4 ms·

> Sure, I could add backup batteries. Sure, I could add automatic diesel power generators. But, the phone company already has those! Do I need a secondary and/o

> Sure, I could add backup batteries. Sure, I could add automatic diesel power generators. But, the phone company already has those! Do I need a secondary and/or tertiary ISP as backup as well, and somehow join them together? (Some will say, "yes, of course".) Curious, why not advocate for the power company to provide battery backup at the substations? Why should the only part of our infrastructure that's battery backed be the phone system? > What are they going to do next, ban standard incandescent light bulbs? Oh, wait, they already did that! Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison must be spinning in their graves! > I get the idea is to cut costs or something, but I think this is a safety issue, no? > If we can't have real light bulbs, and we can't have real telephones lines, is there a name for that? I'm really curious to why you view incandescent light-bulbs as being superior to LEDs. Is it solely because they are simpler? They certainly don't last as long and cost more to operate. LED bulbs have the same warm glow and are indistinguishable from incandescent. Perhaps you are using them to heat your room? If so, a resistive heater could accomplish the same job (without lighting up the area). > If you use one or more copper lines: what is your plan for the post-telephone-line world, if it comes to it? Batteries everywhere. Ideally every utility would have a mandate to use battery backups covering common outage times.

gottorf 3y ago
> why you view incandescent light-bulbs as being superior to LEDs. Is it solely because they are simpler? They certainly don't last as long and cost more to operate. I've gotten in the habit of writing down the in-service date on all of my LED bulbs, because I don't think I've gotten more than two years out of any of them. Granted, still longer than incandescent bulbs, but I feel like the 10+ year lifespan I've been sold is a lie. Supposedly LED bulbs are a lot more sensitive to fluctuations in power quality (and it's not like I've been buying AliExpress bulbs, either). In either case, why a federal ban on incandescent bulbs? If LED bulbs are superior, the market will sort itself out. If it's really a market failure (which I don't think it is in this case), put an excise tax on incandescent bulbs to tip the scale in LED's favor. To ban it outright is just rude.
- nemomarx 3y ago
  My understanding is that they need more air flow for good operation, and lots of ways you can socket them won't provide that, especially recessed lights. The 10 year lifespan is in more ideal circumstances, I guess.
- valleyer 3y ago
  > In either case, why a federal ban on incandescent bulbs? If LED bulbs are superior, the market will sort itself out. Because part of the cost of the use of the incandescent bulb is externalized and therefore not subject to market pressure. Specifically, it uses (way) more energy, and the harnessing of that energy involves emission of greenhouse gases and depletion of non-renewable fuels.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  I was at my parent's house and turned on a bathroom light which popped and startled me. I was very worried about some electrical fault that might be dangerous. It turns out it was a quite old incandescent light (probably the last one in their house) that had simply died. I forgot that they did that because I haven't replaced a bulb in literal years.
- ssl-3 3y ago
  Because it won't sort itself out. An incandescent ban is the only thing that is going to keep people like my parents from using them. My father does not understand efficiency at this point in his life. "Why would I pay two dollars for a new LED light bulb, when I can get four of the regular ones for a dollar?" He does not understand that the inexpensive incandescent bulb is going cost him more a lot more than two dollars by the time it burns out. I've tried explaining it to him, and he seems to understand it very well each and every time, but he's old and he forgets. At least he has someone like me who will try (over and over again) to give him straight advice that will save him some money. But most people aren't like me, and they are not like you. They don't hang out here on HN. They may have no understanding of how these things work, or how efficiently works. They may even be misinformed and making decisions with bad information. So, no: The invisible hand of the free market will not and can not sort it out by itself, because the free market does not have good technical literacy. Meanwhile, the downsides to the ban are what? Rudeness? Sorry, but I'm not Canadian enough for that to matter to me.
fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
I use mostly LED bulbs, but isn’t it true that LED bulbs all have a lot more blue in their spectrum than incandescent, even the warm ones?[1] I understand why people prefer incandescents but I really prefer my lights to be as white and bright as possible and so I’ve always bought LED bulbs. [1]: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/20757/led-lighting-with-incandescent-spectrum https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/20757/led-li...
- cogman10 3y ago
  Note the date there, that's 12 years old. The first answer > Better is coming. > Better costs money. Better is here, better doesn't cost more money (anymore). It's pretty trivial to find a warm LED [1], just look for something with a temperature of 2700K or lower and you are set. In fact, I have a bulb with that color from about that time still operating today. [1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=2700k+led+light+bulbs&crid=IYEGTJ3DA6KB&sprefix=2700K+%2Caps%2C178&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_6 https://www.amazon.com/s?k=2700k+led+light+bulbs&crid=IYEGTJ...
  - fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
    I couldn’t find the post, but there was a more recent post (I think it reached the hacker news front page) about how just about every LED bulb has significant blue emissions.
    - cogman10 3y ago
      Every "white" light has blue emissions (blue is, after all, part of white). Blue is visible, the LED blue emissions for a 2700K bulb are no more or less than the emissions from an incandescent.
dgoldstein0 3y ago
While we should absolutely invest in grid level batteries, right now we use so much power that very large battery installations can only really hope to cover a few hours of usage for a portion of supply. It's great for helping peak solar and peak wind power production to be stored and then re released in times of demand. And definitely can help with grid resiliency. But I'm not sure we have the battery technology to be able to distribute batteries everywhere with enough capacity to stop most power outages. That's quite a different deployment than centralized batteries on the grid. I hope we get there but the energy densities & costs probably are not be good enough - yet. And if we do manage that, the outages that do happen will only be more severe. Are we going to have power outage drills? If not tons of people will be caught unprepared.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  I wonder if there could be system where power grid tells customers when power is limited and they voluntarily reduce power based on their need. This is similar to system for limiting off-peak usage. It does require customers to install a smart panel to control what gets power, and controller to drive it. There might be enough savings in off-peak power to get people to install it. They would also be a good idea for local batteries since those don't usually do full power.
  - dgoldstein0 3y ago
    Kinda already exists and some implementations suck https://www.vox.com/recode/22543678/smart-thermostat-air-conditioner-texas-heatwave https://www.vox.com/recode/22543678/smart-thermostat-air-con...
ssl-3 3y ago
> Curious, why not advocate for the power company to provide battery backup at the substations? Why should the only part of our infrastructure that's battery backed be the phone system? There is a difference of several orders of magnitude between a backup power system that is able to keep a telco central office online (one singular building) and a backup power system that is able to keep an entire substation's connected subscribers online (thousands of buildings).
- ianburrell 3y ago
  Landline phones provide power to customer phones, and would need to include the power for thousands of buildings in that. Also, no one is requiring ISPs to power customer equipment. In most cases, that is impossible to do with fiber. But the provided equipment could include a battery backup. It is now possible to make small LiFePO4 battery that could survive for hours. It is acceptable to make backup power the customer's responsibility. The important thing is that network equipment keeps working. Which in my experience it does.
  - ssl-3 3y ago
    There's still several orders of magnitude of difference between powering thousands of landline phones (which, by design, use very close to zero energy while on-hook), and powering thousands of homes and businesses. No amount of handwaving or goalpost moving is going to ever change that. It is simply fact.

