Urban Deliveries - The Humble British Milk Float

The humble British Milk float,
The most successful electric vehicle ever built?

Discussing urban infrastructure with some friends, it occurred to me that folks outside the UK may not be aware of the humble British milk float.
I remember growing up in the early 1970s and seeing these on the streets then.

There are a couple of variations in the design, including some with only one front wheel, and one headlight, and a more ponted front end than the squarer milk float shown above.
Sometimes petrol (gasoline) powered vehicles are used for milk delivery, particularly in rural areas, but the "classis" milk float is a battery-powered vehicle, with a string lower frame (to take the weight of the batteries!) and a lightweight upper body.
Some have plastic/grp bodywork, and some have metal bodywork, and some have side door (or no doors at all!) rather than the rear-entry cab shown above.

Such vehicles have a top speed of about 20 mph (32 km/h) and I remember cycling to work about 30 years ago on an unlit road being chased by this eerie light, I cycled faster and faster and was able to stay well in front of it. When we got to the next section of raods that had streetlights, I saw that I was being followed by a milk float (a single-headlight model).

So what is the relevance of this now?
Well, two things really:
Firstly, the electric milk float is probably THE most successful electric vehicle ever made;
Secondly, when we are thinking about how our towns and cities should be planned in the future, we need to think about what services (if any) we wish to provide.
For example, should we allow milk floats into cuty centre areas, but only before, say, 7 am?
In my experience, milk floats usually deliver somwhere between about 5 am and 7 am, 6 days a week.
Is that what we want in our cities?
Does having door-to-door milk (or whatever) deliveries mean that urban citizens cut down on car use as a result?
We discuss such things over on the Car-Free Cities community, and there is a currently a survey about ... (wait for it) ... milk floats.
Why not join us, and share your views!

Reducing Energy Usage - A Practical Experiment

Hi all.
I thought I would share with you my thoughts on reducing energy usage.
First of all, you have to know what you are actually using.

I like tea.
A lot.
But how much energy does it cost to heat enough water for a mug of tea?

Domestic Solar Electricity - does anyone actually fit it?

Just a typical English street - except for the house at the back with the solar panels

New Wind Turbine On The Edge Of Town

I was cycling out on the edge of town today, and I saw this.

It sure looks like a wind turbine mast.
I was out on the new link road that joins Berryfields to Buckingham Park (Aylesbury), when I saw it.
A quick trawl on the internet suggests that a 2KW wind turbine was approved in March 2012, so I guess that it what is!
The wind turbine is mentioned in a document called Vale Trends, which is full of planning information for our area - but, be honest, how many folks do you think actually read such publications :-)
Iirc, about 50% of all generated electricity in the UK is lost during transport over the nation's power lines, so a modestIy-sized wind turbine close to a housing development should be quite efficient by comparison - the shorter the distance from generation to consumption, the less is lost!
The 2KW turbine is expected to supply the power to 1500 homes, but with about 75,000 folks being recorded as living in the "Aylesbury Urban Area", and I guess somewhere in the region of 30,000 to 40, 000 homes, it's not that many really!

But every bit helps.
1500 homes powered by the turbine is 1500 less from gas/oil/coal/nuclear!

And it has to be better than living next to a "regular" power station!

Good Choices and Bad Choices

The rear entrance to the British Museum -
still pretty imposing, with the stone lions and all!

Life has a lot of "real" choices in it.
Sometimes we would like to do the "right" thing, but it is just too expensive!

Last weekend, we (Anna, Katya, and myself) wanted to visit the British Museum in the centre of London.

