Wal-Mart Is Pushing Compact Fluorescent Bulbs

While we all know from reading the internets that Wal-Mart is irredeemably evil, the world's largest retailer has committed to get compact fluorescent lightbulbs into 100 million homes this year. CFLs are found in only 6% of households today. These energy-saving bulbs use 75% less electricity than incandescents and produce far less greenhouse gas to manufacture and use. Wal-Mart seems determined to use its marketing prowess to do what hasn't successfully been done in the CFL's 25-year history: to convince consumers to pay more upfront for large savings over the product's lifetime.

Comments

Oh come on...

[Jarjarthejedi]

"While we all know from reading the internets that Wal-Mart is irredeemably evil"

What is that? Sure, the majority of people don't like Wal-Mart, but why do you feel the need to mention it in an article where Wal-Mart is doing something good?

As for the article it's mostly a "duh" thing. It's main points seem to be that Wal-Mart's trying to sell a lot of these bulbs, the people who make money off of incandescents don't like it, and then it goes into the history of the light bulb.

I'm glad Wal-Mart's doing this, too many people refuse to buy them, if Wal-Mart does what they always do (cheap) then their plan should work and power consumption should drop.

((Why do I see myself losing Karma here...?))

Re:Oh come on...

[Monkelectric]

A subject that nobody *EVER* discusses is the limits of human perception. Our brains our designed to make quick evaluations about things. This is the *ONLY* strategy that works because you have to evaluate thousands of things in your life.

When we give a name to something, an entity as large as walmart for instance, that allows us to sum up the hundreds of thousands of people and millions of actions they take on behalf of walmart as one concept. But in reality, walmart is hundreds of thousands of people and millions of actions.

Add this to a blurry concept of good and evil, and you've got a real mess that can't be summarized easily and thus can't be easily comprehended by our brains.

The truth about walmart (and every other thing) is it is neither evil nor good. Some of the people are evil, some of the policies are evil, some are good, some of the people are good. I worked for walmart after college during a hard time in my industry ... I met all those people, good, bad, evil, and the majority just people trying to feed their families. Most aren't even capable of understanding the damage walmart as a hole does to the country (wage depression which leads to manufacturing outsourcing which leads to more wage depression)

Re:They're still evil...

[jlarocco]

I'm not seeing how this makes them any less evil. If they sell the bulbs for less profit, then I'd say maybe a little less evil.

Selling things for a profit isn't evil.

If you want to complain about Walmart, complain about their shitty service, or how their employees are morons, or the over all low quality of the products they sell, or how they treat their employees like dirt. There's no shortage of reasons why Walmart could be considered "evil", but selling things for a profit isn't one of them.

Everytime you get a paycheck that isn't negative, you've sold your labor for a profit. Get over it.

Re:Brilliant!

[radtea]

Zero delay on modern bulbs. My only current complaint is that they don't play nice with dimmers. I use them everywhere else.

Simple Economics Alright

[Joebert]

If it succeeds in selling 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs a year by 2008

They will also have converted about 28% (nearly a third) of their yearly lightbulb sales to somthing that is 8 times as expensive.
Given that profit margins normally work on percentages, that should roughly octuple 28% of their profit margin on lightbulbs.
They should be making 2.96 times as much selling light bulbs, of course they want to push this.

Re:Brilliant! (not so!)

[phulegart]

OMG!

Are you freaking serious? The delay was too long? Have you become so immersed in the current culture of Instant Gratification, that when you weigh the individual bonuses and global bonuses of using these bulbs, against the minor annoyances of how long the bulb takes to achieve brightness and the exact color of "white" light that the bulb throws off (Ok, that wasn't YOU, but I'm replying to other freaks who agreed against the bulbs.. sue me)

Come ON! Let's see.. the bulbs use an incredibly small amount of electricity compared to regular incandescent bulbs.. so you get to save money there. Don't need to save money? I'll give you an address you can throw money at. I'm only one of the MILLIONS of people who could use that money you are throwing away by not switching to CF bulbs.

Don't like a "whiter" light? You prefer the yellowed light from incandescents? Ok, sure it is a "warmer" tone.. that is because it is created by a glowing filament... it is a "white" light born of a red light... you know... red as in infrared, red as in burning, red as in fire and heat.. remember playing with metal and campfires, getting a piece of metal glowing brightly orange, or even white hot (if the fire was hot enough). Seeing a common theme of wasted energy here, thrown off in HEAT that is unnecessary to the process of providing light? I say unnecessary, because if you want heat, use a blanket. Not a light bulb.

You bathe your head in more radiation coming from your cell phone. You are in no danger from your CF light bulb.

I just can't believe people are whining "But it takes soooo long for it to light up. WAH! Mommy! Make the bulb light faster!" It takes longer for a web page to load with broadband, than it takes for the light to come on. Christ, it takes less than a second. Time measured in Microseonds. Why aren't you whining about how seconds it takes your car to start between turning the key and actual ignition? WHy aren't you whining about how long it takes the BIOS to check your drives before booting begins off the harddrive? Why aren't you whining about how long it takes your OS ((Linux or Windows) to boot? My God. Is 30 seconds just way way too long to melt butter for you as well?

As far as the color of the light goes... get a life. There is more variation in the shade of white in the background of this freaking web page, from computer monitor to computer monitor, than there is in the difference between regular bulbs and CF bulbs. And if you are complaining about the color, and you DON'T have a specific color profile set up for your monitor, as well as the exact INF file for your monitor, and programs like Adobe color correction running, AND an accurate, less than 4 month old AFGA color chart nearby to check your monitor color reproduction against.. you have no right to talk about the shade of white.

Stop burning paper money and get with the program. And go buy some damn CF bulbs. At Walmart!