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Incandescent Bulbs Return To the Cutting Edge
lee1 writes "A law in the US that is due to take effect in 2012 mandates such tough efficiency
standards for lightbulbs that it has been assumed, until recently, that
it would kill off the incandescent bulb. Instead, the law has become a
case study of the way government regulation can inspire technical
innovation. For example, new incandescent technology from Philips that
seals the traditional filament inside a small capsule (which itself is
contained within the familiar bulb). The capsule has a coating that
reflects heat back to the filament, where it is partially converted to
light. The sophisticated ($5.00) bulbs are about 30% more efficient than the
old-fashioned ($0.25) kind, and should last about three times as long.
So they are less economical than compact fluorescents, but should emit a
more pleasing spectrum, not contain mercury, and, one supposes, present
the utility company with a more desirable power factor."
There was an article a month or so ago about how this guy used lasers to (I'm guessing) increase the surface area on the filament, thus increasing efficiency by something like 40%.
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3385
Maybe both can be used for a super-lightbulb?
-xed
and compact fluorescents are still more economical? why should we change then?
just because of a more pleasing spectrum? The "mercury" issue should be easily solved by disposing the bulbs in the correct way (i.e. recycle).
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
The moment I find these in stores I am IMMEDIATELY buying a few and replacing every bulb attached to a dimmer switch in my house. Ask anyone with a light dimmer who switched to CFL's, and this'll immediately be their biggest caveat with the tech.
I live in Edmonton Alberta, Canada where 8 months of winter is fairly common. Here our old incandescent bulbs have 100% efficiency because the heat generated does not go to waste :-)
Stick a halogen light bulb inside an incandescent light bulb. That's what they sell around here to replace incandescent bulbs once they're no longer sold. Nice spectrum, no warm-up time, longer lifetime than the incandescent bulb it replaces, 30% less energy used compared to the incandescent.
flouro bulbs always break a lot quicker than conventional bulbs. I have found this in at least the last 6 houses I have lived in, so it's no good blaming it on the electrics as some had been newly rewired etc. How does this impact the 'energy savings'? I bet that it more than undoes the good done by using them! Never mind the cost!
You would find less overall electricity usage by switching to CFL and using the difference in power to run a heat pump. Worst case scenario, the ground doesn't have any heat to give you and your pump defaults to standard resistance heating, which is where you are now. All other scenarios are improvements on that.
Unless, of course, you're not currently using electric resistance heating as your main heat supply. In which case, by answering the question, "why not," you will also know why you're not saving anything by relying on your lamps as auxiliary heat.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
As long as the new bulbs cost more than the old ones + their total consumption in electricity over their lifespan this is a net loss.
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I hope anti-government deregulation fanatics read articles like this to understand the benefits of proper government regulation. Unfortunately, I suspect they'll find a way to misinterpret it, as all party zealots do.
You mean like, oh, the research was already under way prior to the regulations being passed? Nah, couldn't be that, given that GE announced two years ago.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I'm sorry but this so called new technology is a farce. 30% improvement in efficiency over 5% efficiency is still just 8% overall. At $5 apiece, which is way more then a CFL, which goes around $2.5 to $3.3 apiece, and it's 75% efficiency, I'm going for CFL.
I think your concern should be more that pro-government regulation fanatics will read this and think it's an example of proper government regulation. From the "anti-government deregulation fanatic" point of view, the main problem with regulating light bulbs is why should government have anything to do with it. Replacing a $0.25 bulb with a $5 bulb is not a good use of government power. People can do that on their own, if it suits them.
Nor is there a need to reduce electricity consumption. If demand drives up the price of electricity (which it does in relatively deregulated markets), the solution is merely a matter of building more power plants. If it turns out that some forms of power production have unpleasant externalities (ie, impose costs or harm on nonconsenting parties), then a pollution emission market would account for those side effects, effectively billing the problem at the source of the problem rather than trying to change consumer behavior in order to indirectly meet dubious moral goals.
Gotta tell ya, I replaced all the lights in my house with the newer fluorescent bulbs, both white and warm, over a year ago and I can now no longer stand the light output of the incandescent bulbs; it seems too harsh. Go figure. I guess humans just adapt.
The white light works very well in rooms like the bathroom, toilet, shed and kitchen. The warmer lights almost everywhere else. People really need to stop throwing tantrums.
.
LED are already here, costs still high but they beat flourescents bulbs in life span and energy consume, and lightup instantaneously.
Look up PIR in the bulb catalogs. They've been making these for a while. They shape the internal glass envelope and coat its inside surface such that it reflects a portion of the waste-heat (infrared) energy back towards the filament. In the steady-state, this changes the ratio of spectrum of energy emitted from the bulb (slightly increasing the percentage released in the visible band). Compared to fluorescent, especially the new T2 designs, its still pretty pathetic.
HOWEVER, if you've got a car and can't afford to install HID headlight conversions, there are PIR halogens available. They provide a little bit more output.
The "daylight" style ccfls are the only thing I will ever use the rest of my life...ever. This story is irrelevant... so why am I posting? I don't know. Deal with it. (Actually, I blame alcohol)
I got tired of incandescent bulbs failing, and the low light output of CFLs. I just installed a couple of high output fluorescent tubes in the dungeon, and now it's much easier to see what you're doing. People need to just get over this "warm" light nonsense.
Replacing a $0.25 bulb with a $5 bulb is not a good use of government power. People can do that on their own, if it suits them.
no they can't - no-one in their right mind would buy a roughly equivalent 25c bulb for $5, and as a result, the manufacturers would not even bother trying to make and sell them. Net result: 25c bulbs are the only option.
Sometimes you need some external stimulus to provoke a change in a stable environment, like sticking your finger in still water.
Similarly, saying "the market will provide more power stations", well yes it will - eventually, in the meantime while the market is getting to the point where more power is required, you're suffering brownouts. Besides, it is often in the market's interest to let you suffer like that as they you will pay more.
