Man Based Global Warming....

While we are on the subject of energy conservation as an electrician I want to bring up another interesting question.

How many of you have recessed lighting in your homes?

How many recessed cans per room and what size room?

Someone who's truly energy concious knows exactly where I'm going with this

 

Yep. That's why all my recessed lighting is LED.

 

None, and I won't allow them to be installed.

This is were LEDs should be a giant step forward -- thin flat pucks with directionality similar to recessed can lights, without the hole in the insulation envelope.

 

Credibility gone, again. I was replacing globes at an alarming rate, until I made the switch to CFLs throughout my home and I'm sure this experience has been repeated across the membership here. I never bought cheap globes, only Phillips, GE, and similar. I tried them all but still I was changing a bulb every couple of weeks. Only place I don't use CFLs is in my bathroom because they seem to not like steam, I have halogen globes in there. Even my garage door openers have CFLs installed because I got sick of changing incandescent globes.

When my CFLs finally fail I'll look into LEDs, but last time I looked they were out of my reach.

 

I agree with much of that, CFL life is at least an order of magnitude greater than incandescents. I didn't have much luck with the globe style CFL's but didn't like the "hollywood" vanity fixtures either. So I replaced the fixtures in all three baths with ones that would take standard spiral CFL's. I've not had any trouble with them and the first ones are a year old now (seven bulbs total for those.)

I'm not aware of any LED's that can put out the same quality of light for general lighting as a CFL at any sort of reasonable price (if at all.) And from what I've been able to calculate from specs, the current lumens/watt for LED's is the same as CFL's. Therefore I can't see any advantage to an LED at present for standard installations.

In theory LED's will eventually be able to offer several times as many lumens per watt for general lighting. But that is not the case with what I've seen so far. And I doubt the purchase cost will ever be below that of the CFL simply because of the number of components (multiple LED's) and complexity of the diffuser. With luck perhaps they will become only fractionally more expensive.

I do have a few LED's in service for night lights (safety lights on stairs). They work well enough for that, although they are ice blue and very directional. If one needs directional light, LED's are a good choice.

In CFL conversion I've gotten rid of a large number of relatively expensive (~$1/bulb) candelabra and globe lights.

 

Without prattling on about AGW, I will respond to your comments about CFL/LED.

I agree that LEDs are a much more efficient light source, but they are not without their problems, mostly with flickering to your eye when your eye moves in relationship to the bulb. Also color rendition is more difficult with LEDs, although that is getting better.

On the other hand, CFLs are very good alternative until LED technology matures. As for getting them for $1. You can get all kinds for ~$1, sometimes with a rebate sometimes without. ACE hardware, Lowes, Home Depot, often in conjunction with a local utility. And these are not just the cold, ice cream cone stye either. I have bought Panasonics, Satcos and others certainly for less than $2.

The reason that CFLs have become mainstream has nothing to do with the manufacturers lobbying congress. There is a huge disparate number of makers, non whom have much control over the market, ergo no power to lobby anyone!

The reason they have become mainstream is because early adopters (like me!) have brought them mainstream, and have convinced our friends that not only do you save CO2 emissions, you save energy and you save MONEY! Mainstream because people who are in a position to influence others have stood up and acted in a good way.

Icarus

 

At least I am DOING SOMETHING, as opposed to folks like you who sit back and watch the world collapse. Am I a paragon of virtue, no, but I do as much as I can to walk the walk, instead of just TALKING!

 

Science is based on observation and experimentation. With the release of the hacked e-mails, observational data appears to be questionable. No experiments exist to prove the theory. Climate models have failed to reconcile our current cooling period.

Do you just love it when scientists use words like "may", "probable" or "likely"? Instills great confidence.

Science is not based on "consensus" nor can any theory be validated based on flawed data or flawed models.

CO2 levels seem to follow temperature rise, not precede it:



Oh, and here's a picture of a Springfield XDm chambered in .40 S&W.

 

The world is collapsing huh?

 

You can't prove a negative. Science is the pursuit of truth, not consensus...

