Remember, it’s ok to take away the freedom of the masses if you’ve been voted in by a (electoral college) majority. If it’s not an election issue then it’s not a freedom worth defending.
🙂
Irene knocked out our power for nearly 40 hours.
My kids had never experienced anything like that, and were not happy. We were lucky. There are still some who are without power.
Though I don’t wish this circumstance on anyone, I do wish that if it happens again, it be right before “Earth Hour.”. Then people might finally realize what the ecofascist really values…
I didn’t lose power with Irene, although many people did in my area.
Since I’m not in a flood-prone area, losing power was my biggest fear because I lost it for 24 hours a couple of months ago during an ordinary thunderstorm that took out a tree in my neighborhood. That was the longest power outage I can remember having.
Hey, at least the Irene victims can take solace in the fact that they reduced their carbon footprint. Right?
Apparently this guy wants you to freeze in the dark too, because the proposed Keystone pipeline will only create 2 days worth of jobs: Dean Baker – Center for Economic and Policy Research
If the USA doesn’t want our oil we’ll be glad to sell it to the Chinese.
I’m hoping there is a warm LED solution that is sufficiently inexpensive.
Good luck with that. I’m still hoping for the Maserati solution that is sufficiently inexpensive.
When I bought my first CFLs I bought the ’60 watt’ CFLs to replace my old 69 watt bulbs. And, as I’ve heard a 1000 times, they were ‘weird and gloomy’, and initially, I too hated them.
But I found a solution!!
Beings the CFLs only use a fraction of the juice the old bulbs did, I just bumped up to the next level, or even two bumps. I have no doom nor gloom problem now. I’ve never blown one and my power bill went down about 10% right off the bat.
(I still think requiring them sucks though)
Fortunately, CFLs are not required, although I agree that banning incandescents sucks . But Titus’ Maserati analogy is ridiculous — warm LED solutions are a google search away, and more are coming soon in response to the bans.
What a coincidence, I was coming into work this morning and drove past this lady in a minivan that had a huge sign on the back that said, “Go Vegan, Go Green, Be Eco-responsible”, or something like that. I wanted to flip her off to give her something to go green on.
Yea, let’s all willfully downgrade civilization by plunging ourselves back into darkness, shivering in cold, suffering from malnutrition, and tormenting ourselves over our “eco-guilt”. No thank you!
Bob, your maiden’s prayer was answered in a hour? Excellent timing on that conern troll. Good job.
You’re just being a dick. I was expressing the hope that the cost of LEDs will drop, however poorly I worded it. Like Maseratis, LEDs are available now. Unlike Maseratis, it is reasonable to expect that the cost of LEDs (including “warm” LEDs) will drop significantly in price.
As for being a troll: I’ve made it clear that I think human health and safety is the best reason for “going green”. I think CFLs fail on that count. Furthermore, I’m quite sympathetic to the idea that incandescents shouldn’t be banned. I think this is an interesting issue, and there is more to say about all this from the perspective of a Democrat, but I’d rather say it to someone more pleasant to talk to. So, nice work killing a conversation. Bye.
Well, as long as we’re here–has anyone tried the LEDs in real fixtures? WIth dimmers? I tried some pricey supposedly dimmable CFs and they lasted about three hours. I’m back to incandescents, but the fixture is enough of a pain to get to that I wouldn’t mind spending some money on a longer lasting replacement.
I like LED’s more so than CFL’s personally but they are still pretty proud of them cost wise. LED diodes have a fairly narrow coverage area which makes them useful in track lighting situations, flashlights, and headlamps. This presents a conundrum though since most track light fixtures are enclosed fixtures that will restrict the airflow to the rectifiers heat sinks thereby possibly reducing the life of the light. They are making them into faux bulbs with reflectors and diffusers to try and help widen the light coverage area for lamp applications but to me this degrades the performance as the reflectors also serve to reduce the total lumen output. The other solution to this problem is to just throw more diodes together to create a sort of crystal ball or light panel but this increases the size, energy consumption, and cost of the light dramatically. I’ve read that really LED’s will only become useful when the 3w per diode systems become easier and cheaper to manufacturer. One 3w diode can replace more than 3x1w diodes because of the transmission losses across all the interconnects. And 3w per diode LED’s push color saturation be square inch levels that start to approach output levels of The Sun; which would be uber. Of course a quick Google search shows no shortage of LED plant grow light systems which shows that greenhouse operators and indoor growers are really the one’s who are pushing the innovation of LED’s the most right now.
has anyone tried the LEDs in real fixtures? WIth dimmers?
