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GE Closes Last US Light Bulb Factory
pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the US is closing this month, marking a small, sad exit for a product and company that can trace their roots to Thomas Alva Edison's innovations in the 1870s. What made the plant vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014 but rather than setting off a boom in the US manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas. GE developed a plan to see what it would take to retrofit a plant that makes traditional incandescents into one that makes CFLs but even with a $40 million investment the new plant's CFLs would have cost about 50 percent more than those from China. 'Everybody's jumping on the green bandwagon,' says Pat Doyle, 54, who has worked at the plant for 26 years. But 'we've been sold out. First sold out by the government. Then sold out by GE.'"
Edison is a dick.
'Everybody's jumping on the green bandwagon,' says Pat Doyle, 54, These bulbs are far from environmentally friendly or “so called green” and is another example of how foolish laws attempting to “manage” people’s behavior create more long term problems. Each bulb contains about 5 milligrams (mg) of mercury, a toxic heavy metal that can interfere with the development of children and unborn fetuses and may cause a wide range of health issues in adults, including brain, kidney and liver damage. Large commercial users of fluorescent lights are required to recycle, proper disposal of CFLs, but not home owners. Huh?????? Let’s just assume that 7 million people in NYC dispose of one bulb a month, that is 35 Kilos of Mercury introduced into the environment each month in NYC alone. If I have my numbers wrong I am sorry, it has been awhile since I have done those types of calculations, regardless the amount of Mercury is not insignificant. I personally would rather live with the consequences of the incandescent lamp for a while longer.
Now the Euro-Eco-Nazis are forcing incandescents off our shelves here, the best alternative that still meets Greenie-Gestapo rules is halogen-encased filaments in a secondary (traditionally sized) glass envelope. I've bought plenty, similar colour temperature, no fluoro-nonsense. Guess what, they all have 'GE' stamped on them. Made somewhere else, of course.
Please explain how the government mandating energy efficiency is equivalent to the government screwing us.
Uh, most people I know hate CFLs, but they're forced to use them because assholes in government have mandated their use; in Britain they've failed to even give the damn things away. How is that _NOT_ government screwing the people?
And, of course, in two or three years once everyone has replaced their old bulbs with CFLs, the government will suddenly discover that CFLs contain mercury and therefore we must all replace them with LEDs instead.
If CFLs are really so wonderful then there's no need for the government to get involved because people will buy them instead of ordinary bulbs. But they're not, so they're being forced on people who don't want them.
Because the government isn't really mandating energy efficiency. When you get right down to it, CFLs are less efficient than incandescent bulbs. I sat down and did the math a couple of years ago and concluded that I would never break even.
First, you have the problem of power factor, which means that with fluorescent bulbs, you're often drawing a lot more power than you think, it just isn't getting metered that way. Second, you have the spectrum of light, which because it is balanced towards the blue end and because it isn't a continuous spectrum, isn't perceived as being of equal brightness. To get the same perceptual brightness, IIRC, you are drawing slightly more power with fluorescent bulbs than with modern incandescent (e.g. halogen) designs, and approaching that of plain jane incandescent bulbs.
LEDs are similarly useless. The amount of light output from the brightest ones I can buy are inadequate even for a small room.. Not to mention that they are LOUD if you use them in a dimmer circuit like the one in my bedside table lamp. I've just about concluded that all non-incandescent bulbs are unusable, and at best are a serious step down from incandescent bulbs.
And that's before you add in things like the increase in depression, suicides, and cancer linked with fluorescent lighting.
We're getting massively screwed.
BTW, the government isn't subsidizing energy significantly. Maybe a little, but certainly not a favor of two, much less five. All but my lowest tier of power costs more than it would cost me to use solar, without any subsidies or tax incentives factored in, assuming a grid-tie system (no storage costs). And that's buying PV cells at low-quantity prices. Nearly every other form of power production costs less than that. You're right that technically the government is holding down the cost of energy, but only by limiting the power of the monopolies that would otherwise gouge us for all we're worth. Energy is inherently not a free market and can never be a free market, making that argument moot.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Because god damn it I should have a RIGHT to burn as much energy unnecessarily as I want. I have a RIGHT to be an irresponsible, planet destroying, jackass who clings to obsolete and inefficient technologies. How DARE the government force me to utilize a less polluting, longer lasting technology. [/sarcasm]
I've been to the DMV. I've been to vote. I've been to the Post Office, and I've dealt with various Federal bureaus.
Based on that experience, I do not trust the government to do anything right.
Advice: on VPS providers
You're missing the obvious point ON PURPOSE. The point is that no one will switch to a cheaper version that requires more initial investment, even if it clearly saves a lot of energy.
Yes, and? Where do you get the right to _FORCE_ people to do something that they wouldn't otherwise have chosen to do?
The reality is that CFLs don't come close to saving enough money to justify their costs, and they have real issues compared to incandescent bulbs. For example, we have two CFL lights here that the previous owners installed and we've already had to replace one of those light fixtures because it melted; having my house burn down because of an overheating CFL bulb would certainly eliminate any cost benefit of a small decrease in electricity usage.
Which is why people like you have to get the government to force people to use them when we don't want to. The funny part is that the left is pushing this nonsense when the primary beneficiaries will be the profits of EVIL CORPORATIONS like GE who the left would ordinarily be campaigning against.
So the solution is to *again* require the people to pay more. Typical really.
"Hey it hurts if I push my hand down on the barbecue. Hey, what's that ? A blowtorch ? Where do I stick my hand ?"
You see it'll stop hurting if you just do more of it. In *exactly* the same way. (which is why all statist governments, whether socialist or nazist, if they're really so different, started killing their own people on a large scale).
Because it "wouldn't be fair". I'm sure some kind of "poor people" would be screwed like this.
Incidentially, it also gives them more power to interfere in your private life. Of course, this is pure coincidence.
It was hell getting a cooking surface in vitro-ceramics.
Gas is more efficient.
Convection oven?
http://reviews.walmart.com/1336/9222614/euro-pro-0-75-cu-ft-convection-oven-with-rotisserie-reviews/reviews.htm
It is a huge joke.
If you're talking about your comment, then yeah, it is. Although you have perfectly demonstrated your own premise - people hate change.