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Light Bulb Ban Produces Hoarding In EU, FUD In U.S.

Posted by timothy on from the top-down-is-the-current-paradigm dept.

Lucas123 writes "The very thought of losing that pear-shaped giver of warm, yellow light drove Europeans to hoard Edison's invention [Note: Or possibly Joseph Swan's invention; HT to eldavojohn.] as the EU's Sept. 1 ban on incandescent light bulbs approached. China's ban on incandescent lamps starts Oct. 1. And, in the U.S., the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 effectively began banning the 100W bulb this year and will ban the most popular bulbs — the 75W, 60W and 40W screw-in incandescent bulbs --over the next two years. The end standard requires bulbs to use 65% less energy by 2020. But Republicans in Congress continue to fight the ban by hamstringing the energy efficiency standards through appropriations legislation, cutting off funds for the enforcement of the light bulb ban."

16 of 1,080 comments (clear)

  1. All Edison's fault by FBInvestor · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't think this can be blamed anyone else but Edison. Had he have the foresight to create energy saver light bulbs in the first place we would had been saved from lots of wasted energy and global pollution. Being also an inventor, I know to be both inventive and pollution-aware in my inventions.

    1. Re:All Edison's fault by danomac · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I can attest to this - I have retrofitted (over a year or so) my whole house with the Philips LED bulbs.

      I have a fixture with multiple bulb sockets, I put in a 60W incandescent in one and the Philips LED in the other, and I could not see a difference in colour temperature at all. They stay warm-ish to the touch so you don't have to worry about spot heating problems in your home, they're great. Now they just need a bulb that can operate in an enclosed fixture.

      It did help that our local power utility subsidized these bulbs, they're expensive - between $40 - $50 a pop. I got mine for half price because of the subsidy.

    2. Re:All Edison's fault by popeye44 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fucking Brilliant "pun intendend" require by code enforcement that every house have a dimmable switch or an automatic shutoff,
      Now make a law that says I cannot buy incandescent bulbs.. but if I put fluorescent bulbs in I burn out the switch or they use power constantly because they cannot be turned OFF.

      This is fucking ridiculous I'd rather heat my house with incandescent bulbs than continue to replace switches and burn out "energy saving" bulbs every 30 days. This is a waste of fucking time and my money.Just how environmentally conscious are we when we put 5 million fluorescent bulbs in the same landfill. 5 milligrams of mercury in each bulb which is enough to poison 6,000 gallons of water. I'm sorry but that just seems incredibly fucked up. When is the last time you immediately had to open a window and put on a mask in your house because you dropped an incandescent bulb.

        I'd give a LOT to have led's everywhere in a place where they would provide a good bit of light. My main issue is cost. I will indeed check the philips LED's.

      --
      Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
  2. Ban is dumb by JMZero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Should be a tax. Encourage people to make the right choices, but don't screw people who have special circumstances or are willing to compensate society for the cost of their preference.

    --
    Let's not stir that bag of worms...
    1. Re:Ban is dumb by rockytopchip · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There already is a built in tax. Buy the less efficient bulb, pay more for energy costs. Some people prefer incandescent bulbs, do you want to take away their freedom to choose? Let the market decide the issue, keep government out of it.

  3. Labelling by slim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is there yet a way to tell at time of purchase whether a CFL bulb is going to warm up in an acceptable time?

    I'm assured that bulbs exist that reach a decent brightness in under 10 seconds, but I have yet to manage to buy one.

    1. Re:Labelling by mcmonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Came here to say the same.

      I could mod you up, but instead I'll just say, every time I bitch about warm up time in one of these threads, someone replies that I should buy a bulb made this century or by a good manufacturer. Yet no one ever has an example of which ones are the "good manufacturers."

      I had a service come in to do an energy audit on my home. I expected to hear a lot about insulation and drafty windows. Instead the guy just went through and changed all the bulbs he could to CFLs. I've also purchased CFLs in the past. These are GE and Sylvania bulbs.

