Slashdot Mirror
Activists Seek Repeal of Ban On Incandescent Bulbs
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Daniel Sayani reports in New American that Senator Mike Enzi plans to introduce legislation to reverse the ban on incandescent light bulbs which is scheduled to go into effect January 1, 2014. 'CFLs are more expensive, many contain mercury which can be harmful even in the smallest amounts, and most are manufactured overseas in places like China,' says Enzi. 'If left alone, the best bulb will win its rightful standing in the marketplace. Government doesn't need to be in the business of telling people what light bulb they have to use.' Faced with a phaseout, some consumers are stockpiling incandescent bulbs, although a poll by USA Today indicates most Americans support the US law that begins phasing out traditional light bulbs next year. Despite some consumer grumbling, they're satisfied with more efficient alternatives. 71% of US adults say they have replaced standard light bulbs in their home over the past few years with compact fluorescent lamps or LEDs and 84% say they are 'very satisfied' or 'satisfied' with CFLs and LEDs."
This is another example of whackos in government run amok. Why not let consumers decide what to buy and for what purpose? During the winter I leave a small 40 watt bulb on in my well house to prevent the pipes from freezing...it gives out enough heat and it's perfect for that application. Now I will have to get a space heater causing me to burn even more electricity even when turned on the lowest setting.
This is absolutely idiotic...for government to ban a specific appliance. Almost as idiotic as banning people from owning and smoking a plant!
Will they forbid those, too?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Because LED lighting will own the market in a few years.
I've found that unless you have nice clean power, CFLs don't last any longer than regular bulbs. Not everyone gets 60 Hz pure sine, 120V+-1% to their house. Older wiring, older part of town, etc. I rented an apartment that had me replacing CFLs once a month (until I realized it was the apartment and not a fluke and switched back). You still can't beat 4 bulbs for $.99.
Incandescent bulbs are widely used for heating. For example in bread proofing boxs, small animal tanks and lava lamps.
What exactly are we supposed to use now?
Evil people are out to get you.
Most energy efficient technologies are actually an economic net win. After an initial push the government doesn't need to be involved. I see the government involvement in this sort of thing as more a swift kick to the economy to push it out of a local minima, and that's how it should stay.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Because consumers are stupid - that's why.
Sen. Enzi has interests in utilities and natural gas and coal mining. Can't imagine why he'd care if people used less energy-efficient lightbulbs.
Slippery slope. Today it's light bulbs, tomorrow it's thoughts.
I'd like the freedom to make bad decisions, please. Let me use inefficient light bulbs, drive around without a seat belt, and smoke cigarettes outside the office.
There's no reason to force people off of incandescents. If we can find more value in fluorescents we will. It does no good to save pennies a year on energy if we're paying dollars in quality of life. We'll all be using LED bulbs soon, anyway. Much easier to get the colors right there.
By that, I mean there are still places they don't cheaply fill in for incadescents. Like dimming or being able to come to full brightness quickly (for closets, bathrooms, etc). At least, those're the problems I've had with the bulbs I put in about 4 years ago when I bought my house.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I don't think I have had a CFL replace an incandescent bulb and last as long as the claim. Thankfully I get them at Costco who lets me trade them in for replacements.
Also, the light quality isn't that great.
Sure, they save some eletricity... but I'm not sure I am saving money.
here in the north the heat from the bulb is more than welcome.
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
Don't get me wrong, I love LEDs. I think all equipment should be littered carelessly with LED indicators.
But I just can't stand either LED or CFL lighting. The light that either of these globes give off just isn't as nice and comforting as a good ol' incandescent globe. It's cold, harsh, and monochromatic.
I for one will be stockpiling incandescent globes if Australia ever legislates against them.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
There are far better ways to promote specific technologies than to ban others. I know that many people will prefer the older tech, and forcing consumers is not a constitutional or even sensible way to achieve energy use goals. My mother is a water color artist, and is concerned with the ban because cfl and led lighting does not provide a natural reference for color like incandescents do. While she does penny pinch and has every light in her house as a cfl, she would like to use an incandescent while painting. She could plug in an electric heater and leave it on all day if she wants, so what's the point of banning the bulbs again???
And as this 2007 Slashdot story points out:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/07/02/26/1916211/GE-Announces-Advancement-in-Incandescent-Technology
Governments should mandate efficiency standards, not technology. I'm a bit on the free-market side myself, let the best bulb win, but not with absolutely no ground rules for that fight. If government were to truly stand back and let the market decide everything, cost would almost always win out and we'd have a proliferation of coal power plants and inefficient gas cars lacking almost every kind of pollution control system.
Government's role is to set the standard, in this case, so many lumen per watt, or however they want to word it, and then let the industry innovate the best technology to meet that goal.
Enzi's an idiot, and his reasoning specious. ("Oh, no, Chinee right burbs!") But I agree with his goal.
Banning incandescents is unhelpful and unnecessary. There are places where they're the only solution. Not many, but a few.
As people install CFLs, demand for incandescents will fall, because they last for a years. (Except in those situations I mentioned in the past paragraph.) It would be nice to push people to do that just once, and finally get them over the "the color wash is slightly different from the one I grew up with so I hate it" excuse. I know I haven't bought a light bulb in years, and probably won't for some time.
Still, I don't like forcing people. While light bulbs are a contributor to climate change, they're not the biggest part. It was just an easy, visible one, leading to an easy, ham-handed attempt to force people rather than persuade them.
Mind you, if I'm right, we should already be seeing demand for incandescents fall, at least if not for the confounding factor of hoarders. (Many of whom are doing so because anything a liberal tells them is good must, by definition, be bad. Which is precisely what Mike Enzi has been telling them for years.)
There are a handful of manufacturers out there (among them Philips), and the bulbs are way more efficient than incandescents in terms of lumens per watt. But a big problem with them is that they're just not that bright yet, The brightest ones you can buy are not quite as bright as a 60W incandescent.
I stockpiled a load of 100W ones. The new bulbs have lots of advantages - cheaper to run, so ideal to leave on as a security light, last longer, etc, but although I've replaced about 75% of the lights in my house with CFLs, I absolutely had to stockpile the old ones. The reason? It's simple. CFLs give me a headache. I can't sit underneath one for more than about 10 minutes without getting a headache, so it's fine to have one in the bedroom or bathroom, and it's not too bad in the kitchen, but I'm in the lounge or my office I need a regular incandescent light. It's not a problem for everybody, but sufficient numbers of people are similarly affected that I think it's outrageous the government can legislate such stupid big brother dictats.
Then there's the fact that they're sold massively below cost to get them adopted. Here, you can often find them for less than 10p per bulb at retail, and nobody is yet really worrying about the environmental costs of disposal because people aren't really throwing them away in any numbers yet. This will be a major problem in a few years though.
Finally, the usual arguments that the old bulbs are less energy efficient is pretty much redundant. As I mostly use light bulbs during the winter evenings and for a short period on winter mornings, I'll have my heating on anyway. Who cares if 90W of the 100W bulb is emitted as heat - it's making my house warmer. There's even a company in Germany trying to get round the ban by selling "heating globes" that happen to emit light and happen to look exactly like an old lightbulb.
Afterall, it's quit energy efficient to do that particular job.
Someone actually start importing it as heat ball.
Even if people made rational economic decisions, the market price of electricity doesn't reflect its cost to society. The difference between the social cost of consuming power and the price individuals pay for electricity is huge. Utilities are (for the most part) regulated monopolies. Governments can't raise electricity prices because such a move would be economically unpopular. Instead governments have to keep prices artificially low and then find different ways of reducing consumption. There's no real market for power. But people don't make rational economic decisions. They subordinate long-term rewards for short-term savings.
Except the Fed does NOT dictate the type of bulb you use. Congress passed a bipartisan law to require that bulbs be more efficient. Any incandescent bulbs that meet the new efficiency guidelines are fine. G.E. promised a more efficient incandescent bulb but decided against it.
God is imaginary
In the winter the old incandescent lamp has an efficiency nearing 100% because you use its heat too.
Why should anybody tell me to use CFL, harder to manufacture and dispose of and in this case less efficient?
A state wants to preserve environment? Then just factor in the environmental impact of stuff, and add it as tax or whatever. If using something hurts the environment make us pay in advance for the damage. It's a big paradigm shift, but the alternative of half assed measures or fake measures like carbon credits will just continue the current trend which isn't looking very good.
And if you care for people factor in the social impact of low wages. Then, with high prices for transport and country exploiting their people having their stuff taxed, we will have finally fair competition, and may the best win.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
From the summary:
CFLs are more expensive
Really? Around here (Tucson, AZ USA) CFLs at Home Depot are less than a dollar each in four-packs (It was something like $3.60/4 bulbs.). I'm not sure if they're more expensive than incandescents (as I've not priced incandescents in years), but they're certainly inexpensive enough that any price difference is trivial.
All of mine have lasted for years, give off less heat (less AC needed in the summer), and produce satisfactory light for reading and everyday indoor tasks. I don't do indoor photography or anything that requires super-accurate color rendering, but I'm not noticing any deficiencies in the light with just my eyes. With modern ballasts, they don't flicker and reach full brightness within about 5 seconds.
Short of extreme environments (outdoor lighting in Montana, oven lamps, etc.) and specific purposes (e.g. photography lamps, completely sealed enclosures, garage door openers, security lighting), I don't really see a purpose for incandescent bulbs.
I'm a TV & Film editor by trade, so I easily notice sub-second motion and flicker. The flicker and the "bad color" of CFLs bugs the hell out of me. I can immediately notice when a room is lit by CFLs vs. good old incandescents.
I'm all for doing what we can to reduce power consumption, but for me CFLs are not a viable option. I have a hard time working around them. I haven't tried LED light bulbs yet due to them being relatively new on the market... maybe that will be a way to go, but I don't think the incandescent light should be banned wholesale.
Government is getting carried away with banning things. *reaches over for a ma huang herbal supplement and a clove cigarette* Oh... wait...
Maybe a added power consumption tax would be appropriate, but not an outright ban.
Web hosting that doesn't suck!Dreamhost
My first CFLs lasted about three years before giving up. Before then they progressively lose their strength and take time to get whatever brightness level they max out at. They are hard to find light that looks "right" as coated bulbs can do little to compensate. They also are horrid in out door situations (low life mainly) and any where vibration can get to them, think garages either in or near the openers.
So far my three LED lights are just awesome. Good light dispersion and instant on. I have not tried any where the bulb is mounted horizontal, I have a few fixtures in the ceiling like that, but they do work well in my ceiling fan light fixtures and in bathrooms where the lights are pointed down. Haven't found a replacement for the globe lights that frequent bathrooms, I might end up ditching the fixtures.
Incandescent bulbs still have better variety in spectrum but outside of that I can think of only a few specialized uses their secondary effect; heat; warrants keeping them. OK, cost is their major benefit - at least up front cost.
I am all for keeping them on the death list as I hope it kicks LEDs makers into high gear. We can hope that Wal Mart decides to get behind LED lights like they did for CFLs, they seemed almost responsible for their overnight abundance and price drop. Having made such a big push on those bulbs I hope to see the repeat.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The issue with CFLs is not about choice but environmental and electricity generation issues. You are free to spend your money in whatever you like, but here in Venezuela the government created a replacement program where you would trade in your incandescent light bulbs and also get new CFL as long as you brought the damaged CFL, and it has been wildly successful. They replaced around 50 million light bulbs and saved 1750 MW of electricity. Fighting against a law like that is not about fighting for freedom of choice, it's just fighting for irresponsible behaviour.
Really, I'm not sure why people are so passionate about the matter. I've been gradually switching my fixtures over to CFLs anyways, I'm fine with going that route - especially now that dimmable CFLs are more readily available. And the "made in China" bit is a red herring; even the slashdot article that is linked to by that admits that virtually nobody makes any light bulbs of any sort in the US either way, hence you'll be lighting with Chinese-made bulbs no matter what route you select.
I can see the side of the argument that wants to see less government intervention, but at this point fighting legislation with more legislation seems like a waste of time and money.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I challenge your anecdote with my own. My winter time temps are 14C - 19C. Sometimes 22C for company. These are max temps located at the center of my home. I haven't replaced a CFL bulb yet. Most are the super, cheap harsh 9W ikea type. They are 4yr old.
He's assuming that the best product will win through market acceptance - but it's fairly common for sub-par products to beat out the "best" products due to various factors such as cost, and amount of advertising. Think about it - how else can you explain American domestic beer? People buy it by the boatload even though it's swill.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Well it can't be that difficult to get around the ban for devices that use the technology for heating by just making the devices emit in the infrared instead of visible light. Like say painting the bulb black for instance?
How the Hell will that work with a CFL? Thomas Edison had it right . . . he invented the light bulb, with Lava Lamps in mind. One smart inventor, he was .. ..
