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California Proposes to Ban Incandescent Lightbulbs
zhang1983 writes to tell us CNN is reporting that California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine wants to make his state the first to ban incandescent lightbulbs with the "How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act". The act will promote Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) to replace the inefficient incandescent lightbulbs. According to him, "Incandescent lightbulbs were first developed almost 125 years ago, and since that time they have undergone no major modifications, meanwhile, they remain incredibly inefficient, converting only about 5 percent of the energy they receive into light."
As extreme as this legislation is, I hope it goes through, as long as there are provisions so that incandescents can still be used under certain circumstances. But as for everyday home lighting, the incandescent should be abolished.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I don't like this at all. My eyes hurt with fluorescent bulbs. They give me a headache. I prefer the more natural look and less-flickering of the current bulbs. Unless they fix the fluorescent bulbs to not be so intrusive, I don't like this.
While it's great they want to promote CFLs, I think this is excessive. What if you want to light an art room or something? Maybe there are exceptions for cases like those, but wouldn't it be better if they created incentives to use CFLs or maybe tax incandescents?
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
Specific technology mandates or bans are a bad idea. However, rules requiring a certain efficiency of lighting would make sense. This could effectively ban incandescents and lead to replacement with CFL, but without getting unnecessarily stuck on a particular technology. For example, LED bulbs will probably soon be better than CFL. And of course we must believe in the American corporate ability to manufacture some sort of Hummer of CF bulbs that still manages to use 1 megawatt per room, while complying with a technology mandate.
You do realize that given the amount of light bulbs over there, swiching to CFL is actually a huge energy saving
Ave Maria
Yet more government intrusion into our lives. Perhaps next they can tell us what to wear and eat too.
Using lights as heaters is silly. Heat rises. Most lights are at least halfway up the wall -- floor level lights are very rare. Besides, were talking CA here, and while significant parts of the state have 4 seasons, a lot of the population is located from LA to San Diego where cooling is more of an issue than heating. Seriously, would someone in Maine leave their refrigerator door open all day to cool the house in winter (not that it would work because the cooling elements release heat back into the house -- but play along here)? Why would someone in a hot clime intentionally use lights to heat their house in the summer?
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
No, they are not. Only the good ones are expensive. My local Grocery Outlet is selling four-packs of ~20W CFLs for $2.00. The dollar store regularly has 1-packs and sometimes 2-packs. Before Grocery Outlet got them, I bought a couple of four-packs at a Friedman Bros. for $5 each.
The problem with CFLs is that the GOOD ones are expensive. The ones that have decent color and don't make noise, that is.
Outlawing incandescents means that only rich people will have good lighting in their house, and THAT is why I am opposed to this concept. It's wrong to make it illegal for poor people to have good light.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, because it'll save so much gas when I make two trips in my car (30 MPG) to pick up what I could in one trip with my SUV (25 MPG).
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
ahem. Heat does not rise, it disperses. Hot air rises, but since the heat disperses it does not stay hot that long. A steady stream of heat will cause hot air to rise, then disperse the heat. This causes the higher air to be at a higher temperature, but the bottom air still gets warmer as well. In short, don't try to sound smart when you don't even take the time to think before posting.
Three words:
Bright white LED's.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
But we have empowered these idiots with our votes in the past. They passed smoking bans and we all applauded. They told us we had to buckle up and wear helmets and we gave them a pat on the back. Lately they have been trying to protect us by banning the very same tranfats that they forced upon restaurants several years ago to get rid to saturated fats. So why shouldn't they further save the world by banning the light bulb. Next stop... who knows.
Raise the taxes on incandescent, reducing taxes on LED and CFLs.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
No they are too efficient. The 5% lead to bills like this. I say they should drop down to 0.5%. Remember that government is at it best when it does nothing.
The American philosophy: if everyone can't be rich, everyone has to be poor. Thus you have almost everyone renting dumpy apartments. There's no incentive for landlords to install anything but the cheapest, least efficient appliances in their dumpy apartments. There's no incentive for renters to install fluorescent bulbs because they don't own the property. You end up with almost every progressive decision being forced by the government.
