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Dr. Steven Chu and ‘Common Sense’

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  July 16th, 2011 at 02:04 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Energy Secretary and Nobel Laureate Dr. Steven Chu defends the banning of conventional incandescent light bulbs as a ‘common-sense’ measure that is certainly a ‘win-win’ for consumers. (Caution: Clicking HuffPo links may cause a loss of IQ points.)

Overall, consumers will save $6 billion a year from these standards.

Here’s another example of how common-sense standards like these have been working for American families for decades: since the 1970′s, we’ve made energy-saving improvements to refrigerators that now save Americans $20 billion per year, or $150 per family.

Seems to me that if we went back to old refrigerators (@ $20 B) and light bulbs (@ $6 B) and got rid of the Department of Energy (@ $30+ B), we’d be money ahead.

My skepticism has a basis in experience, Mr. Secretary: thanks to the same kind of ‘common-sense standard’, my EPA-mandated 1.6 gallon-per-flush toilet doesn’t do its job properly. Chances are those efficient refrigerators would have found their way into the marketplace without government interference. And as with CAFE standards and “light trucks” a/k/a SUVs, the marketplace will find a way to circumvent the will of Washington when it runs contrary to their wishes and desires.

While we’re on the topic of common sense, the following photo and caption can be found at Dr. Chu’s Facebook page:

Dr. Chu’s observation doesn’t stand up to the rigorous peer-review of his Facebook readers, several of whom pointed out that UPS has employed white fiberglas roofs on their delivery vans for years, and they do it for purposes of lighting, not climate change.

Duh.

Also, note that UPS’s energy saving move was not mandated by government, but by free businessmen exercising common sense.

In arguing against the House measure to bring back the Edison bulb, Dr. Chu said: “We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.”

The reason that attitude from a high government official causes heartburn from free-marketers like me is that it tends to be contagious. The DOE has already decided that it’s government’s place to deny our wasting money on passenger vehicles with mileage under 62 miles per gallon — what’s next?

For the time being, the government “continues to let people waste their own money” on a number of items that “Progressives” find objectionable, among them:

  • Personal firearms
  • Private schools
  • Conservative talk radio
  • Grandma’s chemotherapy

How long until “common-sense standards” put an end to this waste?

Cross-posted at stevemaley.com.

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COMMENTS

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  • ssshannon1026

    and none of them performed nearly as well as traditoinal incandescent bulbs, and I saw no significant longer life from them either. They tended to burn out at about the same rate. And, as far as saving money and energy is concerned, here’s an idea – turn them off when you’re not using them. That seems to work around my house.

  • Tbone

    It is what makes them obviously stupid to the rest of us.

    • http://deweyfromdetroit.com deweyfromdetroit

      he does have a Nobel Prize in physics! http://www.deweyfromdetroit.com/2009/06/dr-chu-and-great-whitewash-caper.html

      That Dr. Chu has a doctorate in physics is proof positive that intelligence can be completely disconnected from IQ.

      It would be helpful if Americans could learn to distinguish between the two.

      • edintexas

        And the majority lack “common sense”, particularly those who remain in Academe. IIRC, that is where Chu was employed before we were stuck with his paycheck.

  • msctex

    . . .always feathers the nests of other Progressives.

  • throwback59

    Not the institutions ( well maybe the IRS) but the people who are destroying it from within.
    Chu is a screwy as the damn light bulb he is forcing down our throats..

    • Menlo

      There is a lot in government to hate, including if not primarily the institutions themselves; and there is far worse than the IRS.

  • deanayer

    I gubbament technocrat gets a glimpse of the real world from high atop mount Obama and, viewing it through the lens of liberalism, mistakes it for confirmation of their fantastical “green revolution”. I love it! Poor President George H.W. Bush was lambasted unmercifully for not knowing what a check-out scanner was at a grocery store but this actually tops that.

    Here we have one of the elites drawing a factually false but self-reinforcing conclusion about a delivery truck and he then posts his “finding” on the internet. Hopefully a Media Matters drone will spot this posting down in their bunker and get on their direct line to get it pulled lest any ridicule bubble up from the lumpen masses here at redstate.

    Ooops too late.

    I guess Dr. Chu has time to daydream out the window of his office now that the Department of Energy has achieved their charter/goal of making the United States energy independent. Funny how the goal went from developing our own resources to achieve independence to eliminating our demand to achieve it.

  • Locked and Loaded

    ———-

    ?We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.?

    ———-
    …as in the traditional junior high school treatment reserved for mouthy nerds. That’s what Chu needs.

  • dmacleo

    also helps tracking from air when (if) stolen, brown with white top is easily visible.

  • Paul_In_Houston

    … is literally telling you that you are just too damned stupid to make your own decisions; so they have to do it for you. They absolutely believe this. They truly believe that, “for your own good”, you must get their permission for whatever it is you feel like doing.

    If you doubt that, then you do not even begin to comprehend the mindset of these people.

    -

    • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

      His attitude does not differ in any significant way from the attitude of every other government bureaucrat.

      Those are the type of people who are drawn to government in the first place.

  • Darin_H

    I hate those bulbs, I want light when I flip on a switch, I don’t see how waiting an extra 2 mins every time I turn on a light is more energy efficient. We bought our house not quite 2 years ago, and I finally got around to taking out the stupid CFLs that the previous owned installed.

    Thankfully halogens aren’t being banned, so I’ll be buying those over CFLs next year (but I’m going to buy up some incandy’s before the year is out).

    • http://www.twitter.com/AWG9_yoyo yoyo

      is outside.