Sometimes you need more forward planning and organisation than market forces allow.
These 2 factors are why we need and have governments, if only life was as simple as you think, we'd be living in a utopia.
It wouldnt take much effort for CFL lights to have IR detectors and be able to see remotes setting volume up/down.
But im sure that $0.20 cost feature will end up being blown up to $10 margins so then no one will buy it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
What ever happened to microwave lighting that I saw on TV over a decade ago that was going to kick ass???
and where is my flying car and VR sex slave.
o.. and why does my car from 1997 get the same MPG as all the new ones that don't have massive arrays of lead acid battery's?
The light bulb is lame. I want my damn sharks with flipp'en lasers and you need to get off my LAN son....
The article claims that it would be cheaper, and brighter than a compact-fluorescent, and the manufacturing process is simple. Additionally, the nature of the way they're increasing the light output allows for selective modification of certain areas of the spectrum; increasing certain parts of the spectrum and decrease other parts would make for a cleaner, notably whiter light.
This was cutting edge technology... in the 1950s. The 'new' technology being presented here is just a high voltage halogen light bulb packaged in the traditional bayonet or Edison screw format. I am amazed that anyone is calling this 'cutting edge'.
Philips sells Polish made halogen light bulbs here in Australia for around $3 each (US$2.40) while Osrams are slightly cheaper. These consume 30% less power (70w instead of 100w) with double the lifetime of a traditional light bulb.
I love CFLs as nothing in a reasonable price range is as efficient. The payback period is only a few months. However, CFLs take a little while to heat up (up to 30 seconds) and don't react well to frequent power cycling. Therefore I use 240v halogens in bayonet format in some circumstances.
Sometimes you need some external stimulus to provoke a change in a stable environment, like sticking your finger in still water.
So? If you don't have a reason to change this stable environment, then you don't need an external stimulus.
Similarly, saying "the market will provide more power stations", well yes it will - eventually, in the meantime while the market is getting to the point where more power is required, you're suffering brownouts. Besides, it is often in the market's interest to let you suffer like that as they you will pay more.
You're not suffering brownouts, if people are paying the proper price for electricity and its supporting infrastructure. The market doesn't have "interests". You mean electricity generators who are a subset of the market participants. And you don't pay more for electricity, if they're not delivering it to you.
Sometimes you need more forward planning and organisation than market forces allow.
Sure there is such a need. But there isn't a superior mechanism to the market for providing the necessary coordination and communication (as well as the usual economic transactions) between the parties involved. Banning certain types of bulbs even if there was a demonstrable need to change the usage of such light bulbs simply is not a good way to regulate or use the market because it doesn't take advantage of the market's strengths.
I think your concern should be more that pro-government regulation fanatics will read this and think it's an example of proper government regulation.
Nice troll. Start out by labeling your opponents in a derogatory way.
From the "anti-government deregulation fanatic" point of view, the main problem with regulating light bulbs is why should government have anything to do with it.
I have an idea. To keep with the spirit of your post, let's call them the "market-can-do-no-wrong/government-can-do-no-right worshiper cult".
Replacing a $0.25 bulb with a $5 bulb is not a good use of government power.
Ignoring your cherry-picked numbers for a moment, yes, it's a good use of government power. The market rarely factors in externalized costs. The extra CO2 produced by burning inefficient bulbs impacts everyone's environment.
If it turns out that some forms of power production have unpleasant externalities (ie, impose costs or harm on nonconsenting parties), then a pollution emission market would account for those side effects, effectively billing the problem at the source of the problem rather than trying to change consumer behavior in order to indirectly meet dubious moral goals.
A "pollution emission market"? LOL! Good one! Sorry for calling you a troll, I didn't realize you were merely trying to be funny. Ha ha! I've got to tell my friends that one! A "pollution control market"! Tee-hee!
Government regulation causes more problems than it solves. California's "deregulated" energy market was regulqated so that there was no incentive to provide reliable excess capacity.
Deleted
It's not like brownouts are a huge problem, though. Maybe in places like NYC, but the vast majority of the country? I've *never* experienced a brownout, and no, I don't live out in the sticks. If, as the parent said, they were working to build more infrastructure now, and charging more for the light bulbs if that's how they wanted to do it... that'd be the "free country" way to handle it. Provide consumers with more choices, but do not force things on them and take away their other options. You're blind if you can't see that government regulation is getting ridiculous.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
In many or most countries, coal is the dominant fuel for electricity generation. Coal is chock full of mercury (and other nasty stuff besides). Use more electricity, as with this Philips bulb compared to CFLs, and there's more mercury released into the environment.
These 2 factors are why we need and have governments, if only life was as simple as you think, we'd be living in a utopia.
If you live in the developed world, then you do live in a utopia. By this, I mean given the constraints that a) we have to live in the real world, and b) our society has to consist of humans.
The last major gas mileage increase in North American cars came as a result of legislation.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
On the other hand, mercury is toxic forever. It never, ever, becomes safe, no matter how long you wait. When the glass breaks it'll poison you just as well in a million years as it does today.
No, no, you're missing the beauty of it. Instead of using normal mercury, there should be a mandate for light bulbs to use mercury-194, which has a half-life of 444 years. A perfectly-manageable timeframe for waste storage.
Another cool thing is that the bulb lights up without even being plugged in. It actually generates energy rather than consuming it.
But here's the really cool thing: according to Wikipedia, Hg-194 decays by electron capture into Au-194. That's right, in 400 years half of the mercury in your light bulb will have turned to gold. Replace all of your household lamps with Hg-194 compact fluorescents, and you won't even want to throw your burned-out light bulbs away in the first place!
It's amazing how many seemingly-intractable environmental problems would go away if people would just think outside the box a little.
