The same people who can afford to drive a Volt (and have the limo pick them up when it runs out of charge) will be the ones purchasing this idiocy
(Washington Post) The U.S. government last year announced a $10 million award, dubbed the “L Prize,†for any manufacturer that could create a “green†but affordable light bulb.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the prize would spur industry to offer the costly bulbs, known as LEDs, at prices “affordable for American families.†There was also a “Buy America†component. Portions of the bulb would have to be made in the United States.
Now the winning bulb is on the market.
The price is $50.
Retailers said the bulb, made by Philips, is likely to be too pricey to have broad appeal. Similar LED bulbs are less than half the cost.
The L Prize was meant to ease this transition by enticing manufacturers to create affordable bulbs to replace the most common type, the traditional 60-watt.
I’m not against these types of alternative bulbs: I’d be for them if they were cost-effective. I’ve mentioned before that I had switched over to CFLs when they actually lasted quite a bit longer than a standard bulb. I liked that they saved me some $$$ and produced less heat (I had lived on the top floor of an apartment complex with a vaulted ceiling with little insulation. Not the best thing to be adding heat in a North Carolina summer). Who doesn’t want to save money? Didn’t have to be a Warmist to switch over.
However, with CFLs, you can waste some money finding the ones you like. A 60 watt replacement doesn’t necessarily put out the equivalent of a 60 watt incandescent. And, you might not like the light. Incandescents are easy: buy a frosted? Daylight (my preference)? Big round above the mirror? Etc? No matter the brand, all the same. CFLs? Not so much. Will we get the same with LEDs? I have two LED flashlights, different manufacturers. The light the put out is different. Same with the LED book light. Do you want to spend $25 or more, and, in this case, $50, to find out you hate the light it projects? Government has no business mandating this type of purchasing decision.
Oh yeah, that will be perfect. $50 a bulb subsidized of course. What is real cost of to taxpayers?
higher taxes.. plus $50 for each bulb… and is that each time we move, or can we take them with us?
If they last so long.. then maybe the gov’t should just mandate that home developers install them from the get go. hmm?
Hell, houses should be free since its for the betterment of mankind, right?
Uh, don’t give the Obama admin any ideas vis a vis mandating they be installed.
RE “Government has no business mandating this type of purchasing decision”
— agree
and also agree that CFLs and LEDs are useful too… the point is that all lighting has advantages, and overall savings are less than 1% of US energy as linked below, with more relevant generation and grid saving alternatives.
Expensive bulbs not enforced:
The South Carolina repeal Light Bulb ban bill will soon go to Gov. Nikki Haley for signing
Legal in Texas. June 2011 signed into law by Gov Perry
US light bulb regulations, the Burgess Dec 2011 amendment, and 10 state repeal ban bill updates
http://ceolas.net/#li01inx
.
Other comment not show.. try again…
RE “Government has no business mandating this type of purchasing decision”
— agree
and also agree that CFLs and LEDs are useful too… the point is that all lighting has advantages, and overall savings are less than 1% of US energy as linked below, with more relevant generation and grid saving alternatives.
Expensive bulbs not enforced:
The South Carolina repeal Light Bulb ban bill will soon go to Gov. Nikki Haley for signing
Legal in Texas. June 2011 signed into law by Gov Perry
US light bulb regulations, the Burgess Dec 2011 amendment, and 10 state repeal ban bill updates
http://ceolas.net/#li01inx
.
William – how can you expect anyone to take you seriously when they all know the Volt has a gas engine so it won’t be left by the side of the road when its batteries die… and you never bothered to learn this little detail, apparently?
By the way, the Post’s report on the bulb assumed that electricity is $0.01/Kw-hr. The actual cost is $0.12 and rising. This caused their analysis to be embarrassingly wrong. Instead of apologizing, they simply removed the analysis. It doesn’t make you look too swift to quote articles that are 99% ideology and 1% algebra.
Good luck with your blogging career.
“I can see clearly now, the fugue is gone!”