      With the wild temp swings we get in SC (Charleston) – especially in the spring and late fall – I found that the squigglies dont burn out nearly as fast. Incands do not handle the hot-then-cold-then-frigid-then-sweltering-then-cold-again very well. As a matter of fact, the squigglies I placed on my back porch have lasted two years now, whereas incands would last – at best – 6 months. BUT, at $0.50 a pop and the squigglies at $3.00, they will have to last another full year to break even. So, I guess it all comes down to convenience vs. … well, convenience.

      Inside, however, is a completely different story. If I wanted to be under florescent lights, I would live at work.

  • Wayne

    another example of the reason we have a Constitution. Even if it is violated time and again, sooner or later we’ll waft back in the right direction.

    Remember it was the EPA that mandated the use of MTBE to replace lead as a preservative in gasoline only to find out is was as bad or worse than lead. Unlike lead and other long chain hydrocarbons compounds in gasoline. MTBE did not float on the capillary fringe of the water table (potable water generally comes from deep within the aquifer) instead it sank right down to the potable water supply and is a known cancer causing carcinogen. Compounds floating on the capillary fringe became a food source for microbial populations that decomposed them with a byproduct of carbon dioxide and water. Of course it took a decade to learn this, but hey, better safe than sorry right?

    Thanks again EPA for all you do for us…

    • http://stevemaley.com Steve Maley

      Also: air bags that proved to be lethal for small kids in the passenger seat.

      • edintexas

        If it saves ONE life…..

        I hate to do this – just in case anyone reading the above believes it isn’t sarcasm, that is all it was.

  • DefendUSA

    I would like to waste my own money if I so choose. That’s the thing you people seem to forget. We don’t need you telling us when to wipe and I darn sure don’t need you telling me that my incandescents are inferior. It’s pretentious at best.

    Abolish the EPA, too.

  • aesthete

    These guys do more to turn people on to derivations of classical liberalism than a thousand word book from Milt Friedman or Bill Buckley could ever do — their absolute arrogance, matched only by their cluelessness and lack of real-world experience, just makes it that much more obvious that intuition is to government as right angles are to equilateral triangles.

    • acat

      And yeah, the reason for the UPS trucks’ roofs is to save a buck, using sunlight instead of a light bulb so the drivers can see the packages.

      This is UPS, the same company that found that it’s more efficient if drivers make more right turns than left turns and reprogrammed their delivery routing systems to make that happen. Crazy that saving a buck – instead of bowing to some D.C. overlord – is making a big operation like UPS look at “green” options…

      Mew

    • blooch

      If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

      http://laboratorium.net/archive/1999/03/12/to_kill_a_sparr

  • Xasteius

    Winter in Idaho lasted until March, and it really didn’t stay break 30 until April. In January and February the temperature didn’t break 10 (and an entire week 10 below zero…without the wind chill!). It would sure be nice to have a building ABSORB sunlight instead reflecting it.

    What a yutz.

    • acat

      Paint the roof white in the spring and black in the fall.

      (or just cover it with white poly sheeting in the summer)

      How long would it take to recoup the cost of the paint ?

      Mew

      • Locked and Loaded

        nt

      • http://www.twitter.com/AWG9_yoyo yoyo

        I have been to the middle east. Every thing over there is painted either “sand” or “eggshell white.” And you know what?

        IT IS BLOODY-FRICKIN’ HOT OVER THERE, MR. CHU!!! Doesn’t seem to help them at all.

        You don’t have take my word for it. Ask any of our returning soldiers coming from the wars in LibRaqiStan. They serve as my “peer review” in these matters.

        …sheesh!

        And acat – you can’t paint or poly-sheet. Both are bad for the environment.

    • jwebb

      when it is freezing and you are trying to heat a space as well as illuminate. Chu and everyone else forgets about that half or more of the year when you need to generate heat somehow.

      • acat

        As reported on by Moe Lane:

        http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2011/01/04/heat-balls/

        “Those aren’t light bulbs, those are heat balls!”

        Mew

  • whit3

    Common sense is liberal-speak for a cause liberals believe in but the rest of America finds stupid. I’m sick and tired of hearing that phrase.

  • eaglewingz

    A 60 watt edison bulb costs 60 cents and can be discarded with ease if it breaks. A 60 watt chu approved “green” bulb costs $6.00 and needs a hazmat team to discard if broken (God forbid you’re in an office with no access to open windows or ability to turn off the HVAC ventilation when those mercury vapors start spreading). So how does paying ten times more for a defective ineffective product that’s made in China (how does that figure into cost savings Mr. Chu?) save $6 Billion a year?Are these china toxic bulbs ten times more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs? That’s laughable.
    Indeed, since these lights are colder, they don’t repel snow, ice, etc, and cause more car accidents as well. Where are these costs included in the new “savings” estimates?

  • http://908StraightSt.wordpress.com/ mbecker908

    so we can save money. It just makes sense.

    I also think we should ban donations to Democrats and union dues because that’s a waste of money too.

    Do the latter and I’m fine with the former.

    • BigRedConservative

      .

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    Call them “Optional internal solarium optimizers” as an “alternative to people who feel dizziness or other negative symptoms from mercury using light sources”…

    Maybe also market them as: “Scientific experiment bulbs” for everything from baking in a tiny oven to incubating an egg to reading homework without additional nausea.

    Label them clearly “Not for replacing mercury filled poisonous lighting equipment – home use optional” .

  • popster

    means nothing these days, the Nobel comittee is another group of political hacks. As far as common sense Dr? Chu-Chu has lost his in CS 101.

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