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Congress Voting To Repeal Incandescent Bulb Ban
Bob the Super Hamste writes "CNN Money is running as story about a bill Congress is going to vote on today to repeal the 'incandescent light bulb ban' that was put into place during the Bush administration. The bill is supported by Republicans in Congress who are claiming this places unnecessary restrictions on the market. For those of you wondering, it does bring up the standard issues of energy efficiency, mercury (in both the bulbs and that emitted by coal power), and cost of the bulbs. The bill was introduced by Texas Congressman Joe Barton."
This is as close to a modern version of "fiddling while Rome burns."
Glad to see they're not wasting their time on silly things like the budget.
Who did what now?
I have had several CFL's fail within months, completely destroying any potential long-term savings. And do they really think anyone is properly disposing of these bulbs?
I figure there's a pretty good load of money to be made by stockpiling these things and selling them to desperate homeowners in a few years once they're scarce. Anyone who's already started stockpiling may be in for a scare...
How about passing laws that make sense in the first place?
Maybe I'm nuts, but last time I checked my local store still had plenty of incandescent bulbs for sale. Wait, I can check.
Nope, not nuts..
If there was a ban on these things, it doesn't appear to be working.
I read the internet for the articles.
There never was! There are new efficiency standards, which both GE and Osram Sylvania say they can meet with new incandescents. The whole thing started as a talking point for a Republican primary, and took off when the punditry caught a whiff of it and smelled red meat.
I'm a firm believer in using the tax code to influence behavior. Tax the snot out of them. Considering that my house is entirely lit by canned lighting on dimmer switches, an incandescent ban means I basically have to rewire my house - fluorescent dimmables just don't work. If they were heavily taxed - to the point of being slightly more expensive that the fluorescents - then I would have an alternative, while the majority of the market will still make the choice you want them to. Everybody wins.
Funnily enough, setting efficiency standards for lightbulbs (which most incandescents made at the time the law was passed did not meet) is exactly what the law did. Calling it a ban on incandescents is propagandizing. (Most incandescent manufacturers now have bulbs that meet the efficiency standards.)
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Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
why not simply ban inefficient bulbs?
That is exactly what the law does.
If incandescent bulbs can be made more efficient, it'd be silly to have to repeal or modify a law later.
Some companies have in fact done just that, and they are now upset at the prospect of having the law revoked after having spent all that money to comply with it.
And thats exactly what the "ban" does. It provides efficiency targets so efficient incandescent bulbs should they exist would be allowed
Why ban anything just because it's inefficient? If you want to ban it cause it's toxic, that's one thing, but if you want to ban it just because it is a waste of money, isn't that what market forces are for?
btw, try a fluorescent bulb in anything with a dimming mechanism and you'll go right back to incandescent for that socket... my god the seizure-inducing horror.
Shouldn't we allow the market to handle this? Once the efficiency vs up-front cost gets in the right place, the $$$$ should take care of it, right?.
(assuming any externalities are accounted for some way...)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Seriously the first line in the article is "The so-called light bulb ban, set to begin in 2012".
Congress finally balanced the budget and agreed to raise the debt ceiling? I mean it looks like they have time for trivial matters now.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Several months ago, a CFL broke right next to my 2-year old son. I had the sense to get him out of the room, but not for about 10 seconds.
After much research, I discovered that a CFL has about 4 milligrams of Mercury that is released as a vapor (which is readily absorbed by the body unlike the solid form).
The EPA website's cleanup instructions were vast. They even recommended that all clothing that came in contact with any of the CFL be destroyed. I assumed this also meant the wall-to-wall carpeting in my son's bedroom where he plays.
Do I think the EPA is probably being a bit paranoid? Sure. But this is my son we are talking about during his key mental development years. A little paranoia is in order. Who knows how much mercury vapor he inhaled. Yes, I got rid of the carpet.
I'm personally stocking up on incadescents until LED or Halogon alternatives become viable. BTW-- I vote Democratic ticket and am otherwise pretty liberal.
Not that I'm expect much in the way of impartiality here, but...
"During the Bush Administration"? There's a subtle bit of tweaking going on there... it was passed by a Democratically-controlled Congress (albeit with a Republican pushing it, who has now mea culpa'd and is leading the drive to repeal it) and stuck in a 300 page energy bill.
Background:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-10/need-a-light-bulb-uncle-sam-gets-to-choose-virginia-postrel.html
And for more of the right-ward/libertarian spin on why this is a dumb idea, just keep scrolling:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/?s=bulb
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Why ban anything just because it's inefficient? If you want to ban it cause it's toxic, that's one thing, but if you want to ban it just because it is a waste of money, isn't that what market forces are for?
Because market forces ignore the tragedy of the commons, especially when it's abstracted away as increased pollution at a plant you can't see and distributed out as an extra few dollars a month on an electric bill.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
You are incorrectly assuming that humans are "rational economic actors", or even a close approximation thereof. Sorry.
I was an early adopter of CFL's starting with the Phillips Earth Light back around 1990. Back then they lasted a couple of years. Today CFL's frequently burn out in a month making any energy savings imaginary. Given the issues with mercury and the high failure rate I have switched to quartz halogen capsule bulbs and LED bulbs where I don't need a lot of light. The quartz halogen bulbs are more efficient than regular incandescent bulbs.
I have converted to mostly CFLs in my house over the years. I only buy the instant on ones. I usually stock up when they are on a good sale, so I get them at a decent price. About a year ago, i started collecting the burnt out ones in a drawer in my garage to be disposed of properly all at once, saving time. So far I have only collected 2 burnt out CFLs. I have found that putting a CFL in an inclosed light fixture with an incandecent will shorten it's life substantially.
One man's inefficient light bulb is another man's reptile light/heat bulb. I really don't want to have to buy $40 specialty bulbs instead of $.50 standard bulbs.
How about passing laws that make sense in the first place?
What, and set a precedent?!
[Insert pithy quote here]
why not let the market decide when truly viable solution appears (ie. less cost, true long life, true good light output, not toxic if broken).
How about not passing more laws and enforcing those that have passed.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Instead of banning incandescent bulbs because they are inefficient, why not simply ban inefficient bulbs? If incandescent bulbs can be made more efficient, it'd be silly to have to repeal or modify a law later.
That's exactly what they did. Guess who's lying to you...
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
This is like repealing a ban on EnergyStar CRT monitors and allowing more wasteful CRTs, just before the lighter, cheaper, much lower-power LCD monitors dropped below them on price and wiped them from the stores.
I refer, of course, to LED lighting. Your homework google for today is "CRI", colour rendering index, where sunlight (and incandescents) = 100. CFLs score in the sixties. Anything much above 80 can be quite hard to tell from incandescent for most eyes. An LED with a CRI of 85 is about to be released by a company called "Switch", profiled by Farhad Manjoo in Slate recently. Unlike CFLs, they really do last for decades under regular use, and save even more power. They're going to get much cheaper over just the next few years, and many claim will use even less power as well.
2011 and 2012 will just see early adopters, but by 2015, the end of incandescents will be as obvious as the end of LaserDisc was in 2000, if not quite gone yet.
Then the right way to go about this is to use taxes and fees so the externalities are included in the power bill. I don't understand the fixation on light bulbs - there are lots of ways to conserve power. Let's let people decide for themselves how they want to do it.
Since when has it been Congress' job to be everything that is wrong with the USA? I mean, they can't even get the budget up to par and working correctly, and now they're bothering with repealing more green energy initiatives....but why?
Of course, because Philips and GE, and the entirety of the oil/energy industry probably threw millions of dollars or more at campaign contributions and lobbying to keep their existing product lines available. Greener technology means less energy consumed, and less energy consumed means less money for the providers.
Until we ban the outright sale of law and votes to corporations based on contributions and lobbying, this country will continue to march backward right into its grave.
Fuck the entire government, hard, sideways with a barbed metal pole.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Why not repeal the mandate to require 1.6 gal/flush toilets?
We heard the same lame arguments against that back then, but guess what? IT WORKED!!!
That's what they have done, so you will still be able to buy halogen bulbs.
They aren't telling you what kind of bulbs to f*****g bulbs to buy. The energy efficiency standards set to take effect do not specify the specific technology that must replace them. It just says that common application bulbs need to be more efficient. CFLs happen to fit that standard but there are actually alternatives including other incandescent bulbs .
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
The ones in my house are all around 4 years old, still going strong. That is half the reason I buy them. Replacing bulbs is a pain, I like not having to do it very often.
Don't trust him: he's trying to breed dinosaurs. It's all a conspiracy to set velociraptors lose in Manhattan. Don't say I didn't warn you!
How about not passing more laws and REPEALING those that have passed?
For those who would like to actually read it the bill it is H.R.2417 and here is the complete text of the bill.
Time to offend someone
I thought similar until I saw the numbers. Electric heat is one of the least efficient forms there is. For homes with gas heat, relying on incandescent lamps for their heating is just wasteful. It's much more efficient to minimize electricity use by using CFLs and use more efficient gas for actual heating. When trying to cool your house the savings go way up by not having so much heat load.
Something else is all the people complaining about the cost of CFL bulbs. Even with failures, the electricity savings by using CFLs is huge. I have those light bars in my bathrooms that could either be 360 watts of incandescent lamps or, with CFLs, just 90 watts for more light output. I use CFLs everywhere that I can. The only exceptions are the oven, refrigerator, and the ceiling fans that have candelabra base bulbs and maybe those are available as CFL now.
There was a very easily noticed drop in my electric bill when I switched over - especially in the summer due to the reduced heat load for the air conditioning.
It all adds up, folks. The electric savings due to using CFL lamps is huge. That's a hell of a lot of coal and natural gas that isn't being burned and it cuts the need for nuclear.
There is a bigger picture than just that you had to pay a buck or two for a CFL instead of 50 cents for an incandescent.
Libertarianism works great until you run into the tragedy of the commons. Your use of a $0.50 bulb over the course of your lifetime affects others, both in increased energy demand (and thus higher energy prices), and higher pollution rates. It does not matter if the price increase is $0.0001 per bulb, or if the pollution increase is equivalent to one lit match per bulb. These are increases that add up to important figures when others do the same as you.
So, yes, if you want to get flame-y, it IS the government's job to mold your behavior if the behavior negatively affects civilization.
It's always confirmation bias!
Just so we are clear - there never was an incandescent light bulb ban; this was/is spin.
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
How about scrapping everything and starting over?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Not CFLs, you are right those dim for shit, but Philips has new LED lights that are actually worth getting. What you are after is the Philips AmbientLED Dimmable A19. As far as I know, it is exclusive to Home Depot currently, but they all have them. It is a real, no shit, replacement for an A19 bulb. Its luminous efficacy is equal to or above CFLs (which isn't true for many LEDs), it dims properly using a normal dimmer, and it fits in normal sockets. Funny looking bulb, but it does the job and it is white when it lights up.
The downside is, of course, upfront cost. They are expensive little things. However being LEDs they ought to last a decade or two which combined with low energy usage means they are likely to be a net win.
I got them for my living room because I was really tired of having to get out the ladder to change bulbs, and because dimmable CFLs are crap. I'd been stuck on incandescents but tried these. They work great. I just have a standard Lutron dimmer and all I had to do was put the bulbs in the sockets and it works right.
Now I'm not advocating an incandescent ban or anything, I am making you aware of a new, high tech, option you've got. I love the things, despite the cost, because they work well and I don't have to replace them all the time. Plus they look neat :).
Its all about sensibly assessing risk. Something we as a species, suck at.
Getting rid of the carpet is probably overkill. Get it steam cleaned and be done with it: either that is enough to pull the mercury out, or its now permanently part of your carpet. Either way it is unlikely to harm the kid unless the kid ingests the carpet. I suspect that's the worry on clothing, since kids will stick their shirt in their mouth and suck on it.
Of course that ignores all the nasty chemicals they use in steam-cleaning equipment, so...
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
But it is the federal government's job to provide for our defense, which can easily be interpreted to include things like making sure that our individual actions don't add up to war, for, by example, unnecessarily using too much power and needing to import massive amounts of energy from hostile countries.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Yes, I got rid of the carpet.
i hope you checked all the ingredients in the new carpet against chances of causing developmental problems..
i also hope if you where that paranoid that you properly disposed of this now contaminated carpet - rather than throw it in the trash to go to a land fill to allow it to enter the water table where your son will now drink it from the faucet.
and if you are that worried - you might want to avoid fish all together..
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Exactly. The argument for this is the same as the argument for getting rid of Leaded gasoline. Knowing what we know now, and given the available technology, it really is a crime against humanity to put lead in gasoline.
That's what they fucking did! They set an efficiency standard! That's it!
Riddance: the quality of having been rid of something.
Dear Republicans:
There is no incandescent light bulb ban.
No there isn't. The incandescents at the time couldn't reach the standard. There are many out there now that can.
The law was supposed to ban inefficient bulbs, but it never took into account mercury content or properly disposing of light bulbs. This is a classic case of tragedy of the commons as no one I know of properly disposes of the light bulbs. Matter of a fact in my area you have to drive about 30 minutes and pay roughly $1.40 to get rid of each CFL that burns out. Who the frick actually does that?
CFLs are sold for prices that underscores their long term effects and disposal to make them seem more plausible. The law which bans inefficient light bulbs to reduce pollution, doesn't take into account long term pollution, just the energy use of the bulbs themselves. I'm not so sure CFLs would either be cheaper or be more 'efficient' when taking into account mercury disposal costs and proper recycling.
The sad thing is, while we may understand that the law bans inefficient bulbs, I don't think that is the general understanding for most people (even on here) and the general consensus is CFLs are better for the environment and last longer. However, buying a good incandescent also has similar effects. It's propaganda based on poison, quite literally because people can't see or rationalize the effects of mercury as it's not included in the price or the label and laws like this as well as marketing has made incandescents seem like terribly ungreen.
If they undo this law they better have another one to take up it's place that includes some sort of rating system for lightbulbs and their effects on the environment (all of them) along with costs that include recycling.
Why not set an efficiency standard, and then let the market respond with offerings that meet that standard?
Leaving everything up to the "whims of the market" is stupid.
Translated from a conversation with one of the "Republican Libertarian" Tee Tardier types recently:
TT: "The government shouldn't tell us what to do. The people in large numbers will always average out to making the right choice."
