| ▲ | 1970-01-01 14 hours ago |
| It always has been. Our problem is switching over existing infrastructure without asinine complainers ruining the revolution. We can't even declare total victory with LED bulbs over incandescent. The war to have solar plants over more coal is falling back to coal thanks mostly to AI. Pushback on geothermal will arrive, I guarantee it. |
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| ▲ | quacked 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > We can't even declare total victory with LED bulbs over incandescent. The LED bulbs I have access to (whatever's in the aisles at Home Depot, Costco, etc.) fail much more frequently than the incandescent bulbs I used to buy, and produce an uglier light that is less warm even on the softest/warmest color settings. My suspicion is that incandescents were at the "end" of their product lifecycle (high quality available for cheap) and LEDs are nearing the middle (medium quality available for cheap), and that I should buy more expensive LED bulbs, but I still think that there are valid "complaints" against the state of widespread LED lighting. I hope these complaints become invalid within a decade, but for now I still miss the experience of buildings lit by incandescent light. The other thing with AI--the LED revolution was led on this idea that we all need to work as hard as we can to save energy, but now apparently with AI that's no longer the case, and while I understand that this is just due to which political cabals have control of the regulatory machinery at any given time, it's still frustrating. |
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| ▲ | foobarian 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > uglier light that is less warm I figured out why this happens. The light color they call "daytime" is around 5000K, so I expected it to look like being outside in the sun; but instead I got a cold blueish vibe. The problem? Not enough power! I got the equivalent of a moonlit room. So I got this 180W LED lamp (that's actual 180W, not 180W equivalent) [1]. It's so bright I couldn't see for 5 minutes. I put two in my office on desk lamps. The room now looks like being outside, without the "ugly blue" tint, even though the product says it's 6000K. The days of my SAD suffering are over! [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0962X573M | |
| ▲ | kragen 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In many cases you can break one of the resistors off the LED bulb's printed-circuit board and run them at two-thirds of the power so they last forever. In other cases the surgery required is a little more involved than just snapping a surface-mount resistor off with pliers. None of this will change the CRI. | |
| ▲ | quickthrowman 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The LED bulbs I have access to (whatever's in the aisles at Home Depot, Costco, etc.) fail much more frequently than the incandescent bulbs I used to buy, and produce an uglier light that is less warm even on the softest/warmest color settings. LED lamps work just fine, you just need to pay more attention when you’re buying them. Philips makes decent LED lamps. Make sure you’re buying lamps with 90+ CRI, that will help with the quality of light. 2700K is a good color temp for indoor living room/dining room/bedroom lighting, 3500-4000K for kitchen/garage/task lighting. You also need to buy special lamps if you put them in an enclosed fixture, look for ‘enclosed fixture’ rated lamps. Regular LED lamps will overheat in an enclosed fixture. | | |
| ▲ | Melatonic 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yup - CRI is most important. Indoor house plants also like high CRI lights much more as well! | | |
| ▲ | kragen 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think houseplants will like horticultural LEDs much more than high-CRI lights. |
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| ▲ | drcongo 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Maybe buy your bulbs somewhere else? I'm yet to replace any of the LED bulbs I've bought over the past 15 years and honestly can't even remember the last time a bulb failed. | | |
| ▲ | ahmeneeroe-v2 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Mine fail all the time. Cheap Amazon Basics, expensive Phillips. Do they fail more than incandescents? idk maybe not, but they fail much more often than their advertising would suggest. | |
| ▲ | drcongo 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Actually, since posting this I've vaguely remembered a previous discussion on here about differences between LED bulbs sold in the US and those sold in UK/EU so maybe that explains it. |
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| ▲ | 1970-01-01 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [CITATION NEEDED] They do not. If you take the mean, median, and mode of the failure lifetime for LED bulbs sold at these stores and compare them to the failure times of incandescent bulbs, I also guarantee you are empirically wrong here. | | |
| ▲ | quacked 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I believe this is true for the LED technology compared to the incandescent technology as a whole, but I'm simply turning over bulbs at a far higher rate than I did in the incandescent days. Often the LED bulbs are failing within a year under normal usage patterns. It's possible that using modern LEDs in old fixtures is causing some kind of issue. | | |
| ▲ | quickthrowman 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Are your LED lamps failing in enclosed fixtures? You need to buy special lamps for enclosed fixtures, regular LED lamps will heat up too much for enclosed fixtures. Look for ‘enclosed fixture rated’ LED lamps for enclosed fixtures. |
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| ▲ | 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | velcrovan 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > falling back to coal thanks mostly to AI citation needed |
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| ▲ | parineum 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > The war to have solar plants over more coal is falling back to coal thanks mostly to AI. Also, due to solar not panning out at scale.[1] More seriously, coal is just cheaper and, with incentives being removed for green energy, it's the cheapest and fastest option to deploy. It's dead simple and well understood reliable power. [1]https://apnews.com/article/california-solar-energy-ivanpah-b... |
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| ▲ | dalyons 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Wild take. New coal is not cheaper. There have been no new coal plants built in the US since 2013. That solar plant you linked is an obsolete experimental technology. Obsolete because regular PV became so much cheaper. | | |
| ▲ | parineum 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | > New coal is not cheaper. I see yow it can read that way but it isn't what I said. Coal plants exist, either shuttered or running low loads due to financial incentives (not favoring them). Studies show solar is cheaper but businesses continue to choose coal. I think the entity who's entire existence depends on them making the correct financial choice is a much better indicator of economic reality than a study made by people who have zero stake (at best) in the game. I'm all for green energy but I also don't think people are stupid. |
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| ▲ | outside1234 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The example you chose is of a mirror based Solar system, which yes, is an obsolete technology. Direct solar continues to be installed at greater amounts every year and coal is economically uncompetitive with basic anything (which is why it is collapsing), and especially against natural gas. | | |
| ▲ | glenstein 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | You're exactly right and it raises a question for me. Why do energy generation topics bring people out of the woodworks who cite some very idiosycratic one-off and use it to make out-of-proportion declarations about the utility of a given technology? This is the second one I've seen suggesting solar is doomed when they mean mirrors. On twitter I saw someone claim PV is useless for heat because non-PV solar water heating is just so much more efficient. Not even true (I think it's a approximately a wash, different advantages in different applications), but very strangely in the weeds on a specific topic. Much too narrow a factual context to substantiate general level claims about solar as an energy writ large. I think for whatever reason the missing the forest for the trees trap is really potent in energy discussions. | | |
| ▲ | marcosdumay 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Why do energy generation topics bring people out of the woodworks who cite some very idiosycratic one-off and use it to make out-of-proportion declarations about the utility of a given technology? They either have only read propaganda pieces from fossil fuel producers or are trying to create some of those. I would expect the number of people that honestly don't know anything but propaganda to be way higher than the number of people creating propaganda. But there's probably a selection bias due to HN being a somewhat large site with some influence on SEO and AI training. | | |
| ▲ | parineum 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I brought up the mirror plant because the molten salt crucible is an example of an attempt to make solar work after hours. It wasn't viable. Solar+storage is not a solved problem. The storage problem gets continually hand waived away in the conversations about how cheap solar is. As I said in a sibling comment, I don't think the people running energy companies are stupid. If solar really was cheaper as a baseline power supply, what it needs to be to replace fossil fuels, they'd be doing it. | | |
| ▲ | marcosdumay 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > If solar really was cheaper as a baseline power supply, what it needs to be to replace fossil fuels, they'd be doing it. So, you haven't looked at what energy companies are doing for the last 3 years... |
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