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US To Extinguish (Most) Incandescent Bulb Sales By 2012
Engadget has noted a report in the New York Times that that the US has "passed a law barring stores from selling incandescent light bulbs after 2012. 'Course, the EU and Australia have already decided to ditch the inefficient devices in the not-too-distant future, but a new energy bill signed into law this week throws the US into the aforementioned group. Better grab a pack of the current bulbs while you still can — soon you'll be holding a sliver of history."
I've been using some compact flourescents for about a year now, and they're nice in some applications but it seems sort of stupid to cast off the old-fashioned light-bulb just yet...
Specifically, I'm talking about lights that dim... CF bulbs do not dim. They are either all the way on or all the way off. Overcoming this would be a huge stride in getting them into every light-fixture everywhere...
Who did what now?
There's more important things here than money. Less energy used is still less energy used.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Anybody study the effect of mercury contained in those CFL bulbs? I know many people that use CFLs, half seem to know about the lead, less than half of those properly pay to dispose of them properly.
Kevin
Irrational Diversions
But what does it mean for old cartoons?
Will their ideas be extinguished as well?!
Just because you get a bad ASUS/ABIT/nVidia/etc. motherboard doesn't mean that all motherboards of that brand are defective. It just means you got a bad motherboard. Sometimes things arrive DOA. Oh, hey, that might apply to light bulbs too!
This is a case of legislation done right. Instead of banning specific technologies that are inefficient, or mandating specific technologies that are better, the law simply set efficiency standards. While this currently appears to force a shift from incandescents to fluorescents, it leaves the door open for any other technology that comes along, from high-efficiency incandescents to LEDs.
Sure they will. They will do it the same way they do other products. Ever try to buy a blank reel-to-reel tape? How about a betamax blank tape? Heck, it's even getting hard to find blank cassette tapes these days. In short, they will make supply so low that demand will push them out of the market with way higher prices.
Personally, I hate the CF lights. They ALWAYS give me big pounding headaches. Thank god I have my own office at work where I can turn off the fluorescent lights and turn on my circa 1940 lamp.
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The law itself is sound but they should have made it 2020 with an intermediate period of indirect taxation on incadescent ones starting 2015. I fear this one is too strict and may very well backfire if a latter administration decides to overrule it.
Why does everyone thing Ron Paul can actually do half the stuff he's promised to do, if elected.
Every 4 years, we hear "lower taxes" and all kinds of other garbage... He's no different from the rest. If nobody else has been able to said things in the past, what makes him more able to "abolish federal income tax".
I really want to know, because as a voter, it matters to me. Has he outlined a specific plan and legislation he will propose if he is elected? If he did that, and it didn't seem too insane, I might vote for him, though I hardly think that legislation like that will ever make it into the books.
I for one am glad to see legislation forcing energy conservation,
You believe this is a legitimate prerogative of the federal government?
That's really tragic.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You're assuming that Joe Sixpack can understand the concept of "savings over time". All he sees is that he can buy a 4-pack of incandescents for the same price as one CFL. As far as he's concerned that makes the CFL more expensive RIGHT THEN, and that's all he cares about.
Of COURSE CFLs are more efficient over time (both in terms of energy consumption and replacement cost). This isn't controversial at all, it's a plain fact. (Granted, the cost of disposal eats into those savings, but you're still ahead of the game in the long run.) It's also irrelevant to most people when they make a purchase. Without the force of a ban, those people will still continue to buy the cheaper incandescents.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
There is no need for such laws - people can "vote" with their wallets. Purchase alternative lighting if you feel the need, but don't assume you have any right to force others to do so. Ditto with the new mileage standards. Those concerned with fuel economy can, and do, purchase vehicles with 35+ MPG. Having an illegitimate national government (it's supposed to be a federal system!) interfere with free market choices never produces the desired results.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The purpose of government is to act for the good of society. Things like this are *precisely* what they should be doing.
GE is supposed to release a new incandescent bulb in the next year or two which will have the same effeciency as those crappy CFL's. Has anyone yet done a study of the cost to produce and dispose of incandescent vs CFL? I would not be shocked to find what the common bulb gives up in use it gains back in using less resources.
Free markets can break down in all kinds of ways, usually because there are many factors that can escape monetization. For example, if I make a widget, and the production of my widget secretly poisons the air (and lets assume that it's only a little poison, so that I'm not really hurting anyone, although in combination with my fellow widget producing competitors, we are collectively hurting people), there is no direct way for the market to handle it. Everyone will pay a price (poisoned lungs), yet I will reap only the benefits. The only fair solution to this is government regulation/action, maybe by artificially adjusting the market by requiring that I disclose said poisoning, and maybe then people wouldn't buy my widget. But even better, since the average human in the world is a moron, and is much more influenced by marketing and lobbyists, would be for the government to stop me from poisoning the air to begin with.
I think that free markets are an excellent first choice in most cases. But when they fail, like, when people are too ignorant to buy expensive bulbs to save money and energy and air quality in the long run, it is the governments job to step in for the benefit of all of us.
