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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."
Until there's full spectrum fluorescent lights, you're not going to pry incandescent bulbs out of my hands!
All reptile heat lights are incandesiant, there the only bulbs that produce the right kinds of heat and light for alot of exotic pets (like my bearded dragon) I hope your law makers made an exception. "wont someone please think of the lizards!"
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
There CF bulbs that can be dimmed...
e.G.
http://www.vosslighting.com/storefrontB2BWEB/browse.do?action=refresh_browse&ctg_id=547
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.
And they all suck. I've bought at least 6 different dimming CF bulbs, and they all suck at dimming. They can't dim very far at all, tend to flicker and go out, and if you dim them too quickly, most all of them go out.
;(
I have at least 30 or 40 bulbs that I would replace in a heartbeat if they would support dimming in any reasonable fashion whatsoever. They don't, so I can't.
I've been using 240V / 250W bulbs in my house for a while now. The filament life is related to the how hot it gets and for how long it is on. 250W bulbs have a MUCH larger filament than 60W bulbs because they're supposed to get brighter. If you run a 240V bulb at 120V, you get out about 1/4 of the wattage, making that 250W bulb look like 50W and also lasting at least four times as long.
Energy saving is fine but the compact fluorescent bulbs contain Mercury and there aren't enough recycling places to make it convenient for Jane Doe to not dump them in trash bags. This means that all this Mercury will end up in landfills and leak and become part of the food chain.
Guess I'll have to finally upgrade my EZ-Bake oven.
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?!
CFs dim nicely. Just drop the temperature to 40 degrees F or less. The ones in my garage are barely visible below freezing. IOW, they are impractical for outdoor applications in most climates.
(Dim bulbs. Oh, the temptation to make a political joke is strong...)
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.
Actually there are dimmable CF bulbs. At present they don't work quite as well as incandescents for dimming applications but they do exist and work acceptably for many applications. They typically cannot dim all the way to no light, with most stopping at about 20%. Many are reported to buzz when dimmed as well though I've not experienced this myself yet. They also are quite expensive still. A 3W dimmable (equivalent to a 15W incandescent) from Home Depot costs $6.35 last I checked. I use some in my house and they work reasonably well if not quite as well as the non-dimming CF bulbs I use.
That's true, although it'll be hard to get incadescents to meet those energy standards.
However, I am again disturbed by the ability of our politicians to play the "ban it" game in order to appear capable of taking action. They are getting exquisitely efficient at banning various things we use in everyday life. Really, if politicians ban something every time they need to raise $100'000, in a couple of decades they probably will have banned procreation.
Seriously though, if they really cared about the efficiency of the bulbs, and wanted to spend more than a passing gaze at dealing with the problem, I think they would've refrained from such massive ridiculousness. Granted, incadescents are not efficient, but CFLs don't yet have as complete and warm a spectrum (I use them everywhere though), and many decorative light fixtures simply require incadescents.
Wouldn't it have made more sense, to pressure the market economically, rather than legally, and simply levy enough of a tax on the incadescent bulbs, to make them more expensive than the fluorescents, while at the same time using the money to subsidize the LED and CFL technologies?
They will last longer alright, but they will emit more of their energy in the infrared region, and hence be much less efficient for the purpose of lighting. That's called black body radiation.
Specifically, I'm talking about lights that dim... CF bulbs do not dim.
Wrong, they do dim. After a few months they don't give that much light any more but
the dimming is so slow so you don't notice (until you bump into walls).
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.
This is typical of the 'magic bullet' theory of energy conservation. CFLs are just another small way that we can all use less energy. They are not a cure-all. You still need to get your boiler serviced, seal your windows in the winter, insulate your house, trade in your stupid-ass SUV for something more efficient, turn off lights you're not using, install a programmable thermostat, purchase energy-star rated appliances when it's time to replace them, carpool, set your computers to go to sleep when idle, etc etc etc.
There's no one-step easy solution. CFLs save energy, yes, but they're not perfect. They won't cure the world's ills.