I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
A better idea would be to tax them. An even better idea would be to increase the energy tax. That way you force people to make more energy-efficient decisions about all products, not just one particular type of light bulb. This is a case where economics can work for you, not against you. Bans like this also get complicated: What about cases where incandecent is the only option? What if someone makes a hybrid bulb? What if someone makes a more efficient incandecent? It all comes back to legislating technology (light bulbs), instead of legislating the real problem (energy use).
They'll pass a new law requiring people to recycle them, and to pay a fee to do so. And then of course you'd need a law fining people for putting them in with their normal trash. And all of this will induce people to chuck them in ditches like old tires and batteries, so you'll have to fine people for that too. And all this enforcement doesn't come for free either, so if they're not collecting enough revenues from the fees and fines, the rest will come out of your taxes.
When in doubt, throw a new law at it.
Liberty in your lifetime
besides, all kids have to have access to a source of mercury to play with. if folks were serious about that (and all fluorescents and neon sign lighting has mercury,)
Yes, CLFs have mercury but then the mercury they contain is less than the mercury emitted from coal power plants that produces the electricity needed to light incandescent lights. Unfortunately they are point sources of mercury and the bulbs need to be properly disposed of, and how many places have such programs setup? I bet not many. If CA is going to require CFLs then maybe they can go another step and require sellers to collect used CFLs as well, and setup a proper disposal system. This would be a bureaucrat's dream come true, think of all the paper they could require.
they'd be legislating LED lightbulbs into use. which DO work in the cold.
While LED lights use only a tenth the power needs of incandescent light bulbs, they are only good for point or spot lighting, LEDs aren't good for area lighting as of yet, whihc most lights are used for. Of course more research into them may solve this problem.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Depending on what they burn in your area to generate electricity, the mercury in the extra fuel needed to produce the extra juice needed to run an incandescent over a fluorescent's lifetime could exceed the mercury in a CFL.
Since those are gas-discharge lamps like fluorescents, I don't think you would ban them when outlawing incandescents.
If you ever find anything, please let me know. I've tried the existing options, and they are very disappointing.
Perhaps mandating a public service notice stuffed in (or printed on) each electric bill would be a better choice than an outright ban.
I am not a crackpot.
LED's dont produce a full spectrum of light, and it is hideously expensive to get decent power output out of LEDs. Studio photographers can just use flash, but moviemakers need continuous light.
My english is sow-sow. Sowhat?
Of course not, no more than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has conisders the outcome of increased overpopulation and the ensuing political, social and environmental chaos that will be caused by curing endemic diseaes in third world countries.
This is what ALWAYS happens when someone seizes upon a single good idea and then decides to make it manditory; CFLs save tons of energy, but they contain mercury. The intelligent people who use them know this and dispose of properly; the masses won't, so the "solution" they eliminates mercury emissions from power plants ends up INCREASING mercury in the environment from millions of illegally disposed of CFLs.
In true California fashion, they will probably institute manditory $10 deposits on CFLs as well as creating a massive new lightbulb disposal infrastructure which will use more resources, produce more CO2 and cost billions more than just keeping incandescents.
People don't have the right to control the sexual habits of others - but we prohibit sex with minors because it's in the public interest. People don't have the right to control the actions of others - but we prohibit drug trafficking because it's in the public interest. People don't have the right to control the purchases of others - but we control gun ownership because it's in the public interest. Those are fairly 'extreme' cases, granted, but there are hundreds of others; licenses, migration laws, noise control...
The government has the right to control things that are harmful to the good of the people. Pollution is harmful to the people, and so the government has every right to control it. Whether this law is a good idea is debatable - there are obvious problems, but since I haven't seen the actual text I reserve comment - but it is every bit the government's right to restrict the use of overly damaging appliances.
