It's times like this I don't mind living in the US.
Well, do not get your hopes for the quality of our politicians up too high just yet.
Up here in the Pacific Northwest United States, we have cool temperatures most of the year. Talking with our legislators is a frustration filled and head-shaking experience. Pointing out that the banning of incandescent lamps, which they are banning in hope of saving electricity, are usually inside our houses, and those houses up here most often are heated with electricity (remember our "All Electric Homes" marketing campaigns?), is not going to accomplish their goal was not persuasive. Out here the heat from those incandescent lamps is not wasted or lost; it stays in the home, as far as the insulation can keep it there. What that means is that the thermostat on the wall of that home does not come on as often to turn on the electric baseboard heaters in the home. Up here, there will be no real saving in electrical power consumption as long as we heat the homes with the hydro-electric power generated with our dams.
Moving out into the outdoors, we did change our traffic signal lights from incandescent bulbs to Light Emitting Diode (LED) displays. We did cut our electrical power consumption by 90 per cent. Yes, we are using only 10 per cent of the electrical power we previously used to run a full eight phase intersection. We also stopped going out to the intersections once per year to change the light bulbs. The management people pointed proudly to the saving in labor costs. However, we have also lost the checks we used to make of the traffic signals. We tightened loose screws and replaced those that were missing. We cleaned the lenses. We tightened the traffic signal mounting bolts. We checked and tightened the electrical connections inside the traffic signals. There were lots of things we did in addition to changing the light bulbs. All of that is gone now. Now we respond to the traffic signal displays that have failed. The ones that just look bad are ignored until something happens that requires our attention.
There is something else about the LED displays that is not discussed very often. Perhaps because most people do not know that the problem exists. The LED displays often generate Radio Frequency noise. As I drive from one traffic signal to another, I can tell when I am getting close to one with the LED displays, because the RF noise over-rides the squelch setting on my communications radio and it turns on with a rushing or hissing sound from the speaker. This increased noise level does interfere with a desired radio signal while I am near the intersection.
Again I say, do not get your hopes up too high for our politicians. Probably the main benefit will be the much higher prices the manufacturers of the products can charge for the replacement lighting devices for the incandescent lamp. Concerns for the ozone layer were given as the main driving force behind the banning of Freon R-12 and R-22 for refrigeration and air conditioning systems. Has anyone checked the price for the R-134a replacement, or for the much more expensive lubricating oils you must use that are compatible with R-134a? Also the cost of the reclaiming equipment a refrigeration technician must purchase and use today? There are reasons why it costs you so much more to get your air conditioner serviced. E. I. Dupont du Nemours had fully amortized the engineering costs for Freon R-12 and R-22. They did not go out of business as a result of that ban. If anything, their profits are up again.
I wonder where the real driving force behind a lot of this legislation comes from?