 

Lol

 

I speak from my own experience here guys. Most of you are just homeowners commenting based on the experiences in your homes
I install and maintain thousands of fixtures a year. Far more than anyone that has commented recently. In my experience the Costco,Lowes, Home depot, menards cheap bulbs do not hold up in high usage industrial/commercial applications. Some of these places the lights are on 24/7. LED's are far more cost efficient far better light and last far longer than CFL's.


When we replace bulbs be it CFL or standard flourescents. We recycle them but we store them and do it once a year. Out of the 20 local clients we have service contracts with 6 being homeowners 3 being small insurance agencies, A small office building about 7500 sq feet with 4 different offices alone. And a few more office buildings similar. On the average year we recycle enough CFL's to fill a 6 cubic yard dump truck.

We have a similar clientele Using LED bulbs. Plus 2 50 unit apartment buildings. In the five years servicing and replacing them I have recycled enough bulbs to fill a 5 cubic foot chest freezer box. That alone should tell you something. In all those years there have been 3 customers that have complained about the quality of the LED's They are about 70 years old and couldnt see if you filled there entire living area with 500w halogen worklights

 

I've noticed a few people have commented on CO2 and its role in the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas and how can we be certain it does anything.

I'll lay out the basics:

The earth acts as black body as it receives incoming solar radiation (shortwave). As it does the surface will warm up. All heated objects must emit electromagnetic radiation. The Earth does this in the form of longwave radiation at around 11um. Eventually the Earth will reach radiative equilibrium. The math is more complex than I am comfortable with but the calculations show that without an atmosphere the Earth would be on average -18C. *See bottom of post for the equation.

Real world observations show that the average temperature across all seasons on the Earth is actually 15C. We have a problem here. How do we explain why the Earth is warmer than it should be?

The answer is greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases absorb longwave radiation. The Earth emits longwave radiation with an approx wavelength of 10um which is well within the range of greenhouse gas absorbption. Carbon dioxide (CO2) consists of a single carbon atom and two hydrogen atoms bonded to it, one on each side. Because greenhouse gasses are comprised of 3 or more atoms, they are loosely bonded and have a certain freedom of movement and thus are affected by longwave radiation in the form of vibrations. The carbon dioxide molecule can absorb infrared radiation and the molecule will vibrate. As molecules return to a ground state the molecule will release radiation which will likely be picked up by another molecule. Some radiation will be lost to space
(OLR) but some will stay close to Earth through this process and heat will build up thus warming the Earth and changing the total energy balance.

Now my question is this. If you don't believe in greenhouse gases and their effects on climate then how else do you explain the difference in the effective Earth temperature at -18C and the observed average temperature of 15C?




*Formula for determing Earth's effective temperature

 

Yes, I am a homeowner. Two lights on timers, running about 2200 hours/year, have been CFLs since about ... 1992? 1994? Most survived something similar to their rated 10,000 hours. Manually switched lights, fewer hours, were swapped to CFL gradually. Units then typically cost $15-18. I had very good experience with Phillips and Panasonic, mixed luck with GE, and bad luck with LOA, Feit, and Satco.

Now, the timed lights are nVision and Ikea, the heavily used manual lights are Panasonic and Ikea. These were mid-priced units, and nearly all have been in place more than three years. The lightly used locations have a mishmash of old surviving bulbs and a couple new cheapies.

We should probably move this line out of GW and into one of the other Env threads

 

I've done fairly extensive CFL conversions in 5 homes. Two of those were for family. (When I've checked all of their bulbs are still in place, and they are happy with the performance of what I selected for them when I ask.) The other three were ones I lived in and I've taken my bulbs with me leaving behind the incandescents I pulled in the first place. I've got something like 100 CFL's and LED's installed in my home at the moment. The LED's cost a lot more per lumen and aren't kicking much butt. They are only present because the small form factor fit them rather than a CFL.