I for one am glad to see legislation forcing energy conservation, because without it, there's a significant portion of the US population that will refuse to conserve energy because it requires effort on their part, and another (overlapping) portion that do the opposite of what people suggest that they do, because they're rebels and good 'merkins who'll do the opposite of what people say "because they can". People need to be protected from their own stupidity sometimes.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
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.
LEDs can dim quite a bit. Theoretically they can dim down until they're emitting individual photons.
If you want dim light just use candles. That's what I do :P
In all seriousness though, you're right that completely banning sale of incandescent bulbs is a bit extreme. Almost all my lights are CFLs or LEDs, but they can't replace everything. Not yet anyways.
...need to use light bulbs outside, since fluorescents don't ...need a light that turns on and off frequently (like traffic ...want dimmer switches, since fluorescents don't work with them.
tolerate cold well.
lights), cause that uses a lot MORE energy in a fluorescent.
This is just silly. Sure, use the more efficient fluorescents
where they make sense, but don't ban all incandescents just because
the commercials on HGTV keep telling you it will save the universe.
Have you found standard-fitting LED bulbs that can dim?
Its not easy to find (at least locally) dimmable CFLs but I can't remember ever finding a high-lumen (700+) LED bulb that can dim at all.
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."
I beg to differ. Lumileds, Cree and others are making high-power leds on a large scale
The advantage is that LEDs can be turned on in a few nanoseconds, which means that you could us PWM (pulsing) to dim leds at very high frequencies, 100KHz and higher is possible. However I am sure that at 500Hz you will not even notice it.
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.
The problem I have with these new bulbs is that they promise five years worth of use before burning out. I have yet to have a bulb last more than 6 months.
I wonder what the profit margins for the fluorescents are? I bet they're higher. Congress rarely does anything unless money changed hands somewhere. Personally I've been buying the fluorescents becuase they are supposed to last a lot longer and I hate having bulbs burn out on me, and I've found them ok for the most part anyway. However I have not bought them to replace all of my light bulbs. There are a few places where the incandescents are better suited such as my dimmer lights and in the bathroom.
The market would have sorted this all out eventually and we would have wound up with better bulbs of both types. Instead now the game has been called off and we'll wind up with more expensive crappier products. Eventually they'll ban all incandescents except for speciality applications and the pressure for the fluorescents to have to compete and improve and become cheaper to displace incandescents will be gone.
*Sigh* Once again it is shown that we (in America) are all now living under a regime of soft fascism.
I like the warmer light of light bulb. The spectral distribution of fluorescent light is different and I personally consider it more aggressive light. It might be due to higher spikes in the spectral distribution. Hallogen light is the worst. I find it aggressive. Banning incandescant light makes sense but I want to be able to buy alternatives which have a similar feel and spectral distribution. When comparing fluorescent, incandescant and LED light one always focuses on the cost and efficiency and not also on the effect it has on people.
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.
I suppose I'll have to make do with Jamie Zawinski's version as I retire the real ones.
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.
You still need to get your boiler serviced, seal your windows in the winter, insulate your house, trade in your stupid-ass SUV for something more efficient, turn off lights you're not using, install a programmable thermostat, purchase energy-star rated appliances when it's time to replace them, carpool, set your computers to go to sleep when idle, etc etc etc.
Just wondering, if where I live (in France) all the power I consume comes from a nuclear power plant, does it still matter if I do all of that?
You just got troll'd!
Not the Cheapo brand.
I've managed to convince my family to replace all but 3 light bulbs with CF ones.
Main problem was the initial cost - something like $9-10 per CF light bulb.
With incandescent ones costing around $0.40 - its obvious why everyone was against wasting money on fancy light bulbs. It took a lot of talking and I only got to replace them one at a time.
Ahh... but since we are using these CF light bulbs (Philips 100W and 75W ones) none of them has burned out. They are going through their second year now.
Those other 3 incandescent light bulbs have been burning out at a steady rate of about 6 months of use. Philips or "brand X" - the same thing.
Now, with these CF bulbs in place, our electric bill is so low that my father thought that something was wrong with the meter. The number of kWh was just too low.
Thing is... for every kWh of electricity used on lights we spend now - we used to spend five before.
