A Rubber Duckie to one of the many industrial policy scams of our time, the compact fluorescent bulb, which is about to become law. Call it the George Bush dim bulb law, a triumph of extreme government interventionism in the name of green energy.
The light from CFLs is bad, the cost is high and the savings can be found only if you hire 100 consultants to do the life-cycle math, and even then the science is shoddy. But Washington (next January) and Ottawa (in 2014) will force every home to start buying the new expensive mercury-laced bulbs. All part of mandates forced by George W. Bush's Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
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