ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area LED bulbs

mbhydro, I beg to differ as to the motives behind the PoCo "giveaways."

First of all, they're not giving anything away. Look closely at your bill and you'll find some special fee or rate increase that's what is really funding these programs.

Secondly .... the PoCo is between a rock and a hard place. They have an absolue requirement to supply us with all the power we want - yet opponents have made it nearly impossible to increase generating capacity. So, in desperation, they need to find ways to put off Judgement Day.

No nukes, no oil, no coal .... sooner or later, despite the fantasies of the 'green' crowd, we WILL run out of power.

Now it seems, due to the slipshod drafting of the regulations, that the UK has no power to entirely ban the sale of incandescent bulbs!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/.../Defra-lacks-power-to-ban-our-bulbs.html

Reno, the lack of new power generation facilities will, as you say, hit us hard in the next few years, as the Greens learn the hard way than 'renewables' don't work yet. Anyone in the UK older than 50 will remember the early seventies, when we had daily rolling powercuts. Mrs B & I used to come home from work, light some candles and cook our dinner in the fireplace! Galling? I worked on an atomic reactor all day and went home to the Stone Age!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/611...-Government-admits-power-shortfalls.html

Well, Alan ... that's another topic, for another time. Let's just say you're preaching to the choir!

I just brought it up to give some perspective as to where this problem originates. Just as mideaval rulers often stoked hatred of Jews to get their serfs to re-direct their resentments away from their lords, the "Greenies" are quite happy to have us mad at the power company - when they themselves created the problem!

Alan,

So, aside from building staircases and asaulting innocent ablating individuals, what did you do, when you were slaving over those hot atomic reactors all day?

Larry C

LED bulb equivalent to replace my 60w incandescent cost $40.00!! The locals would through sharp objects at me if I attempted to sell these bulbs right now. But the local POCO is offering big rebates to their non-residential customers for upgrading to LED Exit lights & T8 fluorescents, if installed by one of there "certified" electrical contractors, in which I happen to be.

I heartily endorse LED's for exit signs. Beyond that, I'll wait and see.

LED's are the "AFCI's of the lighting world"

Although I like the concept of LED exit signs, I have an issue with them being mostly red LEDs spelling out the word EXIT.

Being one of the many colorblind folks on the planet, I find it exceedingly difficult to see red letters in a darkened room.

Chicago is starting to allow LED exit signs but requires the same sign that has alwasy been used, only with white LEDs in place of the bulbs or CFLs as a light source. Those seem to me to be a great compromise between saving energy and keeping the appearance that people have been used to seeing for many years.

Larry, I worked as a draftsman in the Pipe Office, [ducting air, water, elec-trickery and such-like], which was as boring as heck, since I had been working under one of the best machine-tool designers in the UK, but we got a free house and double the salary.... We had a reputation for procrastination in Pipes, and were known as the 'Paper Moderated Slow Reactor'....

Back to LEDS. This article looks interesting, at least someone is putting their money where their mouth is....

http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/6/9/2

How very true. Even as an operator in the navy, I swore that we could burn the paperwork we generated and power the ship with just that.