California Legislature is considering banning incandescent light bulbs.
I am all for conservation of energy, reusable resources, renewable resources, thinking before we act. I use both types of bulbs, depending on the location.
Living in Florida, there were days just the heat from one incandescent bulb made it uncomfortable to sit close to the lamp. But here in the Pacific Northwest I have no heat in my bathrooms at all. And the heat from the incandescent light bulbs above the sink vanity combined with the heat lamp in the ceiling make it comfortable enough to even take a shower when it is in the twenties outside.
I also keep my heat quite cold, many times throw on a lightweight fleece jacket on rather than warm up the room. Why? Because I hate hot weather, I love to feel cool, always have. Sitting next to an incandescent light can make the difference in bumping up the heat or not. I save more electricity by using incandescent lights than I could ever save by putting heat in my bathrooms.
The choice should be ours. Educate us on being responsible, offer incentives if you want to help us when we have less money, control safety issues, but don’t try to run every detail of our lives. Put your money, your effort in renewable resources.
I have an idea: Put solar systems for hot water heaters in homes of the poor. See if it makes a difference in that there is less energy used (overall) and a family not paying to heat their water, may have money left to buy the new bulbs for some of their lamps, the ones they aren’t using in lieu of heat, anyway.
Yes, I found it to be an odd thing to ban. I know that there’s an energy crisis out in California, but this isn’t the way to stop it!
Energy is such a difficult topic. I remember traveling in Pakistan, and there they had a simple solution… rolling blackouts (on purpose? not sure).
Does Washington have any geothermal energy possibilities? (I’m deep into studying this right now, as my 9 year old is going to present some experiments and info on it in her energy club this Tuesday!)
Thank you both for commenting. I don’t know a lot about it, other than rolling blackouts have been used in the U.S. In Central FL we had devices on our water heaters and pool pumps and even AC’s that they could cut the electric to so many minutes in a given time period, so we paid less each month if we let them put it on.
I know WA is starting to use more windmills and wind driven technology, but my quick search on geothermal out here got me nowhere.