Slashdot Mirror
US Light Bulb Phase-Out's Next Step Begins Next Month
SonicSpike writes "Light bulb manufacturers will cease making traditional 40 and 60-watt light bulbs — the most popular in the country — at the start of 2014. This comes after the controversial phasing out of incandescent 75 and 100-watt light bulbs at the beginning of 2013. In their place will be halogen bulbs, compact fluorescent bulbs, LED bulbs and high efficiency incandescents — which are just regular incandescents that have the filament wrapped in gas. All are significantly more expensive than traditional light bulbs, but offer significant energy and costs savings over the long run. (Some specialty incandescents — such as three-way bulbs — will still be available.) ... The rules were signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007. They are designed to address gross inefficiencies with old light bulbs — only 10% of the energy they use is converted into light, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which has a handy fact sheet about the changes. The rest is wasted as heat. But the rules have drawn fire from a number of circles — mainly conservatives and libertarians who are unhappy about the government telling people what light bulbs they can use. They argue that if the new ones really are so good, people will buy them on their own without being forced to do so."
I live in Wisconsin, seriously, that "waste" heat is NOT wasted! It's freaking cold outside!! I'm an American, I want to be free to choose!
Which is why the environmentalists need to force them on us. LEDs suck too, but less so. When someone comes up with a phosphor which can decently approximate a blackbody spectrum, let me know. Until then, phosphor-based lights will continue to suck.
They were banned in Europe quite a few years ago, however "rough service lamps" which are less efficient than traditional bulbs are still legal, and a lot of people have started using them rather than move to more efficient bulbs.
The summary states that gas-filled incandescents will still be available.
It worked for quadraphonic sound and AM stereo.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Easy Solution
If standard incandescent light bulbs delivered 10% efficiency, we wouldn't be as important to switch to other types.
100% efficiency is about 683 lm/W. A standard 60W bulb gives about 14 lm/W or about 2% efficiency.
Why not just put a heavy tax on the light bulbs instead of banning them?
That way you can raise some revenue and make improvements, while people who really want incandescents can get them (like science teachers teaching V = IR, or people who really prefer the spectrum and don't care too much about the cost).
I tried the 22w cfl as "100 w subsitute". I was groping in the dark. Finally, I bougt
some two-bulb Y adapters and put in a pair of 45w CFL's. Finally I can see!
By the way, CFL's are generally rated at 120volts and Incandescents at 130v.
I also had some bad experience with grocery store 22w. Three have caught fire! ... I mean actual flames the size of a candle. I watched
I don't mean a little smoke
for three minutes in one instance until the thing fizzed out. Good thing I have
sheetrock ceilings; hate to think about lampshades. Good quality 45's out of
Amazon are spendy, but seem to last forever (none have failed yet in two years).
The quest continues: tires that don't go flat; light bulbs that don't burn out!
My hobby is to read the conservative/libertatian viewpoints on issues like this one with a Homer-US-stereotypical voice.
I'm not particularly impressed by the libertarian arguments, but I do think that these regulations were phased in a bit too soon. A delay of 5 to 10 years would probably make more sense.
CFLs really suck. I've tried quite a few different brands, and have tried to like them, but they just seem to have some flaws that can't be fixed. First, and most annoyingly, none of them come on immediately - they start out extremely dim when the switch is flicked, and take 30 seconds to a minute to completely warm up. Secondly, no CFLs made in the past five years come anywhere close to meeting their life expectancy – most of them burn out faster than incandescent bulbs. (I have a couple of old CFLs in a tableside lamp that are still going strong after nearly 10 years, but once the production lines switched to China, quality went to complete crap.)
LED bulbs are far better – when implemented correctly, they're pretty much indistinguishable from incandescents. But they are also very expensive – about $15 for the Cree bulbs at Home Depot, which are the cheapest ones I've found that have decent online reviews. Hopefully in a couple of years the manufacturing process will mature so that the price will go down without compromising quality.
As of 2013 there is still no way to get a light bulb that combines the low cost and high quality of an incandescent. As long as that remains the case, the new regulations will be resented by many people.