The only time I had longevity issues with CFL's was in the very first home. That was resolved under warranty for the pack of Home Depot bulbs (Commercial Electric, then nVision, now Ecosmart) that failed in about two weeks and none of the replacements have failed. I vaguely recollect that I had a pack or two of 60W equivalent GE's that went in about a year of heavy use (~4-5,000+ hours.) I figured I got most of what was advertised in the way of service life and didn't like their instant on performance, so I didn't seek warranty replacement. I still have two of these, I think another is the one that failed this year. (I've got it stashed away for eventual recycle.)

CFL enclosed spiral globes and reflectors I've tried have serious problems with low light output at start up. I've checked these with a lux meter and they are just awful.

Reliable standard CFL replacements don't cost anywhere near $4/bulb, that's just fiction. I've been able to get them for $1.50/each for years. Specialty type replacements for globes, reflectors and the like are a different matter. I've also paid around $3.50/each for some specialty mini-spirals that allowed higher light output than what I could get from an incandescent in an existing fixture or in areas that needed a recessed look (some track spots.)

One would generally expect someone with so many customers to have a better handle on both costs and reliability. Now perhaps there are some awesome LED's available that could do the job, but I've seen no indication of any that can do it at $1.50 each and/or significantly more lumens/watt. With CFL's lasting 5+ years in heavy use, I couldn't justify much in the way of additional price for LED's.

 

Shawn in industrial commercial applications I have never had a CFL last more than 1 year no matter what style, cost or any other variable. I state truth. I dont give two chits what your homeowner study tells you. We are talking entirely different applications here.

When people want reliability and good sources of light they will pay the little bit of extra money.

 

This is all well and good, F8L, and the vast majority of scientists recognize the greenhouse effect. But the questions surrounding AGW go directly to MAN's influence through CO2 emissions and how important they are in warming the planet.

From Dr. Roy Spencer:

Now, you might be surprised to learn that the amount of warming directly caused by the extra CO2 is, by itself, relatively weak. It has been calculated theoretically that, if there are no other changes in the climate system, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration would cause less than 1 deg C of surface warming (about 1 deg. F). This is NOT a controversial statement…it is well understood by climate scientists. (As of 2008, we were about 40% to 45% of the way toward a doubling of atmospheric CO2.)

Observed measurements validate this since we have measured about .5 deg.C since the CO2 concentration has begun to rise this last century.

This small rise in temperature is not going to cause the cataclysms that alarmists and hysterics in the popular press are forecasting. There are few credible scientists who support catastrophic sea-levels, droughts, floods, mass extinctions, etc., etc.

For political, ideological and personal reasons, some very influential scientists have felt it necessary to exaggerate the warming that has occured and mitigate significant historical temperature variations. They have done this to make it appear that the naturally rising temperatures of the current era are wildly out of the ordinary - unprecedented, in fact.

This is simply not true.

Now, some of the scientists who have had the most influence on news organizations, journals, and political bodies have been shown to subvert the scientific method. This is a huge problem since the fate of worlwide economies lies in the balance re politicians' responses to this fraudulent science.

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.c...in-the-assessment-surface-temperature-trends/

Pielke Sr. demonstrates how his views were systematically ignored or removed by the powers that be.

 

Jones, Briffa and Mann seem to have committed several criminal offences.

These include:
1. Misappropriation of public funds

They deliberately falsified data then used the results of the falsification to obtain additional research funding. This is criminal fraud under English Law.
2. Deliberate attempt to prevent disclosure of information that was requested under the FOI Act

