Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE
Lux, time for some education for you:
1) Have you investigated how "green" Natural Gas is currently? Sure if it comes out of the ground in Iran, it's pretty green. However, what is going to be collected in North America is not green. Sure, it is green to burn (completely), but it is not green to collect. Actually any released unburnt Natural gas is terrible for the environment. It is a very strong greenhouse gas.
2) It is obviously pointless to argue global warming with you. However, you cannot for a minute contradict massive human generated increases in C02. That makes the seas acidic and actually causes plants to aspirate considerably less. That lasts point could have significant effects we are just starting to understand. Let's not forget, we "were" in a down solar cycle and yet temperatures were rising ... but hey, that was just a fluke. Sort of like it was a fluke that we 3 of the warmest winters in the North ever were in the last 5 years and its a balmy 79 degrees today in a part of the world where there should still be snow on the ground ... that stuff we had 1/3 of normal this year as well. You know the earth could be in a natural warming cycle, but not at the speed things are changing.
There is a saying in the science world that change happens not because new ideas are so obviously right, but because all the detractors finally die. The sun used to revolve around the earth and the earth was flat in the past. It is just a matter of time before "there is no global warming" will be viewed the same way.
3) My point about the Reveal is that it is NOT a blackbody radiator light. It has a modified spectrum. To JTRs point, No, not even experts can reliably tell what is an incandescent, a florescent or LED bulb. What experts you may ask? How about interior designers who tend to be the most critical about the color of things.
4) LUX, it's NOT YOUR PLANET. It's OUR planet. You know what, I do believe you should be free to pretty much do whatever you want as long as it does not either directly or indirectly impact me. Unfortunately, you don't seem to be able to think big enough to realize every time you turn on a light, take your 30 minute shower, etc. it does effect me. Pollution and CO2 knows no boundaries. It's just like smoking. IT IS NOT UP TO YOU TO DECIDE FOR ME WHETHER SMOKING BOTHERS ME. THAT IS UP TO ME. I, and others like me have decided we don't want your excessive CO2 and coal related pollution and green house gases. When you stop dumping crap into the atmosphere for your excesses then I will stop caring.
5) I will say it is a typical 1% response to try to take the easy way out and blame such nebulous things as escalating energy prices for unemployment. (For the record, I am part of that nasty 1% as well). However, you and I know that is bull. Unemployment in the U.S. comes almost exclusively from one thing and one thing only. Off shoring of jobs and the related general greed to have something for nothing including you having a $200 TV and your neighbor no job. This situation has been made even worse by government and general public excesses that had us in the west living well beyond our collective means for the last 30-40 years and now faced with paying that back and hence even less money flowing in the economy to pay that back ...... yes, yes I know, Obama created that complete situation in the last 3 1/2 years. I am not sure how gas prices even came into play in this whole argument? What the heck does fast growing demand in China and India and a lack of financial controls allowing speculation have to do with pollution from light bulbs?
I have managed many a people in my career and if it is one thing I have learned about the vast majority of people, some quite smart, is that they are not focused on long term results, but short term gains. It's the whole "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" mentality. That may be true for hunting quail, but it is not true for smart investing, whether that is financial investment or investing in the future of our planet. People WILL NOT make the right long term decisions until it is painfully obvious what that decision is in many cases. There are times, i.e. CRT versus LCD, CD versus turntable where it really did not matter to anyone but the purchaser when or if the change was made. Energy efficiency, whether it is bulbs, air conditioners, etc. do matter. There are real and significant social benefits towards driving higher efficiency. Joe Public is not only thinking just about himself, but thinking just about himself over the next month, 3 months perhaps, not 3 years, or 10 years. That is why we have government ultimately ... big picture stuff when it really comes down to it.
Let's get back to your argument about people about people not eating, trips, etc. by being forced to spend more. Well in theory, if they are spending more money in one area, that should drive down the price of others things. If fuel prices are going up, then the price of houses and mortgages should go down. In some ways that is exactly what happened in the U.S., though most of that was unviable loans. I could argue that in a TRUE supply and demand environment, that this is exactly what will happen. However, as soon as you have "speculators", or perhaps we should call them "investors" to soften the blow, or the 1% to make the leftists happy, then that TRUE supply and demand situation does not happen. You now have a manipulated market where the people with the money, not the actual consumers and supply/demand curve have control over the pricing. Yes, eventually even this can and does fall down like a big house of cards as it did recently, but we know who took it on the chin for the bailouts.
P.S. when you are reading the Wall Street Journal, perhaps you should actually check their facts and what they mean. That addition to generation is PEAK generation. That is capacity, that IS NOT how much power will be generated by new sources. Hence that chart is highly distorted. Natural Gas plants will mainly be used for peak power, not base load. As you know, wind cannot be base load and with exception either are other renewables. That will fall on coal and nuclear with will run 24 hours a day flat out in most cases.
To the person who complained about all the metal halides in parking lots, yes at first glance they seem terrible and yes the **** me off. However, keep in mind, parking lot = 1fc /10 lux. Interior is likely 20Fc/200lux. The interior lighting for whatever that parking lot is for is using way more power.
Advertising ... yup, hate that too, but in the big scheme of things, not as much as one would think. A couple 100W incans uses as much power as a couple of 100W metal halide advertising lights (and yes I know some are bigger).
I know that residential lighting is not the be all and end all of energy and environment saving, but at the end of the day, it is low hanging fruit. Let's face it, it is virtually no "burden" to use other sources of light. Maybe the light is not "perfect", but it is good enough. Hell I would love to drive 90 in 50 zones all the time to get where I want to go faster, but I can't ...... For the same reasons ... it impacts others negatively.
As much as I believe in most of the fundamentals of capitalism, capitalism and the concept of I WANT, are not the be all and end all and have their place, but that place is not everywhere. Unchecked capitalism, as has often been shown, fails miserably, almost as bad as unchecked socialism. I not a fan of rampant socialism either. Capitalism and market forces do not solve all issues in the most efficient fashion. By the pure nature of our financial systems and stock market, capitalism is best at solving short term problems, not long term problems. ROI is measured in years, not decades.
It is just that issue that creates many issues that we are facing. When a company is looking at a 3 year window, it is much easier to outsource production to a cheap labor country versus the long term investments in engineering, process, machinery, etc. to keep manufacturing domestically. Outsourcing creates short term profits. Over time though, it creates competitors. It also shifts wealth away from intended customers to other areas who are better served by your new competitors. It potentially reduces your long term competitiveness as knowledge and knowledge growth is lost, etc. On the surface, there will appear to be a net wealth growth, as is (was?) seen in the U.S., but this growth will be concentrated in a smaller and smaller percentage of the population erasing decades if not 100's of years of social growth and ultimately the foundations on what some western democracies were founded (i.e. power to the people).
Frankly, I don't live in the U.S. so I don't give a damn whether you eliminate 30% of your Federal government, though I would gladly eliminate 30% of mine though current our provincial (state equivalent) government is my bigger issue. However, just like you talking about advertising, etc., etc., this is just more passing of the buck and not taking any personal responsibility for the issue. LUX, that is at the end of the day what I want you to bloody well to. Stop passing the buck and making excuses and bloody well take some personal responsibility for the state of the planet. If it just like stealing music, rioting, etc. Just because everyone else is doing it does not make it okay.
Ok, enough of my soapbox, I need sleep.
Semiman