CCFLs die because the electrolytics get cooked due to the heat.
So your 5gbp bulb fails due to a 20p component.
That's before you get into the spectrum the put out which makes photography under them a giant pain in the arse.
Come now, the Greens would never push a crazy law banning people from buying the things they want, just to make more profits for the people who make the new products they'll be forced to buy.
If they were that concerned about it how about switching over to clean renewable energy sources because our technology is there but it's hard to claim sun shortage right?
I live in a house with resistance electric heating; and I prefer the quality of light from incandescent lamps. So, I swap them twice a year. Winter, incandescent lamps approach 100% efficiency for me. I also use them outdoors, in places where I need instant start in cold weather, and in specialty uses, like my range hood with an inbuilt and CFL-incompatible dimmer. Point is, I do it intelligently. I love the way politicians think they know better than I do.
The power consumption advantages are often nullified by the mortality rate of modern lighting if your power fluctuates as it does in many rural and semi-rural areas.
I demand reliability.
BTW incandescent bulbs are nice for heating my well pump house and chicken coop. I can buy separate heaters, but they cost more and nullify any ecological advantages from running "eco bulbs" to light those places.
"Rugged" bulbs are often plastic coated and their fumes can be dangerous to birds:
http://www.t-g.com/blogs/stevemills/entry/50611/
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Let's face it: people don't want to think about every bit they do. That's why phones and clothes are nowadays mostly produced by people working in Asia under inhuman conditions, people buy prepackaged meat but would not want to see a slaughterhouse, people can't be bothered to switch off the lights or TV or heating when they don't need it.
If consumers acted intelligibly, absurdities like elevators in gym buildings would not see much use. Neither would do remote controls for entertainment devices and the sometimes associated "standby" mode.
Also realizations like "I don't have the money to afford cheap stuff" occur only to few people.
People won't change their patterns unless forced to. The whole point of a pattern is to save the effort of thinking, a strategic and rare resource.
Why not outlaw them? If we want to reduce CO2 footprint.
You can still buy incandescent bulbs but they have a small halogen lamp inside the normal frosted glass envelope.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
They argue that if the new ones really are so good, people will buy them on their own without being forced to do so.
Which is why Betamax won the video format war. Oh, wait...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
... I can find 100 watt (and greater) equivalent LEDs. I know that they exist, but the ones I can find are way too expensive and/or impossible for the stores to keep in stock.
I live in Wisconsin, seriously, that "waste" heat is NOT wasted!
Blah blah, I live up north too. Let's see, should I heat my house with a 95% efficient furnace or a 10% efficient light bulb? Boy that's a tough one...
You mean that well-known eco activist George W Bush?
This coming from the country that continues to bring us the 300 Kilowatt (400HP) SUV for soccer moms.
...if they shine long enough to ever start saving - not so likely with all-too-tightly-packed cheap Chinese semiconductors that often fail within months, at least for much of the short-lived (and often annoyingly artificially-looking) light Europeans get to see since "their" ban on bulbs.
no CFLs made in the past five years come anywhere close to meeting their life expectancy – most of them burn out faster than incandescent bulbs.
And I'm sure you have something more than anecdotal data to back that assertion up right?
As of 2013 there is still no way to get a light bulb that combines the low cost and high quality of an incandescent.
The unit cost is low but since you have to buy about 1 per year AND pay a lot more for electricity, the actual cost is not less.
You need to think of a bigger picture. In an easy bak oven the "LIGHT" is a waste product. In areas and times fo the year that a person it running a heater, the light bulb gives you both Light and heat, so only the magnetic field is a waste.
Shrug. Photography of course has it easy with an incandescent spectrum as it's what the sun provides. However, if you go away from film and use CCD sensors, you usually tend to get different spectral sensitivities than the human eye, necessitating white correction. Even film needs things like skylight filters, but they have more possibilities to juggle with.
An art museum will not work well with anything but incandescent bulbs since the old paints were not catering to line spectrum sources. They tend to rely on few pigments with rather sharp absorption characteristics themselves, and it's hit-or-miss when going with a line spectrum at them.