People with reduced vision often prefer incandescent light bulbs (at least that is what I have heard). The reason is that they can see better with these bulbs. It must be due to the difference in light spectra between the incandescent and CFLs. Hopefully these new inventions will allow people with reduced vision to see brightly after 2012;-)
A TOTAL ban on incandescent lamps? I think not. You can't put CFL's in the 'fridge. They won't work in ovens. They don't work worth a damn
with dimmers (I've tried several "dimmable" CLF's, they have a range of maybe 20%). Until they make CFL's or way cheaper LED bulbs equal to 60-100W incandescent lamps that work with a dimmer, I'll keep the "Edison bulbs" in my dimmable fixtures, even If I have to buy black market lamps from Korea.
Cripes, the infamous light bulb efficiency gimmick again. What's next, we gonna tie light bulb usage to Global Warming?
Seriously, any of you ever actually take a measurement of your electric usage in your house? Instead of screwing with 60W of light you use really only part of the day, take a look at your A/C unit. Older A/C units under 10 SEER drawing 20A or more will suck $80 - $120/month out of your wallet while new ones will draw less than 1/2 of that (7 - 10A). A dryer that runs 2 hours a day (not hard for a family of four) will run over $30/month pulling 20A. Own a pool? Average 1HP pump will suck another $25 - $35/month from your wallet if you run it according to what you've heard is "the norm". Geek running a server farm out of your home powered 24/7? Had a measly el-cheapo Dell headless tower that ran me $10/month by itself.
Point here is there's a HELL of a lot MORE we can fine tune and adjust lifestyles around to save a hell of a lot more than that 60W light bulb that you don't even turn off when you leave a room anyway.
Technology for Al Gores sake is not always necessary.
Yeah, these new incandescents are 30% more efficient, but my CFLs are 400% more efficient than the latest "normal" bulbs they compete with. They're therefore 3x as efficient as these new incandescents. And these new ones, at $5 apiece, cost 8.75x what my CFLs cost in a box of 12. The CFLs will last something like 10 years, instead of about 2 for incandescents (maybe 5 for these new, less hot ones). But at such high efficiency, the CFLs add very little heat to the room to be cooled with my air conditioning - even more overall system efficiency. As for the spectrum, my CFLs side by side a new GE incandescent at the same luminosity show the CFL with a slightly yellower light, which is the "warm" light we like to associate with homey incandescent.
If we didn't have good CFLs, these new incandescents would be welcome. They might have some applications, given their small size, and cheap dimmability (dimmable CFLs cost 2-3x as much, last half as long, at least during their own early days). But within a couple years LEDs with 1300-1900 lumens will cost less than CFLs now, and can run directly on DC power - thereby increasing solar PV efficiency driving them by eliminating the 30-50% now lost on DC/AC/DC conversion. The LEDs will have a more tunable spectrum, last longer, and fit smaller fixtures, with even less heat inefficiency to cool (or disperse in enclosures).
CFLs today, LEDs tomorrow. Incandescents in movies about the 20th Century.
--
make install -not war
For now. But since we can build clustered LED's with multiple light spectrums, we could within a few years build a LED "bulb" that could be just as warm as an incandescent light bulb but it'll use only 1-2 watts of power compared to 40 watts of power for the incandescent equivalent.
The LED GU-10 bulbs I use at home are ~3w each and use a single LED which, AFAIU, is effectively equivalent to a fluorescent in that the LED itself is probably blue and which, in turn, excites phosphors.
These seem to produce far better lighting than the GU-10 models that contain multiple low-power LEDs. Having said that, the ones I have (which are a few years old now) are a bit too blue.
Wow. I just never pictured having the govt. tell me what to do with every aspect of my life. What's next...what days of the week I can wash clothes or water my lawn?
Landscape Irrigation Water Restrictions...
If you're implying that the federal govt. cleans up after current power plants, I'd say that was none of their business either. Where exactly in the constitution is that a mandated power of the federal govt?
Some power plants are near state lines where the wind is likely to blow pollutants across state lines. Releasing such pollutants is arguably "commerce [...] among the several States" that the U.S. Constitution explicitly gives the Congress power to regulate.
If they were interested in cleaner power, then why not relax laws and restrictions put in place back in the Carter administration and allow nuclear tech to proliferate
The Congress is also worried about not getting the United States blown up.
Not just more pleasing, but more healthy too... My eyes get tired a lot more easily under fluorescents, just as an example. A lot of people get migraines, etc. I'm not saying fluorescents aren't good for some uses, but taking away all other choices is not right either.
Is it really the fluorescents that are causing a problem or is it the algorithm in your signature 8P.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE ......
This is probably the most illogical post I have ever read.
"no they can't - no-one in their right mind would buy a roughly equivalent 25c bulb for $5, and as a result, the manufacturers would not even bother trying to make and sell them. Net result: 25c bulbs are the only option"
Yes, because nobody has ever invested time and money into developing or improving a product that doesn't already exist. That's why we still have the same technology as 4000 B.C..
"Similarly, saying 'the market will provide more power stations', well yes it will - eventually, in the meantime while the market is getting to the point where more power is required, you're suffering brownouts. Besides, it is often in the market's interest to let you suffer like that as they you will pay more."
Yes, unfortunately, power stations do require time to build. This is one of those reality factors we're constantly dealing with. Finally, it is not in a companies best interest to charge you more, because their competitors will take all of their business, unless they happen to be a monopoly.
Nice troll. Start out by labeling your opponents in a derogatory way.
I was responding in kind to the original poster. Annoying you is just a fringe benefit.
I have an idea. To keep with the spirit of your post, let's call them the "market-can-do-no-wrong/government-can-do-no-right worshiper cult".
I have a feeling you'd like to disagree with me for some reason.
Ignoring your cherry-picked numbers for a moment, yes, it's a good use of government power. The market rarely factors in externalized costs. The extra CO2 produced by burning inefficient bulbs impacts everyone's environment.
Last I checked, light bulbs were not made of carbon. So "burning" them (pun intended) isn't going to create CO2. This gets to one of the things I was complaining about. Namely, that we suffer through an elaborate Rube Goldberg policy rather than dealing with CO2 emissions directly, should that ever become necessary. I note with a brief flicker of sadness the passing of the only content in your post.
