“...lighting bills reduced by up to 75 percent within five years.”
I am all for energy savings and reduced cost of lighting. But can any FReepers advise me of ANYTHING that we have now that was predicted to happen five years ago? Hopefully this is not another “flying car” that will soon (5 years?) be appearing in your neighbors drive way.
Well, I can tell you this: If demand drops that much, power companies will be “forced” to raise rates to remain profitable, so savings will be be nil. And the same for local utility taxes.
Use less gas, Stupid...and when Stupid did, we “have to” raise the gas tax to compensate for “lost income”.
It’s a drought, Stupid; conserve water...and when Stupid did, water rates had to be “reluctently” rasied to compensate for “lost income”.
There are plenty of other examples.
This should happen, although it might be a bit over 5 years. It's a change in existing LED technology, not a completely new technology. The cute thing is that Obama wants to spend billions to force everyone to convert to fluorescent just before LED becomes the better option. That's the joy of central planning - it forces everyone to make the same mistake instead of allowing them to decide based on their individual circumstances.
Socialism?
Nah, this one is real. The LEDs are already available, but are very expensive.
I predicted on this forum around 2001 that in five years it would be hard to find film because digital cameras would replace film.
I predict that Blu-Ray will never really take off the way DVDs did. By the time Blu-Ray is ten years old it will be as forgotten as Beta tape.
These are not my original predictions. I just pass on what I read and think is likely.
Among the things I didn't see coming are dirt cheap disk drives and memory chips.
“But can any FReepers advise me of ANYTHING that we have now that was predicted to happen five years ago?”
3g network.
1 terrabyte hard drives.
Full computer power that fits in a pocket.
12 megapixel cameras.
etc
LEDs are at the stage where they are widely enough used that it pays to invest money in figuring out how to make them cheaper, and making them cheaper results in more applications. They've pretty much replaced incandescent bulbs in flashlights, and are now cost-effective for under-counter lighting. Their long lifetimes will make them increasingly cost-effective for lighting in places where it's a pain to replace a bulb.
I am all for energy savings and reduced cost of lighting. But can any FReepers advise me of ANYTHING that we have now that was predicted to happen five years ago? Hopefully this is not another “flying car” that will soon (5 years?) be appearing in your neighbors drive way.“...lighting bills reduced by up to 75 percent within five years.”
Moore's Law has held up.When they're already making some LED's for flashlights and other specialty apps, a development which cuts the cost of production by an order of magnitude is going to open a BIG market.