Me: Oh? Then how about all the studies showing that, in fact, "cheaper", "easier" solutions that are absolutely ruinous to health, environment, and the national welfare were chosen by "the people in large numbers" over and over despite being the completely wrong choice?
TT: "But but... RUSH SAID SO!"
It IS the government's job to "mold behavior" if there is a problem.
Such as smog emissions causing an epidemic of asthma.
Or the overuse of a finite resource that should be conserved.
Or the wasteful use of a resource that overfills landfills and causes hazardous materials to leak into the water table, which is what happen when you put assloads of crappy chinese-made incandescent bulbs (how Ironic that the Republicans are yet again sponsoring a bill whose major net effect would be a boon for China yet again) into landfills when they burn out after two months or less each.
Like I said, there is a huge difference between mercury in the solid form and mercury in the vaporized form.
First time parent, and too young to remember when mercury wasn't scary.
Yes, my new carpet is hand-tufted all-natural Wool. Thanks for questioning that.
Incandescent lights are real cheap to produce, because they are simple. Bit of tungsten wire in a (near) vacuum encased in glass. Done. No power control necessary, feed line voltage straight to it. CFLs and LED are a good bit more complex. Not only because the bulb/element themselves are more expensive to produce, but because of the power control. Have to have a set of electronics to deal with getting the power to a form that works for them.
So they are likely to always be more expensive up front, by a good bit. Now their life more than makes up for it, never mind efficiency. You save money. Ok fine, but people are short sighted. Our culture is one where buying more expensive stuff for longer term savings is not popular. People want to save money now and buy cheap.
Mostly because the market has failed to make a transition that would benefit our national security.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Two problems:
1) The whole mercury issue is overblown, and also trivial to solve. You just use CFL capsules and then you don't have to worry about mercury. The capsule encapsulates the glass bulb, and is nearly indestructible. You can break the capsule with a hammer, but even if you squeeze really hard, you can't crush it with your hand. Mercury is not easily released. Capsules are suitable for CFL's not installed in enclosed fixtures.
2) The biggest problem with the CFL market I see is the lack of quality control. You buy a cheapie CFL from your local dollar store. The spectrum emitted by the phosphor makes your house look like crap. Your wife makes you swear to never install CFL's in her house ever again. CFL's with better quality control, not-the-cheapest phosphor, cold cathode, and more durable electronics cost closer to $10 than $1. Stores don't sell them because the average consumer is accustomed to buying the cheapest incandescent lamp they can find, and not noticing a difference between the generic and the brand-name incandescent lamp.
3) It's really hard to manage color-temperature when you go to CFL. If you select a high-color temperature 6500K "daylight" CFL, and only install one 13-watt lamp to light up your bathroom, the light will look terrible and unhealthy. Replace it with a 2700K or 2650K CFL, and the light will look much more natural. Repeat with ten times the lumens, and then the results are the opposite. The daylight lamps will look a lot better than the warm-white lamps when the light is very bright, like in an office environment. You basically have to do work and put thought into selecting the color temperature of your lamps when lighting your home.
Basically, CFL's and even LED's need better quality standards and better labeling. Without that, it's harder to use them residentially and get attractive results.
I believe in the overall accuracy of our coarse stellar fusion models, and that we will thus have a means to generate more electricity or power more heat engines, than a thousand earths could use, for a period of well over a billion years.
You still won't. "Standard" incandescent bulbs aren't going away. You might lose a bit on the economies of scale since manufacturing is switching most production to higher efficiency bulbs but they'll still be around for substantially less than a $40 specialty bulb.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Well.. that's a tough one. Most people when faced with a choice - say to buy a $1 bulb thqtwill last a few months or pay for a $10 bulb that says it will last a few years and save you $15 in that time - will choose the one with more immediate perceived benefit. For further reference look at the average credit card debt per household.
Already do
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Really? I wasn't aware they had speed limits (as a trivial example) when common law was written. When the common law has nothing to base it's precedent on then new laws need to be created so that new precedents can be moulded by common law.
btw, try a fluorescent bulb in anything with a dimming mechanism and you'll go right back to incandescent for that socket... my god the seizure-inducing horror.
They do make dimmable CFLs you know. While the dynamic range isn't quite the same as an incandescent they aren't bad.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Which of the 18 enumerated powers granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution allows for this sort of protection?
"Market forces" don't inherently ignore the tragedy of the commons if the property rights of individuals get respected, and the reason they don't is because of corporatism, which is decidedly not "the market". In a true market-based society, you would be able to sue the polluter and win, as pollution always infringes on someone's property rights.
Odd that you don't seem to know what you're talking (but way to go, beating up that imaginary strawman in your imaginary debate). The bill being repealed actually closed a lot of US bulb production. I switched to all CFLs about 3 years ago and have been gradually switching a lot of my bulbs back to incandescents.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706933.html
How about passing laws that make sense in the first place?
What, and set a precedent?!
Exactly, just because somebody's brother-in-law owns a fluorescent bulb facility doesn't mean laws have to be enacted to keep him busy.
Besides, an incandescent bulb generates enough heat to keep a water line from freezing.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
The ban is all about taking care of the externalities that the market has failed on.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
After reading that link I'm more concerned about them than I was before.
(assuming any externalities are accounted for some way...)
Haaaahahahahahahahaha. Because the market is *great* at accounting for externalities, isn't it? Gaahahahahahaha. Let's go ahead and lump pollution in the "assume this natural resource issue will solve itself" category. Baahahahahaha. Good one!
Hey, a bunch of kids from Africa called, they wanted to know who they can thank for the brain damage caused by all the lead vapor laden exhaust fumes they breathed. Should I take a message? Oh, and a school of Blue Walleye called, wait no they didn't they are extinct thanks to the free market externality accounting system, which in case you haven't seen it is a garbage can labeled "AMF YOYO".
Shouldn't it be a freedom issue?
I have seen the damage a 4 light fixture can do to your electric bill.
I use a mixture of CFL's, LED's and three incandescent bulbs in my house.
Until the light color and Lumens from LED's is there, their utility is limited.
GE makes a 40 watt bulb with fins which puts out the correct color of light. I have a couple of those.
Sylvania makes a 60 watt bulb (which is actually about 60 lumens low (800 vs 860)) but the light is distinctly red and can only be used in lamps with brown shades.
If GE steps up to 60 watts, or Sylvania gets a little bluer I'm there.
But I can afford $20 for a single bulp. Many can't. Even tho it saves you about $5 per year in electric costs it is going take a while to cover a $20 bulb that lasts about 7 years.
I dislike CFL-- even the "instant" ones still only power on at about 70% light and take 60-90 seconds to finish powering on. I can watch the light crawl through the coils in the 75 watt cfl in my utility room.
I think in 3-4 years, LED's will be down below $10, the right color, and use 20% of the power (and not drive up your cooling bill) and still last 7 years. No need to outlaw incandescents. The transition will happen on it's own.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I truly sympathize with you. One of my friends and I were talking and only very slightly exaggerating in saying that a broken CFL is a haz-mat situation. I've got almost all the incandescent bulbs in my house replaced with (mostly) CFL and LED bulbs. I really really like the LED bulb technology, but there aren't a lot of choices. I recently replaced a kind of hard to get to circline bulb with an LED circline bulb and I could not be happier with the LED replacement. I've got one room in my house completely using LED bulbs too. I wish they would drop in price but I've been pretty happy with the quality of light from them.
You're definitely paranoid. (And of course the EPA is -- they're a bureaucracy; the first job of a bureaucracy is to expand the bureaucracy.)
Yeah, you don't want to spend a lot of time (read months or years) inhaling mercury vapors, but it's not that bad (worry more about radon -- had your house checked?). You got rid of the carpet? I hope it's one you were planning to replace anyway. I used to -- as a kid, with younger siblings -- play with mercury all the time (I had about a pound of it, great fun to pour from hand to hand, squish droplets on the table, etc...). Yeah, the metal isn't the vapor, but some does evaporate off. But it's mecury compounds that you have to worry about (methyl mercury will go right through your skin), not the elemental. (BTW, the "solid form" of mercury only occurs at -40F (= -40C), so that's not something you'd normally have to worry about at the best of times.)
There's a hell of a lot more mercury in old standard fluorescents (you can see droplets of the stuff when the tubes get old), plenty of kids have been around those when they broke. You know, those same tubes they typically use for school lighting.
Seriously, you probably did more harm to your son's mental development by him seeing you freak out over the incident than ten seconds -- or even ten minutes, or ten hours -- of being in the same room with a broken CFL would have done.
how about more one line quips that do not add anything to the discussion except the illusion of your position that we know not how you got there?
Jeez, if you think that slashdot is a "conservative circle jerk" I would suggest you leave your cave a little more often and maybe expose yourself to some opposing viewpoints.
I also wasn't aware that mercury thermometers leached mercury into your mouth. Citation? When I was a little kid I dropped and broke a mercury thermometer. The cleanup was a fairly big deal to my parents...
Thank you, GOP!
Signed,
your loyal Easy-Bake constituency
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
China makes CFLs too, I should know, all of mine are made there, so much for your boon.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Because inefficiencies in the use of shared resources produce external costs, which are internalized by increasing the costs of transactiosn involving those inefficiencies. (The choice between taxes/fees and bans as a method of internalizing external costs is a whole different discussion.)
The ban on incandescent bulbs aren't because they are an inefficient use of the purchaser's money, its because they are an inefficient use of the shared resources expended when they are used (this is, conceptually, the same reason on a more general level as a ban due to toxicity.) Further, things that are inefficient for the purchaser in the way that incandescent light bulbs might arguably be (low initial costs, but higher long-term costs) are things that "market forces" demonstrably deal with poorly, since the reliance on market forces to correctly deal with that kind of efficiency is reliance on people basing decisions on the actual expected disutility of a future cost stream distributed over time, and cost/benefit streams distributed over time are one of the things (like risk) that people demonstrably do not account for well in making economic decisions. But if there weren't social costs involved, even noting that market forces would not correct the personal inefficiency for the reasons described, there arguably wouldn't be any justification for public action.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
On could argue, if one was feeling particularly contrary, that speeding is not the problem. It's the injuries/deaths and property damage that may result from speeding that is the problem, and those are pretty well covered like GP said.
Speed limits aren't about protecting anyone, they're about revenue generation (people still speed, after all).
When they do, it's a no brainer.
CFLs have the mercury issue and the dimness period before full power. The energy savings, of course, are nice.
But LEDs are solid state, instant on, you can use a dimmer switch with them. They last longer than CFL and they save more energy to. Best of all, they mimic natural daylight the best. Fluorescent is too harsh and incandescent is too hot.
But of course, still a little too pricey. Whoever gets LED Bulbs to the magic price point will reap my gratitude (and a lot of purchases)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The main difference is that solid mercury *does not exist* under normal ambient conditions. It melts at -40 degrees.
Funny. 5 years ago I switched my entire house to CFL's. I have had to replace ONE bulb in that time - and that was not a result of burnout, but a result of a lamp that got knocked over.
Meanwhile, it cut my energy bills by about 20%.
The link you provided has a lot of hemming and hawing, but what they fail to mention is that the one US-based plant making the incandescents? Yeah. That's IT. China was making the vast majority of incandescents ever since the early 1980s. When they talk about the bulbs made in the US needing to cost "50% more" on the shelf, what you're failing to realize is that this has been the problem of letting Republicans run things for a long time: they never do anything about the real problem of US manufacturing not being "out-competed", but out-abused by slave labor countries with crapass environmental laws like China and Malaysia.
The real answer is to get rid of our fucked-up "no tariff" situation with GATT/WTO, and stop giving corrupt shithole nations like China "Most Favored Nation" trading status. But that'll never happen as long as the Chinese are happy to buy up the Republican Party.
This argument is only true if you will not otherwise heat your house. Light bulbs reduce the need for central heating in cold areas. They also provide a better light spectrum. They also aren't as toxic when you break them. This is not a straightforward issue.
Congress has to handle more than one issue at a time...If they were to drop everything and deal with only one important issue at a time, there would be stasis, and the nation would descend into Anarchy.
True. But under that statement the repeal of lightbulb efficiency law, nor most other legislation, qualify as "important", posing absolutely no risk of anarchy. So congress should not allocate equal time to nonsensical things like this at a time when there's a looming debt ceiling deadline (the "Rome burns" reference). Not that I expect a loon like Barton to contribute meaningfully to complex economic issues, but he could at least sit still in his high chair sucking his lolly while the adults in congress solved the pressing issue (yes, that "adult" was generous). Instead, our august leaders are reportedly wasting time by voting on this nonsense today.
Several months ago, a CFL broke right next to my 2-year old son. I had the sense to get him out of the room, but not for about 10 seconds. After much research, I discovered that a CFL has about 4 milligrams of Mercury that is released as a vapor (which is readily absorbed by the body unlike the solid form). The EPA website's cleanup instructions were vast. They even recommended that all clothing that came in contact with any of the CFL be destroyed. I assumed this also meant the wall-to-wall carpeting in my son's bedroom where he plays. Do I think the EPA is probably being a bit paranoid? Sure. But this is my son we are talking about during his key mental development years. A little paranoia is in order. Who knows how much mercury vapor he inhaled. Yes, I got rid of the carpet. I'm personally stocking up on incadescents until LED or Halogon alternatives become viable. BTW-- I vote Democratic ticket and am otherwise pretty liberal.
I've run in to the same issue. I was changing a CFL and it shattered in to tiny pieces. I have two young kids at home and based on what the EPA recommends you need to call in professionals to clean your house and remove any surface, specifically cloth or carpet, that could be contaminated. Also you should put the broken light bulb in a glass jar and properly dispose of it. Scary stuff. I'd much rather just have to clean up some broken pieces of glass.
CFLs don't leak mercury into your environment either--unless they break.
/. is a conservative circle jerk, it's usually not. What I'm implying is that on certain charged issues it always seems like a ton come out of the woodwork.
I'm not saying it's not terrible, I'm saying that the very people that would have opposed we place a blanket ban on all mercury thermometers during that time would have likely had the same position.
That said, you also have to keep in mind it only poses a POTENTIAL issue *if broken*. I would imagine that you probably had more kids that chewed on/crushed/smashed/broke thermometers than what would ever happen with CFL bulbs.
