As for JUCCCE’s propensity to advertise their programs at a level that they have yet to achieve, and the devil is in the details.

for CFL program - Who is going to manage this program? How are the managing the waste of incandescents that may actually still be good? Have they set up a recycling model of any kind? and How are they ensuring that these do not end up in a market?

for the mayoral program - who is doing the training? How will this training differ from that of other training programs that these mayors have been getting in/out of China? Who is producing the training materials?

I realize that you are not the spokesperson, but the problem with this program is that it is all spokespeople at this point, and in 12 months of seeing the same pitch 4-5 times, these are questions. that are still unanswered when asked of the people of JUCCCE.

Yes, city governments are running their own efficient lighting programs. It is important to note, however, that these programs are of a finite scale and rely heavily on government subsidies. Not only are the city programs not mutually exclusive to JUCCCE’s program, but JUCCCE’s program involves innovative financing mechanisms described in the above post that render tax payers’ money unnecessary. The ultimate goal of this program is to set a precedent for scalability, i.e. to create a feasible lighting program that is replicable in other cities across China, including those that may not have government-subsidized lighting programs.

Any risk of an emerging “blackmarket” for replaced incandescents will be minimized. Contrary to your claims, JUCCCE, I am told, will in fact administer the bulb exchange process and have developed with its partner(s) procedures for the accounting for, collection and environmentally-safe disposal of, the replaced incandescent bulbs.

Furthermore, and for me personally the absolutely coolest aspect of it all, the JUCCCE strategy of targeting school children as the agent for this change provides positive externalities of environmental educations (hands on at that!) that is sorely needed in contemporary society, especially Asia.

The CDM process is a very complicated and entails a lengthy back and forth approval process that is outside the hands of the applicant. Moreover, the CDM has rarely been used for mass lighting projects of this nature, entailing extra technical challenges in the CDM application process. From my conversations with JUCCCE, I know that they have absolutely top-notch experts working with them on this project, such as the former head of GE Asia-Pac Lamps group, and one of the foremost experts in CDM, Anne Arquit Niederberger.

To be fair, JUCCCE has not been around for 18 months as you claim; it was created in April ‘07 and really didn’t kick off officially kick off operations till July ‘07, so I’m willing to be a little more patient about seeing results and then letting those results speak for themselves. The website for JUCCCE ( http://www.juccce.com) has just been updated, providing much more details about their programs then was previously available at the time the above post was written, and providing an avenue for any constructive feedback and comments directly to the organization.

If they do get their plan kick started, it will actually put a lot of good incandescents into the trash, and given their lack of oversight on the project …. it could potentially create a black market for the bulbs.

So.. perhaps, it is better to look at Natural Resource Defense Council… they are actually executing and their programs will have a far deeper impact