Part L resigned to the Bin!

[Anonymous]

From this weeks new scientist... seems appropriate.. you never know, our govenment may eventually folow suit.. <IMG SRC="http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/discussing/smileys/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="">

Romans reach for the stars
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A romantic evening in Rome is going to become even more enchanting. While enjoying the historic monuments and late night cafés, you will now have a better view of the heavens too.

Rome is the latest major city to begin dimming its lights to prevent light pollution obscuring the night sky and to save energy. And the trend could pick up next year with publication of an "off the shelf" law that cities anywhere will be able to adopt to combat glare drowning out the stars.

Rome has 170,000 street lights, and stands to save 40 per cent on its lighting bill through its dimming programme. Next to be turned off will be signs in shop windows and hotels, and the already dimmed lights illuminating monuments may be lowered still further.

David Crawford, director and founder of the International Dark-Sky Association based in Tucson, Arizona, is architect of the model "ordinance" for cutting light pollution. "The ground rules are simple," he says. "Shine light down, not up or sideways; don't over-light; turn off lights when they are not needed; use energy-efficient lights and fixtures; and impose curfews," he says. Illuminated adverts could be switched off at night, for example, as could lighting in parking lots.

The ordinance is still in draft form and must negotiate a public consultation process, but Crawford is confident it could be finalised within a year. Australia already has a national standard similar to the model ordinance and many American cities have also made progress.

 

[Anonymous]

Mmmmmm... does that mean that all those lights left blazing to light up the monst... sorry skyscrapers which so delight at Canary Wharf could be turned off at night? I appreciate they are left burning to make it all seem cool and USA, but possibly it may be better for the environment if only the top one was left on (so aircraft don't crash ...)

 

[Anonymous]

Ooh, controversy.

> If everyone replaced all their incandescent light bulbs with compact flourescent the energy saving amount to the output of about one and half nuclear powerstations and save the average household £40 per year.

> Unfortunately we don't behave sensibly

sometimes I'd agree, but I assure you sometimes not. There are many points on which I can and do behave more sensibly than our wacky government.

> and need government legislation.

No. We just dont, its that simple. Not on lightbulbs!

The more government control of our lives is permitted, the more stupid that control gets. Today we have a power balance situation where the government has to pick its battles, and only do the things that will be mostly accepted. Alter that and we see all sorts of utter stupidity. We have enough govt stupidity already, look how it goes in countries where govt has far more power. No thank you!

Reality is people have differing circumstances, with different priorities, and what should be done by one would be counterproductive for another. Thus one rule does not suit all.

Building regs are a classic example of this. While they suit new builds fairly well, theyre sometimes inappropriate to the point of plain stupid when applied to work on old houses.

There are always people who jump up & down saying you _must_ do this. History shows nearly all such people have been wrong.

If you think you should be able to enforce your debatably considered beliefs on me, logically I should be just as able to force mine on you. Trust me, I have many ideas about how you should live your life <IMG SRC="http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/discussing/smileys/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="">

The fact is the lightbulb question can be solved without any need for government control, and this is the real solution. See next post.

> More unfortunately, the government is keener to build nuclear power stations than ban old fashioned lightbulbs.

Good. No way should they ban light bulbs that people fairly decide to buy.

Tax them, yes, I'd like to see a 50p - £1 tax on all filament bulbs. This would be an all round win situation.

As for nukes, theyre very much what we need. It is only the ignorance and prejudice of the people that makes it so difficult to decide to build them.

Government intervention should be reserved for more serious matters than lightbulb choices, where people are dying en masse. Eg road safety measures. When it comes to which type of lightbulb, or which colours of conductor insulation my house should have, I suggest they bger off and mind their own stupid business. What control freaks.

It makes no sense at all to control this relatively trivial issue and not control the really major issues we have, like the fact that 25% of the population dies as a direct result of their own dumb choices. That is the problem with control freaks, they need to understand that theyre not always right.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

The bulb question can be solved without any government attempt to forcibly foist inappropriate technology on everyone, and force us to pay for it as well. The bulb issue can be solved by first asking where the problem lies.

The problems as perceived by buyers with CFLs are:
poor colour quality
relatively dim light output
premature failures
high price.
excessive size wont fit older fittings.
dim initial output

Truth is this is very easy to address. Firstly all these individual issues have been technically solved long ago. But purchasers have no idea which bulbs meet all the required criteria, so they dont want to buy them. Nor do they know that some do, some dont.

The solution, which any bulb maker is free to implement, is a new British Standard for CFL bulbs. This standard would lay down quality levels for all the above points. The bulb maker could then advertise what the BS meant, with a tagline something like 'theres now no reason to buy those old filament bulbs'

Note one cant make such bulbs el cheapo like filaments: this is addressed by the BS determining by what factor the savings would outstrip the additional purchase cost.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

Might make more sense to reduce advertising lighting to a low level than insist it goes off. Business is what provides the money for most improvement measures in the first place.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

Those are all reasons why I didn't buy energy saving bulbs for a long time - recently I bought some more, and they are still rubbish. Maybe somebody has solved these problems somewhere, but the ones I can find seem to either emit blue/gray light and be very dim (when it said 5 watts, it really meant it) or be too big to fit.

Have they really got better? Where do I look - its not the price that puts me off, just the second rate performance...

 

[Anonymous]

There is a range of qualities on the market, and has been for ages. The trouble is, the buyer has no idea which is which.

The ones I've had best results with have been Osram 10,000 hr folded tube bulbs.

But there is one issue you have to address yourself, as none of the manufacturers so far have, and that is the question of power equivalence. The equivalence claims are misleading, the real ratio is 4:1 at best. So you want a higher power rated bulb than the packets say.

NT