Posted on 03/06/2014 10:48:25 PM PST by ckilmer
You're gonna have to esplain that.
Exactly. Major production requiring a lot of electricity is down as well as homeowners now watching what they use electricity for and when.
The government will tell us “green” and energy efficient products for appliances and consumer items (e.g., those effing CFLs) are the main reason. But we know better.
The media will fall on their pens at the altar of Obama rather than put the blame where it belongs.
My experience is the CFLs do not last like they say they will. There are electronics inside the base that perform the same function as the ballast in a conventional fluorescent light and they always seem to be the failing components. I get maybe 2 years if I’m lucky....
Closing factories and sending the production to other countries contributes to a significant reduction in the demand for electricity.
This is the real answer.
You are getting 5-8 yrs? I must be buying the wrong brand.
I work in a large power plant in NYC. We can burn natural gas or #6 fuel oil. Since the spike in oil prices in 2007 and the drop in gas prices, we’ve almost exclusively burned gas.
However, during this colder than usual winter, we’ve been at top load on oil only due to gas restrictions. In fact, the district operator even asked us to fire up the unit that was in the middle of a turbine outage because it could burn oil. They must have been desperate.
FYI our ability to burn oil in the future is in question due to ever increasing regulations. Well at least until there is a black out during the next brutal winter...
plus the bulbs that don’t wear out for 5 to 8 years.We are seeing about a year before the cheap azz HV power supply blows up. YMMV, but probably not.You are getting 5-8 yrs? I must be buying the wrong brand.
Fight the Free Sh☭t Nation
Interesting, So when demand for gas is up, you sorta take a back seat. That is horrid that oil is being restricted as well. These people making these decisions are fools, they have no idea what they are doing which leads you to the fact it is deliberate to destroy us, without a power grid that has over capacity for planned and un-planned shutdowns, we will be a 3rd world nation shortly. Which fits with the fundamental transformation and us getting our comeuppance.
Thank you for the info....I’m about to buy some CFLs today for my kitchen lighting.
Is there a brand you recommend better than another?
The joke around here is the water company pushed and pushed for people to conserve water...you’d save money ...they told us. So millions did what they were told...and water use declined and rates declined for a while.
Now we’re seeing skyrocketing rates for the little water we use. When a local talkshow host challenged the water company and sewer company...
They said the massive rate increases were due to “over conservation” which was causing insufficient income to maintain the systems. LOL.
I look to reports like this about electricity and our failing power grid to also be the direct result of the ‘green agenda’ too. The unintended consequence of ‘over conservation’ that doesn’t account for a minimum of use to maintain the systems, nor the inexpensive sources that have historically made the most financial sense (ie. coal).
I’d suggest they take a look at our industrial meltdown and out sourcing needs. U.S. industry has been greatly downsized and there is no longer a demand for electricity in the American manufacturing fields. Better take a look at the Chinas need for electrical power to see where the demand REALLY is.
I agree with the other posters that the “Great Recession” is the number one reason for the decrease in electrical consumption.
That said I think the business world has gotten much better at efficiency. They’ve had to. The fat days of the 1990s and early 2000s are gone. Sales people used to stop by my office almost every week asking me if I wanted to go to lunch or wanted tickets a ball game. That has come back a little bit but not nearly to the scale it used to be at. Thousands of companies are living on much thinner margins than they used to and they are running as lean as possible.
Cutting fixed budget items like your electrical costs are hugely important to businesses right now. I’ve never seen it as much a priority as it has been the last few years.
I wonder about that for two reasons. First, during this long term recession I wonder if the market for cheap Chinese goods is nearly what it was. My second question would be is there a good way to determine what China's electrical demand really is? I've no doubt that any numbers their government would supply would be as phony as the economic data they release.
I’m an electrician and can tell you CFLs are crap. If you want long lasting cheap lamps, just pick up LEDs, they’re more expensive, but those will last far longer.
Deetroit, large areas in St Louis, Memphis, Baltimore, Philadelphia are no longer populated
The LED bulbs are known for RF interference and power line noise generation. No thank you.
Not in my experience. I guess if you can still find the old regular bulbs that’d be good.
LEDs will save you a pile though after the initial setup costs.
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