So, given that we live (according to Google Street Maps) about 42 miles away, walking is out, and, to be honest, it is a bit far for us to cycle! I did cycle 100 miles in a day in the Summer, but that is the furthest I have ever been, and it took me all day! For the keen, however, Google estimates you CAN walk it in a bit more than 13 hours each way (!), and cycle it in 3 hours 35 each way, although I suspect that their "cyclist" gets up the climb to cross the Chilterns a lot faster than I do (!) With a stop for a rest and a break half-way, I guess I might be able to do it on my bike in 4 1/2 to 5 hours each way, but I don't think Anna and Katya could manage this distance yet. My bike, although cheap, still cost to build more than their two bikes put together, and their bikes are optimised for urban utility, rather than "audax"!

The "realistic" options for us were therefore car, train, or bus.

I didn't seriously explore the bus route, as, from here, it is rather a multi-stage journey.
I know there is a bus from Aylesbury to Watford, and there is a bus from Watford to Brent Cross (North-West London), and I have even used this Watford to Brent Cross bus route once, but then it would be at least one more bus into the centre - probably to Trafalgar Square. The Aylesbury to watford bus is not exactly quick, taking an hour or so for that route, as it stops in a lot of places on the way. Iirc, the expected jouney time is about an hour. The Watford to Brent Cross route also stops a lot, and takes about an hour. The last part of the route will probably also take that sort of time as well, as it is likely to have a lot of stops on the way into London. So we can say it is at least three hours for the bus "option", plus 30 minutes at our end to walk to the bus station and get tickets, with a bit of time to spare in case there is a queue. It is likely to be another 30 minutes at the other end to get from Trafalgar Square to the British Museum on foot, what with it being 14 years since I left London, and 20-odd years since I used to spend a lot of time in the central part!
So I estimate that the bus option would be about 4 hours EACH WAY.

Now the train option, which I explored in depth.
There is a train from Aylesbury to Marylebone Station in London, with 2 or 3 an hour. the trip takes a bit more than an hour.
Then we would have to get a "Tube"/Subway/Metro train to a station nearer to the Museum.
Never mind the routing that Google maps likes - for me, the best route would be to walk from Marylebone to Baker Street (not as far as it looks on the "Tube" map, which is schematic, rather than geographical!), then catch the "Tube" to Euston Square, then walk down and across, and into the rear entrance to the British Museum.
Google estimates that their routing would take between 1 hr 30 mins and 1 hr 48 mins. My routing probably takes the same sort of time.
Then there is the time from our house to the train station in Aylesbury - it is near the bus station, so I will add on 30 minutes for that.
So that is (rounded off)  a total of 2 - 2 1/4 hours by train each way.

Now the least "green" option.
What if we simply just drove?
Google Maps suggests a time of just over an hour - but, remember I used to live in London, and I know what the traffic is like (!). So I estimated about 1 hour 30 minutes for a drive (given that we usually drive at 10 - 15 mph or so BELOW the speed limit on major roads - that's us, just keeping up with the trucks, rather than screaming down the outside lane!) that would get us there for about 10 am (when the Museum opens), so we actually avoid the bulk of the traffic by being earlier. (remember, this was a weekend, not a weekday trip, so the "usual" 9 am "rush hour" doesn't apply!)

What then of cost?

Having ruled out walking, cycling, and bus, all on the grounds of journey time, that left car and train.
So how much is a ticket for 2 adults and a child to London from Aylesbury, including a permit to use the Tube (Subway/Metro) once we arrive in London?
Our train route is run by Chiltern Railways, and runs pretty reliable trains - all in all, it is a highly regarded train company. German-owned, if that means anything!
The "regular" weekend fare is £58 ($92.80), but as there are three of us, we can get a family group ticket for £45.90 ($73.44)