A "pollution emission market"? LOL! Good one! Sorry for calling you a troll, I didn't realize you were merely trying to be funny. Ha ha! I've got to tell my friends that one! A "pollution control market"! Tee-hee!
I suppose a more correct term is something like "pollution emission credit market". There was no confusion with my term. But you go have fun with your friends.
That's what I think. Why waste money on re-inventing the incandescent when we already have a solution that beats incandescents *and* CFLs?
You'd think they'd have accidentally stumbled across more efficient means of making incandescent bulbs while researching methods planned obsolescence in their bulbs. Edison's bulb is still working, but the ones sold in stores burn out within a year? Call me cynical, but the tech to lake long-lasting bulbs has been around for over a century.
The market was willing to except cheap, crappy little bulbs because they burn out infrequently enough that no one realizes just how much they spend on them over the years, but frequently enough that you spend more on those crappy cheapo bulbs than if the manufacturers actually sold more expensive, quality long-lasting bulbs.
If it weren't for the emergence of a competing technology, we'd still be suffering through the annoyance of those dinky bulbs and there'd be no calls for further innovation. Makes you wonder what other household items are crap due to technological complacency.
The poor Power Factor rating of CFLs means that the power grid must provide more energy to start them. The consumer may save money at home, but unless the power factor of CFLs can be improved, the electrical grid itself will have to be upgraded if we all switch to CFLs.
But there's no "if" because governments have already legislated the elimination of incandescent bulbs!
An explanation of the power factor (search for the heading "Power
Factor and Switching")
http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/pubs/cp/lig3_e.html
More summaries of problems:
http://www.cours.polymtl.ca/inf1040/2008automne/Olivier_CanadianReviewDec2007.pdf
http://sound.westhost.com/articles/incandescent.htm
Current research:
http://qnc.queensu.ca/story_loader.php?id=49db90a6e3e3d
Search for "power factor":
http://www.bchydro.com/powersmart/technology_tips/buying_guides/lighting/compact_fluorescent_lamps.html
Here, you'll see that the "requirement" for "Energy Star" labelling is
a power factor of only 0.50!
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/residential/business/manufacturers/specifications/compact-flour.cfm?attr=12
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Similarly, saying "the market will provide more power stations", well yes it will - eventually, in the meantime while the market is getting to the point where more power is required, you're suffering brownouts. Besides, it is often in the market's interest to let you suffer like that as they you will pay more.
No, the market has no "interest". What you're describing is not a market at all, it's what happens when a regulated business can't let the market do the right thing and raise the price on a product that is in such high demand that the supply can't keep up. If we were dealing with a market, this wouldn't be a problem.
Sometimes you need more forward planning and organisation than market forces allow.
Right..... Geeze, can you point to even one instance where that was the case? I'll let you draw from the entirety of history.
Do you have ESP?
Great light output, color temperature, and reasonably long life. Good for places I like a LOT of light, (kitchen and bathroom). Maybe they are new in the states but they have existed for over 10 years in Europe. (Long enough that you can get assorted Asian knockoffs as well as the standard Phillips, Osram etc).
only the uninformed consumer realizes that the $0.25 bulb is actually cheaper. Since you'll need 4-6 of them to match the life of the CF, it's more like $1.50 for the bulbs. Also, CFs are available in 4000-6000K (full bright high quality light) for about $3 each in bulk now (lots of about a dozen). 2700K bulbs ("softwhite") can be found in 6 packs in Lowes for $12-15.
Now, take in energy use, and even the $10 super high quality CFs are cheaper than an incandescent bulb at $0.25. the new $5 halogen-inside-traditional-bulb design really isn't anything new, and at only half the energy saving and half again the price, with less than half the lifespan, it's no competitor to the CF, especially since the halogen hybrids actually have sub-par light quality to the older bulbs they replace (unless you like super bright). They also dim poorly...
The reason government is getting involved is mis-information. The public is simply too dumb to do the math on ttheir own, and the incumbant bulb makers are too slow to adjust their strategies and revamt their manufactuing lines since if they made a real impact, given the lifespan of the bulbs, they'd have a real hard time locking in a long term fiscal plan, so they've been mostly unwilling to adjust.
Things like getting people freaked out about "mercury poisoning potelntial" where even if you LICKED THE POWEDER OFF THE FLOOR after breaking a bulb you'd only take on the same amount of murcury you're exposed to working in an office for 6 months, or eating fish once a week during that time frame, or drinking 1000 glasses of tap water... a SAFE level.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
You can never shift the burden away from the Taxpayers for a utility. By definition a Utility is needed by all (or so close to all as to be insignificantly different). Any increase in overhead (Fuel, Taxes, Regulations, Environmental Stewardship, Waste handling, etc) will be passed on to the consumer to pay as part of their utility bill.
Cap and Trade will make my electric bill go up, not decrease the profits or pay of executives at the power company. Now, I'd be willing to eat that cost if everyone else were going to have to as well, but that won't be the case. Manufacturers that can, will move their power intensive operations over seas to countries that don't participate in the cap and trade system. It'll save them money, lose the US jobs, and drive down the business of companies that cannot/willnot relocate somewhere else.
This is the fundamental aspect of business that many in washington do not understand. Any move you make to increase operating costs in the US will simply result in the gradual movement of those industries affect to other countries that are less expensive to operate in.
Unless you can get the UN to jam this system down the throats of every industrialized manufacturing country, it's just going to make the US economy worse while helping the economy somewhere else. Not a big problem while the US was booming, but definitely counter productive under the current situation.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
The "rule of thumb" for the old, straight tube florescent bulbs bulbs was to only turn them off if you weren't going to be needing the light again for at least fifteen minutes. This is due to the start up energy costs to establish the initial arc in the gas. First question: Do CFLs have the same or similar start up costs? If so, it would seem that old style incandescent bulbs should still be used where the light is frequently turned on and off and, typically, the light only remains on for short periods of time (e.g., a bathroom light, closet light, refrigerator light, etc.). Second question: Is this "leave it on" period different for CFLs?
