Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Posted: **Fri 04 Feb 2005, 07:46:51**

for your kits/car/home LED flashlights are real winners, get the ones with a "chip" in them to regulate the energy, and research it online to see if it has it.

Also the the new "star" LED's use more battery quicker, but are very bright. So an older design may even be better for an emergency light.

LED's do loose some of thier brightness after the first 1/2 of their lifespan...kinda like a "Peak lumens" theory.

Posted: **Fri 04 Feb 2005, 09:53:52**

You can get all kinds of light colors in CFLs. We have nice warm yellow ones that are very much like incandescents in our house. They're best in places where you leave lamps on for extended periods of time (like the front porch at night). If you want super efficient light, look for LED lights to be more common in the future, they're in flashlights today.

Posted: **Fri 04 Feb 2005, 10:34:49**

The cheapest rate we have (Maine) is $.15/kwh, soon to be $.17. We have PV but are still grid connected with "green" suppliers. We'll be paying $.19/kwh after next month.

Compact fluorescents are the biggest bang for the buck out there IMO. There's devices such as "Kill-A-Watt" which allow you to plug things in and measure consumption.

Don't forget about carbon avoidance by reducing consumption. There's more to life than money.

Posted: **Fri 04 Feb 2005, 11:08:05**

PhilBiker wrote:We have nice warm yellow ones that are very much like incandescents in our house.

I didn't know that. These were the off brand on sale at Lowe's. They seem to do a little better when they warm up too. We have some in the basement in the way back, and when you turn it right on the light is grainy and dim. I don't know how to explain it other than that. If you leave it on for awhile, it is not as dreary down there.

Posted: **Fri 04 Feb 2005, 11:13:07**

In Ireland 13.5 % of the electric bill is tax.

On the subject of long tube fluorescents, while they are already efficient, there is a new generation from Philips, they are 40% smaller diameter than conventional fluorescents and have a higher luminaire output from fewer fixtures.

www.philips.com/lighting

Posted: **Fri 04 Feb 2005, 13:04:18**

The_Virginian wrote:for your kits/car/home LED flashlights are real winners...

For flashlights you don't use much, make sure they take AA cells, and then put lithium batteries in.

Lithium has the best shelf life and cold temperature characteristics of all commonly available battery types.

There's nothing worse that getting out that "emergency" flashlight you've had in you "bug out" kit for several years, only to find that the batteries have gone flat, just sitting there.

The worst chemistry (from a shelf-life point of view) is also the best for frequently-used batteries: NiMH rechargeables. These will self-discharge as much as 30% per month.

Posted: **Fri 04 Feb 2005, 20:40:20**

Madpaddy wrote:In Ireland 13.5 % of the electric bill is tax.

Are their other charges that aren't attributed to generation, transmission and distribution?

If I add up the tax and other misc charges I'm getting over 15%.

Posted: **Sat 05 Feb 2005, 13:17:06**

Madpaddy wrote:
In Ireland 13.5 % of the electric bill is tax.

Are their other charges that aren't attributed to generation, transmission and distribution?

If I add up the tax and other misc charges I'm getting over 15%.

We also pay a fixed monthly supply charge of about â‚¬10. There is a new company supplying electricity now called Airtricity and all its supply comes from renewable resources but it is a littlev more expensive than the state supplier - I'm going to change over as soon as my house move is complete

Posted: **Sun 06 Feb 2005, 05:21:02**

Lithium has the best shelf life and cold temperature characteristics of all commonly available battery types.

Amen.

Thank you for for making sure that people understand Alkaline batt's under 40 deg. F just don't work.

But if your stuck with Alkies in the cold, take them out of the light, and put them under your armpits to heat em up (burrr), the flashlight case (if metal) also needs warming....I won't suggest where you stick that. :mrgreen:

Of course a keychain LED w/ a lithuim coin batt. would solve most of your emergency lighting needs...just be sure to see that it works once in a while...