And driving?
Parking, if you get there early enough on a Sunday morning (before it all fills up!) is "free" in the streets arounf the Museum.
If you miss the surface parking spaces, there is an underground car park below a small-ish nearby shopping centre, where 4 to 24 hours (any day of the week) costs £19.30 ($30.88)
Central London has a "congestion charge"vehicle tax of £11.50 ($18.40) per day for casual visitors, but that only applies in the week, and in the day, not after 6pm in the evening, and not at all at the weekend,
The fuel cost varies depending on how much traffic you get, and how much inefficient start-stop driving you do.
Three is also the matter of how you calculate your costs - once you own a car (a big expenditure), the "marginal cost" of one extra trip isn't as much as the costs of the car divided by the total number of miles you do - most of those costs would still be similar (insurance, depreciation, parts and servicing, tax, safety test, etc. etc.). We actually average (our car has a fuel computer) a bit more than 60 mpg (Imperial gallon) that's circa 50 mpg (US gallon), and the route to London is fast dual carriageway (divided highway) then motorway (expressway), then major urban road to London Zoo, then minor roads in the park, then major urban road, then turn right, go down to blocks, and voila! Off-peak, we probably still manage about our average, as we are well above it on the fast sections at the start (I tend to drive at 55-60 mph, rather than the 70 mph speed limit on such roads).
Somewhere in the region of 20p per mile covers the "marginal cost" fuel and wear-and tear, and if we round up the mileage a bit to allow for any detours, and come to a figure of 100 miles (rather than Google Map's figure of about 85 miles), we still only get £20 ($32) for driving.

It is hard for public transport to compete with "free" parking

So, what did we do?

We drove.
It took us about 1 hour 15 minutes to get there, and about 2 hours to get back.
We parked "free" within 5 minutes walk of the rear of the Museum - we actually parked in Russell Square.

Russell Square is very close to the British Museum -
turn left for the "main" entrance, and turn right for the
"rear" entrance.

Had we made the journey on a weekday morning, we may well have taken the train.
But on a Sunday morning, the economics means that even for someone wanting to do the "right" thing, the car is a hard proposition to argue with!

Energy Ratings for Houses

In the UK, houses have to have an energy rating certificate if they are being rented out or sold.
Our house doesn't have one, as we bought it before the current rules were introduced.

However, we can estimate our house's energy rating by using the certificate of the house next door, and then making adjustments for the differences.

The house next door has a rating of just 55 (right at the bottom of Band "D" on the Government's A-G rating system).
Their certificate recommends a condensing boiler (we had one a few years ago!), with more modern heating controls (we have that too!), and suggests that those improvements would be worth 7 and 3 rating points respectively,
Then we have double-glazed windows, and they don't. So that is another 3 or 4 points.
Low-energy lighting throughout gives us another rating point,

So we get about 55 (next door's rating) + 7 (condensing boiler) + 3 (modern heating controls) + 3 or 4 (double glazing) + 1 (low-energy lighting), giving us an estimated energy rating of 69 or 70 points, which takes us to the bottom of Band "C" - a whole rating band above our neighbour!

our condensing boiler

our modern, digital, wireless, thermostat.
our heating is optimised for the hamster!

One of our LED table lamp bulbs

Are there any other neighbours we can check "our" assumed rating against?

Yes - another house in our street, which is being rented out, also has a certificate.
Remember, all the houses in our street were built at about the same time by the same property developer, and although the vary in layout and size a bit, they are all built to a similar standard using similar construction tecniques and materials.

So, this second house has a rating of 60 - still Band "D", but better than the first house we looked at!
The values for improvements have changed a bit, too (the energy report for the second house was issued four years later than that for the first house).
So here we go.
60 (for the second house) + 5 (condensing boiler) + 2 (modern heating controls) + 2 (low-energy lighting), giving us an estimated energy rating of 69 points, which takes us to the bottom of Band "C" - so we scrape into a rating band above that neighbour too!

How efficient is your house?In the next 10 years or so, I expect to have solar panels on the roof, too, and that'll be worth a further 15 (first report) or 13 (second report) rating points, and would lift us into Band "B"!
Interestly, the inspector for both energy reports was the same man (!), so I suspect that the guidelines about the rating points have been altered a bit in the four years between the two reports.

A Few Ideas to Make the World a Better (Greener) Place - Part 2 - Condensing Boilers

We have a modern condensing boiler.

