Calif. leads way in energy-efficient bulbs
SACRAMENTO (UPI) -- California officials say consumers in the state will be the first in the nation to save money under a U.S. law raising the efficiency standard of light bulbs.
The federal law set adoption of the standard for Jan. 1, 2012, but California was given authority to implement it one year earlier, The Sacramento Bee reported Tuesday.
Under the federal measure, 100-watt bulbs manufactured after the adoption date must use 28 percent less energy than a traditional 100-watt incandescent light bulb.
"This is in keeping with the traditional role of California being a leader in energy efficiency," California Energy Commission spokesman Adam Gottlieb said. "After 132 years, we're giving (Thomas) Edison a makeover."
California welcomed the opportunity to get an early start on high-tech solutions like halogen, compact fluorescent or light-emitting diode bulbs, Gottlieb said.
California energy standards on everything from appliances to home-building requirements have kept "per-capita electricity use in California absolutely flat for 32 years while the rest of the nation has seen a 40 percent increase during that time," he said.
Also Tuesday, home furnishing retail giant IKEA announced it will no longer carry or sell incandescent light bulbs, effective immediately.
IKEA U.S. President Mike Ward made the announcement in a statement that said the company is the first major retailer to take such a step, the Los Angeles Times reported. Ward said the company is "constantly looking at ways to help support our customers with everyday environmentally responsible solutions that will improve their lives."
"Eliminating incandescents is just one simple way for IKEA customers to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gases," the statement said.
The California Lighting Technology Center at the University of California-Davis is conducting research into energy-saving lighting technology, the Times said. Researchers are working on, among other things, systems that provide lighting based on responsiveness to available daylight and shut off lights automatically when people leave rooms.
CORVALLIS, Ore. (UPI) -- Claims of a "Great Garbage Patch" floating in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, an Oregon State University scientist says.
Angelicque White, an assistant professor of oceanography, says additional claims the oceans contain more plastic than plankton and that the patch has been growing tenfold each decade since the 1950s are equally misleading, a university release reported Tuesday.
"There is no doubt that the amount of plastic in the world's oceans is troubling, but this kind of exaggeration undermines the credibility of scientists," White said.
"We have data that allow us to make reasonable estimates; we don't need the hyperbole. Given the observed concentration of plastic in the North Pacific, it is simply inaccurate to state that plastic outweighs plankton, or that we have observed an exponential increase in plastic."
White participated in an expedition solely aimed at understanding the abundance of plastic debris and the impact of plastic on microbial communities, part of research funded by the National Science Foundation.
If you look at the actual area of the plastic itself, rather than the entire North Pacific subtropical system of rotating ocean currents in which some plastic is found, the hypothetically "cohesive" plastic patch is actually less than 1 percent of the geographic size of Texas, White says.
"The amount of plastic out there isn't trivial," White said. "But using the highest concentrations ever reported by scientists produces a patch that is a small fraction of the state of Texas, not twice the size."
Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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