Wasting Energy

A new study by UC Santa Barbara confirms a previous study in Australia: Daylight Savings Time not only doesn't save energy, it actually wastes energy.

I'm already dreading "jumping forward" -- next weekend! At that point it will have only been four months since we went on Standard Time.

Meanwhile, for a depressing read on the poor performance of the CFL bulbs Congress is mandating we use in the name of "saving energy," here's a story from yesterday's USA Today.

Among other problems, the bulbs don't work well (or at all) with dimmer switches or in hot environments -- the ideal home temperature for the bulbs is about 77 degrees.

The only problem with that temperature issue is that here in California the state refuses to build more electric power plants and the state and the electric companies are thus forcing conservation with electric costs so high that many families can no longer run air conditioning in the summer. If we can't run our air conditioning, does this also mean the bulbs will go out and we'll be sitting in the dark on hot summer days?

These so-called "conservationists" seem to want to push us back into the pre-electricity Dark Ages.