Posted on 07/15/2011 3:36:26 PM PDT by NRG1973
The House on Friday morning moved to block federal light bulb efficiency standards without even a roll call vote.
An amendment from Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) defunding the Energy Department's standards for traditional incandescent light bulbs to be 30 percent more energy efficient starting next year was approved rather anticlimactically by voice vote.
The success of the amendment appeared inevitable in the House, where the fate of the incandescent light bulb became a symbol in the fight against federal regulations.
Democrats and the White House have opposed the move to block the standards, which were included in a 2007 energy bill signed by President George W. Bush. DOE has said the standards could save consumers $6 billion a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
No regulations on water temp yet here BUT there is discussion of placing the electricity meters that can be controlled by the power company, meaning if my house uses too much electricity for air conditioning, the government can tell the power company to reduce my power flow, as in instant brown out for being a greedy consumer.
Ping.
I wonder how hard it would be to design a light fixture which would produce uniform light throughout an AC cycle, and how efficient such a fixture could be? There are certainly a number of ways such a thing could be accomplished, technically (to demonstrate that it's possible, simply use a 12-volt 4-amp DC wall brick to drive a multi-KHz step-up inverter). I don't know how well one could fit all the required electronics into a squiggle bulb, but certainly it should be possible to construct a long-tube fixture in which either the light was uniform, or the flicker of the two bulbs was offset by 90 degrees.
Incidentally, I'd like for someone to develop a set of standards by which a fluorescent light powered by a dimmer switch could let the switch "know" it's a fluorescent light, and by which a dimmer control could then respond not by modulating current on and off, but by sending some sort of control signal up the wire. The dimmer control would probably need a neutral connection (allowing it to be installed in many houses, but not all) but I would expect one could achieve much better dimming performance than could be achieved with even a "dimmable" fluorescent operating off a conventional dimmer switch. I'm not sure how the chicken-and-egg problem of fluorescent dimming can be solved, but I do see smart ballasts as being a useful feature for home and commercial lighting.
The color temperatures of sunlight, incandescent electric light, and incandescent firelight can be highly variable, but they all share a spectral characteristic: the spectrum they emit is continuous except at a few discrete wavelengths. By contrast, with most types of LED or fluorescent lighting, the emitted spectrum will be concentrated around a number of discrete wavelengths. In some cases, the wavelengths generated by different phosphors or materials may be close enough together to provide at least some light at the wavelengths between them, but I haven't seen any standardized rating scheme to describe that.
Some fluorescent lights are much better than others; I'm surprised I've not seen any vendor of a 'good' light offer point-of-sale materials which would include a tethered diffraction grating customers could use to look at the 'good' light or other lights nearby in the store, nor have I seen any testing lab publish charts showing the spectral characteristics of different bulbs. While it may be hard to define a good unified 'quality' number which would allow meaningful comparisons among crummy bulbs, I would think one could compare good bulbs by publishing the amplitude ratio between the strongest wavelength within a defined "visible light" range and the weakest. For some bulbs, that ratio would be in excess of 100dB, but I would expect some bulbs have improved to the point where the numbers would start being reasonable and comparable. I find it odd that people regard color temperature as a meaningful basis for comparison, when one could produce any desired color temperature using just two wavelengths of light (one wouldn't even need three!)
Actually, I just had another idea: I'm not sure how inexpensively one could print such a thing, but a bulb manufacturer could print a "freebie" flyer or card with a bunch of color swatches; half of each swatch would be printed with conventional broad-spectrum inks, and the other half would be printed with carefully-chosen narrow-spectrum inks which would match when viewed in daylight or in the light of the manufacturer's "good" bulb, but which would mismatch badly when viewed in the light of competitor's bulbs.
Great cartoon!
“...a bulb manufacturer could print a “freebie” flyer or card with a bunch of color swatches;”
#####
Sounds like a great idea to me. Then I realize that not everyone has the same sensitivity to color differences. Perhaps color discrimination is a genetic gift like perfect pitch or a nose for wine, and most people are not bothered by color changes in artificial light.