I respect and admire a strict libertarian position, but it just doesn't map well to reality. I think it is a worthy goal, but you can't let abstract principles cloud your good judgment.
Japanese scientist: Technically, sir, tomatoes are fags. Military scientist: He means fruits.
The purpose of government is to maximise the personal wealth of those governing, at the expense of those governed.
Deleted
Try that and you'll get the GOP all up your ass about increasing the tax burden on the working class.
Not that it ever stopped them before, but that would be pretty piss-poor logic. The Democratic/sane person response would be: "No, the working class will SAVE MONEY by using compact fluorescents. We're just making the savings a little more obvious and up-front." Yeah, the GOP prides itself on being anti-tax, but I don't really understand how can BANNING something be easier than taxing it. Surely there are a lot more people (corporate and citizen) who're much more likely to be pissed off by a ban than a tax.
Anyway, I thought neither party cared about the working class anymore...? Nowadays it's all about pandering to the middle class.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963)
I have a few Sylvania bulbs (towards the more expensive side of the spectrum) that have been going since 2002, easily 8 to 10 hours a day.
Check your wiring, it may be crap.
Blar.
The incandescent versus CFL issue probably isn't the best example. While it's true that incandescent bulbs are inefficient, most CFL's still contain mercury and other toxins that are harmful to the environment both during production and after consumption. And while most incandescent bulbs are wasteful in terms of heat, that energy is not actually wasted all the time. In my house in the winter, any heat the bulbs put out is heat the furnace doesn't have to put out. It's not a perfectly even exchange, since the furnace runs on gas, but it's not entirely one-sided.
Also, most incandescent bulbs may not last as long as most CFLs, but that is almost certainly a product of planned obsolescence and not a genuine technological limitation. Everyone has an incandescent bulb in the house that, for whatever reason, never burns out. There are incandescent bulbs still working that were made in the Edison era a century ago. It IS possible to make an incandescent bulb that will never burn out. But then nobody would ever buy more bulbs, would they? Not much profit in making good bulbs then, and so Phillips and GE et al make bulbs that last just long enough so that you can't quite remember when you last replaced them - typically around 6 months.
And lastly, CFLs are not necessarily the best alternative technology option we have. As I understand it, LED bulbs are likely to be the best choice. I haven't seen them yet myself, but I hear they're OK and improving, and of course they are very efficient and last more or less forever.
A-Bomb
They seem to be more sensitive to bad power and vibration. I'd like to see some statistics on CFL lifetimes under more typical conditions.
Why are people clinging so strongly to incandescent light bulbs? GE et al have been fooling you for *years* by making you believe that you were buying *light* bulbs. They're actually *heat* bulbs that happen to produce light as a waste product. Now, while this was a slight improvement over candles back in 1887 (inasmuch as they started fewer fires), it's not exactly something you want in the summertime when it's 35 C, is it? But hey, I guess that's what air conditioning is for. You just use more power to take away the heat from the things that use power in your house.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Or they have friends who lived in socialist countries. Personally I didn't grow up with much money but after talking with a lot of people from Rissia and Cuba I'm glad I live in a capitalist society.
The problem with socialism is that it assumes (contrary to 5 000 years of human history) that people are naturally good natured and hard working. Any communist system depends on everyone working for the greater good since the lazy guy gets just as much as the harder working. The result is an inefficient system where most of the population is equally poor and nobody is motivated to do better without getting something in return.
Capitalism at least takes advantage of human nature to make a more efficient (not perfect) system. Throw in just enough of a safety net to keep people from starving when their down and a few rules to keep people from exploiting each other and it's a rather good system.
"As I understand it, LED bulbs are likely to be the best choice. I haven't seen them yet myself, but I hear they're OK and improving"
there is always a better technology just around the corner and those who oppose energy efficiency often suggest we wait for it. They never come, and when they look close, they always bump us to yet another further-off tech. CFLs work now, you can buy them now, everywhere.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Yep. Those dastardly liberals are FORCING god-fearing Americans like ourselves down a path towards hippydom. It's a travesty I tell ya.
Get over yourself. No, current CFL's don't work that well in extreme cold. Normal CFL bulbs do take longer to warm up, and you can get sealed CFL's designed for outdoor use. Ditto for dimmer switches. I've only seen the low-wattage dimmable bulbs at Home depot, but they do exist.
Traffic lights? Dude, new traffic lights have been using LED's almost exclusively for a long time now. LED's are ideal for that application, since you're not throwing a beam of light, just illuminating something. The fact that LED's last longer and use less electricity are just added bonuses.
The incandescent light bulb hasn't changed all that much since the tungsten filament came along almost 100 years ago. Incandescent lights burn 80-90% of their energy to make heat, not to throw light. That's just a huge fucking waste. The old bulbs should go away, just like cars without catalytic converters, and the need for leaded gas. Technology moves forward.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Oh, BS. I bought a sunlamp for my wife and was immediately struck by the cold, ugly light coming out of it. And then one day I was walking into the room where we'd put it and was noticing how awful it looked - until I realized that the light was turned off and it was sunlight streaming in. Yeah, that "ugly, artificial" light was identical to natural sunlight. It just looked odd because it was a fluorescent lamp and I expected it to look odd. That "warm, yellow" color? In blackbody terms, that's really a "cold, yellow color" when compared to sunlight. You think it looks warm because we associate "red" with "hot", but that's just not relevant here.