On the other hand... cheap Chinese CF bulbs... I am not really keen on trying those out.
They cost about 2-3 times less then the brand names, but when I see that they have misspelled the land of origin (PRC was spelled LRC)... ummm.. something makes me doubt their quality control.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Do you heat your house with that electricity as well? If not, servicing your heating system will still save fossil fuel.
And using less energy is always a better idea, if for no other reason than your electric bill goes down.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I have yet to have a bulb last more than 6 months.
That's better than my results (except for very small values of less than six months). I love the colour spectrum of the GE 6500K CFLs, and bought the 100-watt-equivalent type to replace all of the overhead lighting in my apartment (10 sockets). Most of them have lasted somewhere between 1 and 4 months.
This is a relatively new building, and in three years of living there I've never had a problem with any other electrical or electronic device. Incandescent bulbs tend to last me about a year. My only theory is that it has something to do with the fixtures, but IMO if CFLs are so fragile that they can't operate correctly in a fixture designed for incandescents that put out considerably more heat, they are not ready for prime time.
Since CFLs are (AFAIK) the only replacement bulb type that's at all economical, their lack of reliability should prevent any consideration of phasing out incandescents in favour of them.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
The purpose of government is to maximise the personal wealth of those governing, at the expense of those governed.
Deleted
Problem is CFL's are INCOMPATABLE with the better energy saving systems like home automation. the Top of the line systems like Crestron and vantage has problems with the CFL's out there because they are built really low end. the ballasts are screwy and dont handle dimming or SCR control. a very tiny selection of high end CFL lamps work but those are impossible to fine anywhere but in mail order and cost 4X the price of a home depot CFL bulb/lamp.
Home automation can save you an additional 60% of energy costs by dealing with lighting so that no lights are on when not needed as well as the heat and shade control. So most of my clients still use old bulbs (Hey soft on and off are incredibly elegant and when you have a 22 million dollar home you want elegant for some reason) and a few are letting us help switch them to LED lighting. Problem is, LED lamps like the popular PAR30 for can lights are so crappy in quality we get a 45% return rate from customers having dead led's in the array and they are at least 20 times dimmer than a CFL of the same wattage.
Also CFL's have NASTY coloration. even the good "warm white" CFL's dont look good over artwork (plus they have a crapload more UV output and destroy artwork)
When they actually fix CFL lamps so they look good, have zero UV output, and can handle the automation systems that save even more energy they will be an option. Until then, they suck.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The main thing to do when purchasing CFLs is to avoid the junk that's sold at Wal-Mart, Meijer, Home Depot, etc. Also, try to look for bulbs with the Energy Star label, which guarantees that they have electric ballasts (instant-on, no hum), lifespan ratings of at least 6000 hours, and at least a two-year warranty.
I order all of my bulbs online from 1000bulbs.com. While I've had a few issues with bulbs prematurely burning out, but replacements are always quickly sent, free of charge, without requiring me to ship the defective bulbs back.
I haven't bought an incandescent bulb in over two years, and have helped friends and family switch as well. Since I buy bulbs online I can get them in any variant needed - including dimmable, "warm," flame-shaped bulbs for the light fixture in the dining room at my mom's house; PAR-30 shaped bulbs for the cans in my in-law's house (they are far from being environmentalists, but were sick of incandescents burning out, and have been very pleased in the six months they've had the CFLs so far); and 5100K "daylight" bulbs for some areas in my house.
Politics aside, please actually do some research before spouting off FUD.
Switch to LED lighting. they dim very well.
Problem is decent LED lights for home fixtures cost around $70.00 a bulb. the cheap crap off ebay fail with some dead led's in the array or other failures like color shifting within a few weeks.
I have 4 ceiling cans in the family room with about $380.00 in LED PAR30 bulbs that are bright enough to be 60 watt replacements. Wife loves the coloration of the warm white and I like how I can dim them down as much as regular bulbs.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Just add one more thing to the list of stuff people smuggle back from Canada or Mexico
Alcohol, Check
Prescription Drugs, Check
Other Drugs, Check
Light Bulbs, Check
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
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.
