Don,
I used to work for the northwest power planning council. The idea is that if we use less energy, then there are all sorts of perks at all sorts of levels. From the perspective of the council, they don't have to build a new power plant.
There are other missions at other levels, and there are subsidies all over the place.
My thinking is that over the next week I'll get all sort of email with links to all that stuff so I don't have to go on a four hour fishing expedition.
There is some price drop that has occurred over the year due to higher production. And I think I showed that. The price used to be $20 per bulb. In my table, I show a speculative price of $12.
The first link has a link to: "CFL s are a significant, and often primary, source of Demand Side Management (DSM ) program energy savings. CFL programs have contributed more than 60 percent of energy savings of the most established energy efficiency program sponsors (EEPS), and 20−97 percent of savings for newer programs. Regional differences in CFL promotions are apparent, with the greatest spending in California and the Northeast. California leads the way, with $88 million projected for 2008, accounting for over half of reported national CFL program spending."
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/products/downloads/CFL_Market_Profile.pdf The key is that there are a lot of subsidies coming from a lot of branches of government and a lot of energy interests.
I have been on the phone most of today and a good part of yesterday talking to people about this stuff. And I already have about 35 to 40 hours put into this. As with all of my articles, they will morph in time as more information comes out. I hope that soon we can get some idea of how much a light bulb might cost unsubidized. For now, there is clear evidence that there IS subsidy at a national level, a state level and from power companies. And, the article shows the math both with and without subsidy.
grignr,
The stuff about subsidy is where the article started and now I've put it into something of a back seat. The amount of money being spent is huge, but since it changes from county to county, it is challenging to investigate and accurately write about.
Since the article makes an excellent point (IMOO) without the subsidies, then I made the subsidy stuff more of a "frosting on the cake" thing for the article (until harder data can be presented).
I think any subsidy of CFLs is misplaced. If they have all the perks which they claim (and they don't) then they should be able to blaze a trail without subsidy.
If the mission to save money is so important that we need to pay billions of dollars for subsidies, how about channeling the advertising into something that says "Hey, if you are at home by yourself and you have more than two
lights on right now, you could save a lot of money by turning some lights off." Or a trip to somebody's house where they have 50 lights on and show some super huge power bill. And then turn off a few lights and show a way smaller power bill.
Based on the stats I've seen for what is spent in american households on lighting, I cannot help but think that most american households have 50 lights on nearly all day and all night. Getting these people to turn off a few lights is going to do far more than getting them to switch to fluorescent.
