End of the Lightbulb??!!,....Edison, say it ain't so!

[cowboy76]

Just saw this pop up on yahoo,....

I can understand the push for energy conservation, I'm all for it, but this is a virtual outlawing of,....incandescent Light bulbs?? That's a little rediculous, if you want to use old light bulbs in your nice antique chanderlier that's your choice, not someone else's! Leave my antiques alone!,... LOL
Well, ya better start stocking up on 'em!

...Especially those great repros of the old Edison light bulbs!

What in the world will all the people do with their nice old light fixtures?

http://biz.yahoo.com/usnews/071219/...as_we_know_it.html?.v=1&.pf=banking-budgeting

 

[dhermann1]

I'll bet you a cookie that LED fixtures become the norm before those screw in flourescents. They use even less energy and I believe are a lot more durable, without the mess that a broken flourescent makes. There's the issue of color at the moment, but that will be solved.
They'll have LEDs that look just exactly like incandescents, for our vintage fixtures.

 

["Doc" Devereux]

Nikola Tesla, thou art avenged.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

I will gladly switch to these...even in my vintage fixtures...if it helps my kids and grandkids (future) have forests and glaciers and less reliance on fossil fuels.

But thats just hippy me...

 

[mike]

[QUOTE="Doc" Devereux]Nikola Tesla, thou art avenged.[/QUOTE]

hahaha I was thinking the same thing!
Edison was a crook, my money's on the death-ray building mad scientist over out and out crooks any day of the week! I'm convinced he stole half if not most of the spotlight from the Lumiere Brothers aswell. Death to Thomas Edison! oh wait.... lol

 

[cowboy76]

I'll bet you a cookie that LED fixtures become the norm before those screw in flourescents. They use even less energy and I believe are a lot more durable, without the mess that a broken flourescent makes. There's the issue of color at the moment, but that will be solved.
They'll have LEDs that look just exactly like incandescents, for our vintage fixtures.

Just as long as the newer LED's dont blind me!!,...LOL When I think of LED's overpowering rear brake lights on overdone streetrods come to mind!!...

 

[cowboy76]

I will gladly switch to these...even in my vintage fixtures...if it helps my kids and grandkids (future) have forests and glaciers and less reliance on fossil fuels.

But thats just hippy me...

What does forests, glaciers and fossil fuels have to do with using old-time light bulbs??

I work as a boilermaker in HUGE industrial power plant boilers. Steam boilers. Many "are" coal fired boilers, however, I see them being turned into other fuel burning steam boilers in the near future.

Not sure if many even understand how an industrial power station works, but since I work in them all the time, I can tell you, that your electricity in many areas if given to you via STEAM power,...a little known fact. Steam used to power HUGE turbines, producing,..electricity. So, electricity has no bearing that I can think of on our forests, glaciers, and only on small minor points does it have anything to do with fossil fuels.

I was an Eagle Scout, so I'm all for saving our forests,....etc.

 

[cowboy76]

hahaha I was thinking the same thing!
Edison was a crook, my money's on the death-ray building mad scientist over out and out crooks any day of the week! I'm convinced he stole half if not most of the spotlight from the Lumiere Brothers aswell. Death to Thomas Edison! oh wait.... lol

Oh I know, Tesla was really quite the man!!!

 

[dhermann1]

Steam boilers

I hope I don't start a conflagration with this, but the connection is that coal fired boilers put carbon dioxide into the air, which causes the green house effect. Whether you believe that global warming is entirely due to man made CO2 or not, it's certainly exacerbated by it. My personal opinion is that we'll never be able to reduce CO2 emissions soon enough, but there's a quick and dirty solution at hand. Global dimming. Right now the huge amount of pollution China is producing is mitigated by the huge amount of particulate matter included in the smog. This causes a dimming effect which negates about 80% of the green house effect produced. I read in the NY Times a few weeks ago a piece by a climate scientist named Dr Kenneth Caldeira saying that we could build a huge chimney and pump chemically inert particulates into the upper atmosphere. This would reflect just enough sunlight to reduce the global fever, but have no other negative effects. This would start as a "temporary" stop gap, but I predict it will continue for generations. I asked him if this would make plants "leggier" (to use a gardening term) and he said that the raised CO2 levels would make the plants grow even more lushly at the same temperature. This is not the solution that "Green" types want, but we can't deny the other 2/3 of the world's population the right to a modern life, just because of our pollution issues. Ain't gonna happen. Progress is going to continue, electrical generation will multiply ten or fifty fold within another generation or two, and the solutions to the problems will be utterly different from what is being discussed today. So that's the connection between coal fired boilers and melting glaciers.
I sure hope nobody takes this as political, but this is just what I think will happen.
P.S. Yes, I know there are experiments to build non polluting coal fired generators. I'm all for it if they work.