But we have empowered these idiots with our votes in the past. They passed smoking bans and we all applauded. They told us we had to buckle up and wear helmets and we gave them a pat on the back. Lately they have been trying to protect us by banning the very same tranfats that they forced upon restaurants several years ago to get rid to saturated fats. So why shouldn't they further save the world by banning the light bulb. Next stop... who knows.
This is just a pet peeve of mine, but I get sick of seeing smoking bans rolled in with a bunch of nanny laws which only protect you from yourself and your own stupidity.
SMOKING AFFECTS OTHER PEOPLE. There's this little thing called second-hand smoke. I seem to recall it being actually worse than first-hand smoke, since the first-hand smoker at least has a filter.
I'm all for repealing drug laws and such in general - it's none of anybody else's business what you put in your body. But what you put in our, collective air is our, collective business, and as such it is the legitimate domain of state regulation.
And back on topic again... yeah, banning incandescent light bulbs is stupid.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
I have a son who is on the Autistic Spectrum, and while I would love to solely use CFLs (they are more efficient), my son is extremely sensitive to the flicker that these lights produce. This is just not an option in my household, regardless of the benefits.
Many 'compact florescent' light bulbs contain significant amounts of Mercury, one of the most deadly elements for humans.
As long as his bill BANS all compact florescent light bulbs containing Mercury, or any toxic elements, good.
Otherwise - he is just stupid. Trading one environmental problem with another environmental nightmare.
For for God's sake...why not give incentives to do good things, and not ban them or tell me I can or cannot do them!! I don't need the nanny state to protect me from myself or dictate my shopping decisions. Make the new lights tax free! Hey, if they're cheaper, I might try them out. If I want to ride my motorcycle without a helmet, I'll pay the extra insurance. (I'm sorry, but, the wearing helments to save $$ paid out to for medical on helmetless wrecks is bogus, after they reinstated the helmet law in LA, I for one did NOT see the insurance rates drop in conjunction with riders now being forced to be more safe).
Anyway, I'm just getting tired of being told "bad adult...you can't do that anymore". If they want to give some type of incentives for not buying and SUV, or a regular light bulb...fine. But, don't tell me I cannot make a choice, even a dumb one on my own.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Most of the fixtures in my house are not CF friendly. I try to find ones that will fit but they are always a tad too tall or too wide for everything but the really old cieling fixtures in the bedrooms. Which brings up an interesting point...why is it that out of an entire wall of new lighting fixtures and Lowes/HomeDepot, only a handful of the new fixtures available to buy are designed in such a way that CFs will work?
As usual, the Mythbusters experiment is inadequate and does not actually represent science. They tested no devices over 10W. The page does not say if they were using electronic ballasts or not. In fact the lowest-power CFL I own is ~20W. The dual-ring flourescents mounted in every room of the home we are renting (which was fairly intelligently designed and equipped) are, IIRC, 23 and ~40W, with one ring cool white, and the other warm white. In the kitchen we have four 40W tubes.
This doesn't mean you're wrong, it just means that I'd prefer a useful citation.
I also have to wonder about the penalty for frequent restarts on lamp life as opposed to incandescents. Is it better, or worse?
Regardless of these issues, we would have to determine the overall cost of such a change to determine if it would be worth it. Besides energy consumption, we have to consider the cost of manufacturing these lamps, both in money and energy; both will necessarily be many times that of making an incandescent, which is far simpler. Then we have to consider both the cost of recycling those which are recycled (since they have Mercury in them it is vitally important to recycle them) and the energy cost of environmental cleanup to deal with all the lamps which are not recycled - and I suspect they will far outnumber those which are.
All in all this is a pretty pathetic alternative to just building a couple nuclear plants in California, and letting technology solve the lamp power consumption problem.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Then don't go there? I'm kinda tired of prissy lil piss-ants crying about "but what about ME and MY rights"... Bar owners have rights to determine what type of patrons they want. You have the right not to patronize that establishment.