This idea to replace all incandescent bulbs with CLFs may not have been thought through completely. Very few people talk about the dangers of CLFs. They contain mercury and lead. If not handled and reprocessed correctly old CLFs will be end up in the landfill where those toxic materials will leach into the soil and the water table.
And what about your kids when they knock over that lamp and break the bulb? They will be breathing that very same mercury and lead. But I guess a few IQ points is worth reducing our energy consumption.
http://www.uis.edu/facilityservices/fluorescent_bulbs.htm
Check it out if you don't believe it. We could be poisoning the next generation by imposing laws that require the use of dangerous materials. And the costs are going to be more than expected since special hazardous material handling processes will need to be implemented to safely discard the millions of bulbs that will burn out and be broken every day.
I can see every house having to have a chemical protective suit that can be worn in case a bulb is broken.
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
Just like going to a hamfest -or- vintage electronics show/flea market, you too can set up shop next to the vintage vacuum tube sellers...
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
This isn't exactly correct, and I thought it might be helpful to clarify it.
With regard to the law, the version sent to the President for signature can be found here.
In fact, the law does not actually prohibit the sale of indcandescent bulbs by 2012. Rather, beginning in Section 312, the law sets efficiency standards, phasing in over time, that current incandescent bulbs cannot meet, but doesn't specify the type of bulb that should be used. Interestingly, it also includes the following provision in Section 321(h)(1) (found on page 95 of the document I linked to):
"REPORT ON MERCURY USE AND RELEASE.--Not later than
1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary,
in cooperation with the Administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency, shall submit to Congress a report describing
recommendations relating to the means by which the Federal
Government may reduce or prevent the release of mercury
during the manufacture, transportation, storage, or disposal
of light bulbs."
USA Today's story does a good job of summarizing this issue. {ProfJonathan}
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
The LED 'bulbs' actually have a finite life. They don't "burn out", but they do dim over time. Currently the useful life is put at 35,000 hours (at which point the bulb is putting out 70% of its initial brightness), vs 8,000 to 10,000 hours for CFLs and 1,000 for incandescents.
CFLs are not a perfect technology, yes. There are lower-mercury lights on the market, but people don't buy them due to the additional expense and non-tangible benefit. LEDs are certainly the way things are looking to go; the State House Christmas tree is lit with LEDs this year. (We sourced them for those.)
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
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.
I like the LED Idea. Osram(Bulb Manufacturer) is getting ready to release a package that is as bright as a 60watt bulb. Slick.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
BTW, it seems they contain mercury but I didn't see any information suggesting CFL's contain lead. You may also be interested in this: A June 2007 article calculated that the overall mercury emission by compact fluorescent lamps is less than the mercury released into the atmosphere by coal-fired power generation for series of equivalent incandescent lamps over the same period.[36] Of course, not all electricity is coal-fire generated, but with proper disposal, not all the mercury in spent CFLs will be released into the environment. Check out the graph as well.
"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
These debates frustrate me more than anything else. All of you are asking the wrong question. It shouldn't be:
"Does the government have the right to ban incandescents for the public good?"
It shouldn't even be:
"What things are inefficient enough to justify banning?"
It should be:
"Do all people appropriately incorporate the environmental externalities of their decisions?"
Any attempts to address the problem that avoid that question, are going to be haphazard -- and probably counterproductive -- approximations of what we do want. The reason is that when you say something is "wasteful" -- and thus hurting the environment -- you're making a judgment you literally cannot be qualified to make. Efficiency is "benefit provided per cost expended". I accept that you can tell me the cost expended, but the benefit provided exists purely in the mind of the user.
With that in mind, proposing a ban on incandescents is no different from:
-Banning all foods except enriched gruel.
-Banning PS3s since "You can just get a Wii and BluRay isn't that good anyway."
-Banning living more than 20 miles from work since, hey, not many people use public transportation.
Furthermore a ban on one thing you deem "wasteful" does not change the incentive structure for the infinite number of other changes people could be making in their lives. If all you do is save me money on lighting, I'll get extra free money and just waste fossil fuels in some other way. What energy-free thing do you think people are going to do with the extra money?
