"Andy Hall" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 14:11:37 -0000, "Owain"
wrote:

"Andy Hall" wrote
|"Christian McArdle" wrote:
| ... put a ten pound tax on each incandescent light bulb, to ensure
| they retail at considerably more than the cost of a proper bulb.
| The bulbs should also come with a health warning on the side,
| saying that you are causing irreparable and needless damage to
| the environment.
| I don't think that that would fly somehow. Until the appearance and
| colour temperature of these can be made to match tungsten lighting
| or at least be in the area, and be dimmable people, I don't think
| that they will become that popular.

They'd become much more popular very quickly if incandescents cost a
tenner
each!

However, the price of CFLs is kept down because they are in competition
with
very cheap GLS. If GLS were taxed to be a tenner each then CFL
manufacturers
could creep their prices up and we'd all end up paying more to the
manufacturers or the government either way.

Perhaps we should simply tax energy more; at full 17.5% VAT, and possibly
with a tax on top of that for larger bills to go towards paying for new
and
greener power stations (because we're going to need new power stations
'real
soon now'). At the moment large and inefficient users actually pay less
per
kWh because they get discounted rates.

Good points Owain.

It's counterintuitive of course. Utilities are already charged in
this way in California.

Of course if light bulbs were heavily taxed, there would become a
black market in them......

Perhaps the government would then introduce colour temperature
detector vans.

A year or so back, California had a power shortage. They blamed all sorts
for it. Very few hit the real point. They were telling people not to use
their washing machines, dishwashers and dryers, as these would create
brownouts and then blackout. US appliances are hopelessly inefficient. If
the US government committed to an EU like AAA rating, then none of this
would have happened. CRT usage is dropping, collective heavy power usage,
due to the introduction of LCDs, but the US government still is not
legislating to reduce power.

Legislating is the only way. Do you think the building industry would have
voluntarily built to the insulation levels we are to see in 2005? Not in a
million years!!!! In 1990 when insulation levels rose by a miniscule
amount, the British Building Industry said insulation was "cosmetic". Apart
from the windows, nothing else of insulation you see.

In the UK all appliances sold should be at least AAA and insulation levels
to Scandinavian levels - BY LAW.


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