Hey SC, are you actually defending The Pirate by saying he’s not touting the gov’t line enough?
I think that’s a positive isn’t it?
We all have seen what happens when this gov’t gets behind something. (hint: it crashes and burns)
Well Seer, since you want to talk about the Volt and “ideology before algebra,” let’s do just that.
The Volt has a 9.3 gallon gas tank. The range on gas alone is 300 miles. That is 32.25 miles per gallon. Yet the EPA (and the new Obama mandated EPA stickers) list the Volt on gas alone as getting 37 mpg.
Why the 5 mpg difference?
If one were to add in the extra 70 – 80 miles for the electric / battery drive (and no one is getting that mileage) the Volt’s mpg jumps to about 40, but there are other cars that get that mileage or better.
So why they lie on the mileage from the Obama administration and GM?
It is ideology over algebra.
While you may dispute the Post’s report on the bulb and the L-prize, what is not in dispute is that other, more efficient LED bulbs are on the market and at a lower price. If the bulb is so great, why are there government rebates on the bulbs?
This is the type of “algebra” you must believe in:
Cost of $50 light bulb – $10 rebate paid for with money out of your pocket results in a $40 light bulb!
Bull.
Despite the obvious of taking money from one pocket only to put it in another not being any type of savings or “rebate,” there is the added costs of processing the rebates.
In other words, before you get all high and mighty on the light bulb, Volt and algebra, perhaps you may want to consider that the $50 light bulb after rebates will cost the average customer more than $50.
That is the math of the situation.
Have a nice pi day on Tuesday.
Sorry, Gita. The incandescent bulb will actually cost you $210 including power and a total of 30 bulbs during the 30 years that the LED bulb in question will cost you $80 at current power rates. (http://bit.ly/yguO9O) You’re persisting with ideology over math. Or as Colbert likes to say, “reality has a decidedly liberal bias”, which it wouldn’t if the conservatives would just stop making up their own reality. And yes, there are less expensive LED bulbs out there, but they don’t last 30 years.
The mileage for the volt that you calculated is also nonsense. It assumes a particular round trip length. If your round trip is that long, go buy a chevy cruz eco. On the other hand if you mostly drive 10-30 miles a day, you’ll do it entirely on battery power. A neighbor of mine has a volt, and his gas mileage is over 210mi/gallon. The only reason it won’t go higher is because the Volt turns the gas engine on once a month to keep it in shape, burning a little bit of gas. His monthly energy bill for his car is about $25. Again, you can spin anything in any way you want, but reality… well a different story.
The puzzling question I always end up with is why would anyone want to spin reality to make progress look bad? What are they afraid of? The $50 bulb may or may not succeed in the market, but from the math alone, it’s a huge winner. Let the market decide. No need to tie it into a wretched Obama scheme (the poor man only has 24h in his day, how can he possibly come up with all the dastardly schemes you paranoiacs come up with???)
Why do utility companies give rebates for LED bulbs? Oops, no: it’s not a socialist scheme. Obama didn’t do it. It’s really quite simple: if their customers can light their homes and businesses with less electricity, the utility doesn’t have to build expensive power plants. They’d like to pay their customers to use less energy, so they end up saving even more money and having more profits.
SC, You are obviously a proud product of the government public school system where the ability to think is not taught. Talk about making up their own reality. SC, come join the real world where Socialism has always failed.
Where in what reality does that even make sense? Companies giving away profit to its paying base in order to make more profit?!?!? Sounds like an excellent ponzi scheme. There are only 3 reasons why this would occur: 1) There is a rebate program that is paid with tax dollars, so the customer is already paying for the product whether they buy them or not.
2) The utilities ARE in the business to make money, thus if they give away profit, it has to be made up again buy charging others more. Despite your excellent state-funded mandated education, there is no such thing as free-money. And, despite what you heard, the Obama-cash that created the Trillions in so-called Stimulus was not free-money that flowed in to our economy. That’s money that will have to be paid back by your children and grandchildren. It was a loan. More directly, it was a bribe.