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
They still release less mercury than the coal plant would have when powering the old style light.
If you eat tuna you have no room complaining about a CFLs worth of it spilled in your home.
Joe public needs to be encouraged to recycle them, preferably with a fine of a few thousand dollars for tossing them out.
CFL vs LED vs incandescent is completely irrelevant on an energy conservation or greenhouse gas argument.
HEAT is the problem. We spend 60% of our energy creating or moving heat. Which is ironic because around 70% of the output of our power stations is "waste" heat which is normally dumped.
Space heating.
Water heating.
Air conditioning.
Cheap, high quality, high performance, easy to use insulators would make the single largest difference to world energy consumption after District Heating and Cooling are installed.
Think aerogels, but cheap and easy.
Deleted
Besides the higher cost, the mercury content and being made in China (which is probably true of most incandescent bulbs today too), there are other drawbacks.
At least one poster has cited reliability. There's fine print on most CFLs warning of reduced life if placed in an enclosed fixture. There are no such limitations on incandescent bulbs.
I've had a half dozen go bad during the past few years. None were in an enclosed fixture. I don't recall ever going through that many incandescent bulbs. One made a snap-crackle-pop noise when it went out and it's base was too hot to touch, raising concerns of the fire safety of these products.
The power factor of CFLs is about 0.44 leading. The power company must supply the vars for this free. They can only charge us for watts and can't charge for reactive power. Incandescent bulbs have a power factor of nearly unity.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Seriously, judging by the comments I wonder how many people actually read the article. This paragraph should put people's doubts at rest: "He expects all Americans would back the law if they knew it does not ban incandescents but simply requires them to be more efficient. So the old-fashioned 100-watt bulb, which U.S. companies cannot make after Jan. 2012, will be replaced by a halogen version that produces the same light, as measured in lumens, but uses only 72 watts of electricity."
I have a couple of rooms in my house that have dimmer switches installed. CFLs (even the dimmer compatible ones) just don't work well. We get a loud buzzing noise coming from the bulbs and from the actual dimmer switch. Guess I need to join the stock up gang.
http://heatball.de/en/
Happens to be a heating device that conveniently fits into your standard E-27 lightbulb socket. As a waste product, it also gives off a bit of light.
I for one cannot stand standard CFLs. They throw white balance of my photographs completely off with their spiked spectrum. Now, I've replaced most lights in my home with Vivalite's full-spectrum 6000K color temperature lights (so they resemble sunlight), and I'm reasonably happy with those. I still think your old tungsten wire is next best thing - it has continuous spectrum, even if the spike is somewhere around 3000K (orange).
Anyway, I guess I'll be stockpiling some lightbulbs before they get phased out in the EU as well.
I agree. I think we should pass a Constitutional amendment to specify Congress's powers. Admittedly, some of the things they've done with exaggerations of the Interstate Commerce clause has been helpful, and so we shouldn't entirely restrict their powers, just specify them.
...a lot of things. LED bulbs don't actually illuminate a room . They do a great job of illuminating a direction. Think of a laser beam. That's great when what you want to see is the LED bulb, but it's terrible when you want to see the rest of the room. And diffusers just don't work on point-source lights.
CFL is even worse. Talk about a cradle-to-grave problem. They simply consume so much terrible stuff in manufacture and disposal that saving a few watts of power is insignificant in the long run. And of course, as the post suggests, you need a hazmat team to clean up a broken lightbulb.
But more than anything, wasting electricity is a good thing. We live in a capitalist society -- which has many advantages. The biggest one being that innovation comes from necessity. Saving 10% on your electricity bill makes the cost of electricity go up. Consuming 10 times as much electricity breeds innovation and makes the cost of electricity go down -- substantially.
I think you're supposed to call Hazmat and evacuate the neighborhood
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Does anyone have any suggestions on brands of CFLs to use that give off "good" light? Every one that I've tried gives off a harsh, dead light. That may be perfect for a horror flick, but not for my house. I would love to make the switch, but I'll be hoarding too if that's the sort of light given off by all of these things.
'If left alone, the best bulb will win its rightful standing in the marketplace. Government doesn't need to be in the business of telling people what light bulb they have to use.'
I agree with this provided the government responsibly institutes a massive carbon tax (with corresponding cuts in other taxes) so as to level the "free-market's" playing field so that it achieves environmental responsibility. When your electricity starts costing 5 times as much, you can make whatever choice of light bulb you want.
I'm pretty sure the constitution doesn't limit what government can legislate, except for the pretty specific clauses ensuring specific kinds of fundamental individual freedoms such as freedom of speech, association, freedom from arbitrary incarceration, and several other specific limitations on the government's scope of power.
In other respects, it's allowed to be a government and legislate whatever its democratically elected legislators vote to legislate.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
They make the plastic bits out of that biodegradable shit. And then they fall apart before the bulb burns out. Literally, they just crumble when I touch them after less than two years.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I have a CFL in my outdoor lamp on my front step. And in my car port a regular incandescent. Both are wired to the same switch. (Don't blame me, I didn't build the place.)
I flip the switch on garbage night. I put on coat and gloves (I live in Northern Canada), I grab two bags, lug them the 100 or so yards to the designated area. Come back. Take the next bags, 100 yard walk again... If there's a third trip (no pickup for almost 3 weeks during the winter at some spots) the CFL is USUALLY on properly by then. But often times not. I'm quite often done and back inside before it's at full whack.
They're useless at their job, dangerous and expensive.
And people who leave their porch lights on all night unless it's for very good (and not imaginary) security reasons are idiots.
Or use LEDs. Brighter, when colder.
I am an energy-saving enviro-zealot, but I hate the spectrum of CFLs and LEDs. I am in the UK and have been subject to the anti-incandescent bulb legislation, and have become a fan of the Osram hybrid bulbs, which are the size (and socket format) of a traditional incandescent, but contain a lower-power halogen bulb. Check out the Osram Halogen Eco Classic series http://www.osram.com/osram_com/Consumer/Home_Lighting/Halogen_lamps/Product_overview/Screw_bases/HALOGEN_ECO_CLASSIC/HALOGEN_ECO_CLASSIC_A/index.html
Sorry y'all, this is not intended as Spam or Advertising! I am a regular here, and just sharing my personal preferences....
Where are my mod points when I need them!?
Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
I have had many CFL lamps fail in a matter of weeks or DAYS in some cases. I think many are just cheaply made; they go out, you hit them, they come on for a while. Color temperature is not always appropriate. Also you are not supposed to use them in an application where you flick them on, leave them on for a few seconds and then turn them off. Many applications are like this: closet light, basement light, fridge light. Some take a few minutes to reach full brightness although this improves with age. Also, use outdoors in frigid weather is a problem. I have changed most of my house lights to CFLs, but there are some decorative candelabra-base fixtures where you can't use them. Be aware that any electricity savings will necessarily be countered by rate increases so we're not doing this to save money, just electrons.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Let me object in a slightly different way - Congress has no fucking business setting standards for the efficiency of light bulbs. Nope, it's not there in the good ole Constitution. Can't find it anywhere. They should butt out of such things!
Let them first stop wasting billions of dollars a year on the war on drugs and then we can worry about piddly little things like light bulbs.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I see the CFL = Mercury thing all the time and frankly it's avoiding the fact that the power savings from replacing an Incandescent with a CFL mean you take less power, burn less coal and release less mercury into the air.
Here's the math:
Take a 100w bulb and replace it with a 17W CFL - average lifetime of a CFL is about 10,000 hours. So that 83w power difference over 10,000 hours is 3 gigajoules. Coal power content is about 33 megajoules per kilogram - so that works out to about 90kilograms of coal over the lifetime of the bulb. Mercury content varies but about 10 parts/million is a reasonable average - so that pile of coal will contain about 900 miligrams of mercury. CFL's contain about 5milligrams (although there are 'eco friendly' bulbs that contain less than a milligram.
Now, there are other factors, firstly the fuel cycle of power plants isn't 100% so the amount of coal will be higher, on the other hand, in the US only about 50% of the electrical power comes from coal.
Regardless - Incandescents are *worse* in terms of mercury pollution, and anyone telling you otherwise is either misinformed or lying.
No, it's not the same thing-- and in fact the rule has spurred the creation of several brands of incandescents that *do* meet the new efficiency standards. I have four of them from Philips in a set of ceiling lights on a dimmer switch. It is, in fact, an example of a well-written government rule that dictates what we want (more efficient sources of light) without mandating specific technologies or manufacturers, letting the market sort out how best to get there.
I'm certainly not enough of a constitutional scholar to argue whether or not congress is allowed to regulate these things-- but assuming they are, they did it the right way.
My wife is pregnant and pregnant women aren't supposed to be around mercury. So I'm actually replacing some CFLs in my house with incandescent bulbs.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
They are cheaper in the long term safe and do a great job. You are using tools wrong. Do you complain about your hammer when it fails to drive screws?
Use either cold starting CFLs or LEDs.
Does anybody know of a good replacement for the typical 25/40 W mirror bulbs? I have not found anything other than CFL and I am not putting that in an easy to hit area..
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hmmm, it looks like this is another (successful) troll by a Congressional Republican.
You sound angry... Did Congress kill your T-Model Ford manufacturing business with new efficiency requirements?
- These characters were randomly selected.
Secondly, I do like the *intent* - to save electricity. But the quality of light from CFL's is bad, and LED's are worse. They flicker, produce less spectrum than cfl's or led's.
Thirdly, when did the term activist envelop the definition of doing what is logically right, what makes sense, and not forcing legislation that doesn't make sense down people's throats?
These new bulbs are bad for people - harmful on a health level. Imagine in 20 years how much more health issues people will have because their babies were exposed to a broken cfl bulb. And the water contamination...
I think a good compromise in all of this would be to switch to halogen bulbs. They won't kill anyone, catch fire, poison water, make us go blind, cause seizures and headaches, look awful like CFL's do, but they would save some electricity and give us the same quality of light. I don't know about you, but I am not going to buy a more expensive, inferior product.
I like the mandate to research and develop new lighting technologies - bu I don't like them throwing this down our throats, making us switch involuntarily. That's not what the United States of America is about. Politicians need to wake up to this fact - no matter what "side" they are on.
If this really bothers you, go to http://freeourlight.org/ and sign the petition.
ummm... Not only does the whole document outline the powers specifically granted to the Fed .gov, it also has that pesky 10th amendment that grants any powers not expressly granted to the Feds to the states and people.
The Founding Fathers already tried that, no ammendment needed if we'd just follow their constitution.
You could just buy 3000K CFL's. They're available everywhere, and indistinguishable from incandescents.
I don't respond to AC's.
Actually, the entire US Constitution is exactly about limits on what the Federal government can legislate. The document first takes everything away, the hands out various powers to parts of the government.
Every other power that isn't listed is supposed to be handled by the States.
As we can see, that idea didn't last very long. I think it hardly made it to 100 years.
Forgive the OT post, but I'm not sure where else to ask this. I'm using Firefox 3.6.13 under Linux (Gentoo) and for a few weeks now, a lot of comment posts (including this one of mine and it's parent), but not all, don't show the score after the subject and show all the comment text double spaced...it's been driving me nuts. Anyone else seeing this? I'm getting this on two different machines.
Whenever there is a disproportionate societal cost that does not appear in the retail cost, there is a reason for the government to get involved. In the case of lighting, there is an obvious environmental cost with the energy involved, but also the nonlinear costs of new generation and infrastructure needed to address demand growth once it passes a threshold where the power system can't just scale linearly to absorb it. Efficient lighting is one of the best ways to deal with that growth (cheaper and more environmentally benign than most other conservation and new infrastructure), but people aren't adequately incentivised to adopt it in the current market.
A tax would be more efficient than a ban -- giving people a nudge, but giving them more wiggle room to decide when and how to make the switch. The proceeds could be used to go back and defray changeover costs or support LED research as an alternative (or defray the deficit). Unfortunately, in our brainless political climate, the anti-tax zealots make it easier to ban incandescents than to tax them, which is really insane if you think about it.
Ain't the government's business.
Especially since CFLs are actually worse, from manufacturing, waste, disposal, and accidental breakage, than incandescent bulbs.
I disagree, and it's why we're (strictly speaking) not a full blown democracy (so that's the first point I disagree with... by your standard, 80% of the white people could demand slavery be re-instituted by repealing amendments - obviously they wouldn't, but by your reasoning it would be OK if they did).
Secondly, the constitution of the U.S. gives a specific list of the responsibilities of the federal government... and leaves EVERYTHING else to the states.
Yes, it's true that we already are not following the constitution as it was written, but that's besides the point if you're arguing about a specific topic.
