What is Digg?157 Comments
- Victorface, on 08/31/2008, -3/+178Switching to LEDs would be nice.
- Aeric, on 08/31/2008, -0/+115Title is misleading; It is not losing any lights nor going dark.
The tower "twinkles" for 10 mins on every hour after dusk; they are going to do only 5 minutes. They are also replacing standard incandescent light bulbs with metal iodide light bulbs on 280 of Paris monuments, reducing their 1145 kilowatt usage into 218 kilowatts. - Bkaufman, on 08/31/2008, -33/+120Environmentalist idiocy at its best. I'm sure that the minuscule power savings from turning off those lights is really going to save us from ManBearPig.
- blipblopblip, on 08/31/2008, -27/+98Well Al gore can go and sit on the sharp end.
- whoomp123, on 08/31/2008, -2/+62if you read the article it says the tower will still be light but for a shorter period.
- fuzzynyanko, on 08/31/2008, -5/+50Not bad. I did think they could easily switch to something more efficient like LEDs
- inactive, on 08/31/2008, -6/+49They should go all out and turn it into a wind turbine.
- ShellShock11, on 08/31/2008, -35/+75This is ***** retarded.
- tjrecord, on 08/31/2008, -11/+52Did you read the part where they said it was more symbolic than anything? I think this is just designed to attract attention to the fact that the Eiffel tower already IS very environmentally conscious.
As a whole, France is way ahead of most of the world in terms of cutting energy and pollution costs. There's tons of really small cars, and I believe the country gets 70% of its energy from nuclear power. - aethelberga, on 08/31/2008, -2/+42The CN Tower switched to LEDs & you can hardly tell the difference.
- shaneomac27, on 08/31/2008, -1/+27except in their electric bill
- KibibyteBrain, on 08/31/2008, -8/+33Yes, this is a bit over the top. I'm all for preventing unnecessary and pointless pollution, even if I'm not sold on the whole humans making a non-negligible impact on the climate thing. But surely exceptions for *international* landmarks can be made. This seems more to me as just a big publicity stunt than a genuine attempt at being green, and perhaps smells as a rat, like the maintenance people had let the electrical infrastructure go for a bit and this was a way to explain away shutting it off.
- KibibyteBrain, on 08/31/2008, -1/+23Or just switch the electrical source to something clean. But it probably already was clean, being France uses so much nuclear power.
- jdepp, on 08/31/2008, -3/+24bit of a token gesture - Most of the emissions are from tourists traveling 1000's of miles to see the tower rather than the microsecond of electricity to the flashbulb.
- ChayD, on 08/31/2008, -0/+20As has the London Eye, plus you get soooo many pretty colors :)
- gab00n, on 08/31/2008, -5/+25They're super cereal.
- britblogger, on 08/31/2008, -0/+16buried for inaccurate title - the lights are not "going out", but are being lit for half the time to save money.
- mercurywaxing, on 08/31/2008, -0/+15Those twinkles didn't get anyone new to go to Paris. "Gee honey, I never wanted to see the Eiffel Tower before. Now that they added twinkly lights I've just gotta see it!" Many of the same people who complain about runaway spending also complain about things like saving money via CFL's and extraneous things like this.
- mercurywaxing, on 08/31/2008, -3/+17And the problem with this is what, exactly? Sounds to me like two good things.
- inactive, on 08/31/2008, -2/+16"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence."
- inactive, on 08/31/2008, -1/+14See people? Reading the article before spouting "green" nonsense is rather easy.
Turning off the light completely would've been an asinine move. Plus, anyone that went there knows that there is no way that the tower can be completely dark... The amount of tourists there at night would've made it a death trap without light. - EzarKun, on 08/31/2008, -2/+15"Now, just 218 kilowatts are necessary to power the floodlights on the 280 Paris monuments, down 927 kilowatts from what was needed before to make the city glow. The city's the power bill has been divided by four as a result."
thats saving a lot. - tidu, on 08/31/2008, -0/+12Well, now you're gonna walk right into it at night!
- GeorgeStone2, on 08/31/2008, -0/+11Nuclear power is the future. No sarcasm.
The tsar nuclear bomb was as powerful as ~1.6% of the FREAKING SUN.
I know that's not the same as nuclear power, but still. It shows potential. - afruff23, on 08/31/2008, -1/+10@boobsbr
...making the waste virtually isolated from the outside world. - eclectro, on 08/31/2008, -0/+8If you RTFA you would see that the amount of time the sparkling lights are on will be *halved8 and it won't affect the other lights. So buried as inaccurate. Also, to all those suggesting LEDs, they got a way to go before they can become a Xenon strobe.
- wronski, on 08/31/2008, -2/+10Again, in the article it says they know it's not really a significant cost cutting measure but instead is a symbolic endeavor in order to get residents to think. Reading, it's a good thing to do before you comment.