A far more robust and less annoying solution is to just assess the total environmental cost per unit of fuel consumed, add it in the form of a tax, and apply the proceeds toward sinks and abatement. Then, all decisions throughout the entire economy adjust, and you don't need to think about banning individual items. You don't need to debate which things people *really* get a benefit from. You don't need to carve out exceptions for French people who get the power from their incandescents from nuclear, or movie stars that "really" need their SUV or movie lighting. You don't need to go to environmental high priests to calculate the "total cost" of what you do, since the retail price would already do that. You don't even need to raise public awareness.
A ban on incandescents is just typical BS feel-good legislation.
***
Prediction: based on past threads, people will read this ALTERNATE SOLUTION as global warming denial, or the claim that government should do nothing.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Ah, bills. The legislative equivalent of TFA -- no one bothers to read them. Once again, an article about an act of Congress that doesn't even bother including a bill #, or even the proper short title. Why not just refer to it as "that there new energy bill done passed by them there politicians"?
The section discussed here is about as long as TFA. It's 9021 of HR 3221 ("Short Titles.--This Act may be cited as the ``New Direction for
Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act'')
(http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.182&filename=h3221eh.txt&directory=/diska/wais/data/110_cong_bills,
In it, you can see that the only bans are based on efficiency standards, not type of manufacture. For example, 100 watt lamps that do not provide 60 lumens/watt or better are banned. Issues of color spectrum are anticipated and basic measures put into place.
Now if we could apply this method to fuel efficiency we'd actually start making a dent.
Relevant excerpts:
PART 2--LIGHTING EFFICIENCY
SEC. 9021. EFFICIENT LIGHT BULBS.
(a) Prohibition.--
(1) Regulations.--Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Energy shall issue regulations--
(A) prohibiting the sale of 100 watt general service incandescent lamps after January 1, 2012, unless those lamps emit at least 60 lumens per watt;
(B) prohibiting the sale of general service lamps manufactured after the effective dates shown in the table below that do not meet the minimum efficacy levels (lumens/watt) shown in the following table:
Minimum Efficacy Levels and Effective Dates
Minimum Efficacy
Lumen Range (Lumens/Watt) Effective Dates
200-449 15 1/1/2014
450-699 17 1/1/2014
700-999 20 1/1/2013
1000-1500 22 1/1/2012
1501-3000 24 1/1/2012
(C) after January 1, 2020, prohibiting the sale of general service lamps that emit less than 300 percent of the average lumens per watt emitted by 100 watt incandescent general service lamps that are commercially available as of the date of enactment of this Act;
(D) establishing a minimum color rendering index (CRI) of 80 or higher for all general service lamps manufactured as of the effective dates in subparagraph (B); and
(E) prohibiting the manufacture or import for sale in the United States of an adapter device designed to allow a lamp with a different base to fit into a medium screw base socket manufactured after January 1, 2009.
(2) Exemptions.--The regulations issued under paragraph (1) shall include procedures for the Secretary to exempt specialty lamps from the requirements of paragraph (1). The Secretary may provide such an exemption only in cases where the Secretary finds, after a hearing and opportunity for public comment, that it is not technically feasible to serve a specialized lighting application, such as a military, medical, public safety
application, or in certified historic lighting applications using bulbs that meet the requirements of paragraph (1). In addition, the Secretary shall include as an additional criterion that exempted products are unlikely to be used in the general service lighting applications.
(3) Additional lamps types.--
(A) Manufacturers of rough service, vibration service, vibration resistant, appliance, shatter resistant, and three-way lamps shall report annual
sales volume to the Se
There are some legitimate uses for old-style bulbs. For example, we have a few spots in our house that don't fit the newer kind. There's simply not space in that area. Rather than outright ban them, why not just tax them heavily. That would discourage use without removing the choice altogether. Plus, it's nice revenue for the gov't. I thought they liked that. It's like a "sin tax" that you find on cigarettes, booze, etc.
Table-ized A.I.