Not to mention, how many of those things ended up in our landfills? You didn't go to Home Depot or Lowes or any other big box store at the time to dispose of mercury-filled thermometers. People just threw them out in the trash.
And what I'm implying isn't that
Speed limits and insurance requirements should be set by whoever owns the roads. If the people own the roads through the state, it seems perfectly reasonable the government would control these things. There is, however, no need for the government to own roads.
Where I live, I don't use air conditioning; I'm not at all concerned with "waste heat" from light bulbs. For at least 9 months of the year I use electric heat at least part of every day. (500Kwh monthly late spring and early fall, 5000Kwh mid-winter). Heat conversion efficiency is the same (essentially 100%) whether I use light bulbs or the electric heat element in my furnace.
... Either way it is unlikely to harm the kid unless the kid ingests the carpet...
So then it is a real concern as it is likely a child, especially under 3, would do something like eat the carpet or something that touched the carpet. I know my kids try and eat anything they can get their hands on.
Why ban anything just because it's inefficient? If you want to ban it cause it's toxic, that's one thing, but if you want to ban it just because it is a waste of money, isn't that what market forces are for?
Because market forces ignore the tragedy of the commons, especially when it's abstracted away as increased pollution at a plant you can't see and distributed out as an extra few dollars a month on an electric bill.
Tragedy of the commons doesn't apply in this case. If I shiver in the dark the power plant down the road will still create nearly the same pollution as if I didn't. What's more, I'm paying for using that extra power. But it's cool, we can just shift from pollution at the power plant to mercury and other pollution in different places. Unless you think those CFLs grow on trees. :)
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Yes, such as the sold form doesn't exist.
At least, not in an environment in which you could also exist.
After much research, I discovered that a CFL has about 4 milligrams of Mercury that is released as a vapor
I don't think so. Mercury's vapor pressure at 30ÂC is 1Pa. To put that into perspective water's vapor pressure at that temperature is 4247 Pa. So upon breakage that mecury remains in liquid form, not a vapor.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
society projects difficulty meeting total energy demand in the not too distant future. (difficulty in fielding/approving/building new capacity, etc.) they see shaving part of the lighting load as a way of pushing that threat further out, while sounding 'green' at the same time.
Of couse that's not the purpose or original intent of the commerce clause. It's simply one of the many ways the Constitution has been abused and disregarded. Read the writings of the founding fathers....try the Federalist papers. Try Federalist 56. Here's one possible article about this topic specifically: http://federalistblog.us/2011/06/no_power_over_interstate_commerce.html
The current government and its traitorous Supreme Court judges have simply told you that it gives them the power to regulate interstate commerce because the want to usurp that power.
Did you know that the word "regulate" as used in the Constitution didn't mean what it means today? Back then it meant "to make regular" or "to treat evenly"; i.e. the job of the federal government was simply to make sure all states are treated evenly with regards to interstate commerce. Today, the definition has been warped to mean "to control". Naturally, that's what government is all about: power and control.
But the writings of those who wrote the Constitution make it clear what the original intent was.
Manufactures of fluorescent bulbs are making false about the brighness fro their products.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6110547/Energy-saving-light-bulbs-offer-dim-future.html
The power to regulate interstate commerce. You can manufacture and sell any bulb you like if it doesn't cross state or international lines
Sorry, that defense has been tried and defeated. By buying something made in-state, you affect interstate commerce by not importing. therefore the feds can tell you what to do anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
You know what I'll do, I'll buy me some of them fancy new "heat balls" to, you know, "heat" my living room. They are cheap and fit nicely into my existing lamp holders.
Seriously though the ban has enough loop holes to drive a truck through. The ban does not affect special purpose lamps. A rough service bulb does not have to meet the efficiency standards, neither do appliance (cold and hot environment) lamps. I believe decorative lamps are also excepted, such as those globe lamps used on bathroom mirrors and the candle looking lamps used on chandeliers.
It will raise the price of these lamps but the incandescent lamps will still be available. What does bother me about all of these regulations on efficiency and pollution is that, first, this is driving much of the manufacturing out of the USA. This country can no longer manufacture things like light bulbs and solar panels because the environmental requirements are so strict. Second, much of these regulations on pollution is based on a still disputed claim over "climate change" caused by human activity.
It has become obvious to me that much of the regulations on "climate change" is nothing more than a wealth redistribution scheme. The USA is held to a different carbon output standard than China. There should be no surprise to anyone that doing so drives manufacturing from the USA to China. That is not only unsurprising but a desired outcome, because if these people were really concerned about pollution then all nations would be held to the same standard.
If the government wants to have this country reduce its carbon output the solution is simple, stop with this bureaucratic nonsense and let people build nuclear power plants. If we had a large portion of our power from nuclear power then it would not matter what kind of lighting we buy. It is quite possible that coal power would have been obsoleted by now if the government had not held up new construction of nuclear power for three decades. Add nuclear power along with hydro, wind, and maybe even solar* and we would not need coal. We'd probably still need to burn some natural gas and diesel for peak loads and emergency power but we should have had the dirty coal plants priced out of the market by now.
* Solar power is still, even after many decades of research, very expensive. It will likely remain as a special purpose power source for all time. Combine the expense with the inherent unreliability of solar power and it just does not make much sense for grid power.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I saw a news story on NBC a couple of years ago about the last incandescent light factory in the USA being shut down and people being put out of work because of the ban. If I remember correctly (and I'm pretty sure that I do) they even mentioned the equipment being shipped over seas. So now that they have destroyed another American industry, congress is willing to rethink an obviously bad decision? How much energy will be wasted in importing light bulbs? I guess the repeal won't really impact the trade imbalance, since I doubt if we are making the CFLs here either. So we will be able to buy incandescent lamps, but they will be over priced and cheaply made crap that will only last a few months (if the last that long), just like the crappy CFLs.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
FYI, electric heat is 100% efficient.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
This is wrong. You are assuming a "space heater" works like an electric heating system. An electric heating system has inefficiencies due to losses in the wiring and ventilation system. With a space heater-- which includes a lighting device-- 100% of the energy that makes it to the device is radiated as heat or becomes heat once it strikes an opaque surface.
You just finished telling us that lighting makes for an inefficient heating system. Yet, in your house you observed a large heat load caused by incandescents.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Better technology to meet the new demands? Prosperous!
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
It really doesn't matter, though. If there were value in being more efficient, bulbs would be more efficient. For commercial lighting, they use enough power to make it worth going fluorescent, and most of them went that way twenty years ago or more. For household lighting, they use such a small amount of power that the market doesn't demand more efficient lighting, and most consumers haven't really shown much interest in completely replacing their incandescent bulbs with CFLs in spite of the energy savings. In fact, they have shown a willingness to hoard large quantities of incandescent bulbs to delay the transition. This is a very definite sign of a hopelessly failed energy policy.
So the government steps in and stipulates that bulbs should be more efficient solely for efficiency's sake. Here's what Congress thought would happen:
Here's what actually happened:
Although there have been a few in-lab improvements in incandescent technology, none of those are likely to see the light of day in the next few years because of the cost involved. Thus, the net effect is that not only is the government forcing CFLs down everyone's throat, but they are also exporting a lot of bulb manufacturing jobs to China. And no, things like "Halogena" bulbs don't count as significant improvements. They're just halogen bulbs. It's largely old-school tech. They've made some minor improvements, but for the most part, the only reason they're still allowed is that the law specified an energy improvement over incandescent bulbs rather than an energy improvement over comparable bulb technology. Sure, when you compare halogen to straight incandescent, you get an energy improvement.
BTW, there's a reason we don't use halogen bulbs everywhere. They're too hot. They represent a significant increase in fire risk over standard incandescent bulbs, and thus are unsuitable for many light fixtures. Arguing that halogens are a globally suitable replacement for incandescent bulbs is a bit like arguing that a box of hand grenades is a suitable replacement for a box of firecrackers on July 4th.
Bottom line: if you want to reduce energy consumption, you should go after things that can easily be made more efficient without direct impact to customers, e.g. power supplies in electronics. Or better yet, move us the **** off of coal and fossil fuels and towards cleaner, more renewable sources of power so that none of the energy conservation matters anymore.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You should start lobbying pretty hard to have all coal fired power plants shut down then, as they are a major source of mercury in the environment (fish, air, water...)
Taxing electricity is unlikely to have resulted in more efficient incandescent bulbs, this did. There isn't really a fixation on light bulbs, but they were ripe for an overhaul at the given time.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
To late for the GE lamp Plant in my Home town. It's gone and has been for years now. This will be a boon for cheap incandescent bulbs produced in China and the Eastern European countries! Does anyone know if there are any incandescent bulbs actually still produced in the USA? Might be a few specialty ones, but I bet the majority of plants have been shutdown and possibly bulldozed by now! To Little to Late as usual!
the one to regulate interstate commerce
If patriotism is racist, is racism patriotic?
So then it is a real concern as it is likely a child, especially under 3, would do something like eat the carpet or something that touched the carpet. I know my kids try and eat anything they can get their hands on.
No, the concern isn't about eating something that touched the carpet. The carpet does not generate mercury from thin air continuously. There is a fixed amount that got on it and it either comes out or it stays in. You get out whatever comes out, and whatever left isn't to be worried about (again, unless you kid actually eats the carpet). If the steam cleaner cannot remove the mercury with water and chemicals, it's not suddenly going to all migrate into your kids food the instant a potato chip lands on it. If you think so, then I suggest cleaning your carpet with potato chips to get it all out.
True in that 99% of the electric power is converted to heat. The problem lies in that electric heat is not always cost effective in a cold climate since it takes a lot of voltage to generate the amount of energy needed to heat forced air in a cold climate. Natural gas heat, on the other hand, is not 100% efficient but is much more cost effective source of forced air heat in most cold climate areas. All this is dependent on the home, geographic locality, the type of heater used (traditional, heat pump, etc), the price of natural gas, the price of electricity, temperature of the house, outside temp, insulation, windows, etc. For example, 220v base board heating might be more cost effective for small homes than forced gas heat. Such heaters are very popular in the ski country in Colorado particularly in condos. A friend of mine owns an older home on a lake in CT and let some buddies use it for a week in the winter. His power bill for that one week was $2,000. They turned all the baseboard heaters on. You could ague that the house was simply not designed for heating but he is able to heat the house much more cost effectively now with gas heat. So, you will generally never see electric forced air heating in homes in Minnesota for example. They are very common in Georgia however where electricity is cheap and the number of cold months is much less than MN.
That's the obvious solution to some, but it's not a terribly good one. If people were perfectly rational and had infinite thinking and observational capacity, your solution would work fine. But for the half-evolved monkeys that we are, it's much more efficient to solve some of the problems via non-market means. E.g., banning manufacture of pointlessly wasteful bulbs, or having government-run home retrofit programs.
So why not require that every light switch be one of those d**ned sensor switches? Bathroom fan switches be replaced with timers? Better efficiency for TVs, VCRs, and computers? All of these things would have a much bigger impact than light bulbs.
For that matter, how do you know that it causes increased pollution? Many of us live in parts of the country that deliberately charge more for power so that we can get most of our power from renewable and other clean sources. Why should we be limited just because you are burning coal to power your incandescent bulbs?
And further, we already pay increasing rates as we consume more power. This should more than balance out the effect on others caused by my use of a cheaper, more power-consuming bulb.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
A standard deliberately designed to exclude incandescent bulbs. The weak and expensive high-efficiency incandescents are not a sufficient replacement.
5 years ago I rebuilt my house and decided like you to try and switch to CFL's I put them in all the sockets I could. Which turned out to be not as many as you would think, pesky thing those dimmer switches that had been installed to let me not run my lights full bore all the time. Oh yes eventually I was able to get the much more expensive dimmable CFLs. My wife can't stand the color of any of them, drives her absolutely up the wall. And of course I didn't know about the mercury in them at the time.
Unlike you however, I have seen these things fail at the most incredible rate. I have incandescent bulbs and regular long FL tubes that have not been replaced since the house was rebuilt. I have CFLs that I have replaced 2 or 3 or 4 times....... at which point I gave up entirely on them, I spent more money on replacing CFL, especially the freaking expensive dimmable ones then I probably would have spent on life bulbs for the rest of my natural life. I know of no person who I have ever spoken to who has had a different experience. Whenever I see someone posting how they switched over to CFLs and never had a single on fail in years, I assume you are some paid shill with an agenda, or the 1 person in a 100 who statistics has blessed with CFLs that actually work.
Let me make this clear, if you have CFLs and they have not failed..... YOU ARE ALONE IN THE WORLD!!!! Just because they may have worked for you, does not mean they work..... they don't
If the vote on this bill fails today, I will be calculating just how many bulbs I will need for the rest of my expected life duration and going out and buying enough cases of light bulbs to get me that far. Forget about the lower price or how the heat generation will help prevent global cooling...... the fact that the environmental lobby isn't out trying to pass laws against the evil mercury filled CFLs tells me all I need to know about what abject stupidity has taken hold of people.
Can you seriously believe that forcing the entire country to use bulbs filled with mercury which the WILL NOT be disposes of properly can possibly be a good idea? No it can't, unless you have so thoroughly drunk the global warming koolaid that there is no hope for having rational discourse with you.
-jon
If there were value in being more efficient, bulbs would be more efficient.
Explain, then, junk food. Or those crappy off-brand cigarette lighters that break before they use all their fuel.
Of all your things to put your faith in, the prescience of the American consumer seems to me to a poor choice.
Someone had to do it.
Food for thought: What physical property do you believe makes it a vapor? Does that necessary physical property exist outside the bulb?
CONGRESS get banned!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
It's only vapor at low pressure when it's in the bulb. It condenses when the bulb breaks. Elemental mercury in any form isn't particularly well-absorbed by the body, though. Realistically, 4 mg of elemental mercury poses no significant danger to people. Unfortunately, policymakers insist on using the most cautious possible language, so they tell you to clean or get rid of anything that can absorb mercury (like fibers).
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2319156&cid=36738028
Don't know if this is a troll or not, but I'm pretty sure a tiny bit of mercury exposure one time, no matter what the form, is going to hurt anyone. The people who landed men on the moon probably played with mercury as children, many times. Einstein probably played with it. Many of us did the same.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
The EPA website's cleanup instructions were vast.
Cleaning Up a Broken CFL
When a fluorescent bulb breaks in your home, some of this mercury is released as mercury vapor.