Posted: **Sun 06 Feb 2005, 14:07:45**

The_Virginian wrote:Of course a keychain LED w/ a lithuim coin batt. would solve most of your emergency lighting needs...

I'm personally opposed to things that take coin batteries. The embedded energy in a coin battery is nearly as much as that in an AA cell! Plus, AA cells are more versatile and ubiquitous: as I pointed out, you can choose to use high capacity, earth friendly rechargeables, long shelf-life lithium, or you can be a part of the problem and use cheap alkalines. (In an emergency, you can get alkalines almost anywhere, unlike "coin" batteries.)

Plus, AA battery technology is the fastest moving. If you bought a device two years ago that used AA cells, the best you could get was about 1.5 ampere-hours (NiMH). The newest cells now put out nearly 2.5 AH! That's like getting a new device that lasted 2/3rds longer, except you're re-using the old device! Coin batteries are not improving at such a rate.

So, high on my checklist when selecting battery operated stuff is, "Does it work on common AA cells?"

I've got some things that take coin cells, but I resent them every time I buy a coin cell instead of slipping some AAs into my solar-powered charger.

Posted: **Sun 06 Feb 2005, 18:16:27**

I'm using a furnace and airconditioner that was installed in April 1976. I imagine when I get that replaced the amount of electricity I use will go way down.

Posted: **Sun 13 Feb 2005, 13:55:05**

Probably the most practical efficient lighting for your home is fluorescent strip lighting.

For maximum efficiency, it is very important that you get the right type of light fitting. Simply mounting a naked tube on the ceiling is wasteful of light - half gets directed at the ceiling and is diffused giving low contrast for reading or fine work. Ideally, you should use a fitting with integral mirror-finish reflectors to direct the light downwards. The highest performing fittings and tubes use a very narrow diameter (5/8"), although 1" tubes are more easily available while still giving reasonable performance.

The use of a high-frequency electronic ballast for the fluorescent lamps is a useful upgrade too - you get lower energy costs, longer tube life and brighter light from the same tubes. They also start up much more quickly without the annoying flickering, and some electronic controllers will automatically shut off a faulty tube to stop it flickering persistantly.

However, fluorescent strip lights are not appropraite for many places in a home - probably best used in a study or utility room, or garage.

Compact fluorescents are a good alternative for more 'homely' rooms.

LEDs lights are very expensive, but good for task lighting because they are very tightly focussed, so virtually none of the emitted light is wasted. However, they are of comparable efficiency to conventional incandescent bulbs, so are not a suitable replacement for 'area' lighting.

Posted: **Sun 20 Feb 2005, 19:25:43**

MarkR wrote:Probably the most practical efficient lighting for your home is fluorescent strip lighting.

Compact fluorescents are a good alternative for more 'homely' rooms.

LEDs lights are very expensive, but good for task lighting because they are very tightly focussed, so virtually none of the emitted light is wasted. However, they are of comparable efficiency to conventional incandescent bulbs, so are not a suitable replacement for 'area' lighting.

MarkR is absolutely right for all practical purposes. But LEDs keep improving and I'm going to provide more recent information on their performance.

Efficiency
LEDs can now produce over 40 lumens per watt, so the most expensive LEDs are about in the middle of the fluorescent range (30 to 60 lumens per watt). Cheaper LEDs produce 20 to 25 lumens per watt, or about as efficient as a halogen bulb.

spot/flood
I use LEDs with a 60-degree illumination cone. This is still far short of the 300-degree sphere produced by an incandescent bulb. It is, however, much more useful than the 10-degree beam of the cheapest LEDs.

Color
Warm white LEDs are available from here and here. And they're spreading fast.

Price
Improving, but does not compete with incandescent or fluorescent. The price is best if you wield a soldering iron. I suppose that would be a packaging drawback for most people.

MarkR is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, fluorescent is likely to be the best choice for now. LEDs are improving fast. I just happen to be an early-adopter on LED illumination.