3) As you say, utilities don’t really want to build more power plants right now. It is too expensive. Too much red tape and the current administration is making it nigh impossible to even get a permit, let alone build one. So, why waste the money. Thus, if they can try and impress upon people the idea of saving energy, everyone can save money. And again, since there is no free money in the real reality, it is the rate-payers, the customers, the people, who end up paying to build the new plants.
And SC, in our reality, we don’t ignore that the Volt costs an additional $15,000 over what a normal 40mpg car costs. Plus you add on the additional cost of coal-produced electricity to charge it and the real math does not add up.
You say your “friend” gets 210 mpg on his Volt. Please explain that to us. The range of the electrically-charged battery is 40-70 miles, with 40 being the average. If he were to go on the highway and drive over 50mph, the gas engine kicks on. If he were to drive normally (as in not slow), the gas engine kicks on. If he were to drive past the 40 mile mark, the engine kicks on. And, like you say, the gas burns anyway whether you use the engine driving or not.
And back to my point, there is no such thing as free-money. Where do you think the $7500, now $10,000, rebate comes from? It does not come from Obama’s wallet. It comes from you, me, GC, and Teach. We pay for that Volt whether we buy one or not. We paid for its development, its production, and its delivery. It was estimated that the real cost of the Volt to American taxpayers was over $125,000.
Let’s say that gas is $5/gallon. You are only saving at most $10 in gas money alone per day. Times 20 days of work a month = $200. Times 12 months and you saved $2440. But, you’ve already spent an extra $15,000 plus an additional $300 in soot-producing electricity. That brings you down to $2140. Meaning, it will take you over 7 years to make up that extra cost in just the “fuel savings”. By that time, your battery is now dead and it will cost you anywhere from $8,000 to $40,000 to replace batteries (depending on which e-car you have).
Tell me SC, where is the savings in this reality?
And BTW, do you really, really expect people who make less than $40,000 a year, or the 50% of the population who is on welfare, to spend $50 a bulb just to light up their house? I have nearly 20 bulbs in my place. There is no way in hell I’m paying $1000 now, to possibly save $1000 over the next 30 years.
Oh, and in this reality, how much are you paying in added electricity and heat production from that computer you are typing on??
Suddenly I see the tragic, fatal, flaw in the Volt; it requires an intelligent consumer.
A few facts for you:
* The initial battery range is typically 30-40 miles, not 40-70.
* Within that range, the gas engine does not kick in at all, no matter how fast you go.
* If you exceed the battery range, then you start using gas: below about 60MPH the gas engine drives the generator; above that, or under heavy load, the gas engine may drive the wheels directly.
* The gas engine will kick in for a short while about once every six months to ensure it’s properly lubricated etc.
So yes, the all-electric range is less than you thought, but it is all electric.
This means that if, like many Americans, you drive fewer than 40 miles a day, and you’re able to recharge every night, then you can use “no gas”.
Because of the automatic kick-in, over the course of a year you will always use a small amount of gas, but if your intent was to use none and you never drive more than 40 miles in a day, you should probably have bought a pure electric vehicle anyway.
For the typical American driver, though, whose daily commute is less than 40 miles, and who goes for longer trips at the weekend, the balance means that they can average hundreds of miles to the gallon.
As shown in these <a href="http://www.voltstats.net" title="real-world stats". In a fleet of over 500 vehicles, the average is 121MPG.
[…] Link: Pirate’s Cove. […]
Seer,
I always find it amazing when people make a charge as you did, and when that charge is refuted, start talking about something else. Adding to the humor is a charge of “alternate reality.”
Let’s review, shall we?
You made the claim that conservatives put “ideology about algebra.” When given the example of the Volt and how the math from the Obama administration doesn’t work, instead of addressing the math, you launch into some worthless tale of what your neighbor’s Volt does.
Clearly your post is ideologically based. You are willing to address perceived faults in others, but not in your own position.