These steps are precautions and reflect best practices for cleaning up a broken CFL. If you are unable to follow them fully, don't be alarmed. CFLs contain a very small amount of mercury -- less than 1/100th of the amount in a mercury thermometer. However, if you are concerned about the risk to your health from a potential exposure to mercury, consult your physician.
Before cleanup
Have people and pets leave the room.
Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment.
Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system, if you have one.
Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb:
stiff paper or cardboard;
sticky tape;
damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces); and
a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag.
During cleanup
Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder.
Place cleanup materials in a sealable container.
After cleanup
Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly.
Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors.
If practical, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating/air conditioning system shut off for several hours.
Cleaning Up a Broken CFL
Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rugs: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming
1.The next several times you vacuum the rug or carpet, shut off the H&AC system if you have one, close the doors to other rooms, and open a window or door to the outside before vacuuming. Change the vacuum bag after each use in this area.
2.After vacuuming is completed, keep the H&AC system shut off and the window or door to the outside open, as practical, for several hours.
Detailed Recommendations
These clean-up recommendations are more or less what you expect for any accidental toxic spill in the home.
Actions You Can Take to Prevent Broken Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Always switch off and allow a working CFL bulb to cool before handling.
Always handle CFL bulbs carefully to avoid breakage.
If possible, screw/unscrew the CFL by holding the plastic or ceramic base, not the glass tubing.
Gently screw in the CFL until snug. Do not over-tighten.
Never forcefully twist the glass tubing.
Do not install CFLs in table lamps and floor lamps that can be easily knocked over, in unprotected light fixtures, or in lamps that are incompatible with the spiral or folded shape of many CFLs.
Do not use CFL bulbs in locations where they can easily be broken, such as play spaces.
Use CFL bulbs that have a glass or plastic cover over the spiral or folded glass tube, if available. These types of bulbs look more like incandescent bulbs and may be more durable if dropped.
Consider using a drop cloth (e.g., plastic sheet or beach towel) when changing a fluorescent light bulb in case a breakage should occur. The drop cloth will help prevent mercury contamination of nearby surfaces and can be bundled with the bulb debris for disposal.
There is, however, no need for the government to own roads.
So in this hypothetical libertarian paradise, if Apple decides to buy a road and not let any cars who's nav system is running Windows on the road, then the government would be expected to draft up laws keeping Apple from discriminating? Or would it, instead, be the case that the government would be on the hook for drafting up laws to deal with whther a competitor could build an overpass over Apple's road because it's the only way to compete with said road?
Methinks having the government own the road is much simpler.
Someone had to do it.
Bought house 4 years ago. Replaced every other vanity light bulb in master bathroom = 5 new good brand CFLs. 3 years later, all have burned out while the 5 incandescents are still going strong. Waste of money. Same thing with outdoor CFLs that are on 3 hours per night. Incandescents outlasted those too.
I thought it was a requirement.
The proper way to use tax code to influence behavior is to tax electricity, and let the consumers and markets decide where to save and spend electricity according to their means, needs, and values. Those that want to burn electricity with incandescent bulbs would be allowed to. Or is the bulb ban not really about reducing energy usage, and really is about control and moral imposition?
Funny. 5 years ago I switched my entire house to CFL's. I have had to replace ONE bulb in that time - and that was not a result of burnout, but a result of a lamp that got knocked over.
I've had to replace several--maybe 3/9-10 in 3 years--(Phillips) because they either died or became incredibly dim. I've changed out at least 2 that started making horrible high-pitched buzzing noises. Some people couldn't hear them but I've always had fairly high-range hearing and it drove me crazy (like those mosquito ring tones). The most annoying thing to me is how dim they become after just a year. I loved them at first, but stuff kept happening (dimming, buzzing, dead). If people like them, fine by me, I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to tell someone else what lightbulbs they should be forced to buy. I'll wait for better tech.
I have no idea how you could possibly get a 20% savings from CFLs. If the average incandescent is 60W and the average CFL is 15W that's a 45W difference. If you have 10 bulbs each running 8 hours a day (and that seems like a ton to me; for my household that would be a _big_ overestimate of number of bulbs and hours run) for 31 days a month that comes to approx 111 kilowatt hours. That is far less than 20% of my energy bill. Did I do some of the math wrong?
The real answer is to get rid of our fucked-up "no tariff" situation with GATT/WTO, and stop giving corrupt shithole nations like China "Most Favored Nation" trading status. But that'll never happen as long as the Chinese are happy to buy up the Republican Party.
I think what you really mean is, as long as consumers choose to buy up Chinese goods. Have the Democrats done anything to confront the Chinese at all? Under Clinton? Obama? This is an issue that is the political class vs everyone else. You're just making it a partisan one. Obama even came right out and said "those jobs aren't coming back" (referring to manufacturing). What makes this into such a personally partisan issue for you? It's obvious you loathe the Republicans, why are they worse than the alternative?
Like when we got a bit from the Dentist, or a broken thermometer, and rolled it around in our palms for a while 'cause it was cool. But, hey - you know - think of the children and all that.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Just tax inefficiency
During the recent debate over the debt ceiling, the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has promised to vote no on any measure that increases the revenue of the United States by at least one cent. What tax would you cut to make room for a tax on inefficiency so that the total tax does not increase?
they've never talked about banning tin foil.
that the people who bring this up are actually concerned about mercury. If you check them out you'll find that most of them are just desperate for any excuse they can come up with to justify their whining like spoiled four year olds.
In a true market-based society, you would be able to sue the polluter and win
Market failures can often be traced to a deeper market failure. For example, having the money to sue a polluter depends on the market for legal representation, which in turn depends on the market for legal education. It also depends on the market for advertising the lawsuit to enough other potential plaintiffs that the damages attributable to the pollution would surpass the threshold for throwing out a lawsuit as de minimis.
and sense of entitlement is of no concern to anyone else.
My argument was more that the principle of ownership under Common Law is the entire justification for imposing certain limits on the roads, and since the government owns them, the government gets to set the rules. Though thinking about it more, regulations pertaining to safe driving, however, fall within other common law statutes, such as assault and wilful negligence.
I think that it is pretty clear that your average consumer wants the lighting in his house to make things look nice. Right now, they know if they take an incandescent of a certain wattage and put it into socket A, they are going to get the result they want. That is not the consumer experience of CFLs. Absent the ability to predict how the light will perform in the home, they are not going to want to switch. They will be fine with saving money if they can get the quality they want without becoming a lighting professional. Since Congress' legislation basically does nothing to address consumers' genuine needs, it is stupid. They also need to outlaw sucky lighting options so that everything on the shelf is as good as, or better than, incandescent unless it has big letters saying "this lighting sucks."
Glad they showed those radical socialists in the bush white house a thing or too. With this and their stance on the budget I fear what they will be 4 years from now. How much more extreme can you go?
http://saveie6.com/
I hope you aren't an adult based on your response. (Yes, I am a Dr).
What brand are you using in your bathroom? I've been trying to use a mix of incandencent and CFLs in my light bar. I've tried every CFL brand I could find locally and they all suck. Most of them have had a shorter lifespan the the incandencents that they are right next to. They also take forever to warm up, and their light ouput drops off after about a month.
Then let other people repopulate the planet for you because you clearly aren't a parent. I'm not an expert in all areas and others here reassured me that the Mercury vapor condensed soon after breakage. I can tell you that the Tx power of wireless LAN is nothing to be concerned about. But the SAR ratings of cellular phones is not something I want my kid putting next to his head for 4 hours a day.
I'm glad you are pretty sure. Since a random Slashdotter is "pretty sure" without making any technical arguments, then I should be pretty sure too. That said, I buy the other poster' arguments about the mercury quickly condensing soon after breakage.
Yes there is. The "standards" were made up so that the incandescents would fail.
There are incandescents on the shelf today that meet the standards. Try again.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Thanks. I didn't realize it condensed right away.
Thanks, I didn't realize it condensed right away. That definitely reassures me. Now to convince my wife!
I said we shouldn't use the tax code to influence people's behavior.
If not taxes, then what else should a country use to influence people's behavior in order to make defense and infrastructure more feasible?
Energy is an infrastructure issue. Taxing inefficient lighting would provide revenue that the United States could invest in research into how to provide energy and use it efficiently. It also becomes a defense issue when various countries unfriendly to the United States have market power in the energy market (e.g. oil-based vehicle fuel), or when countries unfriendly to the United States consider using energy technologies to make weapons of mass destruction.
An income tax shifts taxpayer behavior away from doing things that result in income. The behavior may shift toward doing things that result in capital gains or the like, or it may shift toward just working less and contributing less to the economy.
There's energy-efficient and cost-efficient. Electric heat is the former but not even remotely the latter.
1kWh is equal to 3,413 BTUs. At $0.1109/hWh, that's 9.0kWh/$, or about 31,000BTU/$.
As of April 11, natural gas cost $11.02/1000ft^3. At 1030BTU/ft^3, that's about 94,000BTU/$.
According to Consumer Reports, a "typical gas furnace made in the early 1970s has an AFUE of about 65 percent.", so your $1 of natural gas would get you about 61,000BTU of heat. Compared to a perfectly efficient electrical heat source, that ancient furnace would be approximately half as expensive to run. Newer furnaces can reach upward of 97% efficient, or about one third the price of electric heat.
Electric heat is only efficient in terms of energy conversion. In terms of wallet-to-warmth conversion, it sucks.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
And in a democracy, the government *is* the people
The United States is not a democracy. In order for a representative legislature to work, elected representatives have to represent all their constituents. But in practice, legislators tend to represent for-profit interests more than not-for-profit interests because for-profit interests help them get elected. For example, legislators represent publishers of non-free copyrighted works more than libraries (or for that matter the rest of the fair use industry) because publishers of non-free copyrighted works own the news media, and without news coverage, a candidate can't get his name out to voters in his district.
They have "daylight" color CFLs that I have secretly tested on friends and family for several years now, and when they don't know its a CFL, they think it's an incandescent (hidden by lampshades or other fixtures). I even tried telling some I switched over to CFLs, and they said things like "Oh, yeah... I don't like the color. I thought it looked different" when in reality is was the same daylight CFL bulb before and after.
A lot of this shit is in people's heads, unless you are using the "pure white" bulbs. I use those in the garage and have been experimenting with a little one for bias lighting behind the TV. A lot of the color of lighting is determined by the lampshade as well.
Let me make this clear, if you have CFLs and they have not failed..... YOU ARE ALONE IN THE WORLD!!!!
Well, I've only had a couple failures over the years, and everyone I know has had great success. Your claimed high rate of failure is the thing that's a statistical outlier. I suspect your dimmers might be at fault despite what the bulb manufacturer claims. My experience with dimmers is that they wear out the filament of an incandescent really quickly. The bulbs work, but they begin to noticeably buzz. I got rid of every dimmer that came with my house. Either that or there's something else wrong, assuming you're not exaggerating.
The CFL on my porch is coming up on 14 years. I'm wondering if I should alert the manufacturer and win a prize or something.
Don't like anecdotes? Here's some testing Popular Mechanics did.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/reviews/news/4215199
CFL consistently outperformed incandescent, and this was double blind testing using light meters. The incandescent bulb had a color temp of 2736K. The MaxLite MicroMax CFL was measured at 2738K. You think you'll notice 2 degrees difference?
As for the mercury, power plants emit mercury, too, especially coal plants. The energy savings of CFLs more than offset their minuscule mercury content. Just don't eat the bulbs.
That being said, I would not outright ban any kind of bulb.
Dear AC, Thanks for calling me a moron. The GOP candidates around here are all Tea Partiers. I'll change my voting strategy when I see fit. What makes LEDs viable? I would like 1000 lumen output for $50/bulb.
Because neither the producer of the bulb nor the user of the bulb bear the entire cost of the bulb's inefficiency. Disposal of trash is publicly subsidized in most places. Energy use is subsidized by policies that make energy security a national defense priority. Pollution is a kind of subsidy, only it isn't born by the public at large. It's born by random people who happen to breath the emissions your marginal energy use caused.
Now another theoretically better way to handle this is to figure out the exact marginal cost of all those subsides over what the most efficient choice would be. You then add that marginal cost to the purchase price of your basic Fred Flintstone Argon-Tungsten incandescent bulb. After collecting this tax, you run around distributing proceeds to whomever paid a subsidy. The American taxapyer gets some for his policing of international waters through which petroleum is shipped. The people living near the power plant and breathing emissions get a check too.
The practical problem is that we'd never get the pricing right and we'd *certainly* never get the distribution of the proceeds right if we did this as a tax. But there is a way to get those things *perfectly* right, at least as far as the marginal costs are concerned.
You ban the argon-tungsten incandescent.
As for the admitted injustice done to the would-be purchasers of bang-the-rocks-together-guys dirt cheap argon tungsten bulbs, the closest plug-in replacement would be halogen incandescents. They cost a little more than Bedrock era incandescents, but last longer and are more efficient. Thus most users will actually benefit economically, especially as market forces drive the prices of halogen bulbs down in the post-Bedrock era.
The only people who *don't* benefit are those who have an especial reason to focus on the extreme near-term, say somebody trying to remodel and flip a condo. If he replaces all the old light bulbs with halogen, he may find himself out fifty dollars or so on a hundred thousand dollar transaction (and the buyer of course up by the same amount).
So you have three choices:
(1) Ignore the continuing subsidies of the marginal costs of primitive incandescents.
(2) Attempt to tax the marginal costs of those subsidies away and devise a way to distribute the proceeds fairly. Or
(3) Set efficiency standards in a way that everyone who buys the next better choice (halogen) for their own use won't bear any additional cost over the long term, and that the few who have reason to favor extremely short term perspective won't pay very much.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Bullshit. There are many incandescent bulbs that meet the standard. Just because you don't like them doesn't change the fact that they exist.
Replies to your question are here.
It's 0% efficient, all of the energy is lost to heat!
And uses more energy. If you're problem is insulation, i.e. retaining heat, fix the insulation problem, not just sweep it under the rug by fixing the symptom.
CFLs *may* not be the greatest thing in the world but they are significantly more efficient than incandescent bulbs are.
I'd respect Rep Joe "I'm sorry BP" Barton a bit more (ok at all...) if he actually included things that required increased efficiency without saying what you should buy, but tax the energy hogs of incandescent bulbs...literally they want to stay in the 'stone age' and just use the older style without looking to the future.