- arielwollinger, on 08/31/2008, -1/+9nuclear power = good!
- GreenAlien, on 08/31/2008, -7/+14Umm, why is everyone in this thread being such drama queens. The lights will be turned on for 5 mins each day instead of 10 mins. Big frickin deal.
- harbon, on 08/31/2008, -3/+10Why is it a bad thing? Citizens have to pay for the electric bill, so why not save money wherever possible?
People seem to forget that "going green" can also save a lot of money. - reddikilowatt, on 08/31/2008, -0/+7The French reprocess the spent fuel several times to dramatically reduce the amount of waste (however producing a lot of plutonium in the process). The high level waste is encased in lead and glass and stored in a high security bunker.
The US has a law preventing the reprocessing of "civilian" spent fuel. Civilian in quotes because all US nuclear products are technically under control of the NRC, not the Pentagon.
Oh, and George: That's an uncontrolled reaction, generally they are much higher. - Krumm, on 08/31/2008, -0/+7"It has come to light that..."
- sega01, on 08/31/2008, -0/+7Thank you. I now have the honor of being the first person to reply to your every so on-topic comment, and be the 29th person burying you.
- rgremill, on 08/31/2008, -1/+7Isn't there some glow in the dark material they can use?
- BrendanSheehan, on 08/31/2008, -1/+6I know, totally for the diggs. Very misleading.
- farfegnugen, on 09/01/2008, -0/+5In your three sentences, you were more informative than the actual article. I wish more submitters summarized as well as you.
- Shaggy3, on 08/31/2008, -4/+9A lot of harsh comments here, this is respectable though.
I am tired of seeing countries and cities talk about "going green" all the time. But then, for example, those same cities leave their lights on all night in their stadiums/arenas because it looks nice. - dikiz, on 08/31/2008, -0/+5The journalist could have put some up-to-date pictures of it....
The tower IS BLUE AND WILL REST BLUE until the end of the French European Presidency, also holding a crown of stars (EU)
http://flickr.com/photos/10288162@N07/2626677571 - DeFex, on 08/31/2008, -0/+5it looks better with LEDs
except when it goes blue in honor of some so called sports team we have here. - Alegoo92, on 09/01/2008, -0/+5I know.. the purpose of the green movement is not to remove electricity, just to use it in a more efficient way. Sure, the Eiffel Tower's lights are mostly for aesthetics, but that doesn't mean that they are so wasteful that they need to be done away with
The article seemed to mean that it only wouldn't "twinkle"-- does twinkle mean do something fancy or just shine in general? - cdigioia, on 08/31/2008, -0/+4RTFA - Since 2000 the tower has had additional lights to do a 10 minute light show, every hour. Those ADDITIONAL lights were going to be short term, but was kept due to tourists loving it. Now, it's going to do a 5 minute light show every hour.
Doesn't sound so awful now, does it? In fact...it almost...doesn't matter...but gawd I just love a good 2 minute hate session... - pearcewg, on 08/31/2008, -2/+6I think what alot of people have a hard time with when it comes to this topic is that it wasn't too long ago that it was a tremendous achievement and a big collective effort for man to get something beautiful like this built onand lit in the first place.
We, as a people, are now choosing to undo what was a tremendous step forward for people, for liberty, for expression.
Mankind is not traditionally used to taking steps backwards. Undo things which took a lot of work to accomplish is not very human...stop the concorde, use less electricity, stop driving, etc.
Is this an accomplishment, or is it tragic? I'm conflicted...it feels like both. - qetuo, on 08/31/2008, -0/+4I hate walking past fully light office buildings at night, that are empty. There are street lights for a reason!
- awhiteflame, on 08/31/2008, -1/+5If there's a fact to not care about, this one is of relatively little importance.
- GreenAlien, on 08/31/2008, -2/+6Let's not get too carried away. They're only turned on for 10 minutes each day. And the tower pulled visitors just fine before the lights were introduced in 2000. And even then they're not being removed - they'll be used for 5 mins each day instead. Big deal. Everyone in this thread are getting their knickers in a twist over ***** all.
- BrokenCircle, on 08/31/2008, -0/+4What is so nice about having Ranger Stadium lit up all night long even in the off season? Between that ***** and Six Flags I get no sleep.
- WoWii, on 08/31/2008, -3/+7If they really wanted to "go green" they would put up some solar panels and keep the lights on, making a clean energy statement.
- YoctoYotta, on 09/01/2008, -0/+3sorry, word reading is be hard
- Typhoon2009, on 08/31/2008, -0/+3If running a light for 10 minutes costs, I don't know, 1 dollar... then running a light for 5 minutes should only cost 50 cents.
- inactive, on 08/31/2008, -0/+3its not a pecker, its a lightbulb
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