Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-08-24 16:54:31 +0100, "Christian McArdle"
said:

The trouble is that the alternatives are not at all attractive.....

They're not that bad. It's not like you have to go with Ikea special
stick bulbs.

There is no need for wasteful lighting as low energy alternatives
exist.

But not aesthetically acceptable. Until that happens, these are
not viable alternatives.

But why should you be allowed to needlessly pollute just because you
prefer the look of older bulbs, which are actually not more attractive
than many CFLs, just slightly different.


I don't needlessly pollute for two reasons:

- I don't consider that CFLs are an acceptable form of lighting based on
what I expect from artificial lighting.

- I don't control the means of electricity generation (e.g. burning of
fossil fuels and consequent CO2 emission. That is in the hands of the
energy producers, the market for fossil fuels and to some extent the
government.

I don't buy the argument that says that if I reduce my electricity
consumption by some means or other it will reduce CO2 and other
pollutant emissions over the long term; and I don't even buy the one
that says that if everybody does, it will make a big difference.

Realistically, these things don't happen, so it would make far more
sense to focus on different areas:

- Heating is by far the largest use of domestic energy, so it makes
sense to go for the most efficient use of fossil fuel that one can.
That's under my control.

- Transport is almost certainly the second. I can affect that by
working at home when possible.

I don't think that reduction in electricity consumption, taken over time
would act as a means to reduce pollution, rather the reverse. That
will be market and cost driven. An increasing electricity consumption,
as will tend to happen anyway will have the effect of increasing the
demand for fossil fuels, given the present generating capacity, and
hence the cost. This in turn will make nuclear generation even more
attractive than it is today.

OTOH, reducing the rate of increase in electricity requirement would
have the effect of delaying the inevitable and obvious move to nuclear
generation and hence have a far more significant effect on polluting
emissions.



I could not agree more.

CFL's like all the other 'recycling/eco/green' issues in the end turn
out to be more sops to the eco conscience, than actual meaningful solutions.

I am reminded of the huge weight loss I noted years ago in a rather
attractive girl..'what diet did you use?' ' No diet at all' 'so what's
the secret?' ' Just eating less....'

All the excellent switching off of lights and TV's that my wife insist
on was totally negated when I came down this morning and find the room
with the UFH thermostat in it had the window wide open...so the poor UFH
had been heating the countryside since 4 a.m.

Domestic fuel consumption is actually far greater than all the
electricity consumption of fuel put together, and transport exceeds them
both.

The most major area to tackle is transport, and the causes of transport..

e.g. consider, you drive from e.g. Cambridge to London to go to Ikea,
to get our cheap tacky Swedish crap that has been imported from Sweden,
and so on. 120mile round trip, adding say 3 gallons of petrol - maybe
£13.50 - to the cost of the item. Before tyre and brake wear
replacement energies are considered.

Order on line, and save 3 gallons. Thats about 463 MJ of energy.

If that had been burnt in a power station it would probably be around
200 Megajoules of electrical output.

There are 8760 hours in a year. 3 Mega seconds. So thats about 66W

So. *That one trip to London and back equates to a 60W light bulb left
on 24x7 ALL YEAR*.