Re: Digital Tools Help Users Save Energy, Study Finds

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Dave Houston" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:478a9ac9.312662203@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> I saw that article. There was another a few weeks back (NYT, IIRC) about a
> company that manufactures equipment to generate electricity using waste
heat
> from smokestacks. The potential savings from both ideas is huge (4-5 times
> the savings from CFLs) but most utilities are guaranteed a rate of return
on
> investment so they have no interest in reducing their plant & equipment -
> the more they waste, the more they profit.

What worries me the most is that we'll adopt a long term solution that add
mercury to the environment before we thoroughly review all the alternatives
that don't pose a mercury threat.  California seems to be heading in that
unfortunate direction, though.

> The smokestack generators could even be combined with scrubbers to remove
> mercury and other pollutants.

As I said to Bill (and I KNOW you're old enough to remember the exhaust of a
high compression 1960's V-8!), the carmakers whined that it couldn't be done
and the auto industry lost ground to foreign autos that it never recovered.
We shouldn't let that history repeat itself.

> But congress isn't likely to take on the electric power industry from
whence
> cometh campaign funds. Instead, they force CFLs on consumers. It's a
twofer
> as they can also collect campaign funds from Philips and Wallmart.

Spawlmart *could* do it right, or at least better than they're doing with
in-store recycling and realistic cash deposits built into the cost of the
bulb to encourage recycling.   But mandating a technology that's clearly not
up to the technical specs of what it's replacing smacks very much of Big
Business and its captive Congress to punish people for demanding a cleaner
environment.  Just like Big Auto tried to pass on much more than what it
cost them to add pollution control equipment.  Young whippersnappers
probably don't remember how bitter a battle that was.

--
Bobby G.