I use 'em in the garage, laundry room, etc. but not in living areas where I wish to enjoy a warm, cozy, homey ambiance. Home depot already carries the 97 watt incandescent bulbs which will carry us until 2014.
Wasn't it some 97 watt* bulbs in the congress who caused this problem in the first place.
*This estimate is likely to be much too high in most cases.
It would probably be impossible to print the swatches in such a way that everyone would perceive both halves as being the exact same color in daylight or the "good" fluorescent, but not under typical fluorescent light. On the other hand, one could print the patches in such a way that 99% of the population would regard the two halves of each square as being at least a pretty good match under "good" light, but a really lousy match under the "bad" light. For example, a square could be constructed so that under most types of lighting it would look orange, but under some particular fluorescent light it would look magenta. Unfortunately there are probably enough different formulations of fluorescent lights that it would probably be hard to design a set of patches that cause every commonly-produced light to badly render at least one color, but I don't know enough about spectral characteristics to know what would be easy or hard. Perhaps a tethered diffraction grating would be a more useful demonstration apparatus.
Great info; 6-step method with subsections shows just how idiotic this whole thing is. Which leads us to the brilliance of...
127. Whatever you do, DON’T mail poorly packaged CFL’s to the local field offices of Senators and Congressmen who vote to retain this law!!!
Hehheh, I really love it... except in this bizarre world it's possibly a felony ("Hazardous materials" http://pe.usps.com/archive/html/dmmarchive0810/C023.htm#Rap10132
Iow, acc to the gov't, it's fine to REQUIRE US to have this crap in our homes, and breaking on our floors and carpets, but for heaven's sake, do not mail it.
After declaring martial law and suspending the Constitution, they’ll arrest selectively among the million! They are demanding an excuse to do this and should perhaps be accomodated. Then a voter response (if not banned by martial law) to clear the decks of the radical wackos running the country.
I think that just by declaring martial law and suspending the Constitution would be cause for rebellion. On April 27, 1861, the writ of habeas corpus was suspended by President Abraham Lincoln in Maryland during the American Civil War. Lincoln did so in response to riots, local militia actions, and the threat that the border slave state of Maryland would secede from the Union, leaving the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., surrounded by hostile territory. So basically Obama could do something like that as well citing the above.
Herman states, "If Ron Paul, who heads up a subcommittee that has oversite of the Federal Reserve, wants to audit the Federal Reserve, I'm not gonna stop it if I'm President of the United States."
"...If Congress wants to audit the Federal Reserve, knock yourself out."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE6rEN6kyR4
I cannot shake the conviction of that being exactly what is in his plans as soon as he can find a pretext.
I still have this nagging feeling that someone is behind the curtain with that guy. He’s not that smart no matter what the media says. In a word - he’s a buffoon. (okay, that’s three words) :)
Orchard Supply Hardware is having a “we pay the sales tax” sale this weekend......
They are selling incandesant bulbs in 4 packs for $1.00 a pack
I bought 10 packs...40watt,60watt,and 75 watt, soft white.
nice price....
See the last sentence of notes from the source data for your figure at http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/secnote2.pdf
(Section 2 of http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/):
Currently, of electricity generated, approximately 5 percent is lost in plant use and 7 percent is lost in transmission and distribution.As for thinking beyond "Stage One", I think that we conservatives often note this when liberals ignore it (e.g., losing revenue when raising taxes too much). Therefore, it's frustrating to me to see when conservatives don't consider it.
One thing that conservatives must come to grip with is that while the Free Market is GREAT at many things, it's not a panacea, and phenomena like The Tragedy of the Commons (see William Forster Lloyd) are very real. Unless we address such things, we're very easy to dismiss as living in a snobbish fantasyland that ignores reality.
Agreed, not all systems...it is dependent on the distance IIRC.
As for making an error in one direction, I would rather make that error in the direction of the free market, rather than government control.
Of course, that is my opinion...:)
Green jobs?
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