Why is it that the mileage I quote is “nonsense” when it is the very mileage that Obama has used, the EPA has used and GM has used? Do facts change in your worlds depending upon who is speaking them? Is it really your belief that 300 miles is not the same to a conservative and a liberal?
And you want to talk about “alternate realities” to the rest of us?
As to the light bulb, I realize that it is hard for you to stay on track, but the DOE requirements for the Lighting prize (L-prize) only state a MTBF of 25,000 hours, which is nothing to a LED. So the question is one of “why did the DOE pick a bulb that cost the public more than other bulbs and had similar characteristics?”
While the Phillips bulb may be a good bulb, conservatives wonder why the government is doing in the business of light bulb research. In your world, you seem to believe the government and only the government can spur innovation. In our world, we believe that companies will seize upon untapped markets to “build a better mousetrap.” Our view is proven by the fact the L-prize was awarded to a product whose competitors already had a similar product out on the streets.
The bottom line here is that the government awarded $10 million dollars for a bulb that was already out on the market. The costs of the award are, of course, much higher as testing, hearings on the requirements, etc need to be added in.
It is amazing that you want to say the power companies are not socialized. If that is the case, then what is the purpose of regulatory commissions that decide what the power companies may charge for power? Why does the power company have to jump through millions of hoops over many years to build a new power plant?
And those rebates you think come from the power company? They are actually coming from DOE grants. Rebates given to companies to switch from incandescent to other lighting forms also comes from DOE grants.
You want to talk about “alternate realities,” but yet seem to have issues with the ones we are in now. You seem to think money for rebates grows on trees or something. You seem to think only you can do math and any other figures that are contrary to your flawed conclusions must be ideologically based.
One last thing, you ask:
Let’s make the question a little more fair as your supposition contains a conclusion that is not warranted.
Let’s leave the question at “why would anyone want to spin reality? What are they afraid of?”
That is our question and one which you and people of your ilk have issues answering. You claim to want to let the market decide whether a product is good or bad, but insist on trying to control the market. The Volt can’t compete in the real market, so we need to have a rebate to make it look better. That’s spin. A $50 LED bulb can’t compete, so let’s change the market and give rebates on them too! That is spin.
When you talk about the Volt, you seem to ignore the fact that LG Chem, who makes the (exploding) batteries for the Volt was given a factory paid for by the citizens of the United States. The battery sales will profit a Korean company. You seem to forget that reality and say “Yay Volt!”
Or perhaps you missed that while GM still owes the taxpayer money for the bailout, GM purchased a quarter of failing French car manufacturer Peugot (whose credit rating is at the “junk” level.)
You seem to think that pointing out flaws in what you believe is somehow being against progress or spin. We look at it is and say “it is spin to keep saying how great it is to throw tax payer money at something instead of letting the market decide.”
The only spin being done is from people like yourself who parrot others and can’t seem to afford a $3 calculator.
What are you afraid of?
[…] Link: Pirate’s Cove. […]
Seer, two points (the others have been covered quite well) 1: yes, we know it uses gas, but the Volt is being positioned as an all electric car, one which you need not rely upon fossil fuels. Without the gas, though, it’s pretty much a fancy golf cart.
2nd, if its so great, why haven’t you bought one?
One day, they will be viable, and I’ve said I support this, but, not with the government building them (and yes, this is Obama’s baby) nor giving huge rebates so rich people can feel good about themselves.
I see now the fatal flaw in the Volt: It requires an intelligent customer.
Some facts, one of which you’ll like:
* The average American drives 30-40 miles a day.
* (The one you’ll like.) The range using the battery alone is typically 30-40 miles, not 40-70 miles.
* In normal driving, the gas engine does not kick in at all unless you exceed that range.
* Once every six months or so, the gas engine will run briefly so as to keep lubricated etc.
So, to explain the 210MPG average:
If someone commutes 30-40 miles a day and recharges every night, then they may need use any gas, modulo a small amount every six months or so. For the same of easy math, let’s be excessive and say that you use a gallon every six months to keep the gas engine ticking over. With your daily commute, you do 26 * 5 * 30 = 3900 miles. Thus you get 3900MPG.