My buddy in the local Fire Dept. hazmat squad told me that my house should have been evacuated and a hazmat clean-up crew sent in after I dropped a CF bulb and broke it inside the house...Pick smarter friends. The current crop seem to be idiots.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
It was 5F this morning and the lights in my garage sure came on quickly and brightly enough. Hint: don't buy the cheapest bulbs you can find and put them outside.
need a light that turns on and off frequently (like traffic lights), cause that uses a lot MORE energy in a fluorescentBreakeven for a fluorescent lamp is about 23 seconds. After that, it's all profit.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
That's only because the idiot politicians that developed this bill also stopped the movement to nuclear power 30 years ago. Had they not stopped back then, no mercury would go into powering an incandescent bulb. Fix that problem and CFLs look bad again from a mercury perspective.
Got a source for all your "facts"?
You talk about the toxic chemicals in CFLs. I assume you mean mercury vapour. You do know that they can be recycled right? And about the whold Vitamin D thing... incandescent lighting is not a good source of ultraviolet light which is what your body needs to product vitamin D. As far as the photography thing... I haven't noticed. I'm not a professional photographer, I'm happy with my point and shoot type camera. It works fine for me, and I don't notice a difference in colours between different lights. I haven't seen any studies on CFLs leading to depression, mind giving some reliable sources?
FACT: Fluorescent bulbs lead to poorer health in humans because of a lack of vitamin D production. In addition to hurting humans, this also makes them wholly unacceptable for use in animal cages because many animals (particularly reptiles) really need this....
I really hope your incandescent bulbs aren't causing your body to produce a lot of vitamin D, because that "biochemical reaction" is triggered by UVB radiation. Incandescent lights won't produce much of that unless they're running really hot (like halogens) - and those need to have a UV blocker on them to keep them from giving you sunburns.FACT: Fluorescent bulbs contain toxic chemicals that are far worse for the environment than all the belching coal smoke from power generation.
This is a common canard from the anti-CFL crowd that has repeatedly been shown to be false. Calculation demonstrates that even if no CFLs are recycled, you still drop less mercury into the environment, from the reduced amount of mercury put into the air by burning coal:FACT: The people who are really pushing CFLs are not the environmentalists (except a few sheep). The people who are really pushing it are the power companies because after years of mismanaging the power grids and failing to upgrade them to accommodate growing energy needs, they have run themselves into a brick wall.
Oh really? That really needs some evidence before we can take it as a "FACT".It isn't really so much of a system as an eventuality. Unless you work really hard to avoid it, you'll end up with capitalism.
The question, therefore, is how to best create a system that deals with capitalism's considerable shortcomings (externalities, increasing wealth disparities, etc.) without excessively stifling its creative force.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
When owning is "better" it's better because you own an asset (the house) which can appreciate in value. A house is an investment, not much different from owning stock in a company or holding a government bond and a house is usually the biggest investment most people make. A house can, and historically usually does, appreciate in value over time by a few percent per year. At least in the US (not so sure about other countries) owning a house has benefits from a taxation standpoint. You can get a significant "return" on your investment through reduced taxes. Generally speaking, owning is better than renting in the long term (greater than 10 years) for most people.
In your case if there really is a $700 difference, renting is only better if you can get a better return on your investment through other investment vehicles (stocks, etc) than you would through the appreciation of the value of the house and any tax offsets. You might be absolutely right for your particular circumstances. Owning is not always better than renting just like renting is not always better than owning. Just depends on the particulars of the situation and the investment alternatives available to you.
So what -- that's not to say it's being addressed. Since the unions have been beaten down in corporate Amerika, people are back to working fifty and sixty hours a week. They aren't going to store CFLs and such safely at home, then make a two hour weekend trip to a recycling place to wait in line for some minimum wage kid to paw through their stuff for contraband and probably be charged for hazardous waste disposal. Make the charge up front, then guarantee it can be conveniently recovered at disposal time.
And make some goddamned rules and stick to them. I'm sick of being jerked around every timer some nanny finds another part of the sky falling.
First I was told I shouldn't dispose of my cat litter in the garbage because it was hazardous waste. Then they said don't flush it because cat pee has parasites that hurt the fishies. What the hell should should I do -- eat it for breakfast? Then they decided, after years of telling us to flush expired meds, that this would hurt the fishies, too, so now we're supposed to take them to police stations for "anonymous" disposal. But they also noted that you can't get rid of meth, pot or other illegal drugs this way. How "anonymous" is that? So -- feed them to the fishies? -- use them up? -- spike the punch?
Now, after years of letting diesel trucks off on pollution laws, because corporate Amerika depends on them, I'm told that my fireplace is a public health hazard. They want me to not use it -- on still, cold nights, for chrissakes -- which is just the time when I _want_ to use it.
Fuck all that shit.