Absolutely, and if you’re going to splurge for a LED bulb, you might as well go all the way and get a dimmer for it. Lutron makes a great line of CFL/LED dimmers for about $20. It has a minimum brightness setting (it dims by varying the duty cycle) that you need to adjust, but once you’ve set it, you’re done — you’ve transcended the whole concept of bulbs-as-consumables forever, at least for that fixture.
I wouldn’t was my time with CFLs, dimmable or otherwise.
LED diodes have a fairly narrow coverage area which makes them useful in track lighting situations, flashlights, and headlamps.
Recessed lighting. It looks beautiful in the kitchen and bath.
“Recessed lighting. It looks beautiful in the kitchen and bath.
It’s FAAABULOUSSS!
“Two snaps up!”
Thanks for the replies.
Der Schtumpy Says:
September 1st, 2011 at 6:22 am
“I’ve never blown one and my power bill went down about 10% right off the bat.”
10% is well within the monthly fluctuation I get just from more or less running of the A/C, washing machine and dryer, oven, etc… I’ve never seen much difference in my power bills from lighting – it’s a 2nd order effect.
And, the CFL’s I’ve tried, while making me look like a splotchy ghoul in the mirror (OK, that’s not entirely the bulb’s fault) haven’t lasted any longer than incandescents.
I have been running an LED simulated light bulb on the front porch, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for the last three years. It is much brighter than either the CFL it replaced or the original incandescent. I certainly have no complaints, well worth the higher initial cost. At this time i would go right to LED’s skip the CFL’s they are not worth looking at.
I’ve had mixed experiences with CFLs. They work pretty well in some fixtures, less well in others. I have some in my bathroom fixture; they seem to either burn out fairly quickly (and sometimes dramatically) or last for a fair amount longer than conventionals. They get pretty dim if they last long enough.
Bart,
it went down AND stayed down. If it was a fluctuation, it last over two years in the apartment.
Daver, I’m going to make a guess here and say that the CFLs you use which burn out quickly are the ones in rooms you aren’t in much. Fluorescents always suffer a lot more wear when they are switched on than when they are left on. This does not apply to LEDs AFAIK.
Given a free choice, I’d use LEDs; but the ones that fit in place of ordinary bulbs are still far too expensive for me to afford. I suspect we’ll be seeing a fair number of new-build houses, at least at the upper end of the price scale, being fitted at the start with LED lighting.
Or maybe not, for the same reason prefab houses have still not caught on.
I have a bathroom fixture which takes about six bulbs, I’m currently using four CFs in it. This is a bad spot for CFs (I’m not sure that there are any good ones)–the lights get turned on for a few minutes several times a day, they’re in a semi-closed fixture (open at the top and bottom, but still fairly restrictive airflow. At least access is easy). It doesn’t seem as if the humidity there should have much effect, but maybe there’s some issue about starting them with condensation on the bulb. Anyway, I’ve had one sizzle and burn out fairly dramatically, and several that burned out within a few weeks of replacing. But once they’ve lasted a month or so they seem to be good for several more months. I haven’t been keeping track, so this is pretty subjective. I haven’t been paying attention to brands–it may be that some are more durable, or it may be the luck of the draw.
Sounds like you’d be better off with good old-fashioned incand’s, Daver. The CFL design is more fucked up than a football bat. How often does the ballast burn-out of a properly designed normative linear FL fixture? Almost never. But that’s what you get when it’s design-by-Congress…
I had heard that the CFL design was the only commercial success from research programs into energy conservation from the Carter era. So, maybe we can chalk this up as another Carter success story?
It certainly wasn’t a commercial success at the time. I think the Chinese were the first to really exploit it long after he left office.
Regardless, if that part of the ’07 Energy bill is not amended or repealed, it’ll be all the more reason to abandon the now-obsolete medium base and go with dedicated fixtures or, alternatively, candelabra bases which were left untouched and for which one can, thankfully, find a nice selection of incandescent bulbs in high wattages.
Amazon has adapters to allow candelabra bulbs to screw into medium sockets (not amazon prime, unfortunately); the candelabra bulbs don’t appear to be as efficient as the standard bulbs (650 lumens/60 watt candelabra bulb, as opposed to ~900 for a standard bulb) Serves them right if their efficiency legislation causes more energy to be burned.