I do like that the article states that the mercury issue is largely moot. More mercury is emitted by the coal plants burning fuel for the extra incandescent power usage than is in the CFL bulbs.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
None of my CFL's has failed. There are ten of them I can think of, two of them improperly installed in outdoor fixtures where they are exposed to weather. In the same time I have replaced about half the incandescent bulbs (with other incandescent ones). I agree about other problems with CFL's (such as the color of the cheapo ones I bought from Home Depot) but your claim that they fail often for everybody is a lie.
Who cares.
No one has a right to tell me what I can and cannot buy.
But I have discovered that I can now buy LED bulbs for $7. That's right, $7. But you have to buy them over the Internet, from European distributors such as dealextreme.com. No more bulb changing for me!
I have INCANDESCENT bulbs that buzz worse than any of the CFL's I have. In particular I am pissed off at some high-voltage expensive ceiling fixtures designed to light a wall, which we never use due to the horrible buzzing. An outdoor CFL buzzed a bunch but it turned out the socket was bad (it failed, the CFL still worked in other sockets and no bulbs at all work in that socket any more).
I have no idea how you could possibly get a 20% savings from CFLs.
He didn't mean he saved 20% of his total energy. He is saying that cost of bulbs plus cost of energy is 20% less than it would be for incandescents. Does not sound like a lot to me, but I doubt he is lying.
Wrong. Electricity can be converted to heat with 100% efficiency, but coal cannot be converted to electricity with 100% efficiency, so the total efficiency of electric heat is low. (There is also some loss of electricity in the power lines.)
On the other hand, natural gas can be converted to heat with fairly high efficiency.
Inefficient as in it doesn't work well to actually heat the home.
Not inefficient as in "it doesn't put out a lot of heat".
If you put a propane torch in the far corner of your house, you might be "efficiently" converting fuel to heat (probably not since there's a lot of light coming off too).. but it's not going to efficiently heat the entire house.
This is not a straightforward issue.
yes it is. Incandescent bulbs are a seriously poor way to heat homes.
Light bulbs reduce the need for central heating in cold areas.
And increase it in hot areas which is just about half the US at a minimum in the summer.
They also provide a better light spectrum.
Technology issue that is being solved.
They also aren't as toxic when you break them.
Funny, the article addresses this. *More* mercury is released by the coal plants to power the extra energy needs of incandescent bulbs than is in the CFL bulbs themselves. So the 'toxicity' issue is moot. 'Neither' would be a better option of course.
Of course if you switch to all renewable energy sources the 'efficiency' issue also becomes just about moot since the 'fuel' would be free.
Wanna take odds on what Mr. Joe "I'm sorry BP" Barton thinks about renewable energy?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
While it is true that electrical heat converts 100% of the energy delivered to the device into heat. But this is a highly dishonest measurement. Electricity is not an energy source. It is an energy transfer medium. Here in California most of our electrical is generated by gas. Gas is burned to generated heat (losses from incomplete combustion and transfer to the environment), heat is converted to mechanical energy (thermodynamic losses), mechanical energy is converted to electrical energy (more losses), and more still is lost to resistance in the wires that bring the electrical energy to your home.
Compare this to burning the gas directly in your home, which uses all the heat directly rather than wasting much of it via unnecessary conversions.
Your use of a $0.50 bulb over the course of your lifetime affects others, both in increased energy demand (and thus higher energy prices), and higher pollution rates.
Residential lighting is a somewhat small part of our total energy demands. Instead of trying to regulate each end use piecemeal, why not simply tax the problem? Build plants to resequester carbon long term. Determine cost to sequester a pound of carbon and tax fuels based on how much carbon they contain. Do this for any other pollutants released into the environment as well.
Nice and simple, you internalize the currently external costs. People pay to clean up the waste they impose on others and then can choose to waste however much they want. Best of all, you actually fix the problem by removing the pollutants, instead of just discouraging their release (but actually having virtually no effect). Not only is this the best solution, but it's totally compatible with the libertarian mindset since your rights end where mine start. You have no right to pump pollutants into the public air.
With a space heater-- which includes a lighting device-- 100% of the energy that makes it to the device is radiated as heat or becomes heat once it strikes an opaque surface.
But far less than 100% of the energy that is converted to electric power will make it to a device. Consider generation losses and transmission losses.
Let me add one more anecdotal voice to note that the CFLs I've bought have had an incredible life so far, except for one particular set I bought 10 years ago that was utter crap. On the other hand the Sylvania OSRAM bulbs I bought in the mid 90's when the electric company was subsidizing them for early adopters, were just excellent. It took at least 6 years of daily use, maybe even more before those started to fail. They moved with my twice to different locations.
By the way, my current apartment has CFLs in every light fixture that will accept them. None on dimmers. I wish I could get a CFL to fit into the task-lighting space underneath my microwave oven, because that one incandescent generates a ton of heat in my kitchen.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Pretty much all of the KWH that go into an electric heater come out as heat. A gas burner will always lose some up the chimney or whatever.
But how much of the energy that goes into a generator comes out as electric power? And how much of the energy that comes out of the generator ends up at the customer's premises?
Putting aside the matter of the sanity of the Tea Party platform and proposals, if it's going to take a civil war to undo the insanity of the US system, then a civil war we will have, regardless of who catalyzes it.
CFLs are also toxic: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7431198
Furthermore, when the ban was enacted, in order to produce CFLs at a price people wanted them at, light bulb companies simply moved their factories to China.
Thank God we have the government telling us what to do!
The problem is that people are really, really, bad at TCO calculations. If one bulb is $1, costs $0.50/year to operate, and lasts for two years, and one is $0.10, costs $3/year to operate, and lasts for one year, most people will pick the second bulb, because it's cheaper. The free market requires informed consumers, and I've not seen any evidence that such a creature exists.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There is NO mercury in incandescent bulbs... But the coal used to generate electricity does contain mercury.
I have seen numerous people make the untrue statement that incandescent bulbs contain mercury. They do not. However about 50% of our power still comes from coal - and that does contain mercury (and it is released when power is generated...) But it is not in the bulbs themselves.
Think of it this way - would you rather have a CFL bulb (with mercury) break in your home and be directly exposed to mercury (which is a neurotoxin), or would you rather have it exposed in the environment where it will dissipate greatly so it's concentration in any particular area is minimal? Of course the perfect thing would be a energy source that didn't release anything harmful (in particular, for this post, mercury), and halogen bulbs (think incandescent version 2.0), which saves energy, and doesn't have mercury, either.
Of course all Flourescent bulbs, including CFLs, DO HAVE mercury.
As for LED Bulbs, they don't have mercury but their quality of light is quite poor. Our eyes were designed to receive more than a very limited spectrum of light at a time (read: not natural). They are costly and not great for your eyes. I don't understand why the government didn't give tax breaks or other incentives to adopt halogen bulbs instead. The process would support energy conservation, and allow people to use bulbs that won't catch fire, don't contain dangerous neurotoxins, and emit a higher quality of light (which will help save your eyes from extra strain).
We don't have anyone competent in the government anymore - you know - people who are willing to admit they aren't knowledgeable on a topic - and instead obtain outside input from people in that field - you know - people that know what they are doing. People that have a neutral standpoint (nothing to gain either way) but can provide the pros and cons of changes like this? I mean how hard could it be? When I don't know about something I obtain my opinions after researching both sides of an argument and I come to my own conclusions. I become more knowledgeable in the topic and can defend my opinion well because of it. Haven't we grown beyond having opinions based on either incomplete information or from what our colleagues and friends have said? From what I have seen lately, my opinion is that government officials (at least) have not - how sad!
I think it's time we get these clowns out of congress, before it is too late.
100% of 'what'? Details matter.
As you're numbers indicate you use significantly more electricity in the winter because of heat. I will extrapolate that you don't use significantly less 'light' in the winter than you do in the summer.
So in order to provide the same amount of heat with bulbs as your heaters provide you'd need to be living inside a friggin lighthouse search light in terms of brightness.
Incandescent bulbs do give off more heat than CFLs. They do not give off equivalent heat as actual 'heaters' do. To say nothing of the fact that 'heaters' are on the floor and bulbs generally are 'high up'. That again won't heat well without something else circulating the air further increasing the energy the incandescent bulbs would use.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
The mercury contained within one of those bulbs is a fraction of that produced by the coal power plant supplying that bulb. Even if you didn't properly dispose of the bulb you'd still contaminate the environment far less than what you would powering the equivalent incandescent. I suspect the molten glass part is the most energy intensive and both share that.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
It's worthwhile comparing the Lumens/Watt ratio of the best-of-breed in both Halogen-Incandescent and CFL. I'm looking at the ones I can currently buy in my local store, and find the best Halogen is the "Philips Halogen Energy Saver" at 2100 lumens for 105 Watt. The best CFL is about 1200lm for 18W. In general the Halogen bulb uses about 3.3x the energy of the CFL. BUT...
* CFLs fall to about 50% efficiency over their lifetime; Incandescents remain at 99%
* The light quality of the Halogen is vastly better. Think colour-rendering, warmth, no high-frequency flicker. [Also, strobe effect is dangerous for rotating tools]
* Women look prettier under real light; under CFL (even the best of them), skin complexion looks poor; LEDs are usually even worse.
* Electric heating from lamps makes the wasted energy much lower; and the electricity is potentially green (nuclear/renewable). Although this isn't as efficient as gas heating, people turn on/off the lights as they enter/leave each room, but centrally-heat the whole house.
* These figures are for the UK; the lower voltage in the USA favours halogens slightly.
* CFLs are rarely disposed of properly, and if broken, the mercury is quite hazardous, especially to kids.
* The main problem with CFLs is the emitted spectrum, but the bulbs are ugly too; especially in chandeliers etc, which cannot sparkle.
So...the overall merit figure is quite neutral. Personally, I'd rather stick to tungsten-halogen; be good about turning off the lights that I don't use; and buy nuclear energy. Given this, we should let the consumer choose, and tax the actual CO2 emissions (burning things) rather than specific products.
Also, the north is having a problem with the ban on incandescent light bulbs. Did you know that the heat from those things melted the snow from things light light posts and traffic lights? Yeah, LEDs don't. Kind of sucks not knowing who has the green light...
Was the snow hurting the light post? Are incandescents banned from use in traffic lights or street lights? What is your point?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
What brand are you using in your bathroom? I've been trying to use a mix of incandencent and CFLs in my light bar. I've tried every CFL brand I could find locally and they all suck. Most of them have had a shorter lifespan the the incandencents that they are right next to. They also take forever to warm up, and their light ouput drops off after about a month.
You shouldn't use CFLs in places where you turn the light on and off frequently, especially if it's often on for less than 15 minutes. So bathrooms, closets and the like are not good candidates for CFLs, as such use will dramatically reduce their lifespan. Use one of the newer, more efficient incandescents for those fixtures.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
All other things being equal, I believe people should pay for what they use. People who use energy indirectly use armed services to ensure their access to energy on the global market. So if the public is engaging in activities that create a greater demand for armed services, why not tax such activities to fund the required armed services?
Some caution is certainly in order, but the EPA cleanup instructions are beyond paranoid. Batshit crazy would be a better description. Remove child from room (good idea anyway with broken glass), open window, gently sweep up what you can, sprinkle sulfur over spill and then sweep up again. Then clean normally.
Remember those fever thermometers with mercury that every family had when we were kids? Those had a LOT more mercury in them. They often broke and got no special cleanup at all and there is no plague of nerve damage in our generation, not even for those that played with the mercury.
a buck or two? try $10-$15. and they use shitty electronics that fail more often than not. even if every incandescent was replaced with cfl, we'd still need a nuclear program.
You're lying. They don't cost anywhere near that much unless you're buying very specialized bulbs.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
So you're agreeing with the earlier poster that sales taxes -- which is what the utterly misleadingly-named "fair tax" is -- are regressive, and cause greater harm to the poor and middle class than to the rich?
The view of FairTax proponents is that the combination of a sales tax and an annual deduction is not so regressive, that the annual deduction mitigates the "greater harm to the poor and middle class".
This is not a straightforward issue.
yes it is. Incandescent bulbs are a seriously poor way to heat homes.
How are incandescent bulbs any different than any other form of resistive heating? Resistive heating is safe. (Well, it's safer since there is no chance of suffocation from burning wood or oil.) It's also easy to control. If it is such a poor way to heat homes then why is it so popular? If we just had more nuclear, hydro, and wind electricity generation this would not be an issue and perhaps most everyone would use electric heat.
Light bulbs reduce the need for central heating in cold areas.
And increase it in hot areas which is just about half the US at a minimum in the summer.
Then place the restrictions on the use of these lamps in warm areas of the country. Let the people in Alaska buy the cheap and inefficient lamps if they like.
They also provide a better light spectrum.
Technology issue that is being solved.
Let me know when that problem is solved. Until then I prefer the incandescent.
Funny, the article addresses this. *More* mercury is released by the coal plants to power the extra energy needs of incandescent bulbs than is in the CFL bulbs themselves. So the 'toxicity' issue is moot. 'Neither' would be a better option of course.
I'd rather we use nuclear power to reduce mercury in the environment than sitting in the dark.
Of course if you switch to all renewable energy sources the 'efficiency' issue also becomes just about moot since the 'fuel' would be free.
The price of the fuel is essentially irrelevant. Wind and solar are probably the most expensive ways to produce electricity. That is because of the labor and materials involved to construct and maintain the panels and mills. Just like the CFL bulbs don't add up for me since the cost of buying them do not cover the savings in electricity costs. The bulbs typically fail well before the stated expected life span. Much of this has to do with the fixtures I have in my home, they don't allow the bulbs to stay cool. Some of it might have to do with the low quality power I get, my house is near the end of a long overhead power line which picks up all kinds of noise. The large (100 watt equivalent) lamps seem to handle things well but they don't fit in most of my fixtures.