Lastly, you can take your carbon tax and shove it up your %$#@^$. The whole concept is complete $#^$#@, and the ONLY reason government should be taxing citizens is to pay for the operation of the government, not for social change, income redistribution, or "out of fairness."
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
I like CFL bulbs, and probably 80% of the bulbs in my house have been converted, but there are some applications that CFLs are actually less eco-friendly for, like areas where the lights are turned on and off frequently, like hallways, closets, and bathrooms. It would be a shame if this law actually makes things less efficient than just leaving people to their own devices... I think most people don't like spending their time changing light bulbs and are going to buy CFLs anyway.
Does anyone else experience infrared remote control interference with CFLs? I find that my satellite STB drops key presses (only about 1 in 3 get through) from its remote control whenever a CFL is switched on in the room. Turn off the light and things return to normal.
I'm pretty sure the constitution doesn't limit what government can legislate, except for the pretty specific clauses ensuring specific kinds of fundamental individual freedoms such as freedom of speech, association, freedom from arbitrary incarceration, and several other specific limitations on the government's scope of power.
Offtopic, but yes, the constitution does limit what the goverment can legislate.
Enumerated Powers
In short, the federal government is only allowed to legislate what the constitution expressly allows them to.
In this case I guess we could perhaps go with:
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
Except technically that's only between states(etc)
If that fails they could always use:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imports and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; [Altered by Amendment XVI "Income tax".]
And just tax the fuck out of incandescants.
Note: IANAL. also IANAA (I am not an American) so I could be wrong
AccountKiller
Why get a space heater....if a 40 watt bulb works, then just stick in a suitable resistor instead and be done with it. Alternately, repurpose an old thermostat and use it to control the space heater.
I'm pretty sure the constitution doesn't limit what government can legislate, except for the pretty specific clauses ensuring specific kinds of fundamental individual freedoms such as freedom of speech, association, freedom from arbitrary incarceration, and several other specific limitations on the government's scope of power. In other respects, it's allowed to be a government and legislate whatever its democratically elected legislators vote to legislate.
You are very much mistaken. The US Constitution defines what the federal government *may* legislate and then specifically states that everything else is left to the states to legislate. The first ten amendments then go on to explicitly forbid legislation, federal and state, in certain areas.
What about the energy involved in fabrication and transport of the 'eco friendly' bulb? International container ships are widely regarded as some of the worst atmospheric polluters imaginable. What about the fact that the bulb, according to TFA only lasts a fraction of the 10K hr lifetime? Please tell me I am misinformed or lying. It just doesn't seem self-evident to me. I think you are spot on w/r/t the difference in energy consumption, even if the lifetime is shorter.
LEDs; expensive, "BLUE LIGHT HAZARD" and crappy eerily shallow output spectrum.
Normal lights suck 5x the amount of energy as CFL and LEDs but are cheap and harmless and no you don't get to disregard the extra energy needed to manufacture CFLs and LEDs.
I should be able to choose the type of lighting I want out of principal and especially given crappy unproven unacceptable alternatives. I don't turn on the incandescent lights in my house very much or for that long..the amount of energy they consume is therefore trivial as percentage of my total usage.
If you want to legislate lower power consumption incentivize the proliferation of ground source heat pumps and energy efficient blower motors. Or hell if you really cared you would find a way to keep desktop computer vendors from producing computers that consume >100 watts continuous while sitting idle doing absolutely nothing.
I'm pretty sure the constitution doesn't limit what government can legislate, except for the pretty specific clauses ensuring specific kinds of fundamental individual freedoms such as freedom of speech, association, freedom from arbitrary incarceration, and several other specific limitations on the government's scope of power.
In other respects, it's allowed to be a government and legislate whatever its democratically elected legislators vote to legislate.
Try reading the Constitution before taking wild guesses what it does and doesn't say. They are called "enumerated powers" and are found in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Agree with fluxsmith... the 10th amendment quite clearly limits the powers of the federal government to specifically what is outlined in the constitution, and leaves the rest to the states (or individuals).
That we don't follow the constitution doesn't negate the fact that it's already right there.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
So apparently 84% of US adults are happy with CFLs. Then again, 84% of US adults have an IQ less than 116.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
To date all the LED replacement bulbs I've bought I had to remove. they were a hostile blue color and flicker at 120hz. awful to work under, hideous to look at. Wake me up when they start making DC rectified ones for standard 120v sockets. While you can find ones that have a redder spectrum they are also very low lumen models so can't replace 90W halogens or even 50W halogens.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Yes but when an incandescant breaks in my house the mercury is not in my home. Its the good old not in my backyard syndrome.
How do you figure?
They save power, manufacturing costs are lower since you need to replace them far less often and 1 milligram of mercury is not a huge issue in the rare case of breakage.
Is there some anti-science place you folks hangout and cook this crap up?
I live in the south of New Zealand, and for 10 months of the year or more have thermostat controlled electric heating.
Any waste energy from a bulb will heat the house and the heaters will spend proportionately less time switched on. I.e. NO waste whatsoever.
Yet another good reason to let people decide - there are too many variables for a broad sweeping law like this to work.
Oh, and given this argument, all of a sudden the negative aspects of CFLs considerably outweigh their non-existent advantages. Therefore where I live CFLs have MORE reason to be banned than incandescents.
They aren't cheaper for the long term unless they are left on though.
If you leave one light on that is perfect for a CFL. If however you turn lights on and off as you move about the house then incandescent will save you more money.
Take a$3 CFL, add in 2 more dollars to get it properly recycled afterwards,in a residential setting you lose 50% of the life out of the CFL, unless you leave them on. By the time all is said and done you spend more money to use a CFL, if you turn lights off that aren't in use compared to a 50 cent bulb.
Fluorcents only save money and last a long time if the lights are on for 8-12 hours a day, then they save tons. If your lights are only on for 1-2 hours a day, and your smart about turning off lights you will actually spend more money using CFL's, as you will replace them more often than incandescent.
Smart people use both. CFL's, in the bathrooms, kitchens etc were lights get left on for hours, and dimmers with incandescents in rooms not used as often. Dimming a Incandescent to 75% of it's output doubles it's life. Dimming ANY FL shortens it's life by 20-30%.
It is about balance, At least until LED's come out and give you the best of both worlds. Dimmable, energy efficient lamps.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
For some reason flourescent, LED, and CFLs especially give me splitting headaches after about 5 minutes.
It seems others don't sense the high frequency flicker that I do.
Incandescent light doesn't ever bother me at all.
So what the hell am I supposed to do in future? Just face the fact that because of this stupid legislation I have to live the rest of my life with daily headaches?
Well in the north, they're 100% efficient. They give light, and radiate heat. I've actually seen my energy costs go up by about 10% when I switched to them. I've since switched back to plain old incandescent bulbs, and tossed all the CFL's I had.
This isn't counting the CFL's I didn't used in my reading lamps and so on. I gave them a shot, I really did. I got tired of the flicker and migraines the bloody things gave me.
Om, nomnomnom...
Your first point is wrong. The CFL will last years longer.
Recycling costs me nothing. Dimming an incandescent to 75% its output means you get far less light. You are actually making them less efficient. Buy long life ones and just run lower rated bulbs. If you think this is a good idea, just use an electric stove element for light, lasts a long time.
I'm pretty sure the constitution doesn't limit what government can legislate
Actually, yes, it does limit that very severely, when it comes to Federal government - see the 10th Amendment. The States themselves can introduce restrictions like that within their boundaries, but the Feds have no business doing that. It's what federalism is all about.
I replaced my regular bulbs with CFL's a few years ago...not because I'm wanting to save the earth or anything, but because I HATE REPLACING BURNED OUT BULBS! Darn things always blow at the worst time, and you usually can't find one, which means you steal it from somewhere else in the house, forget to buy more and then the one you swiped you'll need and won't work. I replaced them well over 2 years ago, and haven't replaced them since. When LED's come down to a semi-reasonable level, I'll swap out the CFL's to those.
Incandescent bulbs aren't being banned. All light bulbs must meet the efficiency standard required by the law. If an incandescent can do that (and apparently some can), they can still be sold.
Running out of lithium?
Are you off your rocker?
Go to wikipedia and see just how much lithium there is.
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-70-Watt-Halogena-Energy-Saver/dp/B001FA07UW
No one says you have to use CFLs. These are incandescents that meet the efficiency requirements.
And yet if you break an incandescent in your house you're expected to just through it away... But if you break a CFL its treated as an environmental catastrophe requiring duck tape, air / heat turned off, space suits etc...
If the government thinks it has to mandate a technology to replace an existing, cheap technology because of environment concern, there's something wrong when the government then has to come out with papers on how to clean up the mercury they're forcing us to bring into our homes.
Yup, just as orange. Spend the extra money and get the sunlight ones.
They are cheaper in the long term safe and do a great job. You are using tools wrong. Do you complain about your hammer when it fails to drive screws?
Use either cold starting CFLs or LEDs.
They're safe until you break one and the mercury gets loose.
If 71% of the people are buying them already, why do we need a ban on the old product? CFL bulbs won in the market, with the exception of some specific cases where CFLs are not an option. So the ban is unnecessary.
I'd say you made the right choice. However, I'd take it further. If heating your house with electricity (light bulbs) is cheaper than whatever your current heat source is, you should get an electric furnace and/or space heaters. That would presumably save you more than 10%.
I also hope that when you say you "tossed" your CFLs, you mean you gave them to someone who can handle the mercury properly, and not just put them in the normal trash to end up in a landfill.
Latest study is in on the UK, Carbon Output and Energy Consumption Exploded as a result of banning Incandescent Bulbs. The study found that banning the Incandescent bulbs with subsidies for CFLs had the perverse affect of enabling people to go out and spend the money on other activities that emit more CO2 than what was saved resulting in a net increase in CO2 emissions. The example given in the study, if a home owner only took the average savings for using CFLs and purchased beer, his net carbon footprint would be increased totally erasing any benefit gained.
What about the energy involved in fabrication and transport of the 'eco friendly' bulb?
Transport is likely to be the same cost.
Fabrication cost was already included in the cost of the bulb.
What about the fact that the bulb, according to TFA only lasts a fraction of the 10K hr lifetime?
They still last longer than incandescent bulbs. For many of us, that is the primary benefit. My electricity costs are minimal.
Please tell me I am misinformed or lying.
Misinformed. szyzyg provided facts and figures. You provided questions. facts > questions.
I think he means in terms of mercury.
In some applications -- cold weather, very intermittent usage, high-vibration environments, over-insulated fixtures -- even the oldschool incandescents are more energy efficient than fluorescents. Sometimes, fluorescents just don't work very well (cold, intermittent use) and sometimes they die early.
Those are a minority of applications, yes... but they do exist. Not everyone uses lighting in the same way.
I'm not sure that I agree with the idea of a "carbon tax" either, but we've already given the government the power to limit the ability of individuals to pollute, and that I DO agree with. So, we have two alternatives:
1. The government outlaws certain types of pollutants entirely (eg. sulphur, NO2, etc).
2. The government taxes companies based on how much of these pollutants they emit.
The first option is extremely problematic since it would wipe out entire industries overnight. The second option encourages companies to gradually lower harmful byproducts, while providing funds which can be invested in cleaner technologies or in cleaning up the environment. Of course, the third alternative is to just let everyone pollute as much as they want; if that's the approach you're advocating, I don't think we'll ever agree.
For those of us who raise chicks & ducklings, incandescent bulbs are used as heat sources for young animals. Obviously, LEDs & CFLs will not work.
Uh, they mean the mercury *inside* the CFL itself. Not the mercury used in manufacturing it or power it.
Drop a bunch of CFLs on the floor, and you could end up with beads of mercury rolling around. Makes for a fun time cleaning it up.
Drop a bunch of incandescent bulbs on the floor, and you only have to worry about the glass.
Now, not all CFLs have mercury inside, nor do all of them have the same amounts.
But when people talk about mercury, that's what they mean.
Is there some anti-science place you folks hangout and cook this crap up?
I'm guessing most of them come from here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Compact fluorescents have truly horrible light quality compared to incandescent lighting. Unfortunately CRI (color rendering index) is not required information on light bulb packaging. As I found out the hard way CFLs are also unsuitable for most types of enclosed fixtures, due to the temperature sensitivity of the electronics. And they smell really bad when they fail.
What is needed is common sense. Incandescent bulbs are cheaper to buy because they are cheaper to make. CFLs are more efficient to use, but not to produce. If the energy costs for the productions of the parts are included than the total energy savings, while still less are not nearly as dramatic as claimed (closer to a 2 watt difference for a 60 watt bulb versus the 47 watts as implied on the packaging).
Don't get me wrong 2 watts times a million bulbs is still a lot of power savings. However, then you have to deal with the mercury and other environmental hazards and the cost. The 2 watt saving for the bulb does not offset the increased cost.