Here's an led bulb that supposedly works with a dimmer:
http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/cc-vivid-led-light-bulb.aspx
stuff |
Ah, bills. The legislative equivalent of TFA -- no one bothers to read them. Once again, an article about an act of Congress that doesn't even bother including a bill #, or even the proper short title. Why not just refer to it as "that there new energy bill done passed by them there politicians"?
The section discussed here is about as long as TFA. It's 9021 of HR 3221 ("Short Titles.--This Act may be cited as the ``New Direction for
Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act'')
(http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.182&filename=h3221eh.txt&directory=/diska/wais/data/110_cong_bills,
In it, you can see that the only bans are based on efficiency standards, not type of manufacture. For example, 100 watt lamps that do not provide 60 lumens/watt or better are banned. Issues of color spectrum are anticipated and basic measures put into place.
Now if we could apply this method to fuel efficiency we'd actually start making a dent.
Relevant excerpts:
PART 2--LIGHTING EFFICIENCY
SEC. 9021. EFFICIENT LIGHT BULBS.
(a) Prohibition.--
(1) Regulations.--Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Energy shall issue regulations--
(A) prohibiting the sale of 100 watt general service incandescent lamps after January 1, 2012, unless those lamps emit at least 60 lumens per watt;
(B) prohibiting the sale of general service lamps manufactured after the effective dates shown in the table below that do not meet the minimum efficacy levels (lumens/watt) shown in the following table:
Lumen Range (Lumens/Watt) Effective Dates
200-449 15 1/1/2014
450-699 17 1/1/2014
700-999 20 1/1/2013
1000-1500 22 1/1/2012
1501-3000 24 1/1/2012
(C) after January 1, 2020, prohibiting the sale of general service lamps that emit less than 300 percent of the average lumens per watt emitted by 100 watt incandescent general service lamps that are commercially available as of the date of enactment of this Act;
(D) establishing a minimum color rendering index (CRI) of 80 or higher for all general service lamps manufactured as of the effective dates in subparagraph (B); and
(E) prohibiting the manufacture or import for sale in the United States of an adapter device designed to allow a lamp with a different base to fit into a medium screw base socket manufactured after January 1, 2009.
(2) Exemptions.--The regulations issued under paragraph (1) shall include procedures for the Secretary to exempt specialty lamps from the requirements of paragraph (1). The Secretary may provide such an exemption only in cases where the Secretary finds, after a hearing and opportunity for public comment, that it is not technically feasible to serve a specialized lighting application, such as a military, medical, public safety
application, or in certified historic lighting applications using bulbs that meet the requirements of paragraph (1). In addition, the Secretary shall include as an additional criterion that exempted products are unlikely to be used in the general service lighting applications.
(3) Additional lamps types.--
(A) Manufacturers of rough service, vibration service, vibration resistant, appliance, shatter resistant, and three-way lamps shall report annual
sales volume to the Secretary. If the Secretary determines that annual sales volume for any of these lamp types increases by 100 percent relative to 2009 sales in any later year, then such lamps shall by subject to the following standards:
(i) Appliance lamps shall use no more than 40 watts.
(ii) Rough service lamps shall use no more
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?
The other big guys did you think this through before passing the law issue is light dimmers. Most of the incandescant replacements do not handle dimmers very well if at all and there are a scheissload of dimmers in houses.
Have you ever broken a CFL? Have you ever seen one burn out?
I have something like 15 or 20 of them and I've moved from apartment to apartment, from state to state. I haven't lost any of them that I've dropped to breakage and I haven't damaged any of them during the moving process. Furthermore I've had CFLs so long I'm not sure the exact year I got the first one. I'm thinking it was between 1999 and 2001. Lets say my oldest CFL has seen regular use for 6 years. I have seen them get dimmer but I've never seen one stop working entirely and I've never seen one flicker like the old long tube fluorescents did.
I'm sure at some point I'll have to dispose of some of them but they so far have outlived my concern about their ruggedness.
Gmack:
You're on Slashdot. Capitalism and Microsoft are evil; Apple can do no wrong; you should throw out your TV; and George Bush is the root of all evil. Stop trying to make sense here.
(Thanks for making sense here.)