Technologies competing with incandescent just aren't mature enough yet. I'm confident that they will in time on their own. We don't need federal mandates and subsidies for the inevitable to happen. In some cases these mandates are counter productive since there is a social element to this. People don't like being told what to do and will resist as a matter of course. Let this take it's course naturally and we'll get there. Trying to force the issue only makes enemies.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I have INCANDESCENT bulbs that buzz worse than any of the CFL's I have. In particular I am pissed off at some high-voltage expensive ceiling fixtures designed to light a wall, which we never use due to the horrible buzzing. An outdoor CFL buzzed a bunch but it turned out the socket was bad (it failed, the CFL still worked in other sockets and no bulbs at all work in that socket any more).
I pretty much just have 60w standard bulbs, no special high voltage. Don't think I've ever noticed buzzing from an incandescent. Outdoor was another area where I put two (special outdoor model) CFLs. They made it through the winter but are incredibly dim now. Seems like getting down into the teens a couple nights hurt them badly. Not sure if that's true, but that's what it seemed like.
He didn't mean he saved 20% of his total energy. He is saying that cost of bulbs plus cost of energy is 20% less than it would be for incandescents. Does not sound like a lot to me, but I doubt he is lying.
I see, that makes much more sense. Don't think those numbers worked out for me.
I want LED floodlights so as to never have to replace them again.
I just saw an article pointing out an effort in Texas to go around this light bulb efficiency mandate by producing and selling the bulbs within the state.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-adv-texas-light-bulbs-20110710,0,4858840.story
I believe this has merit. This is the same argument to allow medicinal marijuana in California, and avoid firearm controls and taxes in Montana. The federal government is only empowered to regulate commerce among the states, not within them. If the lamps never enter or leave the state then the federal government has no jurisdiction.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I think my solution for stopping pollution caused by coal plants, would be to stop using coal plants.
Efficiency and conservation of use is important, don't get me wrong. Incentives to that end that is something that is also good. Heck one of the best things you could do towards this end is to get rid of some of the energy subsidies. Simply regulating out a technology that isn't currently in favor seems silly. I am not convinced they actually save money (at least for the consumer). Sure they consume less energy, but they also cost 10-15x as much to buy them. They are supposed to last a very long time, and while they do last longer than their cheap cousins, they don't come close to the 10,000 hours or whatever it is they advertize.
Anyway I see this a a political decision for PR, that is basically irrelevant and takes focus off real issues, like closing those coal plants. But hey, people can see light bulbs and can relate to them. They do not necessarily associate all the pollution they are drowning in that comes from the coal plant that is 50km away.
because lawmakers can write down any meaningless standard they want, without regard to reality. because lawmakers obey those they fill their pockets (mega-corporate interests)
"Whim" is what constitutes the bulk of our economy and power usage. You don't *need* lighting, air conditioning, home computer, books, comfortable bed, etc. in the absolute sense. We're talking about the bulk of money being spent to make life "nice", including most consumer energy consumption (and at least a third of industrial). Don't need some goody-goody enamored with symbolism over substance to come along and tell me I *must* spend money for a light source that 25% of the time fails before it can pay for itself (perhaps negating any energy savings), has horrid colors, contains poisonous heavy metal, etc.
Let me buy what I *want*, and when the price of a good light source is *cheap*, and saves me money, I'll buy it all by myself without a bunch of corrupt evil ignorant dolts in the pocket of mega-corporations (our lawmakers) telling me what to do.
Also I can buy a 20w incandescent bulb that meets the standards. Yet it still gives off 20w of light.
A 20 watt incandescent bulb won't give off anywhere near 20 watts of radiant flux in the visible light spectrum. The theoretical best possible luminous efficacy for white light is 250 lumens per watt, and a 20 watt incandescent bulb might put out 5 percent of that.
The pursuit of happiness I think... oh wait, that's not an enumerated power.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
make that 3-6$ a bulb vs 1$ for a 4 pack, otherwise I agree
CFLs use less energy to produce light than incandescents do - but their lifespan, in my experience, is not nearly as long as promised. Over the whole life cycle, the energy difference may be less than you think.
Incidentally, incandescent bulbs often are used as small heaters because it's very easy to run the infrastructure to one of them. Before I found a small heater that has a thermostat setting for 40 F, I used one to keep my tropical plants (stored in a small shed in the back yard) from freezing in the winter.
Here is what the EPA says about handling a broken CFL: http://www.epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup-detailed.html It DOES say what to do with rugs. It DOES NOT say to throw them out. Also, I read it a couple of times but could not seem to find the bit where you need to throw out your clothes. Perhaps you could provide a citation?
Explain, then, junk food.
It's inexpensive and it tastes delicious. You think that's not valuable to people?
those crappy off-brand cigarette lighters that break before they use all their fuel
Quite a lot of cigarette lighters are lost before they are used up. Disposable ballpoint pens are similar.
What you care about and what you want may be one thing, but the fact remains that this country was _founded_ by a document that declares itself the Supreme Law of the Land. You may wish for lawyers and judges to [re]interpret it, but the lawyers and judges aren't the supreme law of the land, the Constitution is. How do we know what the words in the Constitution really mean? We look to those who wrote it. It's quite logical.
This nation was set up, specifically, as a loosely coupled grouping of states and a very limited federal government. If that's not to your liking, that's your perrogative. You have free will, and may choose to find another place to live. The only other choice is to change/amend the Constitution to suit your desires. And the founding fathers were smart enough to build in such a feature. It is not legal or ethical, however, to simply ignore the Supreme Law of the Land. Nor is it wise, as it will inevitably come back to bite you in the ass, as history has proven countless times.
Your claims that CFLs ($2.85) are 10-15x more expensive than equivalent incandescent ($1.27) bulbs are grossly exaggerated.
BTW: on a side note the CFL brand I linked to (EcoSmart) are quite good. Two years now, nearly every bulb in house never had to replace a single one, light output pleasant to the eyes.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
BTW, there's a reason we don't use halogen bulbs everywhere. They're too hot. They represent a significant increase in fire risk over standard incandescent bulbs, and thus are unsuitable for many light fixtures.
A halogen bulb produces slightly more light per watt of input than an incandescent bulb. For both types of bulbs, what is not given off as light is given off as heat. Since the halogen bulb is more efficient, then it will actually be cooler for the same light output.
The reason you have the misconception that halogen bulbs are "too hot" is that you are thinking of the 300 or 500 watt bulbs, which do get very hot. But, 300W incandescent photo floods get even hotter than a 300W halogen. I have some 100W and 25W halogen bulbs, and they get no hotter than an equivalent incandescent.
Until CFLs and LCDs can be easily used in all applications that incandescent and halogen are currently used (control by dimmer and really bright bulbs are two that CFLs and LCDs both have problems handling), there really is no easy way to switch over.
Yep, the government exists to see to our collective interests, especially when our individual interests are in conflict with the aggregate. That's kind of the whole point of governance.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Not that this is a good argument for keeping incandescent bulbs for other uses but has anybody made a CFL that will work inside an oven yet? How good are they in the fridge?
I don't see where it says to destroy clothing. It particularly allows you to clean up carpet. http://www.epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup-detailed.html
Wait... you're telling me that if Congress stopped working on all their subcommittees and whatnot for some period of time, the local police forces, courts, and legal systems would just sort of vanish and we'd all be running around in whatever we could scavenge from our unlucky neighbors?
That's one hell of a slope on that graph.
Congress makes laws and provides funding. It's up to the Executive branch to execute those laws. Closing Congress for any period of time would not constitute the death of the nation as long as the bills continued to be paid. It would just cease to change. I cannot see any logical path to Anarchy. I think the jump you've made is a bit irrational.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I see, that makes much more sense. Don't think those numbers worked out for me.
I want LED floodlights so as to never have to replace them again.
Yeah, unfortunately LED lights don't have an infinite lifespan, they degrade over time getting dimmer with age, so you will have to replace those as well
-jon
I will let Mr Dickens opine on that decision..
If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass, a idiot! If that's the eye of the law, then the law is a bachelor. And the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience.
Seriously, I know what it says, but truly if you give a whit about the limitations on what the government can do that has to have been one of the worst decisions of the court, up there with Kelo v. New London. The application of Kelo is just offensive each time it is used, Wickard is pernicious in the almost limitless power it grants to congress which they are happy to use at every turn.
-jon
Most pig tail lights are not supposed to be used in enclosed lighting fixtures. Do you have any expensive interior or exterior fixtures? TOO BAD, THE GOV'T EXPECTS YOU TO REPLACE THEM. LOL
Many special-purpose incandescents are given a pass on the new regs, and there are already newer, more efficient incandescents on the shelf, and more on the way. So, no, you don't have to replace your fixtures.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Well I am glad to hear they work for some people, but it is only online that I every encounter such people as yourself.
The issue isn't the dimmers, they fail in the non-dimmed sockets as well.
One of the issues I think is that all most all my lighting is overhead so the bulbs get too hot probably. However most of those are floods so they presumably should have been built for such locations. But I have had the bulbs fail in completely open fixtures. I've tried different styles from different makers. Whatever it is they don't work. Again maybe its the nature of the power supplied to my home, whatever it is, I don't care, trying to make me use something which doesn't work. And to make me use it for the wrong reasons is just wrong, pure and simple.
As for mercury from coal plants, well the emit lots of radiation to, but that doesn't seem to bother people, but the point source radiation from a site in Japan seems to have well as truly freaked people out. The same it true of CFLs, the amount of mercury the nearest coal plant subjects me to is quite insignificant, while if I break a CFL in my house the exposure will be quite a lot higher, and that is the difference and the issue.
-jon
I call bullshit.
A brief search of the Snopes website via Google turns up information that swats the majority of your disinformation: Light Fingered. It includes step-by-step EPA guidelines for cleaning up a broken CFL on either a hard or carpeted surface. At no point in the guidelines does the EPA recommend getting rid of the carpet or even the clothes you were wearing when you were "exposed" to the bulb.
Your son is more at risk from the fish he eats -- and the fish your wife ate while pregnant -- than he is from that incidental exposure.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Perhaps I was mixing up the guidance found here: http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/
I probably got that information here: http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/
The problem is, how sure are you that this ban/energy efficiency requirement does a better job of managing the externalities than the market? What about the externalities of the manufacture and disposal of the new lightbulbs? You assume that because the market does not make the decision that you think it should, that the market has failed. It is more likely that there are factors that the market has adjusted for that you are unaware of, than that there are factors you are aware of that the market has not accounted for. The reverse is not impossible, just less likely.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Many popular 4' and 8' fluorescent tubes will no longer be available after July 2012 due to the new standards. Say you have an older fixture with an F34T12/CW tube for example. If it burns out, you'll have three options. One is to install a new ballast that is compatible with a high efficiency T8 tube. This will result in savings but requires the purchase of a new ballast and disposal of the old one, which has an environmental impact as well. Two, purchase a replacement tube compatible with the existing ballast which produces more lumens per watt but costs more and still uses the same amount of energy (such as an F34T12/841 triphosphor tube). Although more efficient, the additional output will probably not be enough to shut off any tubes without changing the layout of your fixtures. A third option is to buy a bulb that is exempt, such as F34T12/CWX because it meets the color rendition standards even though it is actually less efficient. This may be the cheapest option, but in order to account for the lower output, you'll probably need to use the 40W version, which would circumvent the efforts in the 1990s to reduce the wattage of the most common 4' T12 tubes from 40W to 34W.
How could we make lava lamps work without inefficient incandescent light bulbs?
There are no more incandescent light bulb factories in the US. This is another way to keep jobs in China. Hello Congress. WTF. Let's save energy and save the environment at the same time.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706933.html
You're confusing instantaneous efficiency with lifetime efficiency, and confusing infrared emissions with envelope temperature. Not all infrared emissions from an incandescent bulb are turned into surface heat on the bulb's envelope.
First, it's important to understand that a halogen bulb is more efficient over its life because filament redeposition ensures that the filament does not get thinner (and thus less effective at producing light) and that the inside of the bulb remains clear of deposits from the filament (which reduces light output). So although a brand new halogen bulb is more efficient than a brand new standard incandescent bulb, the difference for new bulbs isn't nearly as high as the difference over the lifetime of the bulb.
Second, in order for that redeposition to occur, the envelope must remain extremely hot (250 C/482 deg. F), regardless of the wattage of the bulb. (Source: The Great Internet Light Bulb Book, Part I) If a bulb is running cooler than that, it isn't getting any real gain from being a halogen bulb. To put that in perspective, a 100 watt incandescent bulb, according to safety standards, is not allowed to get over 247C/477 deg. F. (Source: allexperts) So the absolute minimum effective envelope temperature for a halogen bulb is roughly the same as the absolute maximum allowed for a 100 watt bulb.
Therefore, fixtures that are only rated for 40 watt incandescent bulbs cannot safely support a halogen bulb. This effectively rules out the safe use of halogen bulbs in the majority of table lamps and many floor lamps.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Thermodynamics says bullshit.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
CFL usually are much hotter than 30C. Mercury vapor pressure rises pretty quickly with temperature. Comparing with water makes no sense at all, water is not the dangerous poison that mercury is to children.
And while all the mercury was probably not in vapor phase when the lamp broke, if there was a spill in a carpet there is not chance at all to be able to recover it, and the mercury would poison the air possibly for some time.
LED is better than halogen - you don't irradiate your child with UVB and UVC (and that glass ain't filtering all of it, FYI.)
LED is also much more viable. Keep an eye on the market, it changes every couple months with each new advancement.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
And uses more energy. If you're problem is insulation, i.e. retaining heat, fix the insulation problem, not just sweep it under the rug by fixing the symptom.
A washbucket with a scrubbing board takes less energy than a washing machine, so why don't we ban washing machines too? I'm sure that China will happily build all the replacements we need.
Just because something is more efficient, doesn't mean that it will work as a good replacement. In fact, regular light bulbs are frequently used as a load for a lot of electrical testing. A fluorescent would not work in this operation at all. But, we are not allowed even these exceptions. We are obviously too stupid to decide on these things on our own.
Anyway, it's too late already. All the American light bulb plants have been forcibly shut down, so if you want incandescent bulbs, you'll need to buy them from China.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
If there were value in being more efficient, bulbs would be more efficient.
Econ 101: this does not hold if there are externalities. Excessive energy use leads to pollution (among other things), which is usually a textbook example of a negative externality.
Are you adequate?
Second, in order for that redeposition to occur, the envelope must remain extremely hot (250 C/482 deg. F), regardless of the wattage of the bulb.