Our boiler hangs on the wall in our kitchen.

It is a Worcester-Bosch Greenstar 30si model, with a rated efficency of 90.1%.
Our previous boiler (a late '80s Glow-worm model) had an efficiency of just 68%.
As things these days have an energy rating, our current boiler is rated as an "A" (the best), while our pevious boiler was rated as a "G" (the worst).
So, what does it mean?

Well, moving from an effiency of 68% to 90% means the boiler will use about one-third LESS FUEL, while still providing the SAME HEAT OUTPUT.

How is such an improvement possible?
Is the technology that much different?

Yes, it is.
A condensing boiler uses waste heat from the combustion to pre-heat the incoming water.
The heat-exchanger inside the boiler also has to be made of a more expensive corrosion-resistant material, due to the mildly corrosive nature of the condensed waste liquid inside the boiler, which is then drained off.
Read more about it here.

Of course, since the boiler is modern, it is also available with modern heating controls - so we got a wireless remote thermostat.
It is great, because you can put it where you want, and if you want to be sure that one part of the house has a particular temperature, then just put the thermostat there!
(in the picture, we are regulating the temperature of our house to keep our hamster warm! Of course, we also have TRV valves on our radiators)

The boiler has a snazzy little remore thermostat.
Here we are using it to keep our hamster warm enough.

So there you have it.
The same amount of heat, but from a third less gas.
That's good for my wallet, and, if not entirely good, is at least less bad for the planet!
Every little helps!

What direction should transport policy take in YOUR town/city?

I am now a "moderator" on the "Car-Free Cities" community.

Why not share your views with my survey on "What one change would make folks cycle more and drive less?"

We all love cycling.

But what about taking it one stage further, and thinking about whether we should change the "Car-first" situation that exists in our towns and cities.

Does your town have a "pedestrianised" area?
How could it be made better?
Dou you use buses or trains much?

Do you prefer coffee shops to drive-thrus?

Why not share your ideas and experiences with me and a wider audience?

Go on and give us a try!

Update 23 Nov 2014
Another survey: What should YOUR local government concentrate on FIRST?
Are more cycle paths the best priority in your area?
Or would you prefer more trains, or better bus services, or something else?
Let us know over on Car-Free Cities

Phased out - how should signal-controlled pedestrian crossing be phased?

I first came across all-pedestrian phase lights in Edinburgh, Scotland.
There is a phase on the traffic lights (signals) where ALL vehicles lights are at "stop", and ALL pedestrian lights are at "go".
This allows folks on foot to cross as they wish during this phase.
I have subsequently come across the same phasing in Newquay, Cornwall, England.

I believe it was introduced after the success of similar schemes in Japan.

So, it is universally accepted as an improvement?

Apparently not.
In the "land of the car" (the USA), there seems to be moves to change some of the crossings back to "regular" phases.

Wikipedia also has a long piece on this issue here

How does your town/city rate for non-car infrastructure?

Map from "OpenStreetMap", but the annotations are mine.
Blue = schools for under 11s ("primary"), Red = supermarkets, Black = train stations,
Green = bus stations, Purplr Line = Bourg Walk bridge

For those of you that want to know what it is like living in a compact town ... (there is a scale, bottom left). To put it in context, the urban area of Aylesbury shown on the map above has a population of in the region of 75000. (new housing is still going up, so the census number from 2011 is like to be on the low side!)
This is where I live - Aylesbury. I live near the big "x" on the north-east side of town.
The blue dots are schools for the under 11s (three are "special schools" for those who, due to learning disabilities etc. need lots of extra support - and tbh, I think one of the three I have marked is for the older kids - so that's two for the younger kids).
The red squares are the supermarkets - EVERY major British supermarket chain is represented in Aylesbury. There are, of course, local, smaller, food stores on top of that.

