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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.'"
GE needs to team up with Cree and retrofit their factory for making the next generation LED bulbs.
GE is looking out for themselves. Making light bulbs overseas is cheaper, so they do it without one bit of shame. Which is fine, they're a corporation, their duty is to their shareholders. If their shareholders want profits, they have to do it cheaper.
The US government has duties to the citizens. Unfortunately this can put some citizens out of sorts, because the needs of the whole may be different. Sorry, but it happened with the buggy whip makers, it'll happen with the light bulb ones.
Hopefully these employees are getting retraining, education, and whatever other resources they need to find jobs. You can certainly differ over whether or not the restrictions of light bulbs are appropriate, but we can't just throw our hands up and do nothing. If you have better ideas, please give them instead of just offering criticism.
I would rather hear dumb ideas than just hearing that you think all ideas are dumb.
And LEDs don't require you to use a hazmat suit to pick up pieces if you break one (since they contain Mercury).
LED light bulbs are available.... pricey, but perhaps worth it?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Please explain how the government mandating energy efficiency is equivalent to the government screwing us.
The government keeps your energy prices artificially low. I think that gives them the right to make sure you're not pissing away energy. Or would you rather electricity was five times the current price?
I actually might prefer that. But I also make significantly more than the average person.
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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.
I'm sorry, this doesn't make any sense. Are you talking about reactive power here? Reactive power is important in grid control... but it is not energy. Energy is the issue here. Fluorescent bulbs do not, in fact, use more energy than incandescent-- they use less.
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.
Actually, the reason that fluorescent bulbs are more energy efficient is because their emission puts out more of its light in the parts of the spectrum that the human eye uses efficiently, not less. Incandescents are way too red-rich. (As should be obvious-- there's no way to get a thermal source to an emission temperature of 5800K, which is the sun's temperature.)
You are an idiot, it's just that simple.
No industry in the US can compete with another country where the wages are 1/100th of what a similar US worker needs to get paid for doing the same job.
Have you noticed the prices of any of the following going down to a level that a worker can can still have a decent lifestyle in this country while being paid the equivalent of wages paid in China which is less the ONE dollar an hour?
Think you can live anywhere in this country making One dollar an hour? Or anywhere in the UK making One Pound an hour? Or anywhere in the EU making One Euro an hour besides perhaps in a dumpster behind a Wal-Mart?
What kind of job do you have? i bet it is in IT. Trust me, if they could figure out a way to outsource your ass to China, they would and that person might be getting paid the Chinese equivalent of 5 dollars an hour. Can you live where you live right now and maintain your lifestyle on 5 dollars an hour? Yeah I didn't think so.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!