Ah this could explain why the halogen bulb I got to test as a replacement for a 60W incandescent bulb died after 2 months while the incandescent bulb I used before had lasted for over 3 years at that point: I ran them dimmed at 60%.
The salesman said they supported dimming, but that must have been just temporarily. My incandescent bulbs lasted another year before I moved...
A washbucket with a scrubbing board takes less energy than a washing machine
And it also uses quite a bit more water...just like washing dishes by hand uses more water than a dishwasher. Of course both of those examples are time duration activities...providing light is not. Nice try though :)
Just because something is more efficient, doesn't mean that it will work as a good replacement.
Yep, we should just go back to horse n buggy, because those things used less energy and produced net zero emissions.
The 'most efficient' at the task at hand is what is important, rather than the energy used. The time saved by driving versus horseback, by not washing dishes or clothes by hand also factor into that 'efficiency' since i can do multiple things at once that you can't doing them by hand.
Providing light is the job in this case and using less energy to do the job *is* a worthy goal.
Anyway, it's too late already. All the American light bulb plants have been forcibly shut down, so if you want incandescent bulbs, you'll need to buy them from China.
This is a valid point. I would have preferred to simply tax incandescent bulbs to price the CFL's competitively. I wonder who opposed such types of taxes hmm? Oh yes, Mr. Joe "I'm sorry BP" Barton and his GOP brethren. They've made this bed with their 'no tax is a good tax' orthodoxy and they get the blame for such things.
It's also amazing how *saving* consumers BILLIONS per year is somehow bad according to you and the GOP. Party of fiscal responsibility be damned! The 'tax and spend' Dems are far more fiscally responsible.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I use CFLs *outside* all year round, they'll work just fine in a fridge. LEDs would actually be more suited to that anyway.
Is an oven light really something worth spending 12 BILLION dollars a year on? Perhaps there's an exception for such things, I don't know. Personally I would have preferred a tax tariff on all incandescent bulbs to price them competitively with CFLs then let the market really decide which is best.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Incidentally, incandescent bulbs often are used as small heaters because it's very easy to run the infrastructure to one of them.
This was actually something that even engineers missed when they started replacing traffic signal bulbs with CFLs. Come winter a lot more snow built up because there wasn't as much heat being produced.
These situations are the exception rather than the rule and there are solutions available to correct the problems.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I'm not saying there aren't diodes with that. I'm saying you try and order a light that goes in a socket with that. Most you find are lower than CFLs. Not a lot lower, but lower. This is one of the few I've seen that is higher.
Reducing power consumption is a worthwhile goal. But before telling people what light sources they can and cannot use, we should consider the effect those light sources have on human visual development. (“Think of the children!”) I’m surprised I haven’t heard anyone mention the spectral power distributions (SPDs) of light sources in this debate.
You can compare SPDs of some different light sources at, for example, SPD Curves. Select “Update graph” to choose the data series to chart. You can overlay multiple SPD curves for comparison. The curves are all normalized sensibly.
Among the data sets provided there, these light sources seemed closest to daylight in their classes, in arguably decreasing order of daylight approximation:
Nature Studio2 Filtered Daylight [daylight baseline]
Solux 12V Diachroic [tungsten halogen 12 VDC MR16]
LSI LumeLEX 2040-C4M2-6S [LED + cold phosphor fixture]
Philips 50Par30L-WFL40 [tungsten halogen PAR30]
Cooper DL11-WS-WW [multi-die LED fixture]
GE F40W/AD [fluorescent T12]
Pro-Lite Daylight SRI-30W Par 30 [compact fluorescent PAR30]
Compare them and decide which light source you’d choose to supply to a human vision system that evolved under daylight.
The Solux’s (tungsten halogen) SPD looks great, but Solux lamps are only available as 120 VAC PAR and 12 VDC MR16. The LSI’s (LED + cold phosphor) SPD looks good, but it’s a big museum light fixture. The Philips’s (tungsten halogen) SPD looks OK, and tungsten halogen lamps are widely available in a bunch of common form factors. The Cooper’s (LED) SPD looks mediocre, and it’s another exotic lamp form factor. The GE’s (fluorescent) SPD looks bad, and the Pro-Lite’s (compact fluorescent) SPD looks terrible.
In short: tungsten halogen > tungsten > LED > fluorescent.
I wouldn’t be in a hurry to eradicate tungsten lamps. LED and fluorescent lamps have a ways to go before approaching the SPD of tungsten lamps.
We have young children, and I’m concerned about the effect the light sources we use in the house have on their developing visual systems. The human visual system evolved under daylight. It seems reasonable to prefer light sources that more closely approximate the SPD of daylight. So we use tungsten halogen lamps throughout the house. We won’t change over to LED or compact fluorescent lamps until they offer SPDs substantially closer to daylight’s.
When I moved into this apartment a few years ago, I bought a 6-pack of Phillips branded Compact Fluorescent bulbs and replaced most of the incandescent light bulbs. So far none of them have failed (the only bulbs I havent replaced is one in the outside lamp because I almost never use that light and one in the toilet because the fixture is slightly broken and I havent figured out how to get the bulb out without damaging the fixture further.)
And for those who say CF bulbs take longer to start or dont give of enough light, I have a CF in the bathroom and the incandescent in the toilet on the same switch and I cant tell the difference in startup times or light output.
And you happened to miss the bright blue-and-green .jpg on the right side of the page that says, "Learn more about the cleanup and safe disposal of compact fluorescent light bulbs"? You could've saved yourself the replacement cost of a carpet with a little attention to detail.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
incredibly useful on those cold nights in the tropics.
Or in the desert as my friends in Tucson found out last winter (their lines froze when the temp dipped just below freezing because no one had insulated them).
I don't entirely disagree, but the current negotiations involve those congress critters on the various budget related committees. In other words, most of congress doesn't have a relevant voice in the current debate and are therefore free to continue the day to day business of the congress while they wait for the budget committees to give them something to vote upon. Or would we rather that these congress critters (being uninvolved with the actual negotiations) spend the bulk of their time giving lengthy, pointless speeches about how important it is that the budget committees come to a compromise?
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
The carpet was shot anyways ;-)
Ah, well, in that case, it's all good. :)
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
They also aren't as toxic when you break them.
Funny, the article addresses this. *More* mercury is released by the coal plants to power the extra energy needs of incandescent bulbs than is in the CFL bulbs themselves. So the 'toxicity' issue is moot.
Not completely. GP was talking about a very localized/concentrated toxic amount of Hg that requires a Hazmat team to properly dispose of the breakage. You're talking about a whole-environment slight increase in Hg in parts-per-million style.
I switched my entire house to CFL's. I have had to replace ONE bulb in that time - and that was not a result of burnout, but a result of a lamp that got knocked over.
Did you clean up the mercury properly?
Personally I would have preferred a tax tariff on all incandescent bulbs to price them competitively with CFLs then let the market really decide which is best.
...wow
GP was talking about a very localized/concentrated toxic amount of Hg that requires a Hazmat team to properly dispose of the breakage.
A single bulb breaking requires a hazmat team? sources please...
You're talking about a whole-environment slight increase in Hg in parts-per-million style.
Quite right, when you convert localized single bulb mercury to parts per million it doesn't even register. Systemic wide area pollution of greater amounts is much worse. Which was my point.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
...wow
My thoughts exactly!
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
he Republicans want us to buy less-efficient bulbs so we can waste power on light and A/C
I have a lamp on an end table that probably gets used a half hour a day on average. I finally found a nice 3-way CFL for it last month. It fit the lamp, had a good color temperature, and the 3-way feature mostly worked (it had a good high/low distinction anyhow - I really only need 2-way. $9.97 at the store, but the box said I'd save $112 over the life of the bulb.
My 4-year old knocked the lamp on the floor two weeks after I installed it. He probably got a good whiff of mercury vapor from it.
From now on, CFL's only go on lamps that are fixed and out of reach. I have lots of them all over the house, but I'm going to stock up on incandescents too before they're gone. News flash for Congress: Americans tend to have children. News update: millions of people making financial decisions infinitely outclasses the societal engineering you're failing at.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I don't agree that that is more likely. The market does a terrible job of considering both the long term and externalities. This has been proven, again and again. So the claim that it does a better job is well ... just a bit ludicrous.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I don't accept the committee argument. Sounds too much like a "not my job" cop-out.
It's also not a necessity to be on the committee to hold sway over the negotiations. In fact, that's not the case here. The Tea Party is a major political block (as are the Blue Dogs and various other caucuses) which is forcing the hand of the Republican leadership to negotiate against raising the debt ceiling (or at least pretend to, as it seems may be happening) They're not in ways & means (other than Paul Ryan, and he's been in hiding for weeks), but they have enough voting power to block any partisan vote. Modern politics then dictates that the remaining Republicans cannot simply ignore them and vote in bipartisan fashion on what has never been a very controversial issue.
And here's how it should work: There are only 435 people in the country with that kind of access. 441 when you count the non-voting delegates (who actually contribute far to the legislative process than most of the voting members in the house). In theory, they're supposed to be smart and knowledgeable, granted, not all experts in specific fields like the committee members but bright enough to be of use funneling the best ideas the country has to offer to committee members who participate in negotiations as the final step in a much bigger process. Why the American public doesn't expect this of them continues to baffle me. Of course it's no wonder lobbyists are the ones at the table. We're not because we're too busy watching the Capitol Hill soap opera.
I'd expect the life to be comparable to that of a normal incandescent bulb if you don't have redeposition going on, but I could be wrong. You probably just got a dud. Either that or there might have been some fun harmonic thing going on where a PWM dimmer hits the filament at just the right rate to cause constructive interference a la the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.... :-) But probably just a bad bulb.
Every so often, I get an incandescent that lasts just a few weeks. And then I get another one that lasts ten years. It's pretty much random luck a far as I can tell, though you can extend the life of any incandescent bulb (including halogens) a bit by using a circuit that fades the bulbs up to full brightness from zero instead of slamming the power on and off... or by never turning it off....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If you think it *isn't*, you clearly need to take your own advice. Here's a hint - most "libertarians" are conservatives, no matter what they say publicly.
When I was a little kid, I broke more than one mercury thermometer, and played with the neat silver stuff. My parents didn't freak out, but they did discourage me from continuing.
Once again, somebody invoking the holy mantra of The Market. Words like "freedom" and "choice" have been prostituted into being meaningless catchwords that gloss over otherwise glaring nonsense.
One of the things people tend to overlook is the "poverty paradox": If you are rich, you can afford to buy good quality that is expensive, but lasts for ages, whereas if you are poor, you are forced to buy cheap crap that wears out in an instant; poor people end up spending more money on goods than the rich.
No attempt was made to improve efficiency for decades, until this legislation.
CFL's are dreadful; like incandescents, they break easily, only with that extra added benefit of releasing mercury and UV should you not notice one's been damaged. And the light from them - just horrible.
Solid state lighting is the real winner here, it's widespread adoption is inevitable. Far, far more durable, vibration and impact resistant, much longer-lasting, far more energy efficient, and ever improving color rendering. Operation in low temperatures just improves brightness and efficiency, break one and it's not an environmental hazard, your kids and pet aren't going to cut themselves on the glass shards and be poisoned by mercury released.
All our outdoor and most used bulbs have been replaced with quality solid state LEDs for over a year now, we're never going back.
Nice, cool, UV free light with great color rendering, less eye strain, and a lower electric bill - what's not to love ?
That annoying bulb that's hard to replace ? Slap a solid state bulb in that fixture and forget about it for 15 + years.
More signage, signaling, and parking lot lighting is going solid-state. They cost more, but last far longer, are more reliable, and use way less electricity while burning up less power in the form of waste heat than anything else.
So, yeah, this time a law was enacted because people and industry weren't going to do the intelligent and responsible thing on their own. But feel free to complain about the stupid new law that infringes on your right to make everything more expensive for everybody in the future instead of all the stupid and irresponsible people that complain their right to screw us all over has been taken away.
I live in an area where poor people use light bulbs to heat pump houses and water meter covers. Only in extreme cold, since nearly everyone's pretty well insulated down to around -10 Celsius. A 100W bulb is the cheapest, easiest and probably the safest way to heat a small area and no I don't think it would be fair to force these people to buy a more-expensive heating device. Let the leftists attack me now, we all know that deep under their do-gooder personas they really think the poor are inferior, inept and should be rounded up in prison-like housing projects.
I live in a winter belt. These bulbs cannot be used outside in winter, as the moment the temperature drops to (10F) -10C, they wont start. Also, they don't fit in my refridgerator, or my cooking oven. With a new bulb, you get early enfant mortality. And try and take them back to the store to honor the guarantee--wow. Wow because you buy a package of a dozen, and it is only a few months later that you go to replace bulbs and find your hitting DOA.s When there is an efficient bulb for cold temperatures and one that wont melt in the summer heat, and one that can act as a replacement to the regular bulb, then and only then I might consider. And we can still buy light bulbs as low cost high quality Chinese imports.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Do you have a point, or are you just ranting? The difference between a cheap lighter and a Bic is something like fifty cents. Even a paranoid schizophrenic living under a bridge can afford that difference if durability is really a concern.
As for the "holy mantra of The Market", I have to ask: don't you think a Snickers bar is delicious? Is it some kind of religious nuttery to suggest that people enjoy eating candy, and thus will pay for it?
As I recall a package of 4 CFL was like 10$. A package of 8 normal bulbs was .99 cents. Even you example shows the CFL at 6$ or 4x the price (not 2.85).
Actually I lied. The cheapest I could find at Canadian tire was 7.99 for 2 bulbs. which is 15 for 4, which is 30 for 8. Compare that with a pkg of 8 for 99 cents.
30:1 cost ratio. Are you going to save that over the life of the bulb? Are you actually coming out ahead? breaking even? Depends how expensive your electricity is I suppose, which as I already mentioned is highly subsidized.
(3) 100W bulbs, 4 hours a day = a lot of energy.
Replace that with (3) 25W bulbs, 4 hours a day and you save about $15/yr with $0.14/kWh prices around these parts. So while it's not a huge power savings (compared to the cost of running a fridge / computer / TV / other electronics) it is definitely more then a tiny blip.
Incandescent bulbs are rather easy to justify replacing. The new bulb just has to cost less then $5 and last for more then a year.
