On Fri, 7 Jul 2006 15:46:42 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-
A very 1970s claim, one that was made by the nuclear "industry" when the Mad Woman of Finchley when she asked them to look at Salter's Duck. Mildly amusing, but no more.
Renewables will be providing 18% of Scottish electricity next year and there is no reason why that could not be 50% by 2020 with the right government attitude
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some older engineers may be out of date that does not mean that such things are impossible. This country was particularly badly served by the old predict and provide approach. White elephants like Inverkip and Torness were built. Since the Scottish electricity system became largely reliant on a handful of large power stations the obvious problems have manifested themselves.
Not if they can avoid it. Importing uranium is entirely unnecessary.
If you could change the lampholders you might get a better choice.
Take a look on here. I found their mini spiral candle lamps a good 60 watt Tungsten equivalent, and you don't see them (much) in a candle lamp fitting.
The message from Timothy Murphy contains these words:
Do keep up at the back.
One of the two main complaints about CFL lamps is that they're frequently /not/ compatible with exisiting fittings because they're too long. I can't fit them into my plaster uplighters, my old bathroom globes (or the new ones, strictly, but I've bodged it a bit). The PIR lamp by the front door says it's not suitable for CFLs and the none of the three bulkhead lamps in the house take them either because they're too long.
I recall once listening, while driving, to a R4 discussion about Electricity generation with the (then) head of (then) CEGB (Lord) Marshall - he of the gravelly voice;- he said 'there are three reasons that the French have invested in nuclear power stations; they've got no coal, they've got no oil and they've got no choice!"
House over the road was left uninabitable after an incandescent wall lamp in the kitchen had set fre to something accidentally placed over it. They were lucky to have the prescence of mind to shut the kitchen door before evacuating, or else it would have been a full rebuild.
CFLs also lead to savings in decorating costs, due to not blackening the ceiling.
I've /never/ liked the colour of electrical incandescents, I much prefer the light from the gas mantles of my childhood.
I dont understand why people can figure out the obvious, but they dont. I've seen people open the door on a boiling hot day in a coolish room in an attempt to cool it further.
Yes, complete climate control can be done with various added bits. One can even replace a chunk of winter heating needs. If energy prices go a long way north I guess this is the way domestic climate control will go. Its worth doing now, but people have far better things to do with the time, esp since there are no readyily available off the shelf systems, so its not a quick simple thing.
You mean ammonia absorption cycle? Equipment would be expensive. Or something home made with propane, which would be a lot more afforable for a useful output. Not sure what insurers would think about that though.
I dont see how it doesnt make any difference. You go to a supplier like toolstation or screwfix (scr bulbs mostly good, ts mostly bad) and buy one each of various bulbs. Any excuse eh.
Poundland do 6500K CFLs, but theyre junk quality. Output starts off low and deteriorates to pathetic after a year or so. Halophosphate. Also the light quality is carp.
On Fri, 7 Jul 2006 18:16:35 +0100, David Hansen wrote (in article ):
If there were real commercial viability to these solutions significant private investment would have been made and there would be significant capacity.
This is all very lovely and essentially the same position that Norway can enjoy in terms of being self sufficient in energy from hydroelectricity.
If one looks at the issue on a UK or European wide basis, the equations change considerably.
Provided that suitable reprocessing and the means to use reprocessed materials are in place, it may not be, technically. However, economics currently imply that once through fuel cycles are going to be less expensive than reprocessing for a very long time. That is before one gets to the political debates about reprocessing.
17" monitor might be rated at 130w, but in practice I dont think they eat anywhere near that. I'll make a very rough estimate of 40w for my old 17" crt, based solely on stick your hand on and see how warm it is. What does a 17" lcd eat? If it were 15w that would be 25w saving.
25w for 8 hour workday =3D 0.2kWh x5x50 =3D 50kWh/yr @10p each thats =A35 pa less leccy, if used 9-5 5 days. Roughly nothing.
Toolstation do minispirals that can replace golfs, but the light isnt the best. Screwfix do candles that will often replace golfs, but the shape and size is different. She just dont wanna use em.
Last time I looked there wasn't a vast difference in the rated powers between CRT and same sized LCD. LCD's are surprisingly greedy, that big back light...
On Fri, 7 Jul 2006 18:55:01 +0100 someone who may be Guy King wrote this:-
That rather depends on the fitting concerned. I still have some of the first sort of such lamps, with a glass envelope around the tubes. They have fitted in a variety of fittings, but not all.
When the sort without a glass envelope came out I was pleased, as they fitted more fittings. Ditto when the type with bent tubes came out. They can now be fitted in most fittings.
What about the Extra Mini?
My bathroom globes, about 15 years old, have had energy saving lamps in them since I got them. No modifications.
Nothing to do with the length of the lamp.
Last night I fitted two of these in bulkhead fittings where GLS bulbs were a tight fit. I have done the same in a number of other houses.
On Fri, 7 Jul 2006 20:37:18 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-
You appear to misunderstand the effect that government has on private investment. If government is encouraging something then the private sector will not invest in something that competes. Government can get money more cheaply and has more resources.
A good example is the wind turbine industry. The first ones were erected in Scotland and there was a good chance of a useful export business growing. However, government killed it off by promoting nuclear electricity. Now we buy the knowledge from Denmark, although we have some spanner plants.
It looks like Mr Liar is just as incompetent as his predecessors in this respect. The wave and sea current industry looks set to go the same way.
Note that the UK got very little exports out of nuclear. There was hardly an export success to justify the policy.
The proportions of generation change, but not the basic facts. For example, Germany does not have as good wind resources as the UK, on the other hand it has rather more land on which to grow energy crops.
On Fri, 7 Jul 2006 15:59:08 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-
I'm glad to see that you now admit that your arguments against compact fluorescent bulbs are a matter of personal prejudice. We all have such things, but trying to justify them on spurious grounds is not helpful.
On Sat, 8 Jul 2006 10:04:33 +0100, David Hansen wrote (in article ):
It's not a matter of personal prejudice at all.
- CFLs do not have anything like a clean spectrum that is a particularly good match to anything pre-existing them.
- Eyesight is a very individual thing and people certainly have different responses to light quality and spectrum.
- They also have different responses to perturbation and flicker in certain types of fluorescent lamp. Although this does not apply specifically to CFLs, it certainly does to other types of fluorescent fitting
The point of the foregoing is thus that different individuals will have different levels of acceptance, for perfectly valid reasons, certainly nothing to do with prejudice.
The next point is that these things are mechanically and visibly ugly. That is an opinion, but a reasonable one. Apart from not mechanically fitting in virtually all luminaires that I have, those that would fit would completely spoil the overall appearance of the fitting. I am not about to go out and replace them all when there is little that is suitable on the market and the cost isn't justified.
Finally, I strongly object to the games played by government in coercing people into using these things via the use of mandating them in building regulations and even arranging that the fittings won't accept proper bulbs. This is an unnecessary intrusion into people's personal space and I won't accept it. As I already explained, in the event that I bought a new house, these things would be the very first items to be ripped out and replaced with proper light fittings.
On the other side of the equation, the cost arguments that you have put forward are extremely weak; this always assuming that people are interested in making a minuscule saving on lighting energy use in the context of total house energy requirement anyway. You go on to attempt to present any nay-sayers as being prejudiced while at the same time brushing their verifiable position under the carpet.
If you want to promote this stuff as part of your greeny agenda, that's fine, but at least be honest about it.
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