What science supports this?

[Seraph]

I don't know if they run them according to a supply/demand type thing, as that answer would suggest, of if they produce x amount of energy per day, period. Just a thought, as I don't know. But I don't think the power plant throws another chunk of coal on the fire, figuratively speaking, just because I turn on a light.

Powerplants come in a few different flavors.
Baseline plants run constantly producing power all the time. This is where nuclear and coal plants tend to fall.
Beyond baseline plants there are powerplants that are designed to run durring times of higher load (generally the day), and plants that are designed to run only a few hours a day durring the peak of demand. Gas plants are popular for the latter ones.

In short, if you, and a lot of other people start using a lot of electricity then the power company could end up turning on a powerplant somewhere to compensate. If you and a bunch of people suddenly started using less electricity all the time then the result would likely be a powerplant not being built (rather then one being shut down as the origional article suggested).

Switching to greener power alternatives will generate new jobs, anyway, biofuel, hydrogen fuel cells, wind power, hydroelectric power, solar furnaces, nuclear power plants. All those things need to be constructed and maintained.

Hydrogen fuel cells are not an alternative. The good ways to generate hydrogen tend to use a lot of energy, or spit out carbon dioxide.

[PurpleXVI]

I know that, I merely suggested the production of hydrogen fuel cells and the associated facilities as something that would generate jobs.

As for the power plants, if there's a facility that is constantly not needed to cover for peak power consumption periods, then I could imagine it would get shut down permanently. After all, it would be a waste of money to keep it supplied with people and maintained in good condition if it was never used.

[Mack_Attack]

Well some may be shut down short term. But our expanding population base will get them back up and running.

[PurpleXVI]

Don't be too sure of that, most first-world countries have, immigration not counted, dropping birth rates. I imagine it'll soon stabilize, thank God.

If it doesn't, we'll have to resort to China-like child policies. The oil peak is already going to be a bitch to survive with our current population, ideally I'd say we should have about half that if we want to maintain anything even vaguely resembling our current standard of living. Probably a quarter if we actually want to maintain it.

[Timber Loftis]

News flash: Baby Boom Currently Underway in China.

Isn't it silly to doubt new technology that saves money and energy? Especially since your only concern is the utility industry profits?

[robertthebard]

That's not my position at all. My position is that so and so says it's this way, so a government automatically jumps on the bandwagon. It's not like there isn't plenty of bad science on either side of the argument. However, from reading through what's here, and elsewhere, I don't see it making much difference in the status quo. If it prevents new plants from being built, then it stops it from getting any worse, but it seems to me that the plants that are in operation are going to be in operation until they are obsolete.

New technologies can be good, such as my new computer, if I ever get it...However, the only study I found that supports the initial article also said we were going to have all the hurricanes. Is this the science we're going to base our conservation efforts on? Most office buildings already use flourescent lights, so the heating/cooling costs aren't going to change, nor is the amount of energy they consume going to change because I switched out the 8 bulbs in my home. 11 if you count my little touch light, but the bulbs in it are too small for flourescent lights, at least the ones I've seen in the stores.

Don't misinterpret what I'm saying, saving something is good, but lets not blow it out of proportion. I don't run lights during the day, so no matter how much heat the bulbs generate, it's not going to affect how much I run my A/C unit. Leaving every light in the house on during the winter won't slow down how much my heater has to work to maintain a 65* comfort zone. How much difference is this really going to make? My dryer is still going to be 220, and will use whatever energy it takes to dry my clothes. Let some logic rule, instead of some 1/2 baked notion that light bulbs will destroy the world.

[PurpleXVI]

Er, you'd have to have some pretty insane lights and have them on at all hours of day if they actually did anything to heat your house.

And yes, incandescent light bulbs will destroy the world. Them and so many other things.