I live in Ohio. I think the regulations are pretty stupid and an overstep. Incadescent lights give a full spectrum light, not just a few specific colors. And the heat isn't wasted here. In the winter it just causes my heater to run less. And in the summer, my lights see significantly lower use due to windows and daylight through to 9pm.
I've tried a few different CFLs and have been mostly unhappy with all of them. Especially for places where I only turn on the light occasionally for a few minutes. For CFLs to be effecient, they should be ran for 30 minutes or an hour. I've already had a few CFLs die that were less than a year old that were put into this position. And the color is never perfect like incadescents are.
I haven't tried any LEDs yet, mainly because they are still prohibitively expensive
We'll have to make a wood burning one and use toothpicks for fuel.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I've been an early adopter of LED bulbs and paid as much as $50 for some of the first ones. I still have them in use 3 years or more after buying them. The curly bulbs installed base up fried because of heat, I've not had that issue with LED. Cree LED have hit the market in the $12 range here and work really really well with good light output. Considering the lifespan These are a pretty good deal. switching over has been painful for the manufacturers but at least the Govt. worked with them on the phase out to figure out which bulbs to go first and to come up with specs that would allow them to adapt like the new halogen filled incandescent bulbs. I'm even seeing some new interesting artsy incandescent bulbs on the shelf I've never seen before.
Overall this switch is a good thing and the bulb life makes the cost palatable to me. I've not had one of the new bulbs ever burn out except these weird decorator bulbs with a mini base that really seemed crappy even when I bought them. Oh and one defective Chinese bulb from Costco that flares occasionally, the rest in that multipack have been fine.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
The power consumption advantages are often nullified by the mortality rate of modern lighting if your power fluctuates as it does in many rural and semi-rural areas. I demand reliability.
So put in a whole house surge protector and use some battery backups on sensitive electronics. I live in a semi-rural area and I took the extra steps to ensure that my power is reliable instead of constantly dealing with the aggravation and cost of replacing light bulbs needlessly.
BTW incandescent bulbs are nice for heating my well pump house and chicken coop.
So get a halogen. They pump off lots of heat and will still be sold. Or get a heat lamp.
I was an early adopter of the CFL "pigtail" lightbulbs. The problem was, they were VERY expensive, took a long time to light up, and had much shorter-than-promised lifespans.
CFLs fail quickly if they are in any orientation other than vertical. Sideways or pointing down? A couple of months, tops. CFLs were severely affected by heat buildup, which is still a problem. In any enclosed fixture, they lasted about a month.
The only CFLs still in use in my home are a set of outdoor coach lamps; small, vertical, outside, and I don't care how long it takes for them to light up.
Just one more example of "feel-good" ignorant legislators writing laws they don't understand to solve non-existent problems.
Yet another strong example of Liberal Fascism at work. More examples of a government hell-bent on solving some kind of problem that would have solved itself eventually, destroying jobs and making the lives of the poor worse in the process.
I personally am not effected too much by the ban - I've already been using LED and CFL bulbs where they make sense (basically a CFL makes sense anywhere you almost never have to use the light or look at anything illuminated by it). But then I can afford a $50 light bulb instead of a 60 cent one...
What will the poor do? They will use ultra-crappy CFL bulbs that don't last any longer than an incandescent yet cost 10x as much, or else make do with discarded Christmas lights for illumination instead.
That in the end is the real tragedy of overbearing government regulations. The well off can easily find a way to skirt them while the quality of life for the poor ratchets ever downward.
If you wonder why the government is doing this, wonder no more when a government subsidy is created to funnel taxpayer money to CFL makers "for the poor".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm all for being environmentally friendly but CFLs are nasty...look what you gotta do if you break one: http://www2.epa.gov/cfl/cleaning-broken-cfl
On the surface, this seems great...much more energy efficient (e.g. less electrical consumption, less energy converted to heat, etc.), good quality of light (finally), and they last a long time, but the mercury threat will spell the demise of these. Unfortunately, it will take a few decades of these being tossed into the waste stream and the obligatory horrific mercury-caused maladies as it "may be toxic to blood, kidneys, liver, brain, peripheral nervous system, central nervous system." Fantastic...environmentalists and politicians making decisions based on emotions rather than on science.