Remember, it’s ok to take away the freedom of the masses if you’ve been voted in by a (electoral college) majority. If it’s not an election issue then it’s not a freedom worth defending.
🙂
Irene knocked out our power for nearly 40 hours.
My kids had never experienced anything like that, and were not happy. We were lucky. There are still some who are without power.
Though I don’t wish this circumstance on anyone, I do wish that if it happens again, it be right before “Earth Hour.”. Then people might finally realize what the ecofascist really values…
This seems appropriate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9gO5aHWvgI
grr.. agree with the first comment.
I didn’t lose power with Irene, although many people did in my area.
Since I’m not in a flood-prone area, losing power was my biggest fear because I lost it for 24 hours a couple of months ago during an ordinary thunderstorm that took out a tree in my neighborhood. That was the longest power outage I can remember having.
Hey, at least the Irene victims can take solace in the fact that they reduced their carbon footprint. Right?
What the hell language was that?
This one is better: http://dumpalink.com/videos/Family-Guy-Thomas-Edison-bb69.html
Apparently this guy wants you to freeze in the dark too, because the proposed Keystone pipeline will only create 2 days worth of jobs:
Dean Baker – Center for Economic and Policy Research
If the USA doesn’t want our oil we’ll be glad to sell it to the Chinese.
I’m hoping there is a warm LED solution that is sufficiently inexpensive.
Good luck with that. I’m still hoping for the Maserati solution that is sufficiently inexpensive.
When I bought my first CFLs I bought the ’60 watt’ CFLs to replace my old 69 watt bulbs. And, as I’ve heard a 1000 times, they were ‘weird and gloomy’, and initially, I too hated them.
But I found a solution!!
Beings the CFLs only use a fraction of the juice the old bulbs did, I just bumped up to the next level, or even two bumps. I have no doom nor gloom problem now. I’ve never blown one and my power bill went down about 10% right off the bat.
(I still think requiring them sucks though)
Fortunately, CFLs are not required, although I agree that banning incandescents sucks . But Titus’ Maserati analogy is ridiculous — warm LED solutions are a google search away, and more are coming soon in response to the bans.
What a coincidence, I was coming into work this morning and drove past this lady in a minivan that had a huge sign on the back that said, “Go Vegan, Go Green, Be Eco-responsible”, or something like that. I wanted to flip her off to give her something to go green on.
Yea, let’s all willfully downgrade civilization by plunging ourselves back into darkness, shivering in cold, suffering from malnutrition, and tormenting ourselves over our “eco-guilt”. No thank you!
Bob, your maiden’s prayer was answered in a hour? Excellent timing on that conern troll. Good job.
You’re just being a dick. I was expressing the hope that the cost of LEDs will drop, however poorly I worded it. Like Maseratis, LEDs are available now. Unlike Maseratis, it is reasonable to expect that the cost of LEDs (including “warm” LEDs) will drop significantly in price.
As for being a troll: I’ve made it clear that I think human health and safety is the best reason for “going green”. I think CFLs fail on that count. Furthermore, I’m quite sympathetic to the idea that incandescents shouldn’t be banned. I think this is an interesting issue, and there is more to say about all this from the perspective of a Democrat, but I’d rather say it to someone more pleasant to talk to. So, nice work killing a conversation. Bye.
Well, as long as we’re here–has anyone tried the LEDs in real fixtures? WIth dimmers? I tried some pricey supposedly dimmable CFs and they lasted about three hours. I’m back to incandescents, but the fixture is enough of a pain to get to that I wouldn’t mind spending some money on a longer lasting replacement.
I like LED’s more so than CFL’s personally but they are still pretty proud of them cost wise. LED diodes have a fairly narrow coverage area which makes them useful in track lighting situations, flashlights, and headlamps. This presents a conundrum though since most track light fixtures are enclosed fixtures that will restrict the airflow to the rectifiers heat sinks thereby possibly reducing the life of the light. They are making them into faux bulbs with reflectors and diffusers to try and help widen the light coverage area for lamp applications but to me this degrades the performance as the reflectors also serve to reduce the total lumen output. The other solution to this problem is to just throw more diodes together to create a sort of crystal ball or light panel but this increases the size, energy consumption, and cost of the light dramatically. I’ve read that really LED’s will only become useful when the 3w per diode systems become easier and cheaper to manufacturer. One 3w diode can replace more than 3x1w diodes because of the transmission losses across all the interconnects. And 3w per diode LED’s push color saturation be square inch levels that start to approach output levels of The Sun; which would be uber. Of course a quick Google search shows no shortage of LED plant grow light systems which shows that greenhouse operators and indoor growers are really the one’s who are pushing the innovation of LED’s the most right now.