If your driving were limited to that, then you would probably be better off just getting a pure electric vehicle. The intent behind the Volt is to allow the freedom to drive as far as you want in a day, and not be limited to what is available through the current charging infrastructure. So a more common scenario is that a driver will exceed the 30-40 miles at least a few days a month (weekend trips and so on).
* Only after you exceed the 30-40 mile range, when there is insufficient charge in the battery, the gas engine kicks in. At low speeds it charges the battery; at high speeds and under heavy load it may drive the wheels directly as well.
* In this configuration, the Volt gets about 37MPG (per standard ratings).
Exactly what MPG you end up with therefore depends on your driving patterns. It could be as “low” as 37MPG, or over 4000. In the real world, it varies. Across more than 500 vehicles, the real world average is 122MPG.
If you want to apply that logic, where does the annual $4Billion in tax breaks for oil companies come from? It comes from you and me, even if we’re not using oil…
Why is anyone buying a Volt to save money? You don’t. You buy it to have a great car that uses less gas.
Because even if you get all your electricity from coal-fired power stations, you’re still emitting fewer pollutants using electricity than you do using oil. And you can source electricity domestically (see more discussion later).
Beyond that, the battery is not dead after 7 years; after 8 years in typical use it may be at 80% of its original capacity — meaning you get 24-32 mile range.
Once it has outlived its life in the car, it can be readily reused or recycled. And in 8 years the cost of a replacement is likely to be substantially less.
Earlier you were complaining about the soot created in the production of electricity. Using high-efficiency light bulbs reduces your electricity use. So out of selfishness, narrow-mindedness, and political dogma you’re not even prepared to save money to help your fellow humans breathe cleaner air?
Please give the actual date and circumstances in which any Volt battery has exploded.
To the best of my knowledge, no Volt battery has ever exploded, and certainly not
And no, the NHTSA test did not result in an explosion, it resulted in a fire, three weeks after the event, because the vehicle was not properly handles after the test (the battery should have been discharged, in the same way that gas tanks should be discharged).
Meanwhile, there are 300,000 fires a year in gas-powered vehicles and in which over 500 people die — where’s the outrage?
In what other way is LG Chem relevant?
No, it’s not, it’s positioned as “more car than electric”. A bit daft, actually, but there’s no attempt to hide that it can use gas — that’s the point.
I have bought one, I’m averaging 110MPG. It’s the best car I’ve ever owned.
It’s far from being a “fancy golf cart” — in terms of performance, sophistication, and handling, it more than rivals anything I’d consider in its class. And it’s American.
Hey mmalc, how long have you worked for the EPA? You’re a perfect fit with their socialist ideology.
4000mpg.. HAHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAAAAA talk about a bent reality.
Ummm.. no it isn’t. The purpose of the Volt is to appease gov’t regulators, to raise the company’s CAFE amounts, and to do what their owner tells them (Obama). The Volt was going to be tossed away because it was not feasible until Obama took the company over and mandated that it be produced.
I seem to recall GWB pushing for ANWR to be opened, and he reduced red tape on offshore drilling. Yet it was the Socialists in Congress who blocked his attempts at “reducing foreign oil imports”.
How many decades have we been hearing about “only a few years of oil left” ? Since the 60’s? Yet, we are still finding more and more and developing new technologies to dig and drill deeper. Oh, and if you Socialists would allow us to access our oil reserves, we wouldn’t have to go to foreign sources as much.
And you do realize that the automotive gas consumption is but a small fraction of the petroleum industry? Right? Even if all the cars in USA went to a Volt (nigh impossible, but in your bent reality, let’s hypothesize) it wouldn’t make a dent in the world market or the air we breathe. And, our consumption of oil would stay the same here in US.
Volt… an American car. Laughing off the fact that the battery isn’t, that is an easy statement seeing as the Federal Gov’t took the company over, through unconstitutional and illegal means, and now owns a large chunk of it.