Let the market choose. Of course before the ban on incandescents, the market did choose. People purchased incandescents. If CFLs are good for the environment and good for the consumer, great, tell people how and then let them choose. Forcing them to purchase CFLs (or LEDs) in a society that promotes the free market seems ironic at best.
The commerce clause (that you pointed out) has been pretty much the green light for anything the US government wants to do, despite it having been designed for suppression of interstate taxation.
Look up Wickard v. Filburn (or find the link from the wikipedia Commerce Clause page).
If you energy costs went up, then it must be cheaper for you to heat with electricity than your primary means of heating.
I suggest you purchase electric heaters. Another benefit of heaters over lamp-waste-heat is they can be turned off in the summer.
:x
Do you have a coal-fired power plant in your bedroom, too? Proximity to mercury can't be ignored.
Not that this sways the argument one way or another, but it is worth considering that power plants have systems in place to capture the mercury that is released in the firing process. Nearly 100% of that is captured, and then properly disposed of. That may be better than lots of 5mg pockets of mercury ending up in a landfill and then the groundwater.
many contain mercury which can be harmful even in the smallest amounts
Wow, so a single atom of mercury can harm me, huh? That's the official smallest amount.
Well, if it's philosopher's mercury I guess it could start a cascade of phlogiston releases in my precious boldly pneuma.
Well in the north, they're 100% efficient. They give light, and radiate heat. I've actually seen my energy costs go up by about 10% when I switched to them.
Pure bullshit. Unless by "north" you mean "the arctic circle" in which case you might have a point. Even there, though, electricity is a shitty way to provide heat, and dumping it into your ceiling is wasteful unless you have 99% perfect insulation.
This isn't counting the CFL's I didn't used in my reading lamps and so on. I gave them a shot, I really did. I got tired of the flicker and migraines the bloody things gave me.
Sure. And some people "get" headaches from WiFi signals. Do a double-blind experiment, or point to one that shows the effect, and then we'll talk.
They save power, manufacturing costs are lower since you need to replace them far less often and 1 milligram of mercury is not a huge issue in the rare case of breakage.
They are supposed to last longer, but since they are often poorly made, they usually don't last very long. They need several minutes to warm up in normal usage, so you can't shut them off as easily as regular lamps. They often have an irritating flicker. They have larger volume with the additional components, so they take up more landfill space. They do NOT work in cold weather, so outdoor use is limited to summer time only. And that 1mg of mercury (plus whatever additional components are used), multiplied by millions of bulbs busted up in the landfill, adds up fairly quickly, since most people are just going to toss them in the garbage instead of paying for expensive hazmat disposal.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I just use LED bulbs since they don't have the same problem in cold weather as CFL bulbs. I think CFL bulbs shoudn't be marketed for outside at all.
Why?
That delay you mentioned is the perfect reason. Every outside light is on a sensor(even the front door.) Since the timer goes off after three minutes they would never turn on.
Well in the north, they're 100% efficient. They give light, and radiate heat.
So do CFLs. They aren't magic. For a given wattage X, they give off lumens Y, and the rest is waste heat. It's just that for the same lumens Y, X is about 1/4th of an incandescent. But if instead you bought one with equal wattage X, you'd find that it was very nearly the same amount of heat!
I've actually seen my energy costs go up by about 10% when I switched to them. I've since switched back to plain old incandescent bulbs, and tossed all the CFL's I had.
Wow, that's a seriously crappy heating system you have. Seriously. Are lots of your vents covered by couches, or something? If your energy bill actually went up by using CFLs and making up the difference in heat with your heater, then you'd be better off getting rid of your heater and just having tons of light bulbs (with a black shroud around most of them or something so you wouldn't be blinded). Which is sad. Of course you would be far better off fixing your heating situation than trying to use your light bulbs as heaters. If you aren't in a position to do that, then I'm sorry.
The enemies of Democracy are
I put a CFL in my kid's Easy Bake oven and the damned thing doesn't work worth shit.
Have gnu, will travel.
I think you're either misinformed or lying. Last time I looked, I don't have a coal plant in my living room... Hg pollution from a powerplant is distributed throughout our rather large atmosphere (or in the ash left from the coal). Mercury from a broken CFL is in my house. That's a rather big difference, don't you think?
And 100w equivalent CFL bulbs are generally 23w, so I think you started off with a lie since it helped your agenda. http://www.1000bulbs.com/category/23-watt-cfl-compact-fluorescents-2700k
These light bulbs really suck. Have you used them? Has the congress used them? Try coming home in the middle of winter and start cooking dinner for your hungry and screaming 3 year old in the dim light of the CFL that takes 10 minutes to get to full brightness. Remember I won't drive 55? Another successful government sponsored campaign.
Your first point is wrong. The CFL will last years longer.
No they don't.
Except for downlights in our kitchen and a pair of touch lamps, we've switched to CFL's throughout and have been using them for a few years now. Not even the "dimmable" CFLs work in our dimming touch lamps otherwise we'd be using them there, too. I'm seriously considering switching back to incandescents - whilst CFLs have had a minor impact on our power bill (they must consume a *lot* more power when warming up), they do fail far more frequently and so cost more overall than incandescents. On top of that there's legal issues with our local councils on disposals - it's technically illegal to put dead CFLs in the refuse because of their mercury content yet there are no alternatives in the form of recycling facilities available.
I'm looking forward to LED lightning getting past its First Gen issues.
Democratic governments are supposed to be all about market-driven economies, right? So if CFLs are some great then why does the government need to enforce a protectionist economy for them? They should be able to stand on their own merit.
Every other power that isn't listed is supposed to be handled by the States.
As we can see, that idea didn't last very long. I think it hardly made it to 100 years.
Barely made it 100 years? If you want to go with your somewhat narrow interpretation it didnt even make it 17 years*! Jefferson was well aware that there was no provision in the constitution allowing the federal government to acquire territory, but he went right ahead with the Louisiana purchase anyway. So it seems even the founding fathers couldn't hew to the constitution to the degree you desire even a mere couple of decades after they wrote it. Oops.
* There are probably even earlier examples, but the Lousiana purchase is very blatant and should suffice to make the point.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I'm all for saving electricity, but hate the false claims that the manufactures have. (i.e.18W florescent bulb is equivalant to 100W incandesent bulb - but when you replace it you'll see it's about as dim as a 40W ).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6110547/Energy-saving-light-bulbs-offer-dim-future.html
http://www.1000bulbs.com/category/40-watt-cfl-compact-fluorescents/
Now STFU. Why people think they won't be able to get a CFL the use 40W is beyond me.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A day or two ago it was reported that the EPA was easing
requirements for mercury emmisions to save money for power
companies. Nice that the EPA is so worried about the CEO's
bonuses. Wish they would do their job and worry about our
health.
We should have a heavy tax on mercury emmisions and use
the proceeds to subsidise windmills and LED lights.
Lighting is very small part of my electricity use.
My eyes don't like fluorescents, and I need to make
my eyes as happy as possible (one emergency eye surgery
is *more* than enough, thank you). I've been converting
some lighting to LEDs. Most of my lights get used very
rarely, so obscessing about the 3 Watt-minutes/year that
they use is silly.
Obscess a bit less about your light bulbs and instead
obscess a bit more about the *big* energy hogs in your life.
Get out of your car and use your bicycle instead. I
haven't bought any gasoline or Diesel in several years.
Insulate your attic, shade your windows in summer,
(awnings reduce the heat load an *amasing* amount!)
upgrade windows if possible. Check the weatherstripping.
> Recycling costs me nothing.
You haven't recycled anything serious then. CRTs? Relatively nominal charge for disposal. Got Freon in your fridge? Fee for disposal. Electronics? depends on your state.
> Dimming an incandescent to 75% its output means you get far less light. You are actually making them less efficient.
Wikipedia would tend to agree, but there are limits to how you can generate lumens. Several point sources are more comfortable than a single searing orb. And by that same chart, CFLs scale up even better on lumens/watt than incandescents.
However, later in that same article, you find that CFLs degrade much, much faster when turned off and on regularly. So much so that their lifetime can degrade to be equivalent to that of an incandescent. ... at which point manufacturing/disposal costs have exceeded your "use savings". So putting them in your bathroom, closet, or motion detector yard light is probably not a good idea.
The free market is the best method of deciding things, but it can't do the job by itself.
Externalities can skew things, and a public good, such as the environment, that everyone is free to pollute to the detriment of all without paying individually.
Representing the public good is properly the role of the government.
10th amendment is a truism; it has no real legal effect.
And just tax the fuck out of incandescants.
Why? If they are inefficient, then I'm paying more for electricity and thus already paying a "tax" based on "amount of light produced".
If I need them for the heat they produce, or need an instant on (instead of a ten-minute warmup) or for whatever reason I feel I need them, they should be available.
What the fuck business of yours is it how I use the electricity that I'm paying for? If I want the heat from a heatlamp when I step out of the shower, that's my business and not yours. If you want to listen to Def Lepard at power levels that make you deaf, that's your business, not mine.
You want to use CFLs, be my guest. You want a law that says that government offices must use them, fine.*
The summary is wrong. It says "although a poll by USA Today indicates most Americans support the US law that begins phasing out traditional light bulbs next year." What it should say is "although a poll by USA Today indicates most Americans support the US laws that tell other people how they must run their lives. And "not Americans" feel like they get a say, too".
CFLs are heavier, shorter lived, slower to turn on, and cost more. They contain toxic materials that require a HAZMAT team if you ever break one.
* -- our Uni has just instituted a policy of changing every fluorescent light from T12 to T8. Even if the lights are working. They are busy taking out all the bulbs and swapping in new ballasts for EVERY fixture. This will pay for itself in five years, they say. They can't change them when the bulbs burn out, no. And yet, if you want to save energy by removing the bulbs from a fixture over your desk, they will happily come around and replace them for you without being asked.
I would interpret the purchase of the Lousiana territory going to the general welfare of the people; the Federal government can spend money to provide for the general welfare.
I reccently moved into a house with all incandescent bulbs after being a long time user of CFLs. I suddenly found I was replacing 1-2 bulbs per month, and had a suprisingly high power bill. I always used to complain about CFLs, but going back to being without them, I thought would be ok, was anything but.
I now have a number of LED bulbs in several places, which while 10x more expensive at first but these pay for themselves over CFLs in about one year, almost completely moisture restitant, no mercury and can be recycled as standard e-waste. We really really badly need good cheap LED/OLED lighting, one could imagine living in a home thats 10 or more years old where all the LED lights are the originals from when it was built.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
...you are paying for watts spent.
You should be allowed to know both the lumen AND the watt count of your light bulbs and to choose according to your needs and desires.
As for "OMG! Incandescent light bulbs are being banned by the gubement!" - I say "Good riddance".
About every third one I bought in last five years wouldn't last longer than six months. Other two would follow it in couple of months.
I'm guessing everyone simply reduced their quality control to "can it be turned on" in order to keep up with the ultra-cheap Chinese ones.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The only CFLs I've had that didn't outlast the old ones were the micro CFLs (and LEDs) that all failed due to the cheapest rectifier ever made choking on the line noise from the ceiling fan they were mounted on, the standard sized CFLs are all holding up fine in the other ceiling fans. In all other cases, my CFLs have significantly outlast the incandecent bulbs. In fact, other that the ceiling fans, I haven't replaced a single CFL since I moved into my house 7 years ago.
My bulbs are used in bathrooms with high humidity, in recessed light fixtures, surrounded by insulation, and have near-zero warm up times. I turn the switch on, and I can not notice any delay as they reach optimum temperature. I have never seen the CFLs flicker. Nor are the any harder to "shut off" than regular lamps. Some of them do have a 5-10 second residule glow, but it's not noticable unless you are staring right at them.
As for the mass in land fills, yeah, they take up more space than a single incandecent (assuming both are shattered) but most Incandecents last for 6 months to 2 years. I would have thrown out dozens of them over the last 7 years in my house. So 1 CFL vs 12 incandecents? I'm guessing the 1 CFL is less mass for land fills.
As for mercury, it would take a while to dig up the math again, but effectively, to get the same amount of light from incandecents that you get over the life of a CFL, it would take significantly more electricity. Most of which in the US (atleast where I am located) is generated through burning coal. And burning coal releases for power is the cause of over 40% of the mercury released into the environment every year. If you figure the amount of mercury released per watt, and the total input to the bulbs over the life of a CFL, you actually release significantly less mercury by cracking open those used dead CFLs than you do by running incandecent bulbs.
Yes, it would be nice if they had better components (especially on the micros), yes it would be better if people disposed of them as hazmat. They aren't perfect, but they're still a heck of a lot better than the incandecent bulbs.
That said, the feds should have left the ban up to the states and aimed for a tax instead, IMO.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
As an investor (GE, various other firms) I can tell you that LEDs will have the majority of market share by 2020 and should fairly cheap by 2015.
