The Light Bulb Fiasco

I went to my local Wal-Mart today and one of the things I had to get was lightbulbs. It was not a pleasant surprise. The sticker shock of fluorescents that nobody wants. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen for a couple of years yet! I thought. I was fuming and thinking about this post so much that I even left behind a bag o' grub!

So let's talk about it a minute shall we. No this isn't going to be the usual gripe piece. Let's get into the real science about that fool light bulb law. This law has as a basis that the ordinary incedescent light bulb wastes energy. So let's discuss some elementary science briefly some of which some of you may already know.

First of all it is commonly accepted scientific fact that energy can neither be created nor destroyed true enough. Another lesser known fact is that all types of energy, no matter how, what, when or where always ultimately ends up as heat energy from combustion, friction and even noise. From this it can be stated that heat energy is one of the few things than can and is always produced with 100% efficiency! This is not to be confused with the concept of moving heat from one place to another which is a different matter entirely.

Now the incedescent light bulb more specifically. It is indeed a trait of the incedescent light bulb to produce more heat than light which is a result of having to heat a filiment to such a high temperature before light emission occurs. It is this heat that some numbers person has arbitarily labeled as "waste" and keeping in mind that heat production is directly proportional to the movement and quantity of electric current. Evidently this person hasn't considered the whole picture or is from Hawaii or some other perpetually warm place.

So now let's look at the rest of the picture. This gets really simple. Most light bulbs are found in buildings which of course must be heated in the winter time. It can indeed be stated with all gravity and truthfulness that an incedescent light bulb operating in a room that needs heating is without doubt operating at 100% EFFICIENCY!!!!

Consider the other most common form a heating in a building. These are usually heat pumps found in your yard. These not only produce heat but must also move it into a building. They have efficiency losses during their operation which can be described as heat carried away in the winter winds. When you remove the incedescent light bulb source of heat in such a building it is only going to increase the load on the heat pump. Nothing is gained.

This argument does get more difficult in the summer time but they invented daylight savings time didn't they. Problem solved. The only real way that energy can be saved with lighting is to reduce the use of daytime lighting in the summertime. If you realy want to save energy then dry areas of the country should switch to evaporative cooling in the summertime instead of using a heat pump air conditioner. The savings is substancial and more significant than a light bulb could ever be. It is in my case $5 verses about $100 a month not to forget that a new evaporative cooler usually costs about $500 verses more than $2000 for a heat pump. It's a no brainer.

Obama's Bow

Did you see the picture of President Obama bowing like a lackey to the king of Saudi Arabia? I always thought that heads of state considered themselves on equal ground and didn't do such things. But I guess if one is on the payroll of the other you'd better not forget it. At least the performing of such a gesture gives him the appearance of being on the OPEC payroll or worse yet it gives him the appearance of being a muslim. The difference is if the king of Saudi Arabia would have bowed to an American president his aide would have pulled a gun and shot him on the spot as a traitor. Well at least it would happen in Iraq or Iran anyway.

If a politician is taking foreign money and it is effecting the legal process towards the people then this is a betrayal to the public and such should be removed from office immediately. And Washington is full of such. Just think of all the nuclear and missile technology China and Pakistan and India got from the Clinton administration. And with Pakistan falling apart to the Taliban, this is something that should cause alarm to the world. Obama just brought in the old Clintonistas and restored the money networks with the finesse of a true African ruler. That's what happens when you have an election without any real choice.