Posted: **Tue 22 Feb 2005, 09:30:48**

http://www.cpre.org.uk/resources/pub/pd ... t-32pp.pdf

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/yo ... 7/?lang=_e

http://www.wrtl.co.uk/index/home/dimming.pdf

There are 6.2 million street lights in the UK, up to 500,000 tons of C02 pollution. Street lamps vary in wattage, but they average out around the 80 watt mark.

http://www.wiganmbc.gov.uk/pub/beng/str ... energy.htm

Therefore the total power requirement for street lamps is an incredible 496,000,000 watts of power. Most of the use of street lighting has grown up since the 1950s with increased road traffic and the 24/7 society. Before 1900 Britain was nearly dark at night, before th 50s lights were turned off at night. These days only north of Carlisle is it possible to see little street lighting - even then Glasgow comes into view soon after. Elsewhere large towns and cities dominate the night sky, there is a permanent glow of orange in a 50 radius of London.

In the world of peak oil, surely there must be a case of getting rid of most of this waste and putting in low light pollution solar pack battery street lamps only where needed and have a timer to turn off at 1am? Most of these lights burn away on empty roads in the small hours.

Posted: **Tue 22 Feb 2005, 10:13:13**

I thoroughly agree. On my street the city replaced the lights and actually increased the number of lights, and our province is experiencing very difficult power shortages. No, the lights aren't any more efficient than the ones they replaced.
I'm making a recommendation to the city that only half the lights be lite on any given night.

Posted: **Tue 22 Feb 2005, 13:28:37**

Watts are a unit of power.

Without specifying the amount of time Watts are meaningless.

kW/h or MW/h please not just kilowatts or megawatts.

Posted: **Tue 22 Feb 2005, 13:30:28**

http://www.led.net/pages/pr_020604.htm

M400 CobraHead-Styled LED Streetlight Will Have You Seeing Stars.

TORRANCE, CA â€” February 6, 2004 â€” Doing its bit to aid the worldwide Dark Skies initiative, LEDtronics introduces direct incandescent replacement M400 CobraHead-Styled LED Streetlights. These new streetlights eliminate the unwanted glare, light trespass, energy waste and sky glow that accompany traditional incandescent streetlamps. An estimated 30% of outdoor light generated in the U.S. goes into space, flooding the skies and creating electric haze that reduces stargazing. LED Streetlights shine light in the direction where it is needed â€“ at ground level â€“ reducing the amount of light that is lost to the sky and improving overall nighttime viewing. The LED Streetlights meet IES street lighting standards. (Test results may be downloaded from the LEDtronics website: www.ledtronics.com)

The LED cluster lamp contains 400 Warm Incandescent-White (3200K) LEDs arranged in a light optimizing design. Architects, urban planners and lighting professionals will find that the 3200K White LEDs emit a pleasing warm incandescent-white light and have a diode life of over 100,000 hours that makes them excellent replacements for standard incandescent lighting along minor roads, pedestrian walkways, in parking lots and for maintenance-intensive and ornamental lighting applications. This LED Streetlight lamp with its 19-Watt power draw and high-intensity light output make it ideal for use with alternative energy systems like solar and wind power. Using LED lamps with renewable energy sources helps to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels.

When purchased independently of the housing, the lamp is available in both Type 1 and Type 2 styles. Type 1 lamps have to be hardwired into the cobra head fixtures. The Type 2 lamps feature male 39mm mogul bases that screw into the socket of the fixture. The LED Streetlamp may be purchased as a retrofit lamp for existing installationsâ€™ old style cobra head fixtures or as an integrated part of a complete assembly that includes the housing and lens. LEDtronics offers a die-cast aluminum MSCL M400 Luminaire CobraHead-Styled fixture with an electrocoat gray finish, universal two-bolt slipfit joint, adjustable mogul E39 standard base socket (house side), and a flat glass lens. Standard voltage for the LED Streetlight is 120VAC; other voltages available are 12V, 24V, 28V and 240V. Optional LED colors are red, green, orange, yellow, cool white and blue.

Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology with its inherent energy efficiency makes an excellent accompaniment to photovoltaic-based energy systems. Solid-state design renders LEDs impervious to electrical and mechanical shock, vibration, frequent switching and environmental extremes. With an average life span of 100,000-plus hours (11 years), LEDs operate reliably year after year and are virtually maintenance free.

Founded in 1983, LEDtronicsÂ® leads where others only follow when it comes to designing, manufacturing and packaging state-of-the-art LEDs to meet the worldâ€™s constantly changing lighting needs. Our inventive product line encompasses an array of direct incandescent lamp replacement Based LED Lamps, low-cost snap-in and relampable Panel Mount LED Lamps and holders, high intensity sunlight-visible Discrete LEDs, PCB LEDs circuit board status indicators, surface mount diodes SMT LEDs, full-spectrum rainbow RGB LEDs and Infra-Red (IR) LEDs.

The M400 CobraHead-Styled Streetlight is priced at $410.00 for the LED lamp and $725.00 for the complete assembly. Ask for datasheet #151a. For additional information, contact LEDtronics toll free at 1-800-579-4875, telephone 310-534-1505, fax at 310-534-1424, e-mail at [email protected] or mail at LEDtronics Inc., 23105 Kashiwa Court, Torrance, CA 90505. Visit our website at www.ledtronics.com.

Data sheet URL address is: www.ledtronics.com/DS/SLT002/default.asp

For Technical Information Contact:
Jordon Papanier at 310-534-1505
E-Mail: jpapanier-at-ledtronics.com

Posted: **Tue 22 Feb 2005, 14:01:39**

Take avg hours from sunrise > sunset for a given latitude & multiply x peak power requirement - haven't got the time or inclination to do so myself, but should be fairly trivial for an engineer to calculate.

Another issue is "idling" output of power plants. I don't know about hydro, but gas, oil and nuclear power plants cannot be switched on and off. If you shut them down, it takes hours to get the big ones up to max output, so some nightime demand is "good". I don't know if the "idling" capacity of major power plants covers power requirement for street lighting in a given region.

When everyone gets up in the morning there is a big step up in demand, although the overall electrical usage pattern is complicated by a mix of commercial, industrial and household demand. Again, engineers in any related field could elaborate on demand distribution.

One of the advantages of solar (PV) power is that collectively, these systems add to peak capacity in the morning and afternoon (peak air conditioning time) for a region, and contribute to an evening of the demand curves. This is why solar is subsidized. It should be obvious to any thinking person that subsidies and rebates are not given out because governments think solar is a cool, environmentally friendly concept.

Small hydro can also contributes to peak demand, and can be easier to modulate. Some of the small rivers coming down the western side of the Sierra Nevada mountains on the California have signs posted that warn of sudden increases in flow rate and stream depth in afternoons when water is released. This occurs as the generators at upstream dams are cranked up. On a hot day when kids like to play in the streams, this can be dangerous.

Al in all, there are many complications in electrical power generation and distribution, and the conservation efforts can be complicated by factors that are not always obvious.

Dave

Posted: **Tue 22 Feb 2005, 16:22:38**

Yep, I realise the rate (watts) is fairly meaningless, but obviously it depends on the weather and time of year for the actual power consumption so I avoided that. But for an 8 hour period I make the power consumption to be around 3968 mw/h assuming they all come on at once.

Nevetheless this must be a big area savings can be made.

Posted: **Tue 22 Feb 2005, 18:07:44**

Well the article was just as bad about it

This LED Streetlight lamp with its 19-Watt power draw and high-intensity light output make it ideal for use with alternative energy systems like solar and wind power.

Peak Oil News and Message Boards

THE Lighting Thread (merged)

LED's are gaining

The Great nightly burn-up!

kWh easy to estimate. Plus, peak demand musings.