Posted on 10/06/2007 7:49:52 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
Environmentalists often tout the theory that investing in forward-looking energy-efficient technologies is a smart way for U.S. companies to create domestic jobs and carve out a competitive niche in the global economy of the future. But it doesn't necessarily have to work out that way. On Thursday, General Electric, citing the fact that sales of incandescent bulbs are declining by about 10 percent a year, announced that it was closing seven lighting manufacturing facilities in North and South America.
Six of those plants are in Ohio. The vast majority of the compact fluorescent light bulbs that are replacing incandescents are manufactured in China. A union-led campaign launched in March argues that GE should invest in new lighting technologies in the United States, but GE claims that to manufacture CFLs in the U.S. would require adding 50 cents to the price of each bulb.
(At Screwthatbulb.org, a site created by the Communications Workers of America, the union claims that the European Commission banned Chinese-manufactured CFLs, but that assertion is not correct. There is a steep tariff on Chinese CFLs in the EU, but even so, two-thirds of the CFLs sold in Europe are made in China.)
A story in the Youngstown, Ohio, Vindicator covering the closing of two local plants serves as a minor elegy for every factory forced to close by the pressures of globalization.
GE said Thursday the Austintown Products Plant and Niles Glass Plant are to be shut down Nov. 1, 2008, with production shipped to foreign plants or outside suppliers....
The Austintown plant, which has 73 workers, is one of three plants that make filaments for incandescent bulbs. [A spokesman for GE] said production volumes for these bulbs are down, so the company now can fill all of its orders at the other plants, which are in Mexico and Hungary....
So, yet another paradox that may not bear too much pondering, if one wants to make it through the day. Replacing your incandescents with CFLs will cut your electricity bill, there's little doubt about that, but it will also contribute to job loss in Ohio, and the likely increase of industrial pollution in China.
Where’s Willie Green when you need him?
Unintended consequences of green socialists in a free market.
“...but GE claims that to manufacture CFLs in the U.S. would require adding 50 cents to the price of each bulb.”
Worth it.
But the trade-off to GE investing in the US should be to de-certify any unions at any of these plants.
And what will that do? Union or no, the cost of U.S. workers will always far exceed the cost of Chinese workers until you can start hiring Ohioans at $2 a day.
The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
--Ronald Reagan
But yet (if the figure is true), we are talking about 50 cents per bulb. There’s more to the equation.
They have to taken to special recycling plants since the EU has declared that the constituents in them contribute ... to ... global ... warming. guess who pays for that?
I do not believe in unintended consequences.
I believe that what is happening is exactly what the socialists want to happen, and that is the economic crippling of America.
Hey, you can work at the Burger King or even in Health Care under (hillary!)
Lots of Nation building production in that...
I live in Germany....and every bulb you buy...has to go to some recycling center. Same deal with batteries. Over past twenty years...they’ve built this huge system of recycling....into an empire. I end up paying $300 a year for trash pick-up...which includes all recycled goods...which I get nothing for my plastic or paper...the company running the operation claims all of the profit.
(s) Do you know how expesive it is to bribe an american politician vs a foreign politician? (/s)
Hey, thank you for pointing out the facts.
You cannot find any mention of this type of stuff here.
My father’s side is probably from around the Hamburg area, but I’ve never looked into it very far.
The American problem:
We hate foreign workers that work for cheap wages, and we hate for American workers to work for cheap wages.
We always say “Buy American, regardless of price” and then go to Wal Mart and buy the cheapest price item.
......Bob
See also:
GE Will Speed Contraction Of Incandescent-Bulb Business (1400 layoffs)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1906869/posts
That CFLs won’t be made here doesn’t matter all that much.
The future of lighting is probably LED,
and CFLs will not be a factor by 2010 or so.
The trick will be disposing of your CFLs before
they are declared hazardous waste.
_________
I use CFLs.
Won’t miss ‘em.
“And what will that do? Union or no, the cost of U.S. workers will always far exceed the cost of Chinese workers until you can start hiring Ohioans at $2 a day.”
The new Chinese plants don’t use humans to the extent that the existing plants use humans. Even in China, there is growing concern that all of the new factories are very highly mechanized, requiring only the occasional technician’s tender touch.
What is definitely cheaper in China is the cost of complying w/ environmental concerns, OSHA, HIPAA, etc etc ad nauseum.
“The future of lighting is probably LED, and CFLs will not be a factor by 2010 or so.”
bingo.
And, the LEDs will be made by machines, with only a few techs needed to keep them running. I’d be willing to bet the number of human hours needed to produce a given hour of light bulb usage will decline drastically with the LEDs.
Are these executives Americans or not?
Geez -- throwing their fellow Americans under the bus for a lousy 50 cents!
Fine. Slap a $.55 tariff on bulbs made in China. GE's quandary is solved.
Not global warming (AFAIK) but mercury pollution.
Exactly
Correct. The problem is that directionality in LEDs doesn't come cheap. Fixing that problem for cheap will take some amazing machinery and process development. Could be fun.
and CFLs will not be a factor by 2010 or so.
I hope you're right. They suck.
The trick will be disposing of your CFLs before
they are declared hazardous waste.
Too late for that, and it's not just the mercury.
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