gottorf 3y ago

> why you view incandescent light-bulbs as being superior to LEDs. Is it solely because they are simpler? They certainly don't last as long and cost more to operate. I've gotten in the habit of writing down the in-service date on all of my LED bulbs, because I don't think I've gotten more than two years out of any of them. Granted, still longer than incandescent bulbs, but I feel like the 10+ year lifespan I've been sold is a lie. Supposedly LED bulbs are a lot more sensitive to fluctuations in power quality (and it's not like I've been buying AliExpress bulbs, either). In either case, why a federal ban on incandescent bulbs? If LED bulbs are superior, the market will sort itself out. If it's really a market failure (which I don't think it is in this case), put an excise tax on incandescent bulbs to tip the scale in LED's favor. To ban it outright is just rude.

nemomarx 3y ago
My understanding is that they need more air flow for good operation, and lots of ways you can socket them won't provide that, especially recessed lights. The 10 year lifespan is in more ideal circumstances, I guess.
valleyer 3y ago
> In either case, why a federal ban on incandescent bulbs? If LED bulbs are superior, the market will sort itself out. Because part of the cost of the use of the incandescent bulb is externalized and therefore not subject to market pressure. Specifically, it uses (way) more energy, and the harnessing of that energy involves emission of greenhouse gases and depletion of non-renewable fuels.
silverquiet 3y ago
I was at my parent's house and turned on a bathroom light which popped and startled me. I was very worried about some electrical fault that might be dangerous. It turns out it was a quite old incandescent light (probably the last one in their house) that had simply died. I forgot that they did that because I haven't replaced a bulb in literal years.
ssl-3 3y ago
Because it won't sort itself out. An incandescent ban is the only thing that is going to keep people like my parents from using them. My father does not understand efficiency at this point in his life. "Why would I pay two dollars for a new LED light bulb, when I can get four of the regular ones for a dollar?" He does not understand that the inexpensive incandescent bulb is going cost him more a lot more than two dollars by the time it burns out. I've tried explaining it to him, and he seems to understand it very well each and every time, but he's old and he forgets. At least he has someone like me who will try (over and over again) to give him straight advice that will save him some money. But most people aren't like me, and they are not like you. They don't hang out here on HN. They may have no understanding of how these things work, or how efficiently works. They may even be misinformed and making decisions with bad information. So, no: The invisible hand of the free market will not and can not sort it out by itself, because the free market does not have good technical literacy. Meanwhile, the downsides to the ban are what? Rudeness? Sorry, but I'm not Canadian enough for that to matter to me.

fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago

I use mostly LED bulbs, but isn’t it true that LED bulbs all have a lot more blue in their spectrum than incandescent, even the warm ones?[1] I understand why people prefer incandescents but I really prefer my lights to be as white and bright as possible and so I’ve always bought LED bulbs. [1]: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/20757/led-lighting-with-incandescent-spectrum https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/20757/led-li...

cogman10 3y ago
Note the date there, that's 12 years old. The first answer > Better is coming. > Better costs money. Better is here, better doesn't cost more money (anymore). It's pretty trivial to find a warm LED [1], just look for something with a temperature of 2700K or lower and you are set. In fact, I have a bulb with that color from about that time still operating today. [1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=2700k+led+light+bulbs&crid=IYEGTJ3DA6KB&sprefix=2700K+%2Caps%2C178&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_6 https://www.amazon.com/s?k=2700k+led+light+bulbs&crid=IYEGTJ...
- fiddlerwoaroof 3y ago
  I couldn’t find the post, but there was a more recent post (I think it reached the hacker news front page) about how just about every LED bulb has significant blue emissions.
  - cogman10 3y ago
    Every "white" light has blue emissions (blue is, after all, part of white). Blue is visible, the LED blue emissions for a 2700K bulb are no more or less than the emissions from an incandescent.

dgoldstein0 3y ago

While we should absolutely invest in grid level batteries, right now we use so much power that very large battery installations can only really hope to cover a few hours of usage for a portion of supply. It's great for helping peak solar and peak wind power production to be stored and then re released in times of demand. And definitely can help with grid resiliency. But I'm not sure we have the battery technology to be able to distribute batteries everywhere with enough capacity to stop most power outages. That's quite a different deployment than centralized batteries on the grid. I hope we get there but the energy densities & costs probably are not be good enough - yet. And if we do manage that, the outages that do happen will only be more severe. Are we going to have power outage drills? If not tons of people will be caught unprepared.

ianburrell 3y ago
I wonder if there could be system where power grid tells customers when power is limited and they voluntarily reduce power based on their need. This is similar to system for limiting off-peak usage. It does require customers to install a smart panel to control what gets power, and controller to drive it. There might be enough savings in off-peak power to get people to install it. They would also be a good idea for local batteries since those don't usually do full power.
- dgoldstein0 3y ago
  Kinda already exists and some implementations suck https://www.vox.com/recode/22543678/smart-thermostat-air-conditioner-texas-heatwave https://www.vox.com/recode/22543678/smart-thermostat-air-con...

ssl-3 3y ago

> Curious, why not advocate for the power company to provide battery backup at the substations? Why should the only part of our infrastructure that's battery backed be the phone system? There is a difference of several orders of magnitude between a backup power system that is able to keep a telco central office online (one singular building) and a backup power system that is able to keep an entire substation's connected subscribers online (thousands of buildings).

ianburrell 3y ago
Landline phones provide power to customer phones, and would need to include the power for thousands of buildings in that. Also, no one is requiring ISPs to power customer equipment. In most cases, that is impossible to do with fiber. But the provided equipment could include a battery backup. It is now possible to make small LiFePO4 battery that could survive for hours. It is acceptable to make backup power the customer's responsibility. The important thing is that network equipment keeps working. Which in my experience it does.
- ssl-3 3y ago
  There's still several orders of magnitude of difference between powering thousands of landline phones (which, by design, use very close to zero energy while on-hook), and powering thousands of homes and businesses. No amount of handwaving or goalpost moving is going to ever change that. It is simply fact.