[TheForge] Re: OT: Government waste

[Mike Spencer]

    Joseph Higbee, a spokesman for the electrical manufacturers
    association, offered his take on the situation: "Unfortunately
    people do not yet understand this lighting transition, and
    mistakenly think they won't be able to buy incandescent light
    bulbs.

Already the quality of 100 watt bulbs appears to be declining.  I
estimate that recently purchased bulbs are failing about twice as soon
as has been the case in the past.  If CFLs vastly predominate, the
only incandescents available, at least in domestic sizes, will be
horrible crap.

There are twenty 100W bulbs in my house. Exactly one could be replaced
with a CFL without buying or refitting a lamp. Twelve of them would
require replacing expensive fixtures that I have, over the years, gone
to a great deal of trouble to acquire.  Seven of them are in unheated
locations so CFLs would work poorly or not at all in winter.

In my shop [obligatory blacksmithing content] I have five 300W and two
200W bulbs in industrial fixtures in addition to several 100W bulbs
for localized lighting on grinder, drill press, Beverly or the like
and a few more upstairs around my wife's looms.

None of these could be replaced by CFLs without replacing the
industrial fixtures that I've collected out of junk stores and rubbish
heaps over the last 40 years with outrageously expensive industrial
lighting.  As the shop is unheated, CFLs would never be satisfactory
in winter anyhow.

    My hope is that the media can help the American people understand
    the energy-efficient lighting options available, as opposed to
    furthering misconceptions."

As often as not, when someone wants to "correct the misconceptions of
the American people" (or, generally, any country's people) the
conceptions they want you to accept are going to be good for them but
probably not for the "people" in question.

By my estimate [1], we could save 2,300 gigawatt hours of energy
annually by disabling the always-on headlights on cars that are now a
mandatory standard, energy that isn't noticed because it's expended as
a few drops of gasoline per per day.

Well, we're having the second day in a row of 80F weather here in
Novas Scotia.  In March!  Unheard of!  So I should get out to the shop
and do something with metal so that I can post something that won't
get my knuckles rapped by the List Mom for excessive OT ranting.


- Mike


[1] Assuming more than 143 million US cars driven, on average, 16,000
    miles per year at average 50 mph running 50W of always-on
    lighting.

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^