Alas, poor Edison. If he were only here.
California to Ban Conventional Lightbulbs? – News and Analysis by PC Magazine — This is ludicrous, of course, since LED’s will already be replacing everything by 2012. This is another example of unnecessary legislation done by a crackpot from California.
A California lawmaker wants to make his state the first to ban incandescent lightbulbs as part of Californias groundbreaking initiatives to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
The “How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act” would ban incandescent lightbulbs by 2012 in favor of energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs.
“Incandescent lightbulbs were first developed almost 125 years ago, and since that time they have undergone no major modifications,” California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine said on Tuesday.
Didn’t somebody do the math on this proposal, right here, about a year ago when I suggested this very thing?
I seem to remember that the savings wasn’t too huge. But, I still support it since there is probably no one silver bullet to break us from foreign oil — it will be a bunch of smaller breakthroughs.
The biggest untapped, most green “alternative energy” source is conservation, right?
Bush has said in every State of the Union speech that he supports alternative energy but then he does jack about it.
If Bush want to be a man of action, rather than hot air, conservation is a great place to start.
Some technologies are already in place — like insulation, solar heating and high efficiency lighting. — but need incentives to get wide adoption and economies of scale.
Other technologies are around the bend but need the government to do R&D.
#23 The power company dont make enough profit, so they RAISE the prices…You STILL pay $50 per month. duh!!
That’s why the conservative deregulation of utilities is a such horrible idea .
I should say “was a horrible idea” since Enron’s rip off of BILLIONS from consumers has soured everyone expect the most head-in-the-sand ideological conservatives.
#24: “California will have a surplus in savings in energy if they do this which will be good for our economy.”
California? Savings? *Snicker*
35,
To add to that…
there is NO SUCH THING as a surplus…
they just cut back the supply, and force the price up…
ISNT that what they are doing 90% of the time, they FORCE a -minus trend and make it LOOK like we cant supply a product, ad FORCE the price up??
Thats the problem, its a COMMODITY market…
1. Driving a truck or SUV is not just a right, it’s an essential to create the base acceptable standard of living.
2. Conservation through efficiency is a good thing. Conservation through sacrifice, reducing standard of living or added cost is unnacceptable.
The true beauty of CFL’s is not the energy they save by itself, it’s the fact that because of the energy they save you don’t need to turn them off, just leave them on 24×7 everyhwere.
For all the libs who worship legislation, can we at least throw a bone to those who are unfortunate to suffer from CFL flicker, by adding a rider outlawing headaches to the bills? I mean, legislation solves all problems so that should take care of it, no?
Smith, are you bi-polar?
First you talk about banning A/C, which is patently ridiculous, then you turn around and mention building nuke plants as fast as we can which I couldn’t agree with more. You’re absolutely right. If we could get to the point where power was so cheap and plentiful that it could practically be given away, 99.24% of all the World’s problems could be solved.
#37 >> For all the libs who worship legislation,
snicker.
Thank goodness, most Americans are finally able to discern the difference between what conservatives PREACH and what they DO — which often are polar opposites.
You PREACH less government but then gave us a bloated government which reached far into our private lives.
36) I tend to think of the diamond market, controlled mostly by De Beers (although less so now) where the slack off of the mining end and jacked up the consumer end, which ensures they will be in damn good shape for years to come.
37) Leaving lights on 24×7 completely gets rid of the purpose of energy saving. Turning on and off a light uses far less energy than leaving it on, even an extra second on uses more electricity than turning it off and on.
38) The A/C ban post was satire, look it up.
39) There are no true conservatives left in the government. Also, the biggest problem in the government is that inaction is the best policy for those who want to be elected. If they really fix social security, what will they bitch about come election year? If they solved the energy problems, who would they blame for rising prices? It’s all a game to them.
They can fix Social sec, by paying ALL the money back from the general fund. Which on the LOW interest average is around 80 trillon dollars… Which would help ALOT. Also take out those that have pensions Over $10,000 per year. Then get the Congree and reps, to start PAYING in..
If our upper gov was run as a business, HOW many would still have a job?? remember YOU are the Owner of the company.
GE just announced a breakthrough in incandescent efficiency that exposes a glaring flaw in this bill that should have been obvious:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070223005120
I just read California bill AB 722, and was disappointed to see that instead of sensibly setting efficiency targets (lumens/watt) it specifically singles out a technology (incandescent) and bans it. The assumption is that innovation doesn’t happen. Oops. GE just proved that assumption wrong.
If such a law had been in place years ago, do you think GE would have have funded the research that led to this breakthrough? Thankfully, such laws didn’t exist, and it looks like we’ll have the best of both worlds — high energy efficiency without the slow start, depressing spectrum, and mercury hazard of fluorescents.
I agree with the complaints here about light quality of fluorescents. Although I don’t personal suffer any ill effect from fluorescent bulbs, I know several people who do, including two family members.
Spend your money on these overpriced bulbs.
Up here in Ontario Canada, the government put on a big push for us to use them. We, like sheep, did.
Local utilities, several months later say energy demand is down that good, but because it is, We need to raise electricity rates now.
If that doesn’t suck.
This is what I said on #24…