If we want to cut down on our energy use we can either choose to cut down on a few Big Things like cars(Not going to happen, because people are selfish jackholes.) or we can do a lot of small things like increasing efficiency for light bulbs and other ordinary things and simply forcing people to switch to the more efficient alternatives(Enforce it and tell them they'll save money, that'll get almost everyone doing it.). Enough projects like that could eventually have the same effect as one of the big changes, but people might actually do it since it wouldn't force them to change their lives considerably. For example, as the article states, a worldwide bulb change would save as much as five times the total energy use of Australia. Can you imagine that?

I'm also wondering what is wrong with the hurricane comment. It IS pretty much proven, as far as I know, that global warming(No matter what's causing it.) is also screwing with global weather, causing more droughts in Africa, more hurricanes in North America, more flooding in Europe and probably a bunch of other things I simply don't know about.

[Luvian]

Originally posted by robertthebard: In the article I mentioned in my initial post, the author indicated that changing just three bulbs in every house here, in the US, would shut down 11 power plants. My next logical question then is this; would that happen? Are 11 power plants going to close, and put that many people out of work? So it's conservation at any cost, including the economy? Less people working means less people spending money. Plus, I don't see power plants being shut down for any reason. I don't know if they run them according to a supply/demand type thing, as that answer would suggest, of if they produce x amount of energy per day, period. Just a thought, as I don't know. But I don't think the power plant throws another chunk of coal on the fire, figuratively speaking, just because I turn on a light.

Well I don't you how it is in the US, but over here, we sell our excess power, so what would most likely happen is that those extra power plants would probably just sell their extra power somewhere else.

[robertthebard]

Originally posted by PurpleXVI: Er, you'd have to have some pretty insane lights and have them on at all hours of day if they actually did anything to heat your house. And yes, incandescent light bulbs will destroy the world. Them and so many other things. If we want to cut down on our energy use we can either choose to cut down on a few Big Things like cars(Not going to happen, because people are selfish jackholes.) or we can do a lot of small things like increasing efficiency for light bulbs and other ordinary things and simply forcing people to switch to the more efficient alternatives(Enforce it and tell them they'll save money, that'll get almost everyone doing it.). Enough projects like that could eventually have the same effect as one of the big changes, but people might actually do it since it wouldn't force them to change their lives considerably. For example, as the article states, a worldwide bulb change would save as much as five times the total energy use of Australia. Can you imagine that? I'm also wondering what is wrong with the hurricane comment. It IS pretty much proven, as far as I know, that global warming(No matter what's causing it.) is also screwing with global weather, causing more droughts in Africa, more hurricanes in North America, more flooding in Europe and probably a bunch of other things I simply don't know about.

The problem with Global Warming being responsible for more hurricanes is that warm air alone doesn't create a hurricane. I would point out that we didn't have the massive influx of hurricanes we were supposed to have last hurricane season in support of the WTH were these people thinking attitude. I have read that that may be due to the El Nino event we had. It's supposed to slow down hurricane formation. Of course, I read in the same report that dust storms in Africa may have slowed them down too. I guess it would be safe to assume, based on that, that there were no dust storms in Africa in 2005.

I guess my position on "Global warming causes more hurricanes" is this: what are we to do now? The "building blocks" are already in place, and nothing we do now can change that. The foundations have been laid. However, since the scientific community can't even agree that global warming is to blame, why should I think, automatically, that it's all mankind's fault that our globe is warmer? It's no like there is no record of this pattern repeating itself in the past. Hell, I live at what used to be the bottom of an inland sea. If the globe hadn't warmed up and evaporated that water, I wouldn't be living where I am now. However, it is so much easier to point at us and say it's our fault, rather than admit that it may be a naturally occuring phenomenon. We may not help the situation much, but I sincerely doubt that we are 100% responsible for the "problem".

[PurpleXVI]

When there's no definite decision on whether we are the cause or not, or whether we may be exacerbating the problem even if we aren't the cause, why not err on the side of caution?

We need to cut down on fossil fuel consumption anyway. This is just one more reason.