CFLs are just a bridge technology that will be phased out. The oil spikes will take care of that, with energy price jumps and the CFL 1/8th energy usage can't compete with volume-produced LEDs 1/20th energy usage. They're already ramping up the production factories for multiple firms worldwide.
So, you'd be better off reducing your usage of oil-guzzling cars and trucks, IMHO, if you really are an "activist". Move closer to where you work and live in an efficient city, or your impact is between 2 and 20 times as much (suburbs and rural areas have the worst impact, due to transportation, water, efficiency, and energy use).
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Half your impact is heating, cooling and most of the rest is transportation.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
That's really weird. I've been using CFLs very nearly exclusively for about 5 years, and I've never had to replace one yet. And except for my porch light, I turn them on and off whenever I go in and out of rooms. No issues at all.
The enemies of Democracy are
Wish I had mod points today. The only other thing to point out is that quite a few places have (or will have) a place to recycle / dispose of CFL's rather than landfill them.
---jstlook ---For that is the way of Elves, for they say both yes AND no, and mean every word of it. --- J.R.R.T.
Except heater are more efficient. I.E. you can get that same amount of heat by using less power.
Assuming it was made in the last 20 years.
If you get your electricity for coal, you are putting more mercury into the atmosphere.
your arguments fail in all regards.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
100 vs 17? Are you nuts - you may as well replace that 100 with a 40 or a 60, becuase that's all you'll get out of a 17W CFL.
An what happens when one of your CFLs dies and you can't find the exact color temperature and CRI? You get christmas tree lights in red green and blue (well, pale pink, sickly greenish cast, and brilliant white-blue) all over your room. Nasty.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Redo the calculation then with your numbers - even if you reduce the Lifetime to 1000 hours the mercury from power plants is still 20 times higher.
Change the value to 23w and you reduce the mercury 'savings' to about 800milligrams - still 160times more than the mercury content of the worst CFL's
At the end of the day, only absolute power usage matters; efficiency doesn't. Incandescents will put out much less light when run at low power, but human eyes are pretty good at operating at fairly low light levels for most tasks. You lose efficiency but you save power. Maybe you occasionally need the full brightness, so you don't want to replace your bulb with a tiny one.
Ya, screw billions on the war on drugs (yet another waste of putting pot smokers in jail), and focus on screwing Americans for billions.
The EPA states CFL's average 4 milligrams of mercury.
In 2007, Walmart sold 350,000,000 CFL bulbs.
That's 1.54 tons of mercury that cannot be sequestered at common points such as power generation facilities.
The EPA considers anything over 0.002 milligrams per liter of water to be hazardous. If use the EPA guideline + 50%, 0.003mg, you're looking at 117,429,899,000 gallons of water contaminated to lethal levels, just from what Walmart sold. (assuming no conversion errors)
That's about 117.429 billion gallons more than I'm comfortable with. Even still, I wouldn't want to live anywhere close to a place that has 899 thousand gallons of mercury contaminated water.
The proponents of CFL's are obviously the companies selling the bulbs. Who has more to gain from outlawing incandescent bulbs, and forcing the market to buy more expensive bulbs? The manufacturers, distributors and vendors. Also, who can hire lobbyists to push for the change of laws in Washington? Oh, the same people who want to make a freaking fortune on selling you new "green" lightbulbs.
The average consumer does not know that they *MUST* send CFLs off for proper disposal. When it stops working, they toss it in the trash, and put a new one in.
One argument for CFLs is that they use less power. Sure. Great. I'm good with that one. I like saving money as much as anyone else.
Another is that by using CFLs, coal fired power plants release less mercury. Well.. umm.. Power plants run on peak demand. Your house full of CFLs or incandescent bulbs account for less than your refrigerator and air conditioner/heater/heat pump. You could save as much or more by putting a strip of tape along leaky windows in your house that let the cold breeze in all winter. That's the cheap fix. The expensive fix is to replace the windows with good energy efficient windows. We won't go there right now.
The end argument is always mercury. Coal power plants put off mercury. In 2006, there were 1,493 coal power plants in the US. In 2009, there were 129,969,653 "housing units" (houses, apartments, condos, etc) in the US. Tell me, which is easier to manage to sequester mercury, modify about 1,500 power plants, or ensure about 130,000,000 households won't accidentally break or throw away CFL's?
So lets look back to Washington. The owners of those coal power plants don't want to extra expenses of improving their facilities. Leave it to the consumer to do something about it. But the average consumer doesn't know that CFL's are dangerous. The bulb stops working, it goes straight in the trash. We have four standard fluorescent bulbs in our garage right now, because we have no idea where to properly dispose of them at. Trash collection picks up trash. They don't have a separate hazardous waste truck. The city doesn't have an answer other than "we don't care, throw them away". If someone like me can't find an answer of what to do with them, what is the average consumer to do? Oh ya, toss it in the trash, where it'll go to the landfill, and eventually rain water will wash the mercury into the groundwater.
Out of sight, out of mind. If it's at the landfill, it's no longer
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I see the CFL = Mercury thing all the time and frankly it's avoiding the fact that the power savings from replacing an Incandescent with a CFL mean you take less power, burn less coal and release less mercury into the air.
Here's the math:
Take a 100w bulb and replace it with a 17W CFL - average lifetime of a CFL is about 10,000 hours. So that 83w power difference over 10,000 hours is 3 gigajoules. Coal power content is about 33 megajoules per kilogram - so that works out to about 90kilograms of coal over the lifetime of the bulb. Mercury content varies but about 10 parts/million is a reasonable average - so that pile of coal will contain about 900 miligrams of mercury. CFL's contain about 5milligrams (although there are 'eco friendly' bulbs that contain less than a milligram.
Now, there are other factors, firstly the fuel cycle of power plants isn't 100% so the amount of coal will be higher, on the other hand, in the US only about 50% of the electrical power comes from coal.
Regardless - Incandescents are *worse* in terms of mercury pollution, and anyone telling you otherwise is either misinformed or lying.
You could at *least* check Wikipedia -- it's not my go-to source of choice, but it would show that your numbers are WAY off about how much mercury is released by the coal used to power incandescent bulbs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Environmental_issues
You state 10ppm of mercury in coal is a 'reasonable average', however according to the USGS, the median value is 0.11 ppm. That's a rather large difference!
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs095-01/
I haven't looked at whether your conversion from ppm to weight is correct.
And don't worry if you believe that 'north of the 49th' isn't anywhere cold enough. Hey it's only been -38C here for the last 3 weeks, I'm sure that's plenty warm.
The studies have already been done on migraines and fluorescent lighting. Almost 50% that get them, had them triggered by the flicker of the lights. Studies are out there, you can use google.
Om, nomnomnom...
Who needs incandescent lamps? So long as they keep selling 100w Inductive heater balls that fit in standard Edison Base fixtures
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Still not a clear winner -- as others have pointed out CFL's don't survive the 10k rated hours. I get maybe 500 hrs on average. So that drops your 900 mg down to 45 mg. Scrubbers capture 80-ish % of the mercury in the stacks so the comparison is something like 5mg against 9mg. Don't forget the plastic in the CFL bases is nasty too.
"a poll by USA Today indicates most Americans support the US law that begins phasing out traditional light bulbs next year."
And most Americans are fucking retards. This isn't about which bulb is better. It's about whether you should have the choice to decide that for yourself.
I wonder if that Act will come into play. There are a significant percentage of people who have disorders that make CFLs and LEDs unacceptable. There are skin conditions, migraines and a few other painful issues. I have a fixture that has an older CFL in it and when I turn it on my eyes hurt (I don't use it often and mainly to stave off tiredness). I think a case could be made that until a better technology comes by that incandescent bulbs are medically necessary for some people. It is not a case of "the colour is a bit different so I don't like it"; it is a case of CFL's and LEDs making some people physically ill.
Not all of us have in ceiling light. I only have 3 bulbs above 5 feet. Also have you seen what a cfl does at -15F? Here in MN just a few weeks ago we spent 7-10 days where the high was -5 with out wind-chill.
Anyways incandesents are not the end of the world. How about mandating better windows, or better HVAC equipment....
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
Since when has the "I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want and fuck everyone else!" mentality been deserving of an insightful mod?
The free ride on cheap and easy resources is going to be coming to an end soon. We need to focus on sustainability. Wastefully burning 100 watts on light bulbs when you can get the same illumination for 10 watts is not going to help reach that goal.
If people want to do stupid shit that ONLY affects them, then I agree the government shouldn't interfere. However passing legislation mandating more energy efficiency is hardly an impediment to that.
~X~
I'm assuming you mean their "Halogena" line of halogen bulbs. Halogens are certainly easier on my eyes than CFLs, and pedantically, they are incandescent bulbs. That said, it's a little disingenuous to call them incandescent without the halogen qualifier. They produce a significantly different light spectrum than what most people think of as incandescent bulbs.
I'm not aware of any non-halogen incandescent bulbs that meet the standards. I'd love to be proven wrong on that point, but I'm not holding my breath.
I would never want a halogen bulb in my bedside table lamp for the same reason that I can't deal with any of the CFLs I've tried there: the spectrum wakes me up, which is the last thing I want when I'm relaxing and reading a book or watching TV before I crash for the night.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
In other words, you want a Constitutional amendment that says to follow the Constitution and all the previously ratified amendments. Makes sense.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
That would be universal health care.
The light bulbs are better now that people stood together to make them more efficient and longer lasting. Anyone bitching about their right to buy an incandescent bulb is a fucking moron. Go ahead buy something that costs more, is less efficient and lasts not even nearly as long as a CFL or LED.
But why would you want to... just to stick it to the government? The government was right but some people just want to be stubborn and wrong. Those are the people dragged kicking and screaming into the future. They never thank us until years later when they take it all for granted.
INTERNET anyone?
That's like not passing a law banning ICEs but requiring car engines to emit no CO2.
We got the same bull over in Europe, don't think only your government is regulation-crazy. And, bluntly, if people want to waste power, more power to them. It's their money.
Instead of banning something, make it financially uninteresting. And, bluntly, that's already the case! Standard bulbs are already more expensive (in the long run and factoring in power cost) than leds.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nah, they can still use it, they just won't be able to buy a replacement.
Where do you buy a hand blown carbon filament bulb anyway?
No, the mercury vapor is probably below the threshold you can smell it. The smell of a burnt-out CFL is burnt-out electronics (the ballast). If one died on you early and smelled like that, it's either faulty or you bought a cheap CFL with bad electronics.
I've tried both CFLs and LED lights in my dimming touch lamp. IIRC, both technically "worked", but I couldn't stand the high pitch squeal, so I went back to an incandescent after all of about thirty seconds of that torture.
I guess if I had killed my high frequency hearing by listening to lots of rock concerts as a kid, I'd love LED and CFL lighting, but until somebody starts building devices that switch at a couple hundred kHz instead of twenty or thirty, I'll stick with my inkies.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
This is one case where gradually increasing the tax so it's no longer the cheapest bulb on the shelf would've been far better than banning the bulbs outright.
The same thing should've been done with non-low-flow toilets, old-school gas room heaters, and other things that are now illegal to sell or install.
Put a tax of 1 cent per 10 watt "excess" on all light bulbs that use significantly more energy for the same brightness than their most-mainstream competitor, which today is CFL but tomorrow may be LEDs. For specialty bulbs where there is no good competitor, there would be no tax.
Raise the tax each year until the "old" bulb costs twice what the "new" bulb costs.
Once LEDs come into the mainstream, rather than ban CFLs, slap a "mercury tax" on florescent bulbs to discourage their use in applications where LEDs are an acceptable substitute.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The big issue behind incandescent lighting is the "carbon footprint" produced in generating the electricity to power them. We can make that issue moot if we'd only move to nuclear power. I suppose some people would grumble about all that nuclear "waste" that is produced in running those plants. That is another issue we could make moot if we'd lift the ban on reprocessing fuel and build some new power plants that don't produce as much waste to run.
Another way to make this moot is to develop lighting that is more efficient and cheaper than incandescent. The summary points out that large numbers of Americans are happy with CFL light bulbs. (I'm not one of them.)
What this ban does is remove incandescent light bulbs from the competitive market. CFL and LED lighting has to now compete with the very durable and cheap incandescent. Removing incandescent lighting from the market could have some interesting unintended consequences. I can foresee a drop in quality and rise in prices for lighting, at least in the short term.
