The one good thing about that one big coal fired plant is that it's fairly easy to clean and scrub the flue gases of a big power plant before they go up the stack - far easier than thousands of smaller generation facilities you would need if not for that big one. And easier to retrofit fluidic beds in the boilers, and other emissions slashing methods.
Any fluorescent lamp does not handle frequent cycling well - yet governments insist on putting occupancy sensors in all rooms and hallways with ridiculously short cycle times of 3 to 5 minutes.
If you have someone on staff to change lamps I wouldn't go any shorter than a half-hour turn off time delay, if you have to hire an outside electrician or maintenance company to come change lamps bump that up to an hour minimum.
For a flashing sign you have to go to LED or Neon or Cold Cathode Fluorescent - and then the ballast is the first part to fail.
It gets better - Angelo Brothers Company (AKA ABCO) developed a reputation for selling total crap light bulbs in the USA. A clinker (or several) in every carton...
So what did they do? They licensed the once-proud brand name "Westinghouse" for use on their light bulbs (from another company who now owns the name and was more than glad to w**re it out for the money), and you only find out if you read the tiny print on the bottom of the box.
Don't get me going on the proliferation of non-standard "Standard" lamp bases for fluorescent lamps - "Lights Of America" brand is famous for inventing new lamp shapes and new base pinout designs that nobody else will supply replacement lamps for - meaning when you can't buy a lamp they get to sell you a whole new fixture again...
Throw out all the energy and materials used to make the fixture.
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