LED bulbs aren't much safer as they may contain "lead and nickel, the bulbs and their associated parts were also found to contain arsenic, copper, and other metals that have been linked to different cancers, neurological damage, kidney disease, hypertension, skin rashes and other illnesses in humans, and to ecological damage in waterways. UC Irvine’s Oladele Ogunseitan said that while breaking a single bulb and breathing its fumes would not automatically cause cancer, it could be the tipping point for an individual regularly exposed to another carcinogen."
I'm advocating torches and if you buy three torches at my online store you'll get a free pitch fork...perfect for the looming protests before the next election cycle...they make great stocking stuffers too...
...not because they are superior, but because at least half of the USA is living paycheck-to-paycheck, and they are cheaper. When you need a lightbulb right now, and your kids get to eat with whatever is left, you're most likely going to pick the cheapest one, not the one that should give you the cheapest electricity bill over the next 20 years (particularly if you're liable to move in 1-5 years, leaving your lightbulb "investment" behind before it has paid off).
Hell, I'm better off than most folks, but in my own house I've instituted a rule that we buy no more than 1 expensive LED bulb a month (at last check we had 8 burned out awaiting replacement). I wanna hug trees and all that, but there's a lot better way to spend hundreds of dollars this week than on light bulbs.
So expecting "the market" to fix this in a healthy way all by itself any time soon is unreasonable. This is the exact kind of thing we have government for. Otherwise the streets would be full of trash and sewage (cheapest way to dispose of it, after all! Who's the government to tell me how to dispose of my Snickers wrappers?)
It is sad to see so many people try and find excuses for their irresponsible behavior and cheapness, than to just get with the times and switch to LED light bulbs a few at a time. I bet there is a whole libertarian think tank that comes up with excuses and hands them off to people through the many right-wing media outlets as a way to stick it to the environmentalists (and give more money to the utilities that they run)...
I say good, we should have switched to LED lights a few years ago. I have in my house. It is the new builders and apartment owners who are the big ones that will need to switch. Even Exxon-Mobile has an ad about how much energy we would save if everyone just switched one light bulb...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_igh8b8HrZs
John Boehner is right to call these people out. There needs to be a lot more of it.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/lawmaker-news/328007-to-ted-cruz-mike-lee-darrell-issa-tea-party-your-15-minutes-of-fame-are-over
If another machine in the same system is more efficient at a particular range of temperatures, then heating the system fulfills much the same role as a catalyst. A heater itself does not produce work, but it allows other systems in the same room to produce work.
im not blaming the greens, the greens are the pawns, im blaming the bulb makers, who pushed for this so they could sell you bulbs that cost 3x as much
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I still have traditional bulbs that have been lasting for over 4 years at this point, most get replaced every 3 or so
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Other constraints on a system may limit how much one can usefully decrease thermal conductivity. In the case of "cold outside", the big constraints include mobility and vision. Insulative clothing may reduce heat loss, but it can tend to inhibit free movement and can narrow the field of view.
Same problem in Canada. So now, instead of heating my house with light bulbs (hydro and nuclear power) I have to heat it by burning natural gas. Sigh...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I have several built in enclosed fixtures of which all these CFLs and LEDs are not allowed or don't fit. It would cost me hundreds dollars to replace these fixtures. So I bought about 24 60w bulbs yesterday to stock up while I wait for the law to change or technology to improve to work and hopefully get cheaper.
Really, and when was the incadescent ban put to a vote of the people?
Right because putting things like that to a popular vote in a republic is a really sane way to govern. There are lots of things that aren't entirely popular that are still the right thing to do. Banning needlessly inefficient technologies when there are reasonable alternatives available is one of them.
European here. Almost all the CFLs in use in this house are still the first ones that replaced the incandescent bulbs years