Absolutely, and if you’re going to splurge for a LED bulb, you might as well go all the way and get a dimmer for it. Lutron makes a great line of CFL/LED dimmers for about $20. It has a minimum brightness setting (it dims by varying the duty cycle) that you need to adjust, but once you’ve set it, you’re done — you’ve transcended the whole concept of bulbs-as-consumables forever, at least for that fixture.
I wouldn’t was my time with CFLs, dimmable or otherwise.
Recessed lighting. It looks beautiful in the kitchen and bath.
“Recessed lighting. It looks beautiful in the kitchen and bath.
It’s FAAABULOUSSS!
“Two snaps up!”
Thanks for the replies.
Der Schtumpy Says:
September 1st, 2011 at 6:22 am
“I’ve never blown one and my power bill went down about 10% right off the bat.”
10% is well within the monthly fluctuation I get just from more or less running of the A/C, washing machine and dryer, oven, etc… I’ve never seen much difference in my power bills from lighting – it’s a 2nd order effect.
And, the CFL’s I’ve tried, while making me look like a splotchy ghoul in the mirror (OK, that’s not entirely the bulb’s fault) haven’t lasted any longer than incandescents.
I have been running an LED simulated light bulb on the front porch, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for the last three years. It is much brighter than either the CFL it replaced or the original incandescent. I certainly have no complaints, well worth the higher initial cost. At this time i would go right to LED’s skip the CFL’s they are not worth looking at.
I’ve had mixed experiences with CFLs. They work pretty well in some fixtures, less well in others. I have some in my bathroom fixture; they seem to either burn out fairly quickly (and sometimes dramatically) or last for a fair amount longer than conventionals. They get pretty dim if they last long enough.
Bart,
it went down AND stayed down. If it was a fluctuation, it last over two years in the apartment.
Daver, I’m going to make a guess here and say that the CFLs you use which burn out quickly are the ones in rooms you aren’t in much. Fluorescents always suffer a lot more wear when they are switched on than when they are left on. This does not apply to LEDs AFAIK.
Given a free choice, I’d use LEDs; but the ones that fit in place of ordinary bulbs are still far too expensive for me to afford. I suspect we’ll be seeing a fair number of new-build houses, at least at the upper end of the price scale, being fitted at the start with LED lighting.
Or maybe not, for the same reason prefab houses have still not caught on.
I have a bathroom fixture which takes about six bulbs, I’m currently using four CFs in it. This is a bad spot for CFs (I’m not sure that there are any good ones)–the lights get turned on for a few minutes several times a day, they’re in a semi-closed fixture (open at the top and bottom, but still fairly restrictive airflow. At least access is easy). It doesn’t seem as if the humidity there should have much effect, but maybe there’s some issue about starting them with condensation on the bulb. Anyway, I’ve had one sizzle and burn out fairly dramatically, and several that burned out within a few weeks of replacing. But once they’ve lasted a month or so they seem to be good for several more months. I haven’t been keeping track, so this is pretty subjective. I haven’t been paying attention to brands–it may be that some are more durable, or it may be the luck of the draw.
Sounds like you’d be better off with good old-fashioned incand’s, Daver. The CFL design is more fucked up than a football bat. How often does the ballast burn-out of a properly designed normative linear FL fixture? Almost never. But that’s what you get when it’s design-by-Congress…
I had heard that the CFL design was the only commercial success from research programs into energy conservation from the Carter era. So, maybe we can chalk this up as another Carter success story?
It certainly wasn’t a commercial success at the time. I think the Chinese were the first to really exploit it long after he left office.
Regardless, if that part of the ’07 Energy bill is not amended or repealed, it’ll be all the more reason to abandon the now-obsolete medium base and go with dedicated fixtures or, alternatively, candelabra bases which were left untouched and for which one can, thankfully, find a nice selection of incandescent bulbs in high wattages.
Amazon has adapters to allow candelabra bulbs to screw into medium sockets (not amazon prime, unfortunately); the candelabra bulbs don’t appear to be as efficient as the standard bulbs (650 lumens/60 watt candelabra bulb, as opposed to ~900 for a standard bulb) Serves them right if their efficiency legislation causes more energy to be burned.