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Assuming that, like most people, your TV is off for a much larger percentage of the day than on (while you're at work, school, sleeping, etc.)
It appears you haven't been in households that use the TV as a babysitter for the single-digit-year-old children.
Lighting is less than 6% of energy footprint. CFL's are 10x more expensive than incandescents, contain mercury, don't last as long as advertised (in fact, in my house they only last as long as incandescents) and cast a bare sickly palette. CFL's are just a waste of money. Perhaps there is an ideal living space where CFL's last the full 5 years, don't make walls look grey/blue and cost less than five bucks a pop (.88 for four incandescents at kroger).
I took the money I had allocated towards CFL's and put it into insulation with a higher R-value. Heating and cooling expenses are down 10%. Far more savings in energy and money than CFL's, and my reading lamp doesn't suck the contrast off the page I'm looking at anymore.
That is a total crock and just an example of an ecocommunist crusader trying to defend imposing their ideas of whats good for you.
Guess who stops more power plants from being built?
If you and people like you who thought goverment was their tool to exert their preferences on others via the threat of violence were all dead, then we'd live in a utopia.
So please, FOAD already :)
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
People that use more power already pay more $$ for their electric bills. Why do we need more taxes?
Because the power companies introduce an externality when they emit pollutants. Cap and trade is intended to monetize this externality in order to bring it under market control.
I think I'm going to stick with my full-spectrum calibrated daylight CFLs for a bit longer, thanks. ;[ Since I'm sure a 'more pleasant' spectrum has more to do with some sort of psychotic reaction to new technology and less to do with color-correct viewing or 'real light' as I like to call it.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Instead, the law has become a case study of the way government regulation can inspire technical innovation.
Just as new diseases can inspire medical innovation.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
"I'm talking about Fat Man. "Breeder" reactors reprocess fuel into a form that could be diverted to make nuclear warheads."
In case you hadn't already noticed, the US already has enough warheads to destroy most of the planet a number of times over - do you think they're going to build even more just because some new nuclear power stations have opened FFS??
Jeez, how to people like you manage to dress yourselves in the morning...
They can "ban" something all they want, manufacturers will still make them because people will still want them and will find a way to get them.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
1,982 lamps/bulbs recycled
a total of
495.1 kg of glass
5.85 kg of metal
7.4 kg of phosphor
0.073 kg of mercury = 73 g = 2.575 oz
That's what is generated from 4 buildings in one year.
- My question is: Can Slashdot be Slashdotted? -
There are all kinds of ways to alter the spectrum of the light coming from a CFL bulb. For example, just use frosted glass. They even have CFL bulbs with warmer tints to the glass. I find that argument bullshit. Now the mercury factor and "real" wattage equivalency issues are another story altogether. If an efficient way was developed to recycle the bulbs, the savings could still be really good when compared to traditional filament bulbs. I use CFL bulbs on my security lighting and really like them.
no they can't - no-one in their right mind would buy a roughly equivalent 25c bulb for $5, and as a result, the manufacturers would not even bother trying to make and sell them.
That's bullshit. No one in their right mind would buy a hybrid for $4000 more than a comparable conventional car. Yet manufacturers make them and consumers buy them. Niche markets can make things worthwhile. The eco-whackos tend to be an affluent niche market. One that can shoulder the burden of $5 lightbulbs.
Similarly, saying "the market will provide more power stations", well yes it will - eventually, in the meantime while the market is getting to the point where more power is required, you're suffering brownouts. Besides, it is often in the market's interest to let you suffer like that as they you will pay more.
Again, I say bullshit. We're running out of capacity not because of utility company greed, but because of environmental luddites. We can't build more coal power plants. We can't build nuclear power plants. We can't build hydroelectric power plants. We're supposed to supply the world's electricity needs in the 21st century with wind and solar. But wait, wind turbines are a hazard to migratory birds, so we're supposed to do it all with solar...
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The anti-government regulation crowd would claim that a pollution emission market is just a government regulation in disguise. Both sides would note (probably correctly) that the payments for emitting pollution somehow don't end up in the hands of those who actually suffer ill effects from the emitted pollution.
How about making the reflective envelope elliptical in cross section, putting the filament at one focus and a yttrium "mantle" filament at the 2nd focus? If I've wikigoogled the facts right, the filament is heated to around 6000degC, and a mantle will glow at around 2000degC. Reflecting heat onto the filament raises its temp, making it a more efficient light emitter - but doesn't increase the light emitting surface area. But maybe with a second filament, more heat energy would be converted to light than is gained by the increased efficiency of the method in the article?
Or maybe just wrap the tungsten filament with yttrium - larger surface area to glow, but lower conductivity than the filament (~10x higher resistance than tungsten) so it doesn't increase current much.
Geeze, can you point to even one instance where that was the case?
GM had all the market incentives in the world for building high margin trucks and SUV's. If they had made any plans to provide less profitable, more affordable vehicles they might have stayed in business during the downturn. You might say that market forces weren't pushing them to do restructuring that could have kept their doors open.
In reality, the people running the company are subject to a different set of market forces. They're looking at what gives them the biggest bonuses not what makes the company more viable. Honestly, no CEO would deliberately take a profitable company and make it less profitable in order balance the company's portfolio to make it more immune to a recession that may or may not ever occur during their tenure. Some CEO's even go so far as to kill the golden goose to get the golden egg (Enron anyone?). If they're going to retire and sell their stock anyway, they don't have any market incentive for leaving the goose for the next guy. In this case market forces don't allow any planning to keep the goose around for the next generation.
Being an astronomy nut, I was actually pretty stoked to read about the proposed ban on incandescents. Low/High pressure sodium lights are easily filtered out when viewing or imaging the night sky. Incandescents however emit light across such a broad spectrum that it simply cannot be filtered out. Even using very narrow emission line filters (e.g. 3-5nm) filters doesn't cut it.
