Posted on 11/16/2009 4:08:16 PM PST by Libloather
Upset about FirstEnergy's pricey, hand-delivered light bulbs? You ain't seen nothing yet
By Kevin OBrien
October 08, 2009, 3:59AM
There was a time when you and I could be trusted to change a light bulb.
In those days, powerful people who made weighty decisions understood that if a light bulb burned out, even the dimmest of us common folk would know enough to remove it from its socket, choose a suitable replacement and install it.
Apparently all of the weighty decisions have been made, because powerful people have now worked their way down to telling us what kind of light bulb we will use -- and even bringing some to us, apparently fearing that even the brightest of us common folk might botch the job.
How is it that an act whose very simplicity spawned a genre of humor, based mostly on ethnic, sexist and sectarian slurs -- "How many (insert your favorite target for tactless, insensitive, mean-spirited, stereotypical humor here) does it take to screw in a light bulb?" -- has suddenly become a complicated, labor-intensive, expensive, public endeavor?
The old jokes have given way to a new one, with a reworked setup for the punch line:
"How many public officials and utility big-wigs does it take to -- well, you know -- every FirstEnergy Corp. customer?"
In just a few days, people dressed in green T-shirts and green caps will begin the rather enormous task of delivering two 23-watt, warm-white, compact fluorescent light bulbs to every residence FirstEnergy serves.
They won't ask whether you want them. They'll just leave them on your doorstep, in a bag that will also contain a brochure called "More Than 100 Ways to Improve Your Electric Bill."
They won't ask for payment, though. As you might expect with an electric utility, that's already wired.
These whiz-bang new light bulbs -- which cost FirstEnergy $3.50 each, and which you could buy all by yourself at any number of stores for even less if you were still trusted to do that sort of thing -- will cost you $21.60 for the pair. You'll pay it off over the next three years, at 60 cents a month added to your electric bill.
The bulbs you would buy at the store might come from China, like FirstEnergy's do, but they wouldn't come with delivery vans, or brochures, or paid bulb valets clad in green shirts emblazoned, "What's the Big Idea?" -- a slogan that just couldn't be more ironically appropriate.
Those little customer-service extras add up. But they're not the Big Idea.
"Providing energy-efficient light bulbs is just one way we can help our customers save money while also helping the environment," FirstEnergy's Web site proclaims.
Except that FirstEnergy really isn't "providing" them. You are. FirstEnergy is just inflating your cost tremendously by having them brought to you.
And, by the way, the $21.60 you'll pay for those bulbs also includes a little assessment to cover the cost of the electricity that FirstEnergy won't be selling you because you use those bulbs. Think of it as paying money to save money so FirstEnergy won't lose money.
Thus, saving customers money isn't the Big Idea, either.
So why would FirstEnergy go to all of this trouble? And why would the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio sign off on it?
Here's where the powerful people who make weighty decisions meet the Big Idea.
This is all about global warming, of course. Or to be less specific, climate change. Or to be more nebulous yet, greenhouse gases.
The General Assembly passed a law last year requiring Ohio's utilities to reduce their customers' energy use by 22 percent, and to shift 12.5 percent of their power production to "renewable" energy sources -- solar and wind, for instance -- all by 2025.
The Great Light Bulb Boondoggle is the leading edge of an energy-reduction effort to comply with commands the government of Ohio has issued to the tides of technology.
Those commands -- to foist immature and inefficient generation methods on consumers and push aside less expensive, more efficient power sources, like coal -- will be enforceable only at great expense to the public.
People are upset about FirstEnergy's light bulbs, as folks with sore ears at the PUCO will attest. But let's keep this in perspective: $21.60 is nothing, compared to the expenses we'll pay if the greenshirts drop a bag full of cap-and-trade taxes on our front porches.
So forget the PUCO. Call your senators and your congressional representative instead. Tell them you've had enough of command-economy enviro-thuggery. And invite them to put cap-and-trade in a place where a solar array would be both impractical and painful.
Looked it up. Nothing on Google or Ebay. If you own one, you may have a treasured keepsake.
I've added something else to my survival closet.....old fashioned light bulbs....
suppose the day will come when it will be illegal to use them...
My electric provider, Aiken Electric Cooperative has mailed each customer a CFL at no charge. I took mine back and when they asked why, I said, "Why would I knowingly bring hazardous material into my home." When they acted incredulous, I gave them a copy of this. Go read that. The EPA treats cleaning up a CFL bulb like it was anthrax or something. No CFLs for me. The light they give off is horrible.
I'm stocking up on incandescent bulbs.
IMHO, the next "big" thing in indoor lighting will be LEDs. Gonna blow CFLs outta the water. Nice light, almost no heat, super cheap to run and last for decades.
Write the CEO and claim you’re a shareholder. There’s no way they can verify that you are or aren’t a shareholder. Trust me on this - I work with proxies and shareholder issues on a regular basis.
Tell him/her that you’re pi$$ed at the waste of money. Tell ‘em that you consider their lightbulb project to be a useless feel-good stunt an that you have no time or patience for that kind of money-wasting BS.
LOL
Now, the question is whether or not there will be someone monitoring to see whether or not you “properly disposed” of your new mercuric tarbabies...Or whether you are in violation of some clause of EPA regulations.
It’s a collectors item NOW, for sure. It was probably back in the 1970’s when it was produced.
Growing up, at bedtime my grandma would always tell me to “blow out the light;” with the shame of youth, I kept this as our little secret; but imagine my surprise many years later while passing a neighbor’s bedroom window, I heard the unfathomable phrase uttered by the husband, “...blow out the light and I’ll eat ?,” as I ran down the street.
LOL
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