11 replies to this topic

[stocks]

Consider the recent "lights out" campaign that supposedly should energise the world about the problems of climate change by urging citizens in 27 big cities to turn out their lights for an hour. With scores of companies and municipalities signing up, and even the monarchies of Denmark and Sweden turning off the lights in their many palaces, the World Wildlife Fund quickly called it an amazing success. Newspapers around the world dutifully wrote feel-good stories about how engaged environmentalists celebrated as the lights went out around the world.

Nobody, it seemed, wanted to spoil the party by pointing that the event was immensely futile, that it highlighted a horrible metaphor, or that it caused much higher overall pollution.


Curiously, nobody suggested that the "lights out" campaign should also mean no air conditioning, telephones, Internet, movies, hot food, warm coffee, or cold drinks - not to mention the loss of security when street lights and traffic signals don't work. Perhaps recruiting support would have been much harder had the Danes also had to turn off their heat.

Ironically, the lights-out campaign also implies much greater energy inefficiency and dramatically higher levels of air pollution. When asked to extinguish electric lights, most people around the world would turn to candlelight instead. Candles are cozy and seem oh-so-natural. Yet, when measured by the light they generate, candles are almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs, and more than 300 times less efficient than fluorescent lights.

Moreover, candles create massive amounts of highly damaging indoor particulate air pollution, which in the United States is estimated to kill more than a 100,000 people each year. Candles can easily create indoor air pollution that is 10-100 times the level of outdoor air pollution caused by cars, industry, and electricity production. Measured against the relative decrease in air pollution from the reduced fossil fuel energy production, candles increase health-damaging air pollution 1,000-10,000-fold.

Unfortunately, the lights-out campaign exemplifies the state of much of our environmental debate. We are spoon fed stories that fit preconceived frameworks. For example, the recent breakup of a massive glacier in the Antarctic supposedly proves the mounting effects of global warming. But we don't hear that the area was ice-free, possibly just some 400 years ago, without the help of global warming. We don't hear that the Wilkins glacier makes up less than 0.01% of Antarctica. Nor do we hear that the Antarctic is experiencing record sea ice coverage since satellite measurements began.


http://commentisfree...lights_out.html

[stocks]

Wonder what the penalty is for possession of an illegal light bulb.

Gore-bulbs:

Doesn’t it seem like year after year, more and more decisions we should be making for ourselves, are instead being made by nameless bureaucrats in Washington? They tell us how to spend our money. They tell us how to run our businesses. They tell us how to raise our families. And now, when you thought things couldn’t become anymore absurd, they even tell us what kind of light bulbs we can use in our own homes.

Yes, that’s right, a recent piece of legislation passed in Washington has outlawed the everyday household light bulb.

Think this a joke?

I only wish it were. Congress slipped into the recent energy bill a mandate that within four years the everyday incandescent bulb is to disappear from the shelves of your local grocery and hardware stores. In it’s place? The fluorescent bulb that for years many consumers have avoided.



http://www.townhall....p;comments=true

[stocks]

But that raises an interesting question: If the new bulbs are "superior in every measurable way," as the Mankato (Minnesota) Free Press put it in an editorial, why did Congress need to make traditional incandescent bulbs illegal?

That's right. As part of the energy bill passed last year, lawmakers phased out traditional bulbs. In a few years they'll be outlawed, which could lead to a large black market in "Soft White" light bulbs.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., wants to keep Washington's hands off our light sockets. "I was just outraged that Congress would want to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the American people," she told reporters when she introduced the "Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act" last month. That measure would repeal the ban on incandescents, leaving Americans free to choose their source of illumination.

This only makes sense.

Americans are smart enough to decide for themselves which products they'd prefer to use. It's only inferior or unnecessary products (think of ethanol) that require congressional intervention to survive. Useful or innovative products (iPods, cell phones) thrive on their own.

The light bulb ban isn't the first time Congress has attempted to protect Americans from wastefulness. Some years ago, lawmakers outlawed toilets that use more than 1.6 gallons per flush. The low-flow toilets don't work as well, of course. Ironically they often require several flushes to, shall we say, get the job done.

http://www.realclear..._reasoning.html

[stocks]

Ironically, the lights-out campaign also implies much greater energy inefficiency and dramatically higher levels of air pollution. When asked to extinguish electric lights, most people around the world would turn to candlelight instead. Candles are cozy and seem oh-so-natural. Yet, when measured by the light they generate, candles are almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs, and more than 300 times less efficient than fluorescent lights.

