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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."
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.
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?
here in the north the heat from the bulb is more than welcome.
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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
And politicians are smart?
Incandescent bulbs are widely used for heating. For example in bread proofing boxs, small animal tanks and lava lamps.
Yeah, because they are fuggin inefficient at lighting.
What exactly are we supposed to use now?
Use something that is more efficient at heating. If your only tool is a light bulb...
Fandroids hate facts.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
what do you mean more efficient at heating?
a 40W lamp in an enclosed, opaque space is exactly as efficient as a 40W heater in that same enclosed space.
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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.
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.
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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