take effect, cracking down on “computers with high-speed networking capability, multi-screen notebooks, notebooks with cyclical behavior, and monitors with high refresh rates.” Other blue states, including those listed by Dell on its website, have followed California’s lead.