      1. These bulbs do not last as long as advertised. I've been in my house for 8 years and there are fixtures that have had bulbs burn out at least twice (ie, fixtures on their 3rd CFL bulb in 8 years).

      2. Dimmable? If you consider going from off to warming up to on dimmable, then yes. If you mean on demand dimmable with a dimmer switch, then no not dimmable.

      3. Warm up time. True story: a couple days after I had my "energy audit" I'm a the foot of my stairs and flip the switch for the lights at the top of the stairs.

      Nothing happens. It's a 3-way with the other switch at the top, so I flip it back, wondering if the lights were on and I had just turned them off. But still nothing. I give another few flips, still nothing. I'm very puzzled, because light switches are usually very reliable. I don't remember ever having to replace a regular light switch that stopped working.

      Then I look up. The switch is working. The lights are coming on. It's just they are so dim, unless I am looking directly at the bulbs, I can't tell if they are on or off.

      My daily routine used to be to come home from work, go to my bedroom, turn on the over head light, change out of my work gear in to evening wear, and then go about my night. Now, I come home, go to the bedroom, turn on the over head light, turn on the night stand light, make sure I leave the door open with the hall light on, so I can see while I'm changing. By the time I'm done, all the bulbs have warmed up and I'm squinting from the brightness, but by then I'm leaving the room and turning all those lights off.

      So if someone has a line on CFLs that don't need minutes to warm up, please share! Until then, I'm going through what CFLs I have and as they burn out, replacing them with real light bulbs that work.

      I realize technologies take time to mature and I understand the concept of a public beta test, but CFLs are being pitched as a final product when they aren't nearly as good as the thing they are supposed to replace.

  4. Republicans disrupting a REPUBLICAN ban! by nweaver · · Score: 5, Informative

    This ban was signed into law by the Bush Administration.

    And now, after putting it in place, the Republicans NOW object?

    --
    Test your net with Netalyzr
    1. Re:Republicans disrupting a REPUBLICAN ban! by markt4 · · Score: 5, Informative

      This Bill passed in the House 314-100 with 95 Republicans voting for it (with 96 voting against it). In the Senate, it passed 86-8, with 40 Republicans voting in favor of the Bill, and only 7 voting against. And, of course, President Bush, a Republican, signed it into law.

  5. Re:Democrats by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Uh, you do know that a Republican president signed this into law, right?

  6. LED is freakishly expensive up front by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Informative

    The answer is "because they're freakishly expensive." $23 per lamp vs 44 cents for a 60 watt incandescent. In terms of running cost, that's 0.46c/hr of LED (at the 5000 rated hours**) vs .032c/hr for incandescent (GE lamps at Walmart, $21/48 lamps with a 1330hr rated life). Yes - that's more than a factor of 10.

    "But what about energy?" I hear you cry. Well, at 11c/kwh, it costs 11c x 0.0125w per hour for the led, or 0.1375 c per hour. The incandescent 60W it replaces - 11c x .060w = 0.66 c/hour.

    So I can get an LED for 0.60c/hr or an incandescent at 0.69c/hr. That seems like a pretty minor payback - a dollar of savings will take me burning the lamp for over 1000 hours - and I'm out $23 right now.

    *If this bulb does not last 4 years, return UPC and register receipt along with your name and address to GE Consumer & Industrial, Product Service Dept., 1975 Noble Road, Cleveland, OH 44112. GE will replace your bulb. So for $3-4 in packing and shipping I can get a new lamp if this one dies in four years, but if it dies in year 5, I'm SOL on a a $23 item. If my 60W blows early, I'm out 44c.