--Mike
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".I have a daughter with migraine headaches. Florescent lighting is a common migraine trigger - so it doesn't belong in her bedroom. I have been buying a few CFLs for 15 years, hoping for the technology to improve. The first ones I bought died in 6 months (electronics died), and you couldn't buy a new base to reuse the perfectly good bulb (with mercury). So I have been installing traditional magnetic ballast flourescents - which actually do last 12 years. I bought a batch of CFs at WalMart 6 months ago, and they aren't dead yet - a good sign. They are annoying because they are dim when you first turn them on, and reach full brightness only after several minutes. This is probably a good thing, and means the electronics are designed to run hot.
There are energy saving applications that CFs are no good at. "On demand" lighting, that is turned on for only a few minutes while you are in the room (florescent lights of all kinds hate rapid power cycling). Dimmers. Winter. Incandescent lights are great for winter. The light is warmer both literally (90% infrared) and psychologically.
Fortunately, banning a particular technology, while boneheaded, is not nearly as boneheaded as mandating a particular technology. People with flicker sensitive migraines can purchase LED lighting - although it is currently quite a bit more expensive. I suppose christmas lights will have to go the LED route also. Sigh. At least the expense will discourage those gaudy "cover the entire house with tiny lights on 2 inch spacing" displays.
I am really sick of this nanny state business.
The "OMG THEY CONTAIN MERCURY" scare tactic is the biggest load of anti-CFL bull put forth out there. The average CFL today contains around four milligrams of mercury, and already several companies are making bulbs that contain about two milligrams. Meanwhile, the increased power consumption from billions of incandescent bulbs being burned puts out kilograms of mercury vapors into the atmosphere every year.
As for lead content, you'd better stop using computers of any kind, because all of them use far more lead during their production than any CFLs do.
1) More mercury enters the environment through the burning of fossil fuel to generate electricty than is contained in a CFL.
2) An old mercury thermometer has up to 100 times the mercury as a CFL.
3) Quit spreading FUD.
http://www.epa.state.oh.us/pic/cfl_info.html
The issue of Hg content in CFLs is pretty well known. The real problem is that people are not educated about the recycling which can be done, and a sub-problem is cost. I take all of my electronics to the landfill where several types of hazardous waste products are recycled (supposedly, but that is out of my hands and another source of conspiracy theory altogether.) But I am only one of two people in my group of friends that does this.
So instead, most households will just throw the bulbs away like the do incandescents. It also comes up to cost. Now, the local landfill does not charge for household waste, but I am aware that some do. For ones that do charge, there should be some way to subsidize the cost so that people are encouraged to recycle. I have often proposed a small recycling fee added to hazardous waste products, like $1 each for consumer electronics, $.25 each for CFLs, etc., that is built into the price of the product.
My experience with CFLs versus old computers has been a harsh one. I no longer use CFLs in my computer lab because of the quickness of plastic yellowing which it appears to cause. Case in point, I had a Commodore 1080 monitor sitting on a desk in the room which had advanced yellowing on surfaces exposed to the fluorescent light, including lines where shadows fell. The front of my Commodore 128D suffered the same, as did a fairly young beige Antec PC case. No more. I use a halogen now and have not noticed any yellowing in this light.
I take issue with a legislative ban on incandescents period rather than a specific energy efficiency rating. General Electric announced a technology which increases the efficiency of incandescents. I wonder if this technology ever made it out of the lab and into the market.
I want to also quickly address two of your points. Firstly, lighting color (temperature) is a big issue for photography and videography, as well as make-up. Secondly, I have included here a link to a reliable source about fluorescent lighting and depression -- but in all seriousness, since different CFLs have different temperatures, it should not be a difficult leap to link those colors to psychological states.
On a personal note, I have found that cheaper fluorescents (CFL or otherwise) have a flicker which cause me to experience headaches, and that a brand available at The Home Depot called n:vision produces a series with a higher temperature and therefore whiter light which I enjoy.
You mean ... like congress?
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
Admittedly, CFLs don't work with motion sensors, as I found out the hard way. However, by 2012 the people making motion sensors (and presumably, home automation devices) are going to change their circuitry design to work with CFLs, so this will be non-issue eventually.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
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
.......People need to be protected from their own stupidity sometimes.....
