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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."
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.
The government ban of CFCs two decades ago seems, in retrospect, to have been a good thing. Did you complain then?
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!
here in the north the heat from the bulb is more than welcome.
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
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.
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
Only if you pay for all the unpriced externalities in your examples.
The Easy Bake® oven depended on the fact that old incandescent bulbs are SO inefficient that the waste heat they generate can cook a small cake. I have no sympathy for those who whine about being forced to quit wasting so much energy when the fix is simply a minor inconvenience.
God is imaginary
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.
Have you actually lived in a cold weather climate? What you propose is nonsense, because there are low spots in the piping. You would have to actually blow the lines clear.
This is exactly why the government _shouldn't_ be involved. People/politicians seem to think they know much more than they do.
For reference, 40W for a month is on the order of a gallon of gas a month. Insignificant? No. Significant compared to a typical 1st world country lifestyle? Not if you do any sort of air travel.
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.
Looks like you last tried CFLs more than 10 years ago
I'd like the freedom to make bad decisions, please.
Your right to make bad decisions ends where you start screwing up my climate.
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
This is another example of whackos in government run amok. Why not let consumers decide what to buy and for what purpose?
Actually, its another example of politicians (and their monied backers) distorting the truth for political gain. Incandescent bulbs are not being banned.
The law requires all general-purpose light bulbs that produce 310-2600 lumens of light be 30% more energy efficient than circa 2007 incandescent bulbs by 2014. Incandescents are fine if they are more efficient and even back in 2009 plenty of improved incandescents were available. I'm sure even cheaper bulbs are now on store shelves.
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.
Well, you are using a bulb as a heater - bulbs are intended to produce light. But instead of being stupid about it and wasting all that money on a heater, how about just buying a socket that takes two 20 watt bulbs and use those instead? Everything under 40 watts is exempt from the new efficiency requirements. Or you could just buy a new 60 watt bulb and use that - 20 more watts will cost you what? like $10 more a year for the same heat output.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It's not perfect for that at all: incandescents fail regularly.
If you're not trolling, get a small heater (eg pipe tape) on a thermostat instead.
Don't wilfully confuse *lighting* with *heating*.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
I'll just leave this here
Tragedy of the commons
Externality
Social Cost
This is why the government is justified to step in. Free market capitalism does not work when the above forces are in play. You as a consumer deciding on a product based upon your own rational self-interest (one of the fundamentals of capitalism) will most likely pick a product whose use will have negative consequences for others - others that did not enter into any contract with you.
Oblig car analogy: Your choice to drive a gas-guzzling SUV affects the quality of the air I breathe. I had no choice in your purchase therefore I should not have to bear the external cost (my air quality) of your decision.
AccountKiller
'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
It is not only about protecting little furry things. I smell they are more interesting in the energy savings, as in keeping the price of energy low (or at least affordable). And you may say "Let's build more nuclears" or whatever, but energy supply is very inelastic (if you start building a nuclear central today, even without the NIMBY pressure, you'll spend some years before the first watt gets into the grid). So they are trying to ease things in the demand side.
BTW, other posts well before yours state that the law does not ban any technology, just forces a minimum energy efficiency. If you can get that with a CFL or burning your dog, the better for you.
Why can't
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 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.
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.
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.
At least in the US, we don't pay all of the costs for electricity. So, there's little incentive to replace 60 W incandescents with 14 W CFL's.
I don't respond to AC's.
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.
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!
You know that the problem is not the government being idiotic, it's YOU.
There are dozens of potential choices for you to warm your well house, many of which would be MORE efficient than your lightbulb. Just getting a space heater is an example of you being imprudent and rushing to conclusions instead of learning about your options.
The easiest I'd recommend would be a simple grow light, as they ARE exempted from the ban, or if you wish, a rough-service lamp. You may also wish to consider a pipe warming electrical cord. They even make them with temperature sensors so they shut off when it's warm enough that you don't need to worry about freezing.
But no, instead of looking at your options, you'd rather rant and rave at the government. That is why the Free Market fails. People ARE stupid.
If you can see the 100khz flicker I bet you could get that $1 million woo-woo prize James Randi is giving out.
Here is another light you can have and replace constantly.
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-72-Watt-EcoVantage-Light-Natural/dp/B001FA07UC
Something you and the rest of the drooling morons on that webpage probably don't know is that there is no ban on incandescents. Only on low efficiency lighting. So you can keep enjoying those that I linked far into the future.
My wife is pregnant and pregnant women aren't supposed to be around mercury. So I'm actually replacing some CFLs in my house with incandescent bulbs.
You're increasing your wife's exposure to mercury ON PURPOSE by increasing the amount of coal burned? That seems a little petty, no matter what you think of her.
I disagree, and it's why we're (strictly speaking) not a full blown democracy (so that's the first point I disagree with... by your standard, 80% of the white people could demand slavery be re-instituted by repealing amendments - obviously they wouldn't, but by your reasoning it would be OK if they did).
Secondly, the constitution of the U.S. gives a specific list of the responsibilities of the federal government... and leaves EVERYTHING else to the states.
Yes, it's true that we already are not following the constitution as it was written, but that's besides the point if you're arguing about a specific topic.
Lastly, you can take your carbon tax and shove it up your %$#@^$. 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'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.
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.
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.
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...
Is this monochromatic? (hint: I used a diffraction grating to help you get the correct answer)
http://gallery.me.com/dr2chase#100277/LEDSpectrum
These are three different Luxeon Rebel LEDs, driven at 350mA, I believe the color temperatures are 3000K, 4000K, and 5000K. Still not as cheap as I would like, but coming down (cheaper than before) and the light is creeping up. Another good choice is Cree; I have 9 last-gen Cree neutral-whites (4000K, I think) in my kitchen under the cabinets, and they look good there, too. As long as I am blogwhoring (since I just went and took these pictures to give a proper reply for you, I think I am entitled), here:
http://dr2chase.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/undercabinet-lights-basement-kitchen/ (used for the picture above, mixed spectrum)
http://dr2chase.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/more-undercabinet-lights/ (all neutral white, an earlier effort)
Note that these are "do not look at LED with remaining eye" grade lights.
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.
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.
Yeah, they claim the color wheels in DLP projectors move too fast to perceive too, but look at any DLP forum for the 'rainbows' complaints. Like most things, perception varies from person to person, and about 5-10% of the population are driven nuts by it, myself included (same goes for AC LED bulbs/strings and those PWM-dimmed automotive tail lights).
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
CFL/LED come with different temperature ratings. As in color. Pick the right rating, and it gives warmer ("yellower") light, like what you're used to.
However as a person who was in exactly the same spot as you few years ago, here's the real cause of your problem: habit. Habit bends perception. Moving from incandescent to CFL was something I felt unnatural and unnecessary, like moving from CRT to LCD monitors back at the time.
But you need to move on. Especially because once you've used CFL for some time, you realize, it's just light, and you get used to anything.
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
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.
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
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.