They colluded to destroy information that was the subject of an FOI request. This is a criminal offence under English Law.
These two offences will do for starters, but there are others, too. Indeed, both of the above offences can be doubled by charging the alleged miscreants with conspiracy in each case. Jones, Briffa and Mann should be prosecuted as a warning to others who would pervert science as a method to promote a political agenda. However, there is little probability that the Crown Prosecution Service will charge the alleged miscreants. It is more likely that they will be awarded Knighthoods.
And those like Monbiot who colluded in all of this will say, “We did not know”.
Monbiot has repeatedly vilified those of us who have been championing the cause of science against the unfounded climate scare. He is not alone in such behaviour.
Climate realists and our work have been vilified and smeared. Entire web sites have been established to tell lies about us. Publication of our scientific work has been inhibited, and personal attacks have been the norm: for example, I have had computer systems damaged by concerted attacks, Lomborg has had a pie pushed in his face, some (e.g. Tenekes, Michaels, etc.) have had their employment terminated, and Tim Ball has had death threats.
Monbiot seems to be covering himself now what has been happening is plain for all to see as a result of the stolen (?) CRU files having been released.
In a side meeting organised by Fred Singer at an IPCC Meeting in London in 2001 I said; “When the ‘chickens come home to roost’ – as they surely will with efluxion of time – the journalists and politicians won’t say, “It was our fault”. They will say, “it was the scientists’ fault“, and that’s me, and I object!
I can still see no reason to change that opinion.
Richard Courtney

Richard Courtney
Energy and Environment Consultant


Richard S. Courtney is an independent consultant on matters concerning energy and the environment. He is a technical advisor to several UK MPs and mostly-UK MEPs. He has been called as an expert witness by the UK Parliament’s House of Commons Select Committee on Energy and also House of Lords Select Committee on the Environment. He is an expert peer reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and in November 1997 chaired the Plenary Session of the Climate Conference in Bonn. In June 2000 he was one of 15 scientists invited from around the world to give a briefing on climate change at the US Congress in Washington DC, and he then chaired one of the three briefing sessions. His achievements have been recognized by The UK’s Royal Society for Arts and Commerce, PZZK (the management association of Poland’s mining industry), and The British Association for the Advancement of Science. Having been the contributing technical editor of CoalTrans International, he is now on the editorial board of Energy & Environment. He is a founding member of the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF).

 

Your credibility on this count is doubtful based on your history. I can't speak to industrial applications though--making yours a sample of 1. The interest here is in residential use where your claims don't hold up to scrutiny.

Since you've yet to give examples of what LED exactly you are talking about and its incandescent and CFL equivalents, there really isn't anything for any of us to go on. We already know your CFL pricing is off by an order of magnitude, and so is your CFL bulb life.

One of the things you said to kick this off was this doozy:

While the poor source of light comment is subjective, I would hazard that 90% of folks who have used both for general lighting (versus directional) would have the opposite impression. It is one of the areas where LED's have a long ways to go. Not that LED's don't do various tasks better than CFL's.

The comment about not finding CFL's that outlast incandescents is pure bunk. I expect you will try to twist and to pick some sort of specialty incandescent, but that would be apples to oranges. The interest here is the common residential user and what is readily available. Any of us that have used CFL's and incandescents for years know that the claim you made is untrue.

Since I have a whole brain my perspective differs. "Much better light" is subjective. Most of us would probably call it a "much bluer light" as well as much more directional.

As for the "far less energy" claim (and less heat that you stated elsewhere) there is the potential. However, the few specs I've seen for LED replacements had about the same lumens/watt as a CFL. The result is that they are not more efficient and they put out just as much heat. Their cost was an order of magnitude more than a CFL as well.

Now if you want to provide some specific LED examples that are drop in replacements for 40/60/100W incandescents & their CFL equivalents, perhaps something useful will come of this. If there are some fantastic LED's out there that I should be trying, I would like to know about them. Of particular interest to me are total lumens, wattage, and cost per bulb. Next up is color and directional characteristics.

 

Shawn the easiest one for you to get is the the one sold at costco. Its got a great light output 15watt bulb puts out about the same amount and quality of light as 100w incandescent in my opinion. Along with everyone else I know that runs them. Last I saw them there it ran about 15 bucks for two. Havent been to costco since I moved though that was about 6 months ago. The closest one is 200 miles from me now.

As to the snide comments regarding my credibilty around here. You are one of very few here that think so.

You're resorting to insults is a sign of weakness and immaturity. You exhibit both of those quite well from the majority of your posts I have read.