Duke Energy has a program where they will send you 15 “free” light bulbs a year, as long as you are a residential customer and agree to not sell them on eBay.
This is not a new program – Duke was doing this back in the 1970s and probably had done it since the 1930s, along with selling discounted electric appliances that you could pay for with a monthly charge on your electric bill.
The irony here is Duke did this originally to increase demand for electricity – and now the purpose of the program is to get you to buy less electricity.
I am waiting for the incentives from the Gas Suppliers here. With the wind chills down in the -30’s, they are making pleas to have customers lower their thermostats and turn down their gas water heater temperature. Maybe they will offer a free electric heater!
What a tangled web we weave.
Last fall there was so much corn grown for ethanol, a big portion of the stockpile of natural gas usually stored in the summer for use in winter was consumed to dry the corn, in addition to electric utilities being forced to replace coal with natural gas. Propane especially is in short supply due to an outage at a large facility that makes the stuff.
Expect calls any moment now for a ban on natural gas exports as prices shoot up.
In slightly related news, the new oil pipeline from Cushing Oklahoma to Houston has begun operating. I wrote about Cushing a few years ago – it was the central hub of oil distribution when West Texas oil was a big source. Oil was shipped north to Chicago from there.
That pipeline was reversed maybe 5 years ago – with the glut of oil from Canada going to Chicago, it now goes to Cushing – but there wasn’t a reasonable way to get it from Cushing to Houston to be refined and put in finished product pipelines that feed the Eastern Seaboard (including Charlotte).
An existing Cushing to Houston pipeline that was used for middle east oil was reversed a few years ago, but lacked the capacity and was old enough to cause worry about it leaking – so a brand new high capacity pipeline was built.
So Canadian oil will begin to flow to Houston in significant quantity. The opposition to Keystone XL just means the oil is taking an indirect route through Northwest Indiana
Please don’t forget all the natural gas that was used to create fertilizer to grow the corn… or the gasoline engines that were used to chop down the carbon consuming forests so that 6 foot high corn stalks could replace them for a few months of the year.
How about this new oil train derailment over the river in the heart of Philadelphia last week?
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=9405930
Good thing billionaire investor and huge 2008 donor Warren Buffet just knew to buy railroad companies once Obama was elected…. somehow his investing smarts just told him how Obama would demand that this oil be transported via rail….. oh to be able to profit from fascism like only the Germans could.
How about this ethanol train that derailed into the water near Philadelphia? Ethanol needs to be transported separate from oil so that it can be added into the mix at the refinery because the Federal government now requires it be added to gasoline
See the derailed ethanol train car labeled in the second photo?
http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/train-derails-paulsboro-nj-releasing-23000-gallons-toxic-vinyl-chloride-gas.html
This is happening a lot – ethanol is highly volatile. The government doesn’t know how to admit ethanol was a huge bipartisan mistake
Kinda crazy to use ‘food = corn’ and make gasoline out of it. I think I read somewhere you use a more energy to convert that corn to ethanol, than you get from the ethanol.
I think I read that, correct me if I am wrong.
Everything gets twisted around upside down and no common sense when the .Gov gets involved. I do know that.
Parrott
I personally believe that while some people take a government job or run for high office to improve the nation, that is a small minority. Most do so because they like job where they can not get fired for screwing up, and/or a job where they can sell our tax money in exchange for something that gives them personal gain.
Similar to religion. I believe the Mother Theresa was sincere, but the television preachers with the big 800 numbers on the screen for donations? Not all of them are. 😉
BTW- I also believe Yusuf is sincere. You old timers may really enjoy this clip…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhQc6LTma_w
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-22-2004/yusef-islam-s-plane
Not only that, the ethanol reduces the gas mileage compared to straight gasoline.
Worse still- it ruins small engines used in yardwork – snowblowers, boat engines, weed wackers, etc
Very impressed that a Carolina utility would honor a legendary Chicago broadcaster by naming light bulbs after it!
(At least I squeezed in a radio angle!)
Had me going there. Did you know that they have to punt on third down?
And bowling only has 5 pins.
off topic: If Westwood won, then who lost? Looks like it was CNN (not to be confused with CFL): :
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/369926/larry-king-cnns-got-problems-should-play-spongebob-instead-andrew-johnson
The possibly flawed assumption in your question is that for every loser, there is a winner
My draw dropped as I was briefed by my then two year old during my first viewing of Sponge Bob. She told me that Patrick was not very smart.
… not that that makes him a loser, but it makes kids winners to be able to spot that.
I don’t know enough about sponge bob squarepants to have an opinion, or on Cow & Chicken.
http://vimeo.com/45615146
I listened to Larry King a lot back in the Mutual era (Bee-deep!). While I didn’t agree with him, I did agree with one of his core interview principles – don’t read the book before talking to the author and throw the list of suggested questions right in the trash. Pretty much his first question was always “So why did you decide to write this book?”. Once you find the motivation (nobody ever writes books to make money!), you’re on the trail. Since Larry and I start from the same point, I’m learning as he is. I liked his TV show a lot less. You have to pander to the camera and you become a celebrity. In the radio days, you could walk right by Larry and not know he was, and that’s a good thing. “Don’t you know who I am?”
Agree 100% about Larry King Radio vs Larry King TV. I never could stand him on CNN. All he did was schmooze the guests. (He did a good bit of schmoozing on radio as well, especially when he had big celebrities like Bob Hope on, but it was more infrequent on radio).
I started listening to Larry in the late 70’s. His show was good to great most nights back then. As best I can remember it ran 4 hours. The first two hours were with featured guests (sometimes one guest was on for both hours, especially if he had a popular guest such as Tommy Lasorda or Tom Clancy). The last two hours were open phones. If memory serves, they didn’t heavily screen calls back then, so the open phones could be quite entertaining.
The electricians came yesterday and hooked up my new microwave oven (the old one had 1990 on the manufacturers plate). While they were here, we swapped out some of the lights with LED and CFL spotlights. The LED light is more pleasant than the CFL. Home Depot still has lots of old incandescents in stock. The law only prevents making or importing new bulbs. They are not perishable, so I would not be shocked if there are huge warehouses filled with them.
The LEDs are nice. I still have a few outdoor yellow “bug lights”. Bugs don’t see the yellow and are not attracted to it.
As they burn out, I am replacing them with “warm color” LED lights because the “warm” white from LED does not attract insects and is much nicer for humans than yellow… particularly in the garage. The “cool” white LEDs do attract bugs.
They’re pricey still, but the main attraction to me is it will be years before I have to even think of going up on a stepladder to replace them. I’ve heard they don’t really burn out, they just start to turn yellow with age.