Stop trying to control everything, you only end up pushing guys like Hitler and Stalin into power in the end.
Don't believe it? I don't really care, its just a shame that people can't yet realize that as they try to control others, they only end up forcing totalitarianism.
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
I am of the opinion that government regulations should cause manufacturers and service providers to internalize as many of the externalities as possible.
In this case, charge all bulb manufacturers for the disposal of their product. Combine this with a per-ton charge for all emissions from power plants and include the cost of mitigating other power installations' effects on the environment. This way, the true cost of the electricity and the bulb will show up in the price, which will allow the market to more accurately regulate itself.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
It's necessary to accelerate replacing incandscents with CFLs, because a lot of people either don't care, or simply don't get it. How many offices are left lit all night? How many SUVs do Americans drive? If only people had made more sensible choice, such regulations would never been thought off.
Moreover, the coercive policy will almost certainly fail in its goal of reducing CO2 emissions. Since it takes more energy to construct CFLs, forcing their adoption will generate more CO2 emissions in the short run. Sounds plausible but let's do some simple calculation first. A CFL normally consumes 1/5 to 1/3 power of an equivalent incandescent bulb. Suppose a 60W incandescent bulb has a life span of 2000 hours and the CFL replacing it works twice longer (conservative figures, just for the purpose of illustration). The energy saved would be:
4000 hours * 60W * (1- 0.25) - energy_needed_in_making_one_CFL + 2 * energy_needed_in_making_one_incandescent
The first term comes to 180KW. Even if making one CFL need more energy than making two incandescent, which I highly doubt, the overall result is not likely to be negative or even a small positive. In other words, energy saving by using CFL is a considerably big NET GAIN.
Parent post on /. and the fact it being moderated as interesting actually makes a great example for my first argument - some people either don't care or just don't get it, even in the presence of mounting evidence. It's a really sad thing.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
Consumer Reports gave Lights of America's CFLs the extremely rare "Not Recommended" rating, because they did not perform as advertised. Stick to light bulb companies you've heard of; GE, Sylvania and Philips all were recommended in the same issue (January 1999).
If I buy a pair of headphones at the dollar store, I'm not surprised when they sound crappy. Same goes for CFLs, people.
Wow, a state full of people driving what amounts to Sherman tanks is now sanctimoniously telling people what type of lightbulb they can legally use? Will there be teams of lightbulb inspectors descending on homes in their black SUVs to insure compliance by the peasants?
Here are a few free suggestions. If you strongly feel that CFL should be used instead of incandescant then buy them for your own damn home amd business. If you think it would be a useful application of public funds then propose that the state purchase and distribute CFL's for free or a much reduced price. But don't use the police power of the state to enforce your own fashionable whim of the moment. If this proposal does succeed then good luck dealing with the mercury poisoning.
The slow response can be a plus sometimes. When your eyes are adjusted to the dark the CFs are a lot less abrupt and disturbing when they come on.
So if we switch from coal fired plants to nuclear energy, the CFL will be emitting 4mg while the incandescent bulb emits none.
We need to plan ahead better, CFL lights are a bad long term choice. You provided the evidence for that.
Don't get me wrong, I love CFLs and have them in every location I can in my house, but they just don't work everywhere.
Yup works great. Except for those of us that have home automation with 8 circuit SCR packs in the vantage panel in the basement. Oh, CF bulbs cant dim or work with most home automation and lighting systems.
BTW, I save more in electricity by not having lights on except what I need where the occupancy sensors detect family members than changing to CF bulbs can save me.
CF bulbs have a 2+ year payback and are a ecological ticking timebomb. There is a crapload of heavy metals in them that will be in landfills everywhere in a few years because of people simply throwing them away.
Nope. I'll stick with $0.29 40 watt bulbs and have my lights soft start and fade off elegantly while saving money.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The Assemblyman must not have any dimmer switches in his house.
Personally, I like the CFL's, and use them wherever possible.
Alas, until they work with a dimmer switch, they'll never be universally adopted.