This law might also prove to be quite pointless as it does not ban the use of rough service, appliance, and other specialty incandescent bulbs. Unless the quality of other technologies suit my desires I'll keep buying incandescent bulbs for quite some time after this, it just means I'll be putting "appliance" bulbs in my bedroom light fixtures.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Why shouldn't the federal government dictate which light bulbs are available for purchase? They regulate all kinds of things. They regulate what foods can be sold, what drugs can be sold, what firearms can be sold, what chemicals can be sold. They also make all kinds of energy efficiency standards, such as for cars and appliances. I suppose because it has to do with reducing carbon dioxide emissions, you have to be against it on principle. Why is it that certain people argue against absolutely anything that has to do with anthropogenic global warming, no matter how much sense it makes, even as they have no problem with things that don't have to do with AGW?
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
[waiting for the first person to post a non-fake screen shot of today's Slashdot in NSCA Mosaic on MacOS 7]
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I wish I could get some of those CFLs.
The ones I buy, and I don't have readily available alternatives, don't seem to last much longer than incandescents. And if I have to spend $50 on damn CFL to get a good one, that's not a good option.
The total cost of ownership needs to be lower than incandescents, not just the electric bill part.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
A tax on fossil fuels to make an economic incentive to use energy efficiently and promote alternative energy sources would be a godsend. We have powerful political parties, though, who claim that doing this would literally destroy the economy. The worst thing is, the dittoheads believe them and brainlessly repeat the mantra.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
In fact, other that the ceiling fans, I haven't replaced a single CFL since I moved into my house 7 years ago.
Ah, I see the difference. You got some of the earlier high quality CFLs, from when they were pushing the changeover. The manufacturers have fixed the pesky problem of low volume future sales. New Improved CFLs now die faster than incandescents.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
I use three (3) 13 watt CLF's in my office and they work great. I leave them on 24x7 because I"m in and out a lot and at a total of 39 watts they use about a kilowatt hour per day which costs me about $3.00 per month and they do help heat my house - but not as much as incandescent would.
Since I leave them on 24x7 I find there is no lag for them to come on... which is one complaint people have. Next I get at least eight (8) years (70,000 hours) from them which is substantially more than what they are rated for. But this is what you get when you never turn them off.
I find the spectrum is excellent.
Everywhere else I use incandescent. I typically get over 5 years service from each of these bulbs as well because I'm not in those rooms very often so it takes a while to build up to 1000 hours.
I expect I'll horde enough incandescents to carry me through to 2020. If I have to replace the CLF's during this time its not an issue. I like the leds... but I think I'll wait for the price to come down.
Note I keep my computers on 24x7 as well and typically get more than a decade from these components. In fact my desktop machine has been running since 1998. Since it also runs linux I rarely have to reboot.
Generating electricity and transmitting it down power lines is only about 50% efficient. Gas furnaces really are almost 100% efficient and have the benefit of piping heat where you are, not generating it over your head.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
I've been switching over to CFLs over the past year by replacing the incandescents that burn out with new CFLs. I'm now replacing light bulbs only half to a third as often as I used to, and most of the ones I change are the incandscents that burn out, even though the lights we use most often are now CFLs. The CFLs really do last much longer for me.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Remember when being a libertarian was synonymous with membership in the ACLU -- before the conservative movement hijacked the party? Remember when it actaully meant a strong belief in civil liberties rather than free-market fanaticism? Your civil liberties end where mine begin and while I believe you should be able to do anything that neither breaks my back nor picks my pocket -- there's good evidence that our current energy consumption rates are picking all of our pockets and its not merely within the government's right to craft policies which prevent this -- it's actually the reason government exists. Some entity must be the mediator between our selfish desires and our collective desires, and that is essentially what government is.
If you give me the option of paying a few bucks to help pay for a new road, and paying a few bucks to go see a movie -- I'd prefer the latter. After all, I may never drive down that particular road. But realistically, if we gave people that option, nobody would choose roads and so nobody would be able to go see movies. If you expect government to only do things you approve of, then you expect entirely too much.
So given that the market is now flooded with cheap chinese made crap that burns out in a year, who's maintaining a list of where to buy good CFLs?
Does anyone know of a good CFL review site for example? While longevity is hard to test for in reasonable time for obvious reasons, metrics such as ballast temperature with a non-pure-sine wave input should be indicative.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I'm not very happy with the Democrats position of government should tell you what to do, nor do I think the Republican argument of let the market sort it out makes any sense. Lightbulbs are a prime case.
Consumers are resistant to change, even if it is good. They need to be pushed towards CFL's, as in many cases they do save energy. But they are not better in every case. Sometimes you want the heat, sometimes it's a decorative look, color temperature, size and shape, who knows. For instance, I use some 10W incandescent bulbs for some applications, and you just can't find CFL's that put out that few lumens.
So what's the middle ground? I would be ok with a modest tax on incandescent bulbs, particularly if the money could be channeled to efforts to recycle CFL's, develop better CFL's, and similar work. I think an outright ban though is wrong, and would argue it should be repealed. While I am 90% CFL's, I want to keep getting some incandescents for select applications.
Given the fact that the founding fathers couldn't have forseen electricity distribution, let alone the idea of man influencing global temperatures and the need to act in response to that, is it really so astounding that something may have been overlooked in the constitution?
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Anyone bitching about their right to buy an incandescent bulb is a fucking moron.
But my Granddaughter love her EasyBake oven you insensitive clod; for the love of God, think of the children!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
"'...and most are manufactured overseas in places like China,' says Enzi."
Oh what an excuse. Maybe if you hadn't given manufacturers tax cuts to ship manufacturing jobs overseas you might be making the new CFL bulbs domestically. And everything else for that matter. I also just checked the last batch of incandescent bulbs in our house; guess what, they were also made in China.
Would you really prefer power be transferred back to 50 different state legislatures that make up the United States? Just imagine that scenario, especially with the nature of politicians in these state legislatures today.
The federal system may be imperfect as ever, perhaps more imperfect than before, but I'd hardly call having some more power at the federal level a total failure.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Fine arts in the states is struggling enough without the need to import bulbs. I've had teachers talk about this in the past--its almost impossible to do (quality, physical medium) fine arts under incandescent lighting.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
What about the lamps in my ovens? Are there little CFLs or LEDs that work at 500 F?
I live in the Midwest so outdoor lights in the Winter present a problem. My work-around for the outdoor light by our back door is to just turn it on in the Fall and leave it on. So far so good. My front outdoor lights are the candelabra base bulbs shaped like a flame. I haven't seen anything suitable as a replacement for those so I bought a case of them and hope the supply outlasts me or that the technology improves.
We have a number of recessed lights in our home office, kitchen, hallways and bathroom. I've tried a number of different flood lamp shaped CFLs and have had uniformly bad luck with very slow start-up times. Particularly in hallways and the bathroom it's unacceptable. I've experimented with some LED flood lamps in the back hallway leading to the garage and they start OK with about a second of delay versus a minute or two for the CFLs, but they produce harsh bluish light that is not acceptable in an actual living area. Sooo... I've stocked up on incandescent flood lamps, too.
I definitely like the idea of more efficient lighting, especially in the Summer when the extra heat is even less desirable, but it's got to be affordable and look good. We seem to have a way to go on both counts. I would prefer to let the market decide rather than have non-technical legislators shove this down our throats, but why should this be different than other legislation?
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
'If left alone, the best bulb will win its rightful standing in the marketplace. Government doesn't need to be in the business of telling people what light bulb they have to use.' This statement is so full of implied propaganda and warped talking points as to be worthy of pity. We know the line. We know the lie. It comes again as does Bill O'reilly's god raising the sun (good timing by the way, too fast and we'd burn up all those corral reefs. Thats how it works right, the sun goes into the ocean and creates tides from the boiling?) Every single time since Obama was elected that he phrase "government doesnt need to tell people what to do" has been applied to every damn thing whether it should or should not be. No, see, the government DOES need to tell people what to do. If they dont, you get stupid crap like blaming a current president for a past president's action with no irony. You get stupid stuff like, a bunch of incoherent tea party protests that had no message and often lied about being racist while holding racist signs. You get a 24/7 media circus surrounding this stupidness, and not even a casual mention of the massive teacher strike. Except by the right of course, whose leaders believe its okay to shoot the protestors. And you get stupid stuff like Tennessee proposing a 15 YEAR prison sentence for practicing "Shariah Law." When you dont have the government to smack idiots upside the head now and then, you get clowns like these who can simultaneously scream that they are being oppressed, while oppressing others. My favorite example of this subtle attack happend during the "9/11 mosque" story that dissapeard without a peep after they ran out of antimuslim insults. A woman came to a town hall meeting in another place to discuss plans already approved to allow a mosque. They were against it. This one woman, she just sat down there and squeezed her christian bible to her chest. Hypocrites. The Lot of em. At least she didnt break the leviticus chapter where women arent allowed to speak. Otherwise they wouldve had to stone her right then and there.
The piddly little things like light bulbs was really a token gesture to appease a squeaky cog making a lot of noise at the time. It's quite the same as the war on drugs as it attempts to appease a vocal minority of people under the guise of "helping" or benefiting the majority.
I don't think they can be separated. While they are entirely different concepts, the mechanism in which drives them seem to be exactly the same.
While I agree that the gov't really needs to take care of more important issues, using CFL in the cold is more a matter of patience for the longer warm-up time, even in sub-zero weather, just turn them on several minutes and they'll be fully functional when you need them. Seeing a CFL flicker is impossible, they run in the 30 KHz range, most people can't see a 60Hz flicker, and that's 500 times slower! Disposal is a matter of taking them to Home Depot if you insist on recycling them or just throwing them in the trash; the mercury is elemental and harmless inspite of what the hysterical crowd would have you believe and is in minuscule amounts.
Now if you say the color rendering makes your eyes bleed, that I'll agree with.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
10 months of the year or more have thermostat controlled electric heating.
Thing is, going by the incandescent ban, this points out a way to save a lot more electricity than getting rid of inefficient bulbs - force you to 'upgrade' to a heat pump system. If they're nice, merely subsidize your doing it.
It should drop your electricity costs for heating by about 2/3rds, and could easily save more electricity than switching the lighting around for even a hundred homes.
I don't read AC A human right
Compact Fluorescent bulbs are 9 to 11% efficient.
I'm in Ohio. It's 29 F. outside right now. The incandescent light bulb next to me is 100% efficient. So why am I being told I'm not allowed to use them anymore?
The efficiency of them on the cold months more than makes up for an loss of efficiency in summer compared to CF bulbs.
is it really so astounding that something may have been overlooked in the constitution?
Yes. Primarily because this sort of situation where we "need" to impose rather dumb legislation on people for poorly defined and rather unproven emergencies is precisely the sort of activity that the Constitution is intended to proscribe.
There's not actually enough mercury in CFL lamps, or even modern full tubes, to be a big deal in the rare cases they break.
Not saying that you should deliberately break them, but they're not the chemical disaster some organizations make it out to be.
For another, if you get your power from coal, the decrease in electricity generation needed saves more mercury from the air than what's in the bulb.
Personally, I always wonder where people who get the slow warming, flickering, quick dying CFL bulbs from. I'm working on 8 years with mine, and I've had to replace 2 - my bathroom one finally died after like 5 years, and I accidentally broke another.
The only ones with significant warmup times was the one in the bathroom(100w equivalent), which was actually kinda nice at night, and the ones in the garage door opener in my unheated garage. There the light they produced, even in their unwarmed state, was sufficient for the task.
I don't read AC A human right
If your power isn't clean, shouldn't you address that? It's likely affecting the lifespan of all sorts of other equipment in your home, from your appliances like washing machines to your AC system to things as simple as your vacuum to complex like your TV.
I think fixing some of that was in the 'smart grid' proposals.
I don't read AC A human right
I'd buy a migraine-fluorescent light flicker relationship if your talking about fluorescent light with electro-magnetic ballasts, especially in Canada and the EU with their 50 Hz power systems but even in the US with a 60Hz system. That type of fluorescent light does flicker at line frequency and some people are hyper-sensitive to light flicker like migraine suffers, epileptics and autistics. The modern electronic ballasts are much more efficient and run the lamps at 30KHz your not going to be affected at that frequency because the phosphors in the lamp will continue to emit light for far longer than the lamp frequency and CFL use electronic ballasts. You can't even buy the old electro-magnetic ballasts for common bulb sizes in the US without a serious search, because of the coming ban, nobody will buy them and they have been replaced by electronics in the stores.
At work, room 2 and room 4 have the same equipment and are used for the same procedures, I've noticed that since I've changed the ballast in room 4 to electronic (one of the two that is) that when both rooms are empty, room 4 gets used first. I'm tempted to upgrade the other rooms before the existing ballasts fail, the boss is much more pleasant to be around when she doesn't have a migraine.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
When I read in bed, I want a nice, warm, 40W incandescent bulb and I don't give a DAMN how efficient it is. I get enough of that fluorescent crap during the day.
If they really cared about the environment and power consumption they would tax electricity itself. Tax the shit out of it unless it's from a renewable source. That would be a lot more productive than ruining my nightly quiet time.