Yes, and the ones doing the protecting are a million times stupider, since they appointed themselves to protect the unwashed masses from themselves. It's that big brother mentality carried to the nth degree of stupidity and is a major reason why so many are refusing to take responsibility for themselves.
These CFL bulbs make people look like death warmed over, contain mercury, one of the most toxic heavy metals known and other poisonous chemicals. They don't work with dimmer switches, which allow lights to use less power when they are not needed at full power. They also don't work in refrigerators and ovens. Those outdoors in cold places die soon and don't give much light until warmed up. Those who use electricity for heat, will be running their heater more, to make up for the heat the lights don't give off.
Maybe LED lights will become bright and inexpensive enough, but for most applications, CFLs are crap. But then when have the elites that run much of our government and those from some environmental groups ever considered what is practical?
There are other, much more significant ways of saving larger amounts of energy. For example, turning down the thermostat on a 5000 watt water heater will save a lot more power than a few lights using some hundreds of watts.
In most of life, there are trade offs, and CFLs is one of the worst to come along in a long time.
All theory is gray
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)
Given Lewis' position on religions and the rather obvious interpretation of that statement as a description of an all-powerful God Is My Shepherd figure, I'd be interested in knowing what Lewis actually intended (as opposed to this out of context use in
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
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.
I disagree, this particular initiative is wrong headed and a little bit cruel.
Speaking as somebody that has issues dealing with fluorescent lighting, this is a step in the wrong direction. It hurts my eyes, causes migraines, encourages people to leave their lights on constantly, causes huge headaches when it comes to disposal. In general it is just a poor solution to the problem.
A better solution would be to invest money in solar energy, or allow individuals that do have solar arrays to use whatever lighting they feel like.
I personally would be willing to pay an additional tax to keep using incandescent lighting until such a time as they have a reasonable alternative to it. I'm not about to suffer acute physical pain, and have to take days off of work, so that some feel good environmentalists can get their pat on the back.
It would make far more sense to just introduce a form of congestion pricing on electricity, to encourage people to figure out for themselves how to fix the problem. The biggest issue with these types of things is that we in the US pay far less for our coal, and gasoline than people do in other countries, and as such we over use them. Place a higher cost on the commodities and people figure out on their own how to cut their usage. Kind of like magic, if you think about it.
It isn't a coincidence that the majority of the Red states have much lower fuel costs than the Blue states do, or how the environmentalists are much more common in the areas with high fuel costs. Not to suggest that there is necessarily a moral superiority or anything like that, but there is more than a little correlation there.
>>> According to Wikipedia, the OSHA maximum occupational exposure to mercury is 0.1 mg/m3.
And according to OSHA, that's the acceptable amount for a full 8-hour shift of work. At roughly 1L/s, that's about 3.6m3/hr, or about 3mg/shift.
Or the entire contents of a CFL every day and a half.
>>> Somehow you haven't quite convinced me that inhaling four milligrams directly into
>>> my lungs isn't going to be a bad, if not a deadly, thing for me.
One presumes you don't go around snorting CFL bulbs; if you don't, you're never going to get the entire contents in a short period of time. Indeed, you're highly unlikely to get the entire contents at all if you simply air out the room like everyone suggests, and based on the shape of CFLs it's unlikely that anything less than crushing a bulb would release more more than a fraction of the mercury.
It's probably not a good idea to take up huffing CFLs, though, as the "immediate danger" level of mercury vapour is set at 10mg/m3. At ~5L/breath, that's about 20 breaths per mg, suggesting that rapid inhallation of large amounts of mercury isn't going to be much fun. It's pretty questionable whether it would be damaging, though, as animal studies show that mild organ damage occurs after an hour of 30mg/m3 exposure - a human in that environment would have breathed in over 100mg of mercury by then.
>>> When I start buying as many computers as I do light bulbs, I'll try to remember your enlightening comparison.
Try also to remember that computers are often bigger than light bulbs. Size - as you may have heard - matters.
So THAT's what a conversational bitchsmack looks like. Well played.