Posted on 09/08/2010 1:40:25 PM PDT by freespirited
WINCHESTER, VA. - The last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month, marking a small, sad exit for a product and company that can trace their roots to Thomas Alva Edison's innovations in the 1870s.
The remaining 200 workers at the plant here will lose their jobs.
"Now what're we going to do?" said Toby Savolainen, 49, who like many others worked for decades at the factory, making bulbs now deemed wasteful.
During the recession, political and business leaders have held out the promise that American advances, particularly in green technology, might stem the decades-long decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs. But as the lighting industry shows, even when the government pushes companies toward environmental innovations and Americans come up with them, the manufacture of the next generation technology can still end up overseas.
What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more efficient bulbs.
The resulting savings in energy and greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to be immense. But the move also had unintended consequences.
Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Those bulbs do give rise to bad headaches. How do you live with 5 tv’s and no AC?
I love that light! Perfect for zapping dems! (we all know they hate light) :)
You also apparently sat on your laurels, so to speak, and didn't bother to improve yourselves, expecting that GE would return your loyalty.
It will be a major forced expense for American households to convert all their bulbs and fixtures to much more expensive ones, all to benefit one corporation.
This is a corrupt way to effect change. The proper way to do the conversion would be to develop the technology to the point where it was an obvious better deal to convert.
“The resulting savings in energy and greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to be immense.”
Nonsense. Consumers did not need government to dictate their choices. Consumers are capable of making reasonable tradeoffs between energy efficiency, cost, quality of light, intended usage, and other product attributes. This mandate forces consumers to use CFLs and other technologies when they are not appropriate. The idea of immense energy savings over no law is a GD lie.
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Bush’s fault.
No, it really is Bush’s fault: he signed that law.
bookmark
I believe the toilet problems were (George H. W.) Bush’s fault in part, also.
“Looks like the CFL’s may have had nothing to do with the plant shutting down.”
It has EVERYTHING to do with the plant shutting down, and many others. Around 35,000 jobs have been lost to this idiotic nonsense, and I know some of these folks.
No attorney in America is going to sign off on using Mercury in the workplace. And breaking one of these things requires a HAZMAT response, if you are following EPA regs properly.
This is an environmental time-bomb, brought to you by idiots wanting to “save” the environment.
The one thing we need more of in this country is manufacturing...ASAP!
So...can we outsource the dems and RINOs?
You know what? If that was a union shop, I couldn’t care less about them. They’re part of the problem. The let their whoremaster union thug bosses take money from their pockets, from their dinner table, and give it over to thugs who then give it to the very rats who are making their jobs obsolete because the environazi lobby is a bigger donor than the light bulb maker’s union.
They all sicken me.
The reality is that the only way a worker making $20,000-$200,000 a year can compete with a worker making $700-$70,000 a year is to adopted the standard of living of the lower paid worker. This is true regardless of how well educated you are, or how hard you work.
I'm not convinced.
The news article hasn't convinced me of this. Since this is the last GE incandescant bulb plant in the US, it appears most GE incandesant bulbs are already being manufactured overseas.
As I pointed out, my stash of GE incandescants was manufactured in China and a previous poster noted his were manufactured in Mexico.
Germany and Japan know this. In fact in some ways Germany is a larger exporter of manufactured goods than Japan which surprised me. Foreigners want to buy what the Germans are cranking out be it chemicals or hi-tech items
Real wealth comes in three different ways
I heard that those light bulb jobs will go to China.
I live in Western WA. Nobody here has AC.
LED and Florescent technology is vulnerable to EMP damage and destruction. The florescent gas is not, but the oscillating/exciting circuitry is.
Incandescent bulbs are safe from the EMP potential.
What is up is down.
As a Hill Country Texan I can say I’m a little bit jealous.
Ah, but you get to live in Texas. I’m forced by my family situation to live here in the Soviet of Washington.
You can buy and AC to cool off. Try delousing this state of liberals. Your problem is smaller than mine by a Texas Mile.
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