The old fluorescent lights gave a headache and teary eyes. I don't have a problem with CFL's. People react differently to the same stimuli, if it doesn't bother you it doesn't mean that it doesn't bother anyone else.
Now, I know it is not precisely WiFi but this study is intriguing... Maybe some people are affected by WFi.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
From my understanding, it's a technological limitation that REQUIRES some small amount of mercury in any fluorescent light for it to operate, so even the ones made in Hungary should have mercury in them. The mercury is what's excited to emit the light, looking at wikipedia. Thing is, the amount of mercury required can be quite small, it's just that including a larger amount is cheaper than doing the work necessary to make the smallest amounts function correctly.
So, basically, I have to ask for a source on this. I did some searching, found that there are companies producing bulbs with like 12% of the standard amount of mercury, but it's still present.
If they've completely eliminated the mercury, given that it's the mercury that's producing the ultraviolet light to be converted to 'white' light by the phosphors, I'd have to wonder what they're using to replace it - and whether that replacement is actually safer.
I don't read AC A human right
Really? Put your CLF in an enclosed figure and watch your 10 years go 1 year. Put a CFL in a garage or trying to externally light a structure when it's 0 degrees out or 100 degrees out and watch your CFL fail and break (mainly because of the power regulation components)
Put a CFL in a location there has frequent power up and power down cycles. Incandescents also have the same issues with that put the total cost of the unit+operation costs is a wash at best.
CFLs have their place, Incandescent and LED lights have their place. But there are lots of applications where CFLs have caused way more harm than good, unless you count the feel good by makingn people by CFLs
I'm confused. I asked about energy. You replied regarding cost. Facts < questions when the fabrication occurs in a country using coal-fired power plants to produce the bulbs. Moreover, not all power is generated using coal. Misrepresented facts < < questions. Sort of like our present proposed federal budget. Numbers are not facts.
just turn them on several minutes and they'll be fully functional when you need them
Clearly this can't work in all scenarios, like coming home from work when you aren't there ahead of time. And it's certainly less than ideal in other cases. Sometimes you just can't anticipate needing to turn that light on.
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway" -Andrew Tanenbaum
Halogen is a blackbody spectrum at 3000K. Ordinary incandescent is normally around 2700K. However, if you dim either bulb, you not only reduce the brightness, but the color temperature. So stick a dimmer on your lamp and use a higher-output bulb and you can simulate the effect. This will reduce the life of the bulb (by reducing the efficiency of the halogen cycle), but should get the job done.
If the capsule is actually HIR rather than regular halogen, it's not quite a blackbody spectrum, but it's still lots closer than fluorescent.
'If left alone, the best bulb will win its rightful standing in the marketplace. Government doesn't need to be in the business of telling people what light bulb they have to use.'
I agree with this provided....
Why is a 'provided' needed? The evidence that the guy is right is in the last two lines of the summary.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Government is incapable of rational action. Some activists/lobbyists push a policy (like banning real light bulbs) either because they have some utopian dreams or they stand to profit from the action, and meanwhile other parts of the government are warning of the hazards that will result. In the real-world, some rational cost-benefits analysis would occur and a rational path would be selected, but in government you simply write more rules for all the "little people" (anybody who pays taxes and has no lobbyist or leader) in "fly-over country" (everything between LA and NYC) and establish new agencies with lots of new employees to enforce the rules and warn people that what you are forcing them to do is stupid
Just take a look at what the EPA expects you to do if you break one of these super-deluxe wunder-bulbs: http://epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup.html
I have CFLs - I have been using them and they are great in the areas I use them. This includes the main lighting in all but the lavatory and the laundry, where the lights aren't on for that long anyway, but will probably go CFL when the existing bulbs fail. However, there are some things I still prefer incandescents for, most notably my bedside reading lamp. They are just nicer, somehow, to read by. I feel that I know how much the bulbs cost, I know how much energy I use/save by switching, and I know how much energy costs me. Given that I have this information, and am paying the bills, the choice of what bulb I use should be left to me. It shouldn't be imposed by some politician scraping the bottom of the barrel for a media soundbite.
If they want to reduce energy use, they should just tax it at the economic value of the externality they are trying to address - I will respond to the price of power whn I make purchasing decisions - they shouldn't be trying to micro-manage my behaviour. Time for me to join the group stockpiling some bulbs methinks..............
I'm sure they counted replacing any standard bulb with a CFL as part of that statistic. Yeah, my family has done that. But I'm betting the people touting that data don't include -- or care about -- the bulbs that consumers aren't replacing because they don't fit standard lamps. Those grumbling consumers are pissed off because they went to replace a standard bulb with a CFL and found that they'd most likely have to replace the whole damned lamp; the CFL bulbs are too tall. Priced nice lamps lately? They're effin' expensive. The lack of high wattage-equivalent CFLs that actually fit an existing lamp -- especially the three-way bulbs -- make them pretty bad for people who like to read and need those extra lumens. Take those things into account and, yeah, we'll be stocking up on some of the incandescents. At least until we can save up to replace lamps.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
They knew when they wrote it that it wasn't perfect. That is why they made it possible to amend it. If something is so important and universally agreed on that it should be implemented but isn't within the powers of the federal government.....amend the constitution.
"Anyone bitching about their right to buy an incandescent bulb is a fucking moron. Go ahead buy something that costs more, is less efficient and lasts not even nearly as long as a CFL or LED." ...and burns millions of hands a year, not to mention that the same morons put 100W bulbs in 60W lights, eventually starting fires, because they're also too dumb to read the warning label.
I tried to convert to CFL. I bought one at the store, and tried to put it in my lamp at home. Guess what? It doesn't fit, because the neck of the CFL was far wider than an incandescent lightbulb. I had to return it.
Since then, I've kept my eye out whenever I'm at the pharmacy or other store that has CFLs; I have yet to see a single one that's actually shaped like an incandescent that will fit in my lamp (which, I should note, is a 6+ foot tell lamp from IKEA).
What am I supposed to do when Canada decides to do something similar? Buy a new lamp just because they aren't able or willing to produce CFLs in the same shape as the bulbs they aim to replace?
Okay.
Now what's the best bulb / globe for the sensor light on the verandah / porch?
It's a genuine question:
everyone selling the bulbs as heaters or for "industrial use".
What can I say, they are! Lets dump untold amounts of mercury into our landfills, what idiots. I say ban any product with mercury,
light bulbs are better now that people stood together to make them more efficient and longer lasting. Anyone bitching about their right to buy an incandescent bulb is a fucking moron.
Not all of us live in Florida where it's warm year-round. "inefficient" light bulbs don't waste electricity if heat is desired. Using lightbulbs for heating outdoor animal housing / boat houses / whatever just enough to stave off freezing is a common practice. Plus think of the easy bake ovens!
Heh, the eskimos drink a lot of tea which neutralizes the excess mercury they consume due to their seafood-heavy diet. Maybe we could do the same!
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
I hate to break it to Mr. Enzi, but there are no longer any light bulb plants in the US. The last one closed in 2009. Even if this law is repealed it's highly unlikely any of those jobs will come back.
Seriously, don't these guys have more important issues to work out other than what kind of light bulbs we're allowed to use?
This is the most exciting news story I've read in a long time. Why?
I have a medical condition where I have seizures under fluorescent lights, including CFLs. I also live in the state of California. With the laws banning certain wattages of incandescent lights here (eventually leading to their ban), that's very bad news for me. I've written to just about every politician, called, emailed... nobody cares! The seizures I have under CFLs are so bad that I can't work, do my own shopping, etc. No, dark sun glasses do NOT help (everyone suggests it). Sometimes I can't even go outside because a lot of outdoor lights are now fluorescent and people leave them on during the day!
A ban on incandescent bulbs would prevent me from living in my own home since they're the only lights I can use. LEDs are directional and not bright enough, halogens can also cause the kind of flicker that disables me, etc.
Nor am I the only person with this health problem. After talking to hundreds of Democrats, the general argument I've been hearing is "Your health problem only affects about 1% of the population. The ban is good for 99% of us, so you have to understand." No, I do not have to understand. This ban effectively constitutes tyranny of the majority. There are other ways to cut back on energy consumption. The lights in your house make up a relatively small percentage of usage. Worst case, why not impose a tax on energy usage if a certain level is exceeded? People could stay below the level by switching to CFLs if they choose. As for myself, I don't use air conditioning or televisions, so I should be able to keep my incandescents.
"and anyone telling you otherwise is either misinformed or lying."
And that, sir, is the current definition of "Republican".
Actually yes because they designed a mechanism for just such a case. All you have to do is get 2/3rds of states to agree the fed needs that power and BOOM! the fed has it.
The fact that the fed historically has had trouble getting the states to rubber stamp anything they want not only doesn't prove they need to pull an end run around the constitution it in fact shows the constitution works as designed since the WHOLE POINT was to be "little experiments in democracy" where each state got to decide for itself and any citizen that didn't like the direction he state was going was free to move to one that supports his/her position.
Thanks to crap like stretching the commerce clause to beyond the breaking point all the fed has done is take away the whole point of the constitutional design and give the majority of the power to itself and short circuit the whole process.TL:DR? If The Founding Fathers would have wanted to make it easy to increase the powers of the fed they wouldn't have added the tenth nor the 2/3rds of the states requirements and they did so precisely because they wanted to limit the power of the fed over the states.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The senator is arguing against a straw man version of the legislation. CFL and LED are not the only alternatives to traditional incandescent lighting; low poer incandescents and halogen lamps both conform to the requirements of the legislation as well, and both are much harder to argue against than CFLs and LEDs.
people actually use those things for vehicle headlights!
I use an LED headlamp when I ride my bike, but some of these people use halogen lamps and it blinds me so bad I worry about crashing into a tree, or whatever.
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes,... to... provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States"
"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers"
Taken together, these two enumerated powers would in my interpretation grant them the right to tax and regulate for pretty much any purpose
that the Congress deemed to be providing for the common defense or general welfare of the US (and obviously of its people too.)
It doesn't say defense against what. How about for example, defense against the economic imperilment and international instability and conflict that is the almost certain consequence of continued environmental degradation and anthropogenic global warming. By either taxes or legislation. Check. Constitutional.
How about ensuring the continued general Welfare of the US by preventing or limiting further environmental/ecological damage and by preventing or limiting global warming. By either taxes or legislation. Check. Constitutional.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Once again, the US storms in behind good ol' Europe, I guess.
It's a pity that said Senator didn't read the law he questions, though. It mandates a _level of efficiency_, not a _technology_.
By 2014, no one will care about CFL any more, either way. LED all the way, baby.
And, with the right incentives, this might even be a net plus for the US economy _if_ they get onto the the LED train "early". As it is, we Germans seem to share the world market with Asia. Osram, Luxeon & Cree. No one else comes close.
As long as they're the ones building/running the power stations then they should probably have a say in how much electricity the average person is allowed to suck up.
No sig today...
If the power grid is overloaded then it's their business. If everybody switches to CFLs then they won't need to build a dozen new power stations (at horrendous cost in both money and environment).
No sig today...
My parents have an old house with large panes of single glazing in two of their front rooms. They'd always been cold. One winter it was -5 outside, not soo cold, but the heating was going full blast and it was *still* below the thermostat setting inside.
I calculated that more than 10kW (closer to 12) was going out through the window glass.
I ordered a few square meters of clear acrylic sheeting which has better optical qualities than glass and spent a weekend installing DIY secondary glazing on the window frames.
Instant improvement to the two rooms. Cost 250GBP for several (8) large windows. The payback period about 3 years.
Putting commercially fitted double or triple glazing in would have cost 20k GBP with a payback period of 20 years to never, which is why they'd never bothered.
Here's the moral of the story.
1. Energy is dirt cheap.
2. Insulation is not.
What I want is something like a cheap spray on aerogel which I can spray onto (anything) the exterior of my house (solid walls). The alternative is internal insulation with all the mould and condensation problems associated.
Deleted
One problem is CFL's production costs far exceed what normal light bulbs cost to make (easily a factor 10). In return you get somewhere near 40% savings on the power required for lighting (40%, as lots of things aren't fixed merely by changing the light bulb).
So they only become good for the environment after a number of hours of light, and that's over a year for better models, up to 3 years for sucky bulbs. Obviously the large majority fall at least halfway on the "sucky" scale.
In reality therefore, CFL's are only good for the environment in the places where the assumption that they burn a lot more than a year holds true. They won't survive much longer than 5 years in any case (burning or not), so any CFL burning less than 20% of the time (which is most every lamp in the house except those in the living room in my house) are a net-negative for the environment.