 

[cowboy76]

I hope I don't start a conflagration with this, but the connection is that coal fired boilers put carbon dioxide into the air, which causes the green house effect. Whether you believe that global warming is entirely due to man made CO2 or not, it's certainly exacerbated by it. My personal opinion is that we'll never be able to reduce CO2 emissions soon enough, but there's a quick and dirty solution at hand. Global dimming. Right now the huge amount of pollution China is producing is mitigated by the huge amount of particulate matter included in the smog. This causes a dimming effect which negates about 80% of the green house effect produced. I read in the NY Times a few weeks ago a piece by a climate scientist named Dr Kenneth Caldeira saying that we could build a huge chimney and pump chemically inert particulates into the upper atmosphere. This would reflect just enough sunlight to reduce the global fever, but have no other negative effects. This would start as a "temporary" stop gap, but I predict it will continue for generations. I asked him if this would make plants "leggier" (to use a gardening term) and he said that the raised CO2 levels would make the plants grow even more lushly at the same temperature. This is not the solution that "Green" types want, but we can't deny the other 2/3 of the world's population the right to a modern life, just because of our pollution issues. Ain't gonna happen. Progress is going to continue, electrical generation will multiply ten or fifty fold within another generation or two, and the solutions to the problems will be utterly different from what is being discussed today. So that's the connection between coal fired boilers and melting glaciers.
I sure hope nobody takes this as political, but this is just what I think will happen.
P.S. Yes, I know there are experiments to build non polluting coal fired generators. I'm all for it if they work.

"So, electricity has no bearing that I can think of on our forests, glaciers, and only on small minor points does it have anything to do with fossil fuels."

I din't say they "DIDN'T" have any bearing on the environment,....I said they had a "minor" bearing on the environment....."minor".

I work in them, so I already know what bearing they have on the environment, you're not telling me anything I dont already know. You don't need to explain the surgery to a surgeon.....

They are not the most polular power generating stations in the US, therefore many are not in existance these days, depending on where you live.

However, what people dont reralize is that they are not as bad as they sound, given the new technology that is being put into them. (please see link as I am not going to post it here.)
http://www.careenergy.com/cleaner_environment/clean-coal-technology.asp

 

[Miss Neecerie]

If the bulbs...use more electricity....and the majority of the electricity in the US is generated using fossil fuels of one type or another....then by my puny reasoning...use less power = less burning of fuels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation has some handy charts about what the US energy is made up of...but I will recap in case you don't want to click..

in 2005
49.7% of electricity was coal driven generation
3% was petroleum
18.7% was natural gas
19.3% was nuclear
6.5% was hydroelectric
2.9% was other

The source data for that chart is below:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html

 

[Ada Veen]

So much coal, wow. I heard in a talk that as oil prices rise there will be even more of a switch to coal, it's good to hear that it's not too polluting.

 

[cowboy76]

If the bulbs...use more electricity....and the majority of the electricity in the US is generated using fossil fuels of one type or another....then by my puny reasoning...use less power = less burning of fuels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation has some handy charts about what the US energy is made up of...but I will recap in case you don't want to click..

in 2005
49.7% of electricity was coal driven generation
3% was petroleum
18.7% was natural gas
19.3% was nuclear
6.5% was hydroelectric
2.9% was other

The source data for that chart is below:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html

Your observations are correct about some of the percentages,....BUT what you're not taking into effct is the fact that things in the industry are changing very fast. I know as its something taht affects my job, the way we work, etc. Again, if you take a look at that link I posted for your guys, you'll see they are constantly cleaning up the coal buring technology since it is such a reliable source of energy.

Although your percentages are almost conpletely accurate depending on your source, the gaps between them are changing and fluxuating. So, no, just because you use one type of lightbulb, its not going to affect a forest. You're painting a broad picture with a very small brush.

No need to quabble amongst each other....everytime I hop onto a thread it seems at least ONE person just HAS to be argumentative?? This one here, that one there,...lets tone it down a bit and not try and "educate" the other,..how about it??!!

 

[cowboy76]

So much coal, wow. I heard in a talk that as oil prices rise there will be even more of a switch to coal, it's good to hear that it's not too polluting.

No its not, but people dont find out for themselves, they just go by popluar opinion without actually doing more research than going to Wikapedea or the AP Press.