The street lamps near my house are low pressure sodium, but I live in an area where the local inhabitants insist on keeping their homes lit up like it's broad daylight. I figured at least my suffering was coming to somewhat of an end in the near future. I guess now I'll have to buy lightbulbs for all of my closest neighbours. Alas.
Incredible. Summary gives the credit of this innovation to the government?
> the law has become a case study of the way government regulation can
> inspire technical innovation
So, the 300 million people in the market say they want incandescent. Government says no, they aren't "energy efficient enough", according to a few hundred people in DC. An industry attempts to survive by pouring money into research that they didn't do before because it didn't make sense and would only drive up consumer costs. Now they have a solution that will cost more but at least it exists.
And the credit to this innovation goes to government?
This is typical of the leftist bias. Laud the benefits and don't talk at all about the cost. In the head of the submitter, everything is black-and-white, good-or-bad and there is no need to analyze whether this is worth the cost.
Don't judge fluorescent tubes by the cheap crap that most offices use. You can get tubes of various colour temperatures and various CRI (Colour Rendering Index) values.
The Philips TL950 (available at Home Depot in some places) is a T8 bulb with a colour temperature of 5000K and a CRI of 98. It looks great. If you want a slightly warmer light, the TL930 has a colour temp of 3000K.
Keep in mind that the $5 cost is to offset come costs of this new technology, and I expect the costs to drop dramatically if the technology sees some uptake. After all, it doesn't LOOK that expensive to manufacture.
Please, tepples, do a little bit of research. Learn a little bit about the design of nuclear power plants
I suspect the GP is referring to the potential for nuclear power technology to be diverted into weapons building, not to the probability we will be blown up by malfunctioning plants themselves, and while this risk can be mitigated if you're careful about regulation, it can't really be dismissed as nonsense.
Tweet, tweet.
This is just a halogen bulb, right?
Hahaha... good call ;)
I drink loads of coffee at home too, under my natural light from the window or my incandescents, and have no problems.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
And a heat pump has an effective efficiency greater than 100%, so your bulb is still a waste.
Luminous efficiency is the ratio of light emitted to power consumed. Luminous efficacy also incorporates the eye's response to the emitted spectrum.
Luminous efficacy isn't the appropriate measure here, unless you're completely unconcerned about color. If you want "white" light, you've got to emit red and blue wavelengths, which give lousy luminous efficacy, along with green, which gives great efficacy. The eye isn't nearly as sensitive to red or blue as it is to green light, but without them, you can't get to white.
The maximum possible luminous efficacy for a "white" light, something approximating sunlight, is around 15 percent. That assumes 100% wall-plug efficiency -- every watt of electric energy that comes in gets converted to a watt of visible light. So, if you've got 11% luminous efficacy in a white light, that translates to 75% efficiency.
If you want to get the maximum possible luminous efficacy -- the "brightest" light for a given amount of power -- get a fluorescent bulb with a pure-green or blue-green phosphor. Then you can get 50-75% true luminous efficacy, but your dinner won't look very appetizing, and neither will your date.
It's probably not Energy Star 3.0. The meter reads 0 watts when powered off, compared to a half watt for the CRT. Still, figure in watching TV for even 1 hour a day swamps the power draw while off. So yes, energy usage while on needs to be considered, especially since they've gotten the offline so good.
I mostly measured the power draw on a lark, it's better for the environment and my wallet at this point if I keep the TV for a good long while like I did with the CRT. 10 years for a TV isn't bad at all - especially considering I only had 1 TV, and other than curiosity the 32" has stayed unplugged since I got the LCD. I mostly got it because I wanted at least 36" to keep from sacrificing (effective)height while going to the widescreen form factor, and they happened to be selling the 42" for a price that made it cheaper than most 36" sets.
I was shocked at the power usage though, I thought CRTs were supposed to be big energy wasters compared to LCD - and here my 42" screen uses more juice per effective in^2 than the old 32". I was avoiding plasma because I KNOW it uses a lot more power - we have some screens at work used for status displays(I know, not good for them), and they're effective space heaters.
I don't read AC A human right
I've been meaning to get the store to create my stash of hundreds of conventional/cheap light bulbs that I'll store in my attic -- enough to last two to four decades. I can't stand CFLs and 2/3s of the fixtures in my house have conventional dimmers which helps with the lifetime of a standard bulb. I figure the stash will also help the resale value of my house when I leave them for the new owner as well in a decade or two. By then they should be a rare commodity.
Of course with things going they way they are in this country I envision a "Fahrenheit 451" scenario where jack booted government agents one day storm my house to relieve me of may light bulb stash. Do you think prison time will be associated with being caught with such contraband, or will it just be a stint at a re-education camp?
The anti-government regulation crowd would claim that a pollution emission market is just a government regulation in disguise.
If they claimed a pollution emission market enforced with the power of the state was "regulation in disguise", then they'd be wrong about the "disguise" part. My view is that this is a very open case of regulation and given that it employs a market approach, a pretty sane way to introduce such regulation.
Both sides would note (probably correctly) that the payments for emitting pollution somehow don't end up in the hands of those who actually suffer ill effects from the emitted pollution.
Would be interesting to see what happens in that case. One problem I see is that it could encourage parties to become victims, a variant of "moral hazard". An often hidden aspect of externalities is that other people can often chose to behave in ways that causes them to be affected (or affected more strongly) by the externality. The classic suburban example is building residential areas right next to nuisance businesses (eg, factories, airports, and asphalt plants). For example, suppose I buy a home next to an asphalt plant. My buy price is lower because after all, I get all sorts of interesting smells and noises from next door that most people don't like. But suppose that I can force the asphalt company to compensate me for the harm it does to me and my property. In additional, I can build additional assets on my property and in that way increase the harm that the asphalt company does to me. Suppose that ballooning costs from compensating me lead the company to bankruptcy. Suddenly the externality is no longer there and my property, including the additional developments I made, greatly increase in value. I get my cake and eat it too.