    **Rated life is 5000hrs per energy comparison data provided by Philips.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  7. No, there will be no ban on incandescent bulbs. by aabrown · · Score: 5, Informative

    There sure is a lot of misinformation out there. Much of it seems to have come from right wing talk. Incandescent light bulbs are not going to be banned.
    Here is the straight dope from the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/garden/fearing-the-phase-out-of-incandescent-bulbs.html?_r=2pagewanted=all&

  8. Re:republicans by bennomatic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What Republicans? I miss Republicans. The people marching under the GOP banner are a whole different animal than the Republicans I grew up with. I really enjoyed hating Reagan, and I kept up the fight against Bush 1 even though I knew that in many ways, he wasn't so bad. It really got bad with Bush 2--not so much the man, but his ultra-right brain trust--and the election of a (in the eyes of his detractors) mulatto kenyan indonesian communist fascist nazi muslim anti-white racist intellectual just boiled the right-hand fringe to a froth. That "froth" are not, in my eyes, Republicans. They're like the Republican version of a zombie invasion.

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    The CB App. What's your 20?
  9. CFL's aren't all they're cracked up to be by jenningsthecat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Have you ever taken a CFL apart? I have. There's an astonishing amount of electronics in that small base; it's required to transform line voltage into a potential sufficiently high to ionize the gas in the fluorescent tube. How much energy goes into the manufacture of these electronic components? How much of the electronics is either re-used or recovered as raw material when these bulbs are 'recycled', as opposed to the materials, (and the energy that went into their manufacture), being disposed of in landfills? I have been unable to find answers to these questions, and I think they're important. There's a lot more 'stuff', in a CFL, with a much wider range of chemical compositions, than in an incandescent bulb, so it's harder and more energy-intensive to fully recycle.

    Then there are the special interests of the various stakeholders and their lobbyists - for a discussion of this, see http://ceolas.net/#li1ax . Does anyone really believe that 'saving energy' is a primary, or even an important, motivation for the manufacturers and patent holders of CFLs? Given that, what might they be hiding, and how much spin has been applied to the figures the provide vis-a-vis total energy savings?

    If the powers that be were really serious about saving energy and the environment by encouraging CFL use, they would mandate two things: 1) A a high minimum standard of longevity for the electronics in the bases of CFLs, and 2) A means of replacing the tube only when it burns out, so the most complex and least homogeneous part of the bulb, (the base with its electronic circuitry), can be re-used numerous times. But guess what? That reduces the profit margins and raises both the cost and the price, making the whole proposition both less economically attractive and less politically palatable. If 'energy saving' was the true motive behind this legislation, these things would have been incorporated into CFL design by now.

    The problems of the EMI and RFI that CFLs generate, and their crappy power factor, are points for further investigation for those interested. As are the problems with LED lights and their greater negative effects on melatonin production, with the accompanying decrease in health for those exposed to them.

    This whole topic is a lot more complex and nuanced than most people realize, and I suggest that anyone reading this might want to do a little digging before giving in to a knee-jerk reaction of either "But, but... the environment!" or "But, but... I like the old ones!"

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  10. Even better than that by Immerman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually it's even better than that - almost all other types of modern heaters heat the air, which then heats everything else, especially the ceiling where the hottest air pools. As a result much of the heat gets sucked out of the house through the walls and ceiling and any air-gaps.

    Infrared heaters instead heat the things in the room - people and surfaces - and if aimed well you can keep much of the heat off the walls and ceiling. One of the major benefits of this is that you can keep the air temperature significantly cooler, which reduces heat loss as well as allowing your body to regulate it's temperature more easily.

    If you think about it IR heating is the traditional norm - an open fire sends virtually all hot air straight up - what warms you is the IR. Likewise standing near a sun-warmed rock or a Scandinavian style tile oven/masonry heater which can keep a whole house warm all day with just a few handfuls of sticks - the folks who've been living with serious cold for centuries long ago figured out that heating the air is silly.

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    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  11. Re:20 x 100 W bulbs?!?!?!? by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 5, Funny

    LOL I had 16 seventy five watt bulbs in my basement workroom / lab and it still had some troublesome shadows and dark corners.

    I know what you mean. Those grues and creepers will spawn if you give them even the slightest chance.