Re: Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity; Energy-Savers a Turnoff for Wives

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4649b40c.65159250@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> On a related topic, I saw an AP story yesterday that claimed lighting
> accounts for 22% of USA electricity use. Having earlier found (and cited)
> DOE data saying lighting was 9% of residential use and 6% of industrial
use,
> I contacted the EIA (Energy Information Administration) for help in
finding
> statistics for the commercial sector. You'll have to do the math yourself
> but, in 1999, lighting accounted for about 23% of total commercial sector
> electricity use. (716 / 3098)

Ever been interviewed by a reporter?  It's a thrilling experience.  They
managed to get SO much stuff wrong in the one newstory that I still shake my
head.  And that was twenty years ago.  Things haven't gotten any better.  I
see them run with figures that came from advocacy groups or vested interests
without an attempt to verify their accuracy and, worse still, they get
defensive if you point it out to them.

Fixing a pollution problem with a worse pollutant is a solution only a
scientist could love.  It's really a question of national priorities.  Do
you want to spend your tax dollars on bombs and wars and rebuilding foreign
infrastructures or spend the money on our own infrastructure?  Catch the
mercury and the carbon at the smokestack where you *know* you've caught it.
Remember when Detroit claimed it could never clean up car exhausts?  It can
be done if there's a will to do it.  The *will* came to Detroit in the form
of Hondas, IIRC, that met the Clean Air standard quite economically and
nearly sank the domestic auto industry.

--
Bobby G.