Another example is the Superfund program in the US for cleaning up heavily polluted sites. One feature of the program was that it is funded by anyone who has even a remote connection to the pollution in question, no matter how far back. For example, if company X disposes of a highly toxic chemical 50 years ago and the location becomes a Superfund site, then they are responsible for paying for cleanup, even if cleanup is hideously expensive or the risks of the chemical were unknown at the time. If the chemical had originally come from company Y, then company Y is also fiscally responsible, even if they thought they were properly disposing of the chemical in question. It'd be impossible for a company 50 years ago to even anticipate the Superfund program. My view is that this violates the whole idea behind making companies pay for externalities. Namely, if costs are assessed a long while later, then there's no feedback to tell the business that it is treading on expensive ground. The threat of bankruptcy in 50 years from unpredictable risks isn't going to trim a company's externalities. They'll instead gamble and hope that they don't get caught or not take such risks.
The point is that it's not enough to view regulation as merely compensation for an externality. One has to consider whether it influences business decisions or merely destroys unlucky businesses.
GM had all the market incentives in the world for building high margin trucks and SUV's. If they had made any plans to provide less profitable, more affordable vehicles they might have stayed in business during the downturn. You might say that market forces weren't pushing them to do restructuring that could have kept their doors open.
What would be the point of providing more affordable vehicles? People aren't buying enough of those either. Besides the market solution here is that GM goes bankrupt and a more competent business buys the parts that are still profitable.
You should have just given it to your dentist. Since he has to deal with larger amounts of mercury than you, he probably has proper ways to dispose of the stuff. The second alternative would be to look for a place that disposes of hazardous waste. Where I live, there's just an extra can at the recycling center that you can put everything potentially hazardous in.
Amalgam fillings suck, by the way. Not only are they releasing minute amounts of mercury, they're also thermally conductive (since they're metal), which makes cold and hot foods a real pain in the neck if you have one or more deep fillings. And they're ugly as hell. I've had mine replaced with plastic ones when the old fillings wore out, and I haven't looked back ever since. By pure coincidence, I'm catching much fewer colds and throat infections than I used to when I had my mouth full of amalgam fillings, but I'm sure that not being exposed to a poisonous heavy metal all the time anymore has nothing to do with that.
Given all the complexity and opportunities for abuse you cited, perhaps it's better to just ban a few clear examples of wasteful technology and hope for the best.
My experience in switching to CF is that the power bill DID go down and they DO last several times longer than incandescent bulbs. The spectrum of even the cheap CFs has improved a good bit in the last few years.
I do agree with your points. The various abuses are real.
I also agree that the process of internalizing the externalities can be overdone to the point that it becomes purely random destruction. That case has to be distinguished for the case where a company was negligently or willfully ignorant of a problem they should have known about.
I wrote this at 06:00 CST, so if I copied someone else's post sorry, and no I didn't realize it was his birthday til later today. Nikola Tesla patented this light, flourescent, halogen, mercury, neon, etc in the 1800's. He even had lights that used only one, and some with no wires at all. Also created an "earthquake machine", and lots of other truly amazing devices. Same as the "new discovery" of transmitting electrical power wirelessly. Amazing how our science is dribbled out of a faucet whenever it is convenient or expedient to large corporations. Tesla basically set George Westinghouse up with AC power. Tesla (not the rock band) also invented the FAX, Super Scalar Technology, The AC power system (polyphasic), remote controlled vehicles, etc. Amazing how few people have heard of him, yet his legacy surrounds us daily. Amazing in 110 years, we haven't discovered anything. No diseases cured in almost 50 years (like Chris Rock comedy bit talks about). TV was invented in the 1920's by Philo T. Farnsworth (a Nebraska High School Student). Where do things like this go today? Makes you wonder doesn't it? Jim
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
Given all the complexity and opportunities for abuse you cited, perhaps it's better to just ban a few clear examples of wasteful technology and hope for the best.
I strongly disagree. I don't think any "wasteful" technology should be banned on those grounds. Not even a clear case. There are two reasons. First, government has no business interfering so deeply in the activities of people and businesses. Second, there's a diseased concept here. It's one thing to waste a clear public good (like polluting open air), that leads to "tragedy of the commons", overuse and subsequent degradation of public goods. It's another thing to go after someone for using electricity which they paid for. Electricity at the customer end is a private good and not subject to tragedy of the commons. It's not relevant to society whether a person or group chooses to use incandescent bulbs or not.
The thing is the electricity inevitably is generated at the expense of a public good, be it waterways or air. There's no such thing as zero impact electricity. Because of that, it is relevant.
I do understand your resistance to an outright ban, I share it. Perhaps taxing the lightbulbs on the basis of the excess pollution (as compared to a CF) would be a fair-ish move. It's less comprehensive, but a step in the right direction and it does put the cost side by side on the shelf where buyers can see it plainly.
The thing is the electricity inevitably is generated at the expense of a public good, be it waterways or air. There's no such thing as zero impact electricity.
Sure there is. Have the electricity generator pay for the externality of the generating source. And as I've said elsewhere, light bulbs don't generate electricity. Hence, they aren't responsible for the externality that you care about. The proper solution is to address the problem at the source, not to regulate a zillion people.
Sure, light bulbs don't generate electricity, but people using them does (indirectly) cause electricity to be generated.
It's true that they're only indirectly responsible for the externality, but it's a step in the right direction.
It could be argued that the inefficiency itself makes their use worse than the equivilant amount of power put to an efficient use. They do produce some compensation good for the externality (or we wouldn't be using them at all), but for the same good that a CF would produce, they create several times the externalized harm for no good reason.