CRT monitors, however, are still a tough sell. Old units towards the end of the era where they got more efficient were in the 75-90W range for 17". To replace that with a 19" LCD you only save maybe 60W. Assume 2000 hours per year of use (typical 9-5 office work hours) and $0.14/kWh and it is only $17/year savings. A new LCD monitor (quality one that will last as long as the CRT did) is about $150. That's about an eight year payback. Although I guess if you include the heat that the CRTs throw off, it could be lower like 5 years.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
If you think it *isn't*, you clearly need to take your own advice. Here's a hint - most "libertarians" are conservatives, no matter what they say publicly.
That depends on your definition of conservative. Given that all these political terms are highly jumbled and (duh) highly politicized the meanings can be ambiguous and many people don't know what they're saying. For instance, I would call myself a classical liberal. Most people would call me conservative or libertarian. I'm extremely libertarian/conservative on economic issues (since they frequently align) and libertarian on social issues. Many republicans would call me leftwing on social issues. But this is just what I--like many other libertarians--say publicly. I guess you've caught on to the fact that we're all lying.
One of my friends worked at the Cato institute for a couple years. His observation was that the republican/democrat divide was fairly close. That there were definitely more republicans than democrats (and a third block of non-voters/neither party) but that it was not a huge difference. The libertarian vote does go back and forth. At this point in time I would agree with you that libertarians align far more with republicans than with democrats. Says more about the parties than about libertarians.
I read fewer blogs now than I used to, but I regularly checked out the Volokh Conspiracy, HuffPo, Slashdot, Watts Up, RealClimate, and occasionally if I'm in a masochistic mood, Kos. Slashdot may not be nearly as hateful/seething/leftwing as Kos, but I can think of no definition of "conservative circle jerk" that is remotely applicable. Do this--create two fake accounts and on the next political article post something hateful rightwing screed on one account and a hateful leftwing screed. There's of course a chance both get upmodded or downmodded, but I've done this before several times and in my small experience, the leftwing posts are more likely to get modded up. Random posts that seem to have a rightwing POV get modded down more often. Again IMHO, your mileage may vary.
It appears that the bill failed to pass the house. The final vote was 233 for it 193 against it. Even though it had a simple majority it failed to achieve the two thirds majority required for expedited action. Republicans are expected to try again to pass it shortly but this time requiring only a simple majority.
Time to offend someone
BTW, there's a reason we don't use halogen bulbs everywhere. They're too hot. They represent a significant increase in fire risk over standard incandescent bulbs, and thus are unsuitable for many light fixtures.
I'm willing to believe you, but I'd like a little clarification. Given my extremely basic understanding of the laws of thermodynamics, if a halogen bulb produces the same amount of light as an incandescent with less energy, then it must be *wasting* less on other things, the most obvious one being heat. If a halogen bulb produces the same light and *MORE* heat than an incandescent, then it must necessarily use more energy?
Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
It's sad to see our country crashing down in ruins, and EVERYTHING our president tries to do to stop it is IMMEDIATELY STOMPED ON by his political enemies, the Rebuplican Party. You could also see this as another attempt by rich people (aka Republicans) to make a little more money, a little faster, and to hell with the consequences for the environment or the economy.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829662/
Those of us that build UV-emitting medical devices know better, and I design lamps from the ground-up.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
That is how you deal with a "large" liquid mercury spill, say from a broken thermometer as the page indicates. That response is overkill for a broken CFL. You can tell that by the direct link on the mercury spill page to the CFL cleanup instructions I provided. It's in bold titled "specific information about how to clean up broken fluorescent bulbs". There is also a pretty picture of a CFL. Clicking on it provides links to other information on CFLs and mercury that contains facts an opposed to FUD.
Tragedy of the commons doesn't apply in this case. If I shiver in the dark the power plant down the road will still create nearly the same pollution as if I didn't. What's more, I'm paying for using that extra power. But it's cool, we can just shift from pollution at the power plant to mercury and other pollution in different places. Unless you think those CFLs grow on trees. :)
Your "nearly" defeats your own argument. The difference in pollution versus not is proportional to the savings on your power. Multiply that by every household and it becomes a lot of savings.
And the mercury in CFLs is much less than the mercury spewed by the power plant.
And yes, I'd be fine with requiring electricity plants to capture and store all pollutants (including CO2) and repealing the efficiency standards. Let people pay the true cost for their electricity and they can decide how to waste it (or not).
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
The mercury in CFLs is a red herring. There's more mercury spewed from power plants.
And don't think that the light bulb/CFL factories wouldn't have moved to China anyway. Do you somehow think this one industry would have stayed in the U.S. if not for this legislation, while every other industry not subject to it moved regardless?
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Being that in another post you mentioned Canadian Tire, it may be the case that Home Depot's web site detected you were coming from Canada and provided you with location specific content. For US customers though the EcoSmart 4-pack 14 watt CFL is indeed $2.85 US and the Philips 4-pack equivalent (60 watt) incandescent is $1.27 US. I suppose this suggests that the US market has economies of scale in effect on CFLs. Probably due in large part to this bill they're trying to repeal.
BTW: how did a tire store ever turn into a home improvement store?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Furthermore, when the ban was enacted, in order to produce CFLs at a price people wanted them at, light bulb companies simply moved their factories to China [heartland.org].
Yes, because those nice people at GE needed the government to tell them how to make more money. It's not as if they would have ever thought to move their factories to China if the government hadn't passed this law. As the last incandescent factory in North America, I think that factory was doomed regardless of what the government did.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
In addition, the feedback of the increased cost of inefficiency is poor due to the conflating of the energy cost of the product with all other energy costs.
If electricity bills could breakdown costs so that they had a line item for "lighting", people would be much more likely to see and understand the difference between efficient and inefficient lighting.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Seeing as most of this stuff is likely made in China, perhaps it is just being subsidized to be cheaper.
Or maybe that is it, perhaps the cheap ones come from China and the more expensive ones come from the US, and it is a bid to keep jobs and money in the US, rather than have anything to do with actual energy conservation or pollution control.
Call me cynical, but I usually find these things to be more sideways than straight forward.
I thought about me coming from Canada as well might be the cause.
However I thought it interesting that the CFL was the only one that increased. The other one stayed at 1.27$ So unless homedepot is selectively applying Canadian currency or there is a website error, something else is going on. As I said, could be a big US subsidy (that perhaps you don't get if you don't live in the US) is being applied to make them more "competitive"...
I fail to see your argument. LED TVs are more energy efficient than Plasma -- do we ban plasma TVs? Civics are more energy efficient than practically every sports car out there -- do we ban sports cars? Flywheels are more efficient than batteries -- do we ban batteries? Nuclear power is more efficient than solar -- do we ban solar power? Simply saying that something is an exact replacement and is better in every single way is ludicrous, especially considering the very large group of people that still want these things. Clearly they have _some_ purpose or value, or people wouldn't want them. Why do you give a damn why people want them? Some say they like the warmth(heat), some prefer the color, some don't want to deal with mercury, some have extreme temperatures to deal with -- whatever the concern, incandescents have a purpose -- if there was a perfect replacement, they would obsolete themselves (much as the horse and buggy has, or the water bucket to wash clothes). Ask yourself why the horse-and-buggy or water bucket didn't have to be explicitly banned to fall into obsolescence whereas the incandescent bulb for some reason does...
Ask yourself why the horse-and-buggy or water bucket didn't have to be explicitly banned to fall into obsolescence whereas the incandescent bulb for some reason does...
Maybe perhaps because the cars didn't have to have their 'waste' cleaned up on the streets of cities, think about how much they would cost if you had to pay for all the CO2 released? There are a lot of reasons why cars are not as good as horses. Cars don't make more of themselves. They contribute to global warming. They can't be 'fueled' simply by tying them up in the yard.
Equally, there are even more reasons why cars are a massive upgrade from horses, which is why they supplanted horse and buggies.
Some say they like the warmth(heat)
This is complete rubbish, only the truly misinformed (or wildly specific user - see the post above about growing tropical plants in the winter) believe they get actual usable heat out of bulbs.
some prefer the color
Funny how corporate america seems to function ok using pretty much all fluorescent bulbs. People will get over it and the tech will improve. In the mean time, we'll be saving 12 billion dollars a year that we don't have to pay in taxes to build more power plants.
some don't want to deal with mercury
Since coal is the primary power source today, you're already getting *more* mercury than the CFLs would possibly contribute to the environment. And that's only if they aren't disposed of properly. There's no way currently to stop the coal mercury from being released.
some have extreme temperatures to deal with
Which is why I would have preferred not banning but taxing incandescents to drive desired behavior.
whatever the concern, incandescents have a purpose
To give off light. Which other technologies do more efficiently.
if there was a perfect replacement, they would obsolete themselves (much as the horse and buggy has
Just like renewable sources of energy will supplant fossil fuel sources...Eventually. But if there are downsides to the status quo that cause serious consequences, do you keep doing the status quo until the consequences are so massive it costs double or triple the problem to fix? Or do you start driving desired behavior prior to reaching that tipping point?
The latter is far and away cheaper in the long run. But you apparently don't want to think of the world you're leaving to your children.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
the amount of mercury the nearest coal plant subjects me to is quite insignificant, while if I break a CFL in my house the exposure will be quite a lot higher, and that is the difference and the issue.
It's 5 mg. Just don't lick the glass shards. I don;t even get the radiation analogy. Are you comparing a broken CFL to a nuclear core meltdown? o.O
As some other folks said, maybe it's the quality of your local power provider.
Throughout history the market has consistently done a better job of prioritizing economic activity than central planning by a margin that is not even close. This has been proven more often than your claim.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I see no evidence this is true. I think it's far more likely to actually achieve the goal of reducing power plant emissions. People do respond to price signals.
We have LEDs in our Samsung fridge. Like it.
I'd love to use LED lighting everywhere but it is too darn expensive for me still.
CFLs suck IMO.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I'd love to use LED lighting everywhere but it is too darn expensive for me still.
This is *exactly* what I'm talking about. You tax the incandescent bulbs rather than outright ban them and use the money to subsidize the currently more expensive 'better' option. So you can buy the LEDs cheaper, and we all get to save money and the environment by not burning as much coal :)
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
The world does not work that way. Simply getting more people to buy something does not automatically advance the technology at a faster rate. In addition, it may have unforeseen consequences that work against you. As some have stated in this thread (as a for-instance), have you calculated the ecological cost of "cars driving to CFL light bulb disposal locations" when seeing the total picture? Or the added complexity and manufacturing requirements of the CFL and impacts of the factories producing those bulbs?
But all that aside, its foolish to attempt to "drive desired behavior" towards a solution that simply doesn't meet what people want. It makes far more sense to spend money to actually research better tech that accomplishes the task. For instance, better "instant-on" tech for CFLs that isn't a flat-out lie would certainly make me want them more.
Finally, as far as "total picture" goes, there are _far_ more impactful targets to go after than light bulbs. If you look at my monthly energy bill, a _very_ small portion comes from light bulbs (even incandescent). Why not go after better home build quality (insulation, windows, etc) or better HVAC systems (SEER ratings)? These are things that would truly be 100% transparent to a home owner vs the light bulb issue where there are a plethora of things that make the CFL experience distinctly different from the incandescent. The impact would also be far more substantial.
So ultimately, I have no problem with incentiving green tech, but I have more of a problem with taxing non-green tech into oblivion (especially when said green tech simply doesn't measure up as a replacement). Bang for buck as well as lifestyle impact also matters greatly.
As for the "holy mantra of The Market", I have to ask: don't you think a Snickers bar is delicious? Is it some kind of religious nuttery to suggest that people enjoy eating candy, and thus will pay for it?
Snickers: Funny you should mention it; I actually find Snickers quite disgusting, but of course, there's no accounting for taste.
"Nuttery": Was that a deliberate pun? A good one, I have to say. I was commenting on the tedious repetition of the phrase "unnecessary restrictions on the market" - we have heard it over and over, although perhaps it is now wearing a bit thin; about time too.
I thin you are twisting the issue here - by suggesting that I am somehow arguing against something that is trivially true ("people will pay for what they enjoy"), you try to derail my argument. A bit stupid, I think, since I talking about something different, namely the blinkered, almost religious fervour displayed by certain people, who insist that "The Market" will somehow make everything right as long as we don't try to regulate things.
As an example, take Murdoch's claim, that somehow the banking crisis and consequential financial nightmare was not caused by lack of regulation, but because there was too much. Does that not require an almost super human ability to ignore obvious facts? Which is what I would call "religious" - although to be honest, that is a slander on good, religious people.
skids said, more or less, "American consumers are idiots. They buy junk food and crappy cigarette lighters. How do you explain that?" I replied with the sort of simple answers that ought to be given every time someone throws out overblown rhetorical questions - junk food is cheap and satisfying, and low-quality goods often survive because they will last long enough - my food processor, for example, is a cheap piece of junk, but it cost a tenth as much as a good Cuisinart and clearly proved that we don't use one often enough to justify buying a nice one. I'm not sure how any of that qualifies as anything other than simple sense.
Now, if you want to talk about the banking crisis, we could probably have an interesting but utterly off-topic discussion about that. I would say that Murdoch actually has a point - the housing business was over-regulated, forced to cheapen its standards so that people who would never have qualified for a mortgage 40 years ago could get one. What he doesn't mention is that the mortgage industry suffered from a severe lack of enforcement - for starters, witness that neither Angelo Mozilo nor the legions of politicians to whom he gave sweetheart deals are in jail. SarbOx, nominally crafted in response to Enron (which was really just a sophisticated criminal fraud and should have been prosecuted as such), went so far in increasing the reporting requirements for public companies that it pushed all sorts of companies to become privately held - companies that ordinary people (and their mutual funds) used to be able to buy a piece of are now available only to the very wealthy. That's a massive negative for the public. Not only that, SarbOx probably would not have exposed what was going on at Enron any earlier, because they were already breaking the law!
I don't know how it works in the US - I don't live there. But in the UK and Canada, if you speed you get demerit points on your license. Too many points and you get banned. Doesn't matter if you're a millionaire, or a pauper - too many points = ban.
So yes, in these countries speed limits *are* about protecting people. If your country doesn't use a system like that, more fool you!
Sure people in the UK and Canada speed. People in America still murder despite capital punishment still being used in many states. The fact that the punishment doesn't actually deter people from doing the crime, doesn't mean you shouldn't have laws saying it's not right to do that.