But it's a massive subsidy for firms who claim to be green, but obviously aren't. So politicians are happy : money for cronies. Lunatic lefties are happy : another government supported industry, heavily regulated. Loony greens are happy : "green" companies "do well". Socialists are happy : "jobs are created". And everyone suffers yet again to make lunatics feel good.
Of course, real jobs are lost. The environment has to bear the increased fossil fuel usage, the athmosphere has to swallow even more CO2 (but don't worry : it's mostly emitted in China, and thus Obama can look good while destroying the environment even more), and by forcing these companies out of America, gaia can find fewer polluted creeks : they can't report on those in China or Indonesia at all.
The result is of course, very predictable. The environment does bad so "more intervention is clearly needed". CO2 increases so "it's yet again even more worse than we thought !". Jobs are lost so "more regulation/stimulus is needed". And government cronies, "surprisingly" do well so "it's all really the fault of the rich Jewish bankers in wall street !".
Lunacy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results - Albert Einstein
In reality things are simple : energy costs money. Transport cost money. Mining costs (lots and lots) of money. People cost money. All these things are bad for the environment. So you want to do what's best for the environment ? Really ? It's simple : save every last penny you have and DON'T BUY STUFF YOU DON'T NEED. Of course, greenies have become exactly what they accuse their "enemies" to be : they're little more than deluded spoiled rich kids, who feel an irresistible need to take other's toys to feel big, and throw a tantrum if they're asked to go a single day with an last year's model of the iphone. (because apple really is the worst brand you can buy for the environment, or labor laws, ...).
As long as people prefer deluding themselves to facing the truth, things won't change, and obviously lunatics are attracted by fringe parties that want to change everything to their design. Nothing new there. Forcing others is all leftist greens have left. Green policy intents have been reduced over the years to amassing power, and destroying the environment in order to justify putting more power in their hands. Furthermore : lunatics only find fault in others, and not in their own behavior. That's why they needed 3 full airports, with expanded parking space, to put all the private jets at the latest "anti-co2" conference.
If we were to put a huge import tax on lightbulbs (and smartphones, perhaps ?), they would have to be produced cheaply inside America, under our stringent environmental laws. Now *that*
I have a freezer and an incandescent light will not turn on if it is at zero F. I have the CFL front door lights that will not start in Winter, I might agree to the change if it saves polution, but using CFL gives me no benefit for the following reason In winter, daylight hours are short, and it is very cold. CFLs do not generate heat, to displace baseboard heaters. So, there is no reduction in consumption. In summer, daylight hours are long (sundown at 10pm), so CFL use is about 1 hour per day. Not a true benefit. I would consider if LEDs were introduced that produced light at any temperature found in a home, such as room, or freezer. If it works, then lets swap out the city street lighting.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Sorry to disagree. I;ve replaced my porch lights for 30 years, every other month until I finally tried a CFL. I was skeptical with the weather swings. Guess what, after two years and -25 F in Vermont, it still is going strong. Yes a little slow to start but the light of 60W equivalent is just fine.
Please mod me 1 or troll. It's where the truth is these days, even on Slashdot. Beware the power of moderators everywh
Worldwide average mercury content in coal is 0.2ppm - that is 50 times lower than the figure you quote. Reference Pg8. or Google searches. So there is a difference, but not all that great as you project. Regardless, those are some interesting calculations you have there, thanks for taking the pains to actually analyze objectively.
Are the lumens the same at a given color temperature for halogens?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I had CFLs throughout my home. My wife then broke one right in front of our 18-month old toddler. I immediately went to the EPA website and found instructions telling me to seal off the room, shut down my HVAC system, throw away clothing that came in contact with the dust, etc. It is very likely my toddler inhaled some mercury vapor, which is far more dangerous than solid mercury. Nope, I won't use them again.
I don't know if you support the linked article or not, but seriously. That's the dumbest rant I've ever heard!
First, it compares lightbulbs to floppy disks. Some people do use floppy disks, but not on a large scale. The same is true of incandescent light bulbs. They will phase out as a new technology can replace them. The government has not needed to ban floppies. Why should it ban lightbulbs?
Then at the end it makes this statement: "The Constitution did not grant you the right to use up all the fucking resources just because you like yellow light and hate black presidents."
The constitution doesn't grant people any rights... It limits the rights of the government. Of which, banning consumer products is not included. In fact, since "using up all the fucking resources" is not mentioned at all, then per the 10th amendment, we DO have the right to use up all the fucking resources. Or maybe states can make a ban. But in no way do the feds have that power.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
And the mercury is not in the home. My 18-month old inhaled a nice bit of mercury vapor when a CFL broke right in front of him. Mercury vapor is very very dangerous compared to solid mercury. Go read the EPA's cleanup procedure for a broken CFL. I'm never buying one again.
'If left alone, the best bulb will win its rightful standing in the marketplace.
So much bullshit. What magical happy land is he living in?
Who the hell would keep their house at 30C (86F) in the winter?
I don't think we need the Feds telling us what light bulb to use either. I've tried a number of CFLs and have yet had even one that lasts the 7 years they profess. I can't say I've seen any savings in my power bill, they just keep raising the rates. That coupled with the mercury, I just don't see how this can be better than a plain old regular bulb. I stockpiled enough regular bulbs to last me quite a while at this point. Just another part of the global warming BS.
..is needed. Just let capitalism take care of the issue.
The idiots want to keep buying low efficiency incandescents because they are "cheaper", let them. Smart consumers realize that the "cheaper" bulb costs them 5 times to 10 times as much over 5 years. Eventually as the price of electricy keeps doubling every 4-5 years and the message trickles down to idiot consumers as well, the old crappy bulbs will rapidly die off for most uses, while people will still be able to use them outside and in their easy-bake ovens etc. when needed.
Besides, when you already have big companies like Walmart who have basically near eliminated low-efficiency incandescents from their stores (they still sell incandescents, they are just the higher-efficiency kind), the problem is 3/4 solved. In many parts of the US if it is not being sold at Walmart you are simply not going to be able to buy it.
I really don't see what a ban accomplishes, the market is going to take care of it anyway.
This link provides an excellent overview of different lighting technologies, including incandescent, CFL and LED.
I completely agree with the author; CFLs have enough issues (low power factor, limited working temperature range, built with hazardous materials, etc.) not to merit banning incandescent bulbs altogether. Each technology has its place.
Do you own a car? A computer? A house?
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
I'd agree with the points you made if CO2 were actually a pollutant; it's only very recently been classified as one in order to justify the taxes they want to apply.
So now plant "food" is a "pollutant."
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
A by product of one of the federal govt's enumerated duties...defense. The internet was a nice by product of the dept of defense....so, I think most of us can agree with that one.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
...Incandescents are *worse* in terms of mercury pollution, and anyone telling you otherwise is either misinformed or lying.
Or, using alternative energy. Here in the northwest US, electricity is mainly hydroelectric. So maybe I should consider this in terms of lumens per salmon?
Err....I've yet to see a single CFL or LED light that costs less than a regular light bulb.....usually they are MANY times more expensive.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actually...YES
The state and local govt are more responsive to the needs of the local people. Different states have greatly different needs...CA is quite different than Iowa.
Not to mention...if you don't like the laws and taxes in one state...then you are free to move to a state more to your liking and lifestyle.
This is the way it was intended...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Uh, they mean the mercury *inside* the CFL itself. Not the mercury used in manufacturing it or power it.
Yes, and that is why you need government mandates for not using incandescents: People are quite happy to pollute the entire country with dispersed mercury, because the costs of it are distributed amongst lots of other people. But in the end, it is a tragedy of the commons: everybody thinks *one more* bulb won't hurt since the harm is diffused so widely; in the end when everybody uses incandescents, they all end up with mercury-laced coal ash in the air they breathe.
I was just going on the big Hg with a slash through it on the side of the box. As it isn't a food stuff I don't think they had to list the ingredients.
ICAM, esp w/ the taxes paying for the operation of the govt and not for social change, etc. (Although I guess I'd include interstate roads and such as a function of a federal org).
If they were, it would be by accident.
It's a private industry, like most infrastructure in the US.
What do you normally use for heat? I'm up north too, and I have natural gas for heat. Natural gas is significantly cheaper than using resistive electric heaters to heat my place, so CFLs still save me money in the winter. Granted, the difference is less than in the summer where waste heat from lighting would have to removed via the A/C, but the savings are still there. If you can actually save money by heating your house with light bulbs, maybe you should invest in a good heat pump? The savings would be substantial.
but they last a lot longer.
I wonder if it does actually contain mercury, but it's one of the lower mercury or amalgamation bulbs, they're just boasting the lower amounts in an exaggerated fashion?
I don't read AC A human right
Sadly I'm back in the US now so I can't go to the store to check.
Your point is well made, but I would like to think that I'm being a bit more practical about things. It's hard enough to get 3/5s of the senators to agree on any one item, let alone the question of powers available to the federal government; wrangling 2/3rds of the states into agreeing to giving up any sort of power would be nigh on impossible. Practicality and pragmatism wins the day for me, and that's something that is sorely lacking in politicians these days all attempting to play to their "base".
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
That's not quite how it was intended - the constitution as we have it was born out of the need for a more cohesive Federal government. Have a look at this wikipedia section for an idea of the difficulties the Federal government had with just 13 states in the union.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
I have no problem replacing most of the lights in my house with CFLs; however, for reading lights I want incandescent or halogen. Despite claims to the contrary CFLs are not anywhere close to providing the warmth of incandescents. As for how long they last, CFLs last a long time in perfect conditions, but in the real world, in a house with wiring a few decades old (and there are plenty of people who live in such houses) they don't last particularly long.
I would even add, they fail 10X quicker if you put them in a ceiling fan. I had to go with halogen bulbs for my ceiling fans as they were burning out CFLs about once a week.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'm confused. I asked about energy. You replied regarding cost.
That is because in general, energy is the biggest portion of cost. Transportation is the prime example, where most of the cost is the energy involved. Let me be clearer this time, taking that into account:
What about the energy involved in fabrication and transport of the 'eco friendly' bulb?
My guess is that transporting a fluorescent bulb is is likely to use the same energy as transporting an incandescent bulb. Key costs in transportation are weight, volume, packaging, and handling. I don't think they are much different.
Fabrication definitely uses more energy, which is why fluorescent and LED bulbs cost more than incandescent bulbs. But they save more energy over their lifetime than is used to produce them. You can use the cost -vs- energy savings equations to determine this. Ex: A bulb might cost $2 more, but save $10 over its lifetime. This means it took more energy to produce, but that energy is saved over the lifetime of the bulb.
Numbers are not facts.
ummm... oh... kay...
Because by that ridiculous standard EVERYTHING is a pollutant.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
I buy mostly GE bulbs at ~3-5$ a pop depending on the wattage-replacement (still haven't switched over to thinking about lumens) and had great results. Their bulbs are instant-on with no flicker or buzz (like I got when I tried to go with some real cheap-o bulbs), and their "reveal" bulbs have a very nice color.
The enemies of Democracy are
Mandate efficiency levels for products sold as illuminators. Let incandescents continue to be sold as heater bulbs which just happen to also glow white.
And when you present proof that the change in concentrations of CO2 are polluting the atmosphere, I might agree.
Keep in mind that I didn't challenge you to prove the greenhouse effect - that's NOT pollution.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
yeah.. impossible.. shocking its happened 27 times already.. guess we should give up now and just ignore the ole document..
With a few more conservative assumptions, the difference in mercury emissions due to total conversion of lighting sources in all households in the US in 2010 may be closer to:
Incandescent: 360mg*20*114825428 households=661,394 kilograms. With an 85% effective scrubber at the power plant, that drops to 99,209kg. CFLs: 5mg*22*114825428 households=12,630 kg.
In total, 45% of US electricity comes from coal. 8000 hours lifespan. CFL MTBF may be something like 10,000 in lab settings. But plenty of reports of far lower lifespan out of the lab. Also take into account that, with cheaper lighting, people will use more light. Let's say 10% more (some arbitrary fraction of the difference in cost of running a CFL). And 23wCFL to 100w is a more accurate comparison. So, let's say 288mg of mercury for all the incandescent used to replace one CFL. I don't know the coal average mercury ppm, so I accept yours. With an average of 45 light bulbs per household of varying size, equivalent to 20x 100w/23wCFLs (average will rise to 22 bulbs if CFLs),
That's still a lot more mercury! Admitted. Although the coal mercury ppm is an open question. Furthermore, mercury contamination concentrated around a power plant is much easier to mitigate than ubiquitous low level contamination. Recall that CFL will surely have a much larger fraction improperly thrown in garbage or broken bulbs at home. I use CFL at home, but I do it because it is subsidized and costs less to run. I am not against CFL at all -- but I think that the ban is bad public policy. We want to reduce emissions? Increase cost of electricity. Regulate emissions at the source of power generation.
and! coal share of us electric production is projected to fall.