Gotta be copyright of Chiltern railways, but I'm sure they won't mind me sharing their route map.
the map is about 7 years old, and there is now a second railway station in Aylesbury that is not shown.
It is Aylebury Vale Parkway, which is just a bit further up the spur that leads to Aylesbury.

The two black marks are the two railway stations - both connect to London (Marylebone), which is VERY close to Baker Street and the Madam Tussaurds waxworks venue. There is an alternative route that connects (via a change) to Birminham, and thus, to the rest of the country's rail network.

Map copyright Arriva, showing the Places one can get to with
an "All Zones" pass.

The green square near one of the railway stations is the Bus Station.
The purple line near the Bus Station is the "Bourg Walk", the $12.8 million walking and cycling bridge that was built a few years ago as the centrepiece of the town's cycle program.

Can I go to a recycling centre on foot or on a bike?

As a lot of you know, I live in Aylesbury, a designated "cycle town".
Things are slowly getting sorted out to make more and more things possible by bike.

But what about recycling?
A rider can obviously cycle to the bottle banks that are pretty common in the corner of supermarket carparks, and we have a fortnightly "mixed" recycling collection from our houses in the "blue bin".

But what about the bigger stuff, or the odd stuff?

There is a recycling centre on the edge of town (the Rabans Lane site), and another just out of town, on the other side (the Aston Clinton site).

Can I go there on a bicycle to do my recycling?
First place to look is the council website, as they own the sites.
And, indeed, there is much helpful advice available there.

But there is nothing on bikes!

So today I went to the Raban's Lane recycling centre and asked the staff.
Apparently folks arriving on foot need a (free) permit from Bucks County Council - indeed this is hinted at, but not explicitly spelled out on the pdf download the council have on their website.
According to the recycling centre staff a few folks DO already visit on foot, and DO have the (free) permits.

But what of bikes?

The helpful staff said that a cyclist, with or without a trailer, would be treated like a pedestrian, and would need a (free) permit,
The good news is that cyclist are actually allowed at all, as I have heard some distressing reports from other parts of the country that only motor vehicles are allowed into their local recycling centres, with apparently no exceptions or exemptions.

Solar Panels at IKEA

We were in IKEA (Milton Keynes) yesterday, and ...
... there was an in-store display about IKEA's tie-up with HanEnergy to supply domestic Solar Panels.

Their guide price was £5100 for a typical 3-bed semi, and the advisor there suggested that a 2-bed semi like ours would be closer to £4000, as it would only take 16 panels on the roof, rather than the 24 panels that the £5100 price includes.

That was about HALF what I thought the cost would be (and half what it was a few years back!)

Price is for panels and fitting, and all wiring etc. etc., so it should be a "fully inclusive" price!

Interested?
Visit their website here

Saving fuel with careful driving

The car we use for hypermiling - a 1300kg 1600cc turbo-diesel

Apologies for not blogging much on hypermiling for quite some time.
As I mentioned in my last post, I don't drive much, having  moved my workplace during an internal re-organisation in the company I work for.
This has left me with a one mile cycle to work, rather than a twenty-five mile (each way) drive.
Saving fuel with careful driving isn't the entire answer, but it is easy enough to do, and makes a real difference, at least until better transport solutions emerge in the future.

We still use our car for some journeys, particularly the longer ones.
Recently I made three long-ish journeys in our car, and it is these that I will share with you now.

Bresser solar/crank camping light/radio, with USB charging-output

The Bresser camping lantern has 6 LEDs and a small solar panel on top.
The black buttons on the front control the on/off for the light and the FM radio,
the radio channel scan (a simple "scan up" or "scan down" affair,
and the volume setting for the radio (up/down).
The light is decent enough, and the FM radio is fine, but not exactly high fidelity!
But, hey, it all works!

The crank handle folds out ready for use

At the back of the lantern is a crank handle
for extra power.

A regular smartphone/tablet USB charging cable will plug
into the USB "socket" cable that comes with the lantern.
Only downside is that you need to crank the handle to get
the lantern to charge the attached device, so it is a long,
hard job, best kept for emergency use. But it is nice to
know that you can recharge your phone if you need to!