But, if spending $40 Grand makes you feel happier about living, then we won’t stand in your way. We just despise you making the rest of us pay for it.
I don’t work for the EPA, but am proud to have a generally socialist ideology.
I stated that my average MPG is 110, not 400, although there certainly are those that get 400MPG, and one is getting 4000. This is a simple fact, readily explained by the driving pattern I described.
Please explain why this is not possible, referring to the actual real-world results shown here.
Please also explain how oil is not a finite resource. Whether it’s in 5 years or 50, we will run out. And before it runs out we’ll see prices increase, as they have already.
I despise you for your willingness to put political dogma above patriotism, and to put small-mindedness above concern for your fellow human beings.
You want to allow the US to be able to be held hostage by foreign powers.
As I said before, I consider your actions treason.
And its obvious you have no idea what treason is or means.
I guess to you treason is America. Treason is American individualism. Treason is Capitalism. Treason is personal responsibility. Treason is anything that is for reducing government.
Nope. You Socialists are the ones preventing America from accessing its God-given resources. By your refusal, you insist that we import our energy from foreign sources. Our world runs on energy. By denying that, YOU put us in to the hands of foreign dictators and thug tyrants. THAT is a closer meaning of Treason than your silly definition.
And yet you claim American Patriotism? How oxy-moronic of you. Socialism is about as anti-American as you can get. I bet you are real proud of all the things your Chancellor has done to this once great nation? Are you proud of the 100% debt? Are you proud of the unemployment? Are you proud that 50% of this nation is on welfare? Are you proud that China owns us? (ok, stupid questions as I know you are proud of these facts).
You seem to not be able to recognize that when discussing mpg of gas-powered cars and the range of e-cars, people are talking apples and oranges. The two are not comparable. MPG relates to use of petroleum to fuel a car for a certain distance. When talking of e-cars, you have to look at total price and range. There is no MPG of an e-car.
The Volt is a bastard of the two with its included engine. You have a car that costs $40,000 and gets, as you say, 40 miles on a 6 hour charge. Then you have a car that gets 37mpg on a gas engine. And costs you $40,000.
And, no, the great fallacy to sell this travesty is to claim that people travel 40 miles a day to and from work. Most people travel that one-way. Then not counting errands before or after work. School trips after school, sporting events for the kids or on weekends, weekend getaways, vacations, transporting stuff for friends and family, etc.
Then Socialist like you claim, “well, this is just the ‘go-to-work’ car.” Maybe for rich people like you who can afford to buy a car just to go to work in, then a car for errands and another for vacations and hobbies that I’m sure makes sense to you. But many families only have one or two cars, depending on how many work and the family size.
Then, as you say, the purchase of a Volt is not about price. Its about feeling good to help your fellow man. Yet, how does buying a Lexus-priced golf cart help out an unemployed worker who has to go on welfare and sell his home to make ends meet?
How does your saving a few bucks on gas (which since you were able to buy a Volt means you don’t really have much worry about the cost of gas) a day help me buy the gas I need to get to work in order to buy food to feed me and my family?
How does increasing my taxes help me live the American (not Socialist) dream?
I see now the fatal flaw in the Volt: It requires an intelligent customer.
Once again we see the only way to dispute facts is to insult.
The bottom line is that the EPA and the Obama administration had to change the way the EPA calculates the mileage of a car in order to make the Volt more attractive.
As for your point of:
There is no regulation as to “discharging a gas tank” after an accident in which minor damage occurred. There is no record of a car spontaneously bursting into fire after the vehicle has been removed from an accident scene and is simply sitting in a yard with no ignition source.
Furthermore, there is no law requiring the battery of a car be discharged after an accident with minor damage. But assume for a moment you are correct and the Volt’s battery needs to be discharged.
Why wasn’t that a part of the design of the battery and the Volt?
As for “what does LG Chem have to do with this?” the fact of the matter is that the US taxpayer built a factory for a foreign company on US soil. That is the issue.
I realize these issues may be complicated for someone like yourself.
