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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric who wrote (23970)	10/22/2010 11:50:11 AM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Respond to of 86355

Don’t hoard Edison bulbs. You will lose money No, you will spend money, for something you want. What does the 2007 law really do? Contrary to many alarmist headlines, the law signed by President Bush in 2007 does NOT ban incandescents (nor any other technology, for that matter). The law simply requires new bulbs, beginning in 2012, to use 25 percent to 30 percent less power than today’s conventional incandescent bulb. Which for the moment effectively bans incandescents. If mass market incandescents improve enough to meet the standard, than they would be on the market again, but if mass market incandescents get pulled because the of the standards the improvements (in the ones actually widely for sale, not just in a lab) may not happen. Also once the idea of such a standard is accepted the standards can always be made tighter, banning the new incandescents. LEDs avoid some of the problems with florescents, but while their costs have come down, they are still to expensive to generally replace other bulbs. Overall, the job creation story is overwhelmingly positive. That is unlikely. Compact florescents are imported to a great extent than incandescents, so even the impact of "the seen" (the relatively direct and noticeable impact is likely to be negative, even before considering the indirect effects (Bastiat's 'unseen"). Bot mostly I'm against the ban, becuase its a matter of further extending government's power and control, and because, to the extent it effects bulbs bought and sold entirely within a state it exceeds the power granted to the federal government by the US constitution.

To: Eric who wrote (23970)	10/22/2010 8:52:47 PM
From: The Vet	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

Eric, I assume that you have CFL's in order to "save the planet" but do you follow the letter of the law in regard to disposal of what is known to be toxic waste when the CFL dies, which in my experience they do far earlier than the manufacturers admit? Or do you break the law and create a hazard for future generations by throwing them in the ordinary trash? How far away is your nearest authorised toxic waste disposal facility? Do they charge you to take this waste? How much fossil fuel do you use taking the dead CFL to that facility? How much fossil fuel does that collection facility use in actually disposing of the CFL and/or moving it to another facility that does? When you add up all this additional energy on top of the actual energy used by the CFL and the energy to manufacture it, transport it from China, distribute it and for you to drive to a shop to buy it at a much higher cost than incandescents, just how much did you save? Nothing in cash for sure and probably a negative energy balance as well. Now add up all this wasted cash and energy just to buy and then dispose of each "energy saving" device, multiply by the number required for the whole country and then redo all those calculations and see what we will really save. I know you won't answer this as it requires specific and direct answers rather than the generalised waffle that you feed into this board....