I'm not following this argument at all. As I see it, the mere fact that government is regulating light bulbs means that there is some bureaucracy that has some degree of control over light bulb manufacture and trade. And of course, light bulbs aren't the only possible wasteful use of electricity and other forms of energy. You'll need a similar bureaucracy for transportation, household appliances, industrial and high tech consumption of electricity. These bureaucracies need to have teeth, some sort of stick in order to enforce the regulation of the energy consuming devices in question. We have considerable spending on regulatory bodies and considerable imposition on the public. In comparison, we can tax electricity and oil products by the appropriate amount and skip all of that. A simple solution that doesn't consume lots of public funds or decrease the freedom of citizens. In my view, that bureaucracy is the real waste. When are we going to regulate it?
I don't see significant enough waste in light bulbs to justify the bureaucratic waste. And frankly, I don't think a case can ever be made (outside perhaps of total war or some other crisis of similar scale) for regulating waste in that way.
Currently there's only a few externalities left to electricity production. For example, the Obama administration has decreed that fossil fuel burning has a $15 per ton of CO2 emitted externality attached to it. I think that's overstated, but it surely covered all forms of pollution, even including radiation.
Anthracite contained roughly 25 million btu of energy. That's roughly 7300 kWh per ton. If we assume it is nearly pure carbon, then burning it generates roughly 3.7 tons of CO2. That implies a tax of $55.5 per ton or in terms of kWh, roughly $0.008 per kWh, assuming coal is turned into energy with 100% efficiency. According to Wikipedia, coal burning plants generally have an efficiency of 40% or less. So that's a tax of two cents per kWh from coal burning. If we assuming more generally that generating electricity from any source has an externality of that level, then we could just tax everyone's energy consumption by $0.02 per kWh and be done with it. No need to make elaborate plans for combating waste. Why should we care? Once the electricity generator is taxed appropriately, then there is no externality and hence, no reason to worry about waste.
Alternately, perhaps we care about peak electricity generation. That is when you see the most expensive marginal prices for electricity as well as the greatest routine strain on the grid. But once again, if we pass the costs of running incandescent bulbs during peak electricity to the consumer, then we don't have a reason to care. That consumer is paying adequately for the privilege of burning a bulb at peak.
In general, if they're paying a lot more than for a compact fluorescent, then that indicates that the incandescent bulb is indeed wasteful. Conveniently, the incentive is present to push them to a more conserving bulb. But suppose the price difference just isn't that much. Then the waste isn't there. In other words, whenever "waste" occurs in which the real externality is properly covered and the waste is genuine, there exists significant incentive to waste less.
All of this can be done without resorting to regulation of light bulbs for energy conservation. In the process, one gets a freer, wealthier society. Don't bother with the bulb. Fix only real problems.
A key point is that it is MUCH easier (read vastly less expensive) to ban incandescent bulbs than to set up for massive measurement, auditing, invoicing, and collection of pollution taxes with all of the associated paperwork (no doubt in triplicate). The consumer would end up paying for the extra accountants and 'compliance managers'.
Non-compliance with an incandescent ban is extremely easy to monitor and prove. If the bulb is on the shelf and it's an incandescent, case closed.
How shall we measure the emissions from the power plants? A team of spot inspectors? Honor system? Wild guess? Simple one-size-fits-all formula (thus penalizing well tuned plants while rewarding sloppy maintenance)?
Ideally, I would like to see externalities internalized. But I can well understand an interem shortcut like banning a particularly wasteful technology in order to bypass the level of complexity involved in a more comprehensive plan.
A key point is that it is MUCH easier (read vastly less expensive) to ban incandescent bulbs than to set up for massive measurement, auditing, invoicing, and collection of pollution taxes with all of the associated paperwork (no doubt in triplicate). The consumer would end up paying for the extra accountants and 'compliance managers'.
Keep in mind that there only a few places where such pollution taxes would need to be collected. For example, gasoline already is taxed at the pump, but you could tax it at the refineries for even greater efficiency. There's only a little over one hundred refineries in the country and imports. For fossil fuel burning power plants there are similar small numbers of sites that you would need to inspect. Same goes for cement manufacturers and the few others who produce significant CO2 from non-fossil fuel sources. You greatly exaggerate the difficulty here.
Non-compliance with an incandescent ban is extremely easy to monitor and prove. If the bulb is on the shelf and it's an incandescent, case closed.
And how do you know the bulb is on the shelf? Someone has to spot that bulb and test it to see if it complies. There are perhaps hundreds of thousand to millions of potential places where bulbs could be sold. You need a lot of inspectors. How do you deal with black markets in incandescent bulbs? Someone has to have police powers to find and fine or arrest people who smuggle and sell illicit bulbs.
How shall we measure the emissions from the power plants? A team of spot inspectors? Honor system? Wild guess? Simple one-size-fits-all formula (thus penalizing well tuned plants while rewarding sloppy maintenance)?
How it's currently done. You send inspectors over to measure the pollution output of the plant. Many locations already have mandated pollution monitoring equipment installed (in which case the inspectors merely have to verify the monitoring equipment is working correctly and that the operator isn't trying to circumvent the system). It'd really help your case if we weren't already doing this sort of grunt work for a host of other pollutants. Every developed world country has nailed this problem.
Ideally, I would like to see externalities internalized. But I can well understand an interem shortcut like banning a particularly wasteful technology in order to bypass the level of complexity involved in a more comprehensive plan.
Interim solutions only make sense if the problem is so dire that you need to do something immediately rather than a few years down the road. Electricity wastage is not a dire problem. Nor is carbon dioxide emissions. The former can be fixed, easily, by passing the true cost of electricity generation and transmission on to electricity consumers.
Carbon dioxide emission similarly is not a pressing problem. Even worst case scenarios (aside from vague doom and gloom tipping point scenarios that can't ever be disproven except by actually trying to trigger them) have modest effects over the next century (a few tens of centimeters rise in sea levels, 2-3 degree rise in global temperatures, weak rise in ocean acidity). If it turns out to be a problem, then carbon emission credits or something similar will do a much better job than spot banning stuff that the prevailing dogma has determined to be "wasteful".