I hope that as you are happy with the Volt, that you will be returning the rebate you received to the government as your happiness – not your wallet – seems to be your concern.
I see now the fatal flaw in the Volt: It requires an intelligent customer.
No, it requires a sucker making $170k and up a year, which is who are the predominant private party purchasers. The rest of us taxpayers get to subsidize these “rich” people. I thought liberals were upset over rich folks getting tax breaks?
Ok, let’s play the MPG game….
The range of the gas tank is 300 miles. The range of the electric battery is 40 miles.
That equals 340 miles per one tank of gas.
9 gallons of gas.
340 / 9 = 37.8 mpg
One can not, estimate MPG by counting miles after each charge if one wants to play the MPG game.
Sorry, I’m neither a socialist (or whatever you ‘cons like to project onto that word that isn’t in the dictionary), nor a member of the 1%, nor an employee of the EPA. Just a masters in engineering, then a professional psychologist, and now a hard-working entrepreneur. And I stick by my assertion that most of you are better at ideology than algebra. You’re also a sour, ill-mannered group that loves to say that someone is insulting them while lavishing insults upon everyone who disagrees with you. Worst of all, you’re so self-righteous that no amount of data, personal experience, or simple math will deflect you from your self-appointed rounds. With regards to this discussion, with America having 2% of the world’s oil reserves and 20% of its consumption, the future is pretty plain: conservation and alternate energy sources or the alternatives which are a downward spiral accompanied by potentially horrific wars inflicted by entitled, self-righteous people like yourselves trying to avail themselves of other people’s energy sources. A light bulb that costs 1/4 of the price of using incandescent over its lifetime is going to be dearly appreciated, no matter what your philosophy, when energy costs rise enough. And whatever investment was made in it to get it to show up will look prescient. Similarly, a car that most people will only have to fill the tank of once or twice a year will be in high demand, again no matter what solipsism you come up with to make fun of it. In the meantime, the behavior so many of you manifest is only diagnosable as psychopathy (yeah, go look it up) and I have better things to do that to give out free therapy, especially if it’s called “insults.” Enjoy your fishbowl!
Now I know you are a Socialist – by denying its existence.
I don’t think you are using that correctly. Look it up on that non-existent dictionary.
And as typical for you Socialists, you determine to dictate what people should be spending their money on, for OTHER people. Never noticing that people are finding it hard to buy food.
You would rather people spend $1000 to place bulbs in their homes to possibly save money 30 years from now, buy a failure of a luxury car, instead of being able to buy their food and medicine.
But then we know your plan. Force them to spend their money on what you want, and they will have to come begging to the gov’t for welfare handouts just to survive.
For supposedly being schooled in mathematics, you sure can’t add up life’s problems very well.
You call us self-righteous while demanding that you know better how people should spend their money. You Socialists are the self-righteous. All the while pocketing the government largess.
What’s that got to do with anything. So we have the money to buy our resources? Does that not create jobs? And, we wouldn’t have to buy foreign energy if you Socialists would allow America to access American energy sources.
I am glad we agree on that. Conservation and alternative energy is on a downward spiral because, like Socialism, it has shown to be a failure time and time again. Yet, despite the millions of contributory deaths, Socialists continue to push their religion.
[…] have the limo pick them up when it runs out of charge) will be the ones purchasing this idiocy,†Pirate’s Cove blathers. American Enterprise Institute scholar Kenneth Green blasted the “Ludicrous Prize†as […]
You are free to make that assertion all you want in spite of the evidence. The fact of the matter is that while you advocate some figures that compare apples to concrete blocks, we are comparing apples to apples.
The fact that you aren’t shows ideology comes from your posts, not ours.
Once again, your ideology is causing you to miss the point. There was no need for the DOE to sponsor the L-Prize as bulbs meeting the standards were already out on the market. In fact, better LED bulbs with more features and less cost are out on the market.
There was no need to throw money at the L-Prize. The market had already adapted to the need.
Therefore your contention that the investment (payoff) by the government being prescient is not only wrong, it is ridiculous.