A connection lead is provided with
a USB socket on the end

Facts and Figures: Just how many cars do Americans own?

According to the most recent figures released by the World Bank, the number of "passenger cars" owned by Americans is LESS than in many European countries, as well as less than in Japan.
USA 401
Japan 455
UK 454
Switzerland 526
Austria 536
Netherlands 471
France 482
Germany 531
Greece 460
(the numbers are expressed as "passenger cars" per 1000 population.
Yet our intuitive answer to such a question would be that the USA has more cars per head than any other country of a significant size (I am ruling out tiny places like Monaco and suchlike here, because they do not reflect the conditions of a "normal" country, and very few folks live in them anyway).
How can this be?

A Few Ideas to Make the World a Better (Greener) Place - Part 1 - Light Bulbs

Our table lamp with a 4 watt LED bulb.
A decent light for working near on the compter,
while giving a decent saving on electricity over our previous lamp.

We all want to pay a little less for electricity and/or cause a little less CO2, and help to do our bit, but most of us aren't ready to "put on the hair-shirt" just yet.

We want our luxuries, and see them as one of the hallmarks of our civilisation.
Indeed, for me, the three great marks of civilisation where I live are
1. The water that comes from the taps (faucets) is safe to drink

2. There is a decent public health system, so I can see a decent doctor if I am ill, without worrying about the cost.
3. Electricity is available at the flick of a switch, and it pretty much almost always works - our power locally is down for less, on average, than one hour per YEAR (based on only one decent power cut of 4 hours, and a few brief interruptions at night that cause the microwave clock to reset itself(!) in the 14 years I have lived in this town).

Still, we do all want to do our bit for "Global Warming" and/or save a bit of money on our electricity bills.

So here are a few ideas for you to think about, based on what we are doing.

Idea number 1: LED light bulbs.

We have started fitting LED light-bulbs into our various lamps. We had pretty much all of them fitted with Compact Flourescent tubes anyway, with just our rarely used interior porch light (there is a street light opposite our house!) having a "regular" spotlight bulb in it, and our table lamp next to this computer having a Halogen-type minature bulb with a wierd fitment.
Anyway, we decided to "make the switch", and have started purchasing LED bulbs.
As a result, that porch light now has an LED bulb (down from 60 watts to just 8 watts), and I use it more now, as I tend to switch the main room light (20 watts CF) off when I am putting my shoes on, using the porch light instead.

We have noticed that more powerful LED bulbs that would replace a 20 watt CF bulb (or a 100 watt "old-fashioned" filament bulb) are not very readily available, so this will be a long, slow upgrading process for us. As the CF bulbs fail, they will get replaced a few at a time by LEDs!

After the porch light, the other "old technology" bulb we had was the 10W bulb in that table lmap on the computer desk. It failed before Christmas, and a new bulb didn't fix the problem. After maybe 20 years, and a few falls, that lamp had had enough.
So a new lamp, bulb and fixture, it was, then.
An ideal time to switch to LED.
Now we run a 4 watt LED bulb in the new table lamp, and it is just as bright (if not brighter) than the "old" table lamp.
That lamp gets quite a bit of use, too, even in daylight, as the computer desk is in a shady part of the house!
So that's 10 watts down to 4 watts, with usage at between two and 10 hours a day.
Soon adds up!

4 watt LED bulb from our table lamp

So why are LED light bulbs better than the old light bulbs or the compact flourescent bulbs.?
The answer is easy - heat.
When I switch a light on I want it to make light with the electricity, not heat. the more the bulb heats up, the more light I am not getting for my electricity!

The old-type ("filament") bulbs (perfected, although not invented, by Edison - know your history!) work by heating a filament so hot that it glows white, and emits the light we see. So the bulbs get hot. Anyone who has even briefly touched a 60W bulb when it is on knows what I am talking about.
I used to have an old 16mm film projector with a 500 watt bulb in it, and that could heat a small room by itself when I was running film through it!