Moreover, candles create massive amounts of highly damaging indoor particulate air pollution, which in the United States is estimated to kill more than a 100,000 people each year. Candles can easily create indoor air pollution that is 10-100 times the level of outdoor air pollution caused by cars, industry, and electricity production. Measured against the relative decrease in air pollution from the reduced fossil fuel energy production, candles increase health-damaging air pollution 1,000-10,000-fold.

Unfortunately, the lights-out campaign exemplifies the state of much of our environmental debate. We are spoon fed stories that fit preconceived frameworks.

http://commentisfree....lights_out.htm

[stocks]

UK Offices and factories to undergo electricity rationing this winter to stop households being plunged into darkness

Businesses will be offered compensation to shut down for four hours a day
Fires and other setbacks put some of UK’s biggest generators out of service
Two nuclear power plants are offline and unlikely to be running in time for start of colder weather

The second measure, which has never before been used in Britain, would see the resurrection of power stations that have been closed but not yet dismantled. National Grid yesterday contacted the owners of recently closed plants to see if they could be running in time for winter.

The majority of these are gas stations, though it is believed some coal or oil plants could also be asked to take part.




Read more: http://www.dailymail...l#ixzz3CGzHcIZC
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[stocks]

UK Offices and factories to undergo electricity rationing this winter to stop households being plunged into darkness

Nuclear Shutdowns Put Belgians and Britons on Blackout Alert

In Belgium, rolling blackouts are already part of this winter's forecast because three of the country's largest reactors—reactors that normally provide one-quarter of Belgian electricity—are shut down.

The blackout plans, released in broad form early this month and at the street-by-street level last Friday, lay out how distributors can ration power supplies.

Response to the plans has been explosive.

Officially Belgium is approaching the first deadline for a nuclear phaseout legislated by Belgium's parliament in 2003, which would require the shutdown of the three oldest nuclear reactors in 2015 and the remaining four by 2025. But Verbruggen says there has been no coordinated policymaking to create alternative supplies, while the reactors' French owners—EDF and Electrabel parent company GDF Suez—have been preparing Belgium's reactors for continued operation.

Verbruggen says the present fear of power shortages may translate into public support for overriding the nuclear phaseout: "Because the strategic behavior of Suez and EDF is strong, and the Belgian political system is weak, the overall result of the black-out campaign could be a 10-year life extension of the three oldest plants. The majority of people will accept the life extension because they place supply reliability at the top of their preferences."


http://spectrum.ieee...-power-supplies

[diogenes227]

All these climate-change awareness demonstrations this week worldwide must be driving you crazy. Er...crazier.

[stocks]

Britain will run out of electricity unless it axes green target, warns ex-Minister

Owen Paterson will warn energy policy is a 'slave to flawed climate action'
Britain is aiming to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050

Green energy policy is 'the most regressive policy since the Sheriff of Nottingham' – with vast subsidies on consumers' bills going straight to the pockets of landowners and green investors.

... policy should focus on supplying cheap energy and cutting emissions. This, he says, can best be done by fracking for shale gas and building small gas and nuclear-powered electricity stations.




Read more: http://www.dailymail...l#ixzz3G1qWRUUf
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[stocks]

UK - Fantasy policies will not solve our energy crisis

Our power stations are ageing fast and replacements are urgently needed. Yet for years, our politicians have failed to act

The fire at Didcot B power station is not going to bring the National Grid to its knees. But in combination with other fires at Ironbridge and Ferrybridge power stations, and problems with the Heysham and Hartlepool nuclear reactors, it will chip away at our surplus generating capacity, to the point where blackouts will become, if not likely, then far more likely than they should be.

Our power stations are ageing fast. We have eked out their lifespan for longer than expected, but replacements are urgently needed. Yet for years, our politicians have failed to act, promoting costly and over-subsidised renewables rather than building new gas or nuclear plants. To make matters worse, much of our capacity has been scrapped, in compliance with environmental restrictions set in Brussels.

If things continue as they are, the prospect has been raised of Seventies-style restrictions on energy use, even rolling blackouts.



http://www.telegraph...rgy-crisis.html

[stocks]

Remember when washing clothes was easy?

We visited the appliance shop where we had recently purchased a new clothes washing machine a few months earlier. I mentioned to the salesman that our new washer was very slow, taking nearly two hours to finish a large load compared to our old one, which took about 35 minutes. With a bright smile, he explained that that was because of the new federal energy efficiency standards for clothes washers enacted by the Obama administration’s Department of Energy in May 2012.

And by the way, our salesman interjected, this standard also applies to new dishwashers. They now take as long as three hours to complete the wash and dry cycle. Oh, about your nineteen-year-old dishwasher…don’t expect the new one to last that long. No matter which one you buy, from $250 to $1000, the average expected life of the new washers is five to seven years.


http://www.americant...embrazilem.html