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."

Comments

Re:mod parent up.

[BVis]

Could you define 'true, rational human behavior' in this context for me?

And by "price" being the biggest factor in any economics, are you defining price as 'purchase price' or as 'total cost over the useful lifetime of the product'?

Mod this up

[Anonymous Coward]

I can shop at wallmart and get alternative lighing for a lot less than regular bulbs

Re:wow

[dgatwood]

The right way to do white LED-based lighting, IMHO, is to wrap about three overlapping spectra of LEDs with a diffuser and call it a day. AFAIK, no single LED can approach the color accuracy of incandescent lights because the width of the spectrum provided is significantly narrower They can be warm, but that means that you'll still have a heavily weighted color spectrum. And as far as I'm concerned, if you can't take pictures in your own house with existing lighting because everybody looks like an alien, that's a significant loss in quality of life and general self esteem.

If LED lighting doesn't become available soon, I, for one, will be buying incandescent bulbs even if it costs me $1000 apiece on the black market. I will import them illegally from elsewhere in the world. If it comes down to it, I will even set up a shop that rebuilds the filaments myself before I'll switch to those Godforsaken CFLs. Either that or I'll equip my home with halogen bulbs, which I assume won't be banned unless our government really has no common sense whatsoever.

FACT: Fluorescent bulbs make photographers want to commit suicide because the colors in photographs are utterly ruined.

FACT: Fluorescent bulbs lead to depression because it does not cause the same biochemical reactions as incandescent light.

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....

FACT: Fluorescent bulbs contain toxic chemicals that are far worse for the environment than all the belching coal smoke from power generation.

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.

Slashdotters, write your congressman and DEMAND that they overturn this heinous farce of a law. It's another example of a law written by idiots who are pandering to pseudo-environmental bullshit that flies blatantly in the face of actual environmental and health science. It is a fundamentally bad law for EVERYONE except the power companies.

While you're at it, vote AGAINST the dangerous CFLs with your pocketbook and buy enough incandescent bulbs between now and then to last the rest of your lives and the lives of your children. Your descendants will thank you for it. If you're still concerned about the environmental impact of the extra energy you use, do something that will actually help the environment: buy enough solar panels to make up the difference in power. Your pocketbook will thank you for that, too.