Halogen bulbs  use essentially the same basic principle as the filament bulbs - a hot wire, so hot that it emits light. Where they differ is that a halogen bulb bas a special gas inside the bulb, and the "glass" is made from quartz. The combination of the special gas (usually argon on krypton) and the quartz glass means that the bulb can run EVEN hotter. The extra heat of the filament means that more of the energy is emitted as light, and less as heat, and these bulbs look whiter (or even blue-white) compared with "regular" bulbs. Vehicle headlight bulbs switched to Halogen types 40-odd years ago.
For "domestic" household bulbs, the quartz glass of the bulb is ofetn enclosed in a regular glass bulb as well, as the sweat on skin can affect the quartz. Smaller bulbs, like the miniature ones fitted to some table lamps and reading lights don't have the outer glass cover, and a pair of cotten gloves (or similar) should be used when handling the bulb.
From an energy saving point of view, Halogen bulbs are about twice as efficient as "regular" filament bulbs.


Compact Flourescent (CF aka CFL) lights use MUCH less energy than "filament" (Edison-type) bulbs, but some folks don't like the greenish tint they often give to the light, some folks are upset by the flickering that some CF bulbs seem to undergo, some folks don't like the way that many CF bulbs start off dim, then brighten up after a bit, and to be honest, they still get quite warm!
A 20 watt CF bulb gets quite a hot tube, but nowhere near as hot as a "filament" bulb of the same light output. The different spectrum of light output means that to the eye, the difference between a "filament" bulb and a CF bulb is big, but not quite as big as a lightmeter would show - the reason being that the human eye is more sensitive to yellow light than other colours, and the "old" bulbs produce a "yellower" light!

The common energy saving quoted for CF bulbs vs "filament" bulbs is 5:1, but, in practice, I have found that my eyes prefer a 4:1 ratio.
That means a 60 watt "old" bulb should be replaced with a 15 (-ish) watt replacement, rather than the 12 watts that bulb makers generally claim.

But 4:1 is still a CONSIDERABLE saving on electricity!

LED lights produce a more yellow colour of light, and with their almost instant start-up they produce pretty much full light as soon as switched on.
LED lights tend to have an efficiency improvement on the "old" type lights of 5:1 to 6:1, but because of their more "yellow" light output, they can be replace an "old" bulb at that ratio (i.e. 8 watts replaced 40 watts, rather athn a 10 or 11 watt CF bulb) The problem is that LED lights in higher wattages aren't commonly available yet.

We use LED lights in our lower power applications, and have several. Three have "regular" bulb shapes, and are interchangeable with CF or "filament" bulbs.

4 watt dual-LED bulb as used in our table lamp

We have a 10 watt LED bulb in our floor lamp, an 8 watt LED lamp in our porch, and a 4 watt LED bulb in the table lmap next to this computer.
We also have several reading lamps that each have a non-replaceable 3 watt LED light in them, and they have a tightly focussed beam, and are great for reading in bed! The brightness of light that illuminates my book from that little 3 watt LED lamp is actually more than that from the main light in the room, but then, of course, the little reading lamp is only trying to light one small area, while the bigger lamp has to light an entire room!

Summary: 

For the same amount of light, as perceived by the human eye, the approximate efficiency of the various types of lights are as follows:
Regular, filament, bulb: 60W (the reference level!)
Halogen bulb: 30W
Compact Flourescent bulb: 15W
LED: 10 to 12 W

In each case, I have given an equivalent for the same usage of the bulb.
A spotlight gives a more focussed beam, and should be considered against other designs of spotlights, rather than "general" lights, or the bulbs for "table" lamps.
Of course, part of the solution is to choose the most appropriate light fitting in the first place - a little reading light at the bedside is a much better way to read in bed than lighting the whole room to the same level of illumination!