I'm in the industry, I work to fix the boilers, (no one is telling me anything I dont already know, so why the argumentative comments by "some" of you??) and just so happens coal fired plants are ONE of MANY other power plants I get to work in. I have nothing to gain by being pro or con about them,....I still work either way,...you still need energy.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

No its not, but people dont find out for themselves, they just go by popluar opinion without actually doing more research than going to Wikapedea or the AP Press.

And why the 'personalization' of 'some people don't do research....

I'm in the industry, I work to fix the boilers, (no one is telling me anything I dont already know, so why the argumentative comments by "some" of you??) and just so happens coal fired plants are ONE of MANY other power plants I get to work in. I have nothing to gain by being pro or con about them,....I still work either way,...you still need energy.

Yep...we still need energy...but why shouldn't we decide to conserve and need -less- if it...where it is possible to do so.

Seems basic enough on that level to me.

 

[cowboy76]

Yep...we still need energy...but why shouldn't we decide to conserve and need -less- if it...where it is possible to do so.

Seems basic enough on that level to me.

Well, at what point did I say not to conserve energy?

Well, the power is out in parts of Oklahoma to my knowledge,...you dont hear anyone saying how wonderful life is without power there....

...BUT THEY SURE ARE CONSERVING A LOT OF ENERGY!

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Well, at what point did I say not to conserve energy?

Well, the power is out in parts of Oklahoma to my knowledge,...you dont hear anyone saying how wonderful life is without power there....

...BUT THEY SURE ARE CONSERVING A LOT OF ENERGY!

We are right back at the original square one.

Incandescent bulbs use more energy then Compact Fluorescents. Thus, regulating out the less energy efficient ones, by nature, conserves energy. Not regulating them out, does not conserve said energy.

 

[cowboy76]

Why tell someone what they should do though? Its up to you its up to me,..period. Geez, arguments for the sake of arguments,...how nice for the holdiays!

Ok then,.....moving right along,.....

So, how about those cool looking Repro Edison Lightbulbs??:whistling

 

[dhermann1]

Cowboy: You definitely know what you're talking about. I'd be curious to know what percentage of existing and planned coal facilities are using the advanced technology. One thing I think people need to realize is that every time a new energy saving innovation is in place, it merely increases the number of people using the technology, the consumption of energy NEVER goes down. I read a great book (I'll have to get the title and author, sorry) that says basically we'll never run out of energy and we'll never stop using more and more of it. We'll just keep innovating our way out of problems, and creating new ones in the process. More energy efficiency? Of course. Less consumption? Dream on.
Anyway, I suspect that old incandescents will be like antique cars, exempt from pollution regulations because they're so rare. They'll be used the way we use candles today, to create a quaint atmosphere. But the new LED technologies will enable us to illuminate our environments in ways we never imagined before. Like walls that give off a faint glow, with no specific point light source. Or ceilings that exactly produce the same spectrum as the sky.

 

[cowboy76]

Cowboy: You definitely know what you're talking about. I'd be curious to know what percentage of existing and planned coal facilities are using the advanced technology. One thing I think people need to realize is that every time a new energy saving innovation is in place, it merely increases the number of people using the technology, the consumption of energy NEVER goes down.

I dont have number for you as they constantly fluctuate and I'd have to phone people to find out. Guys that are plant supervisors, etc. I'm not going to call them for a question on a forum though. if I rmember when i see them or talk to them next time I'll ask to see what's coming down the line these days.
I know though that there are many new facilities going up in the midwest areas, and I "think" there is going to be a rebuilding of a local plant as I know they shut it down recently.

I agree about your statements about new energy innovations that are on the horizon. With the every growing population, you will never curb energy consuption, the theory is just wacky.

Conserve, yes, that is the way to go about it. You can still use old incandescent light bulbs if you wish, just use them in moderation. The fact is, if you look at your energy utilities bill this month and take not of the amounts. Then, plan on turning on, say one light in the house, also incorporating dimmer switches to lower the lgith (also give you a nice mood) in the actual room you are IN, and not two or three lights in other rooms or hallways you are NOT in (yes, people DO do this,...whether just forgetting or wanting a well lit home during the evening), and by finding old ways to heat your house, etc. (Ie. Heaterola, wood stove, etc.) then yes, you'll see a difference in your utillity bills. Lets not forget about solar power either,....another thing that goes back into history. Using the sun to heat water and so on....

I have a good friend of mine who uses a wood pellet stove to heat his house. Another that uses coal. Both have lowered their bills and energy consuption drastically!!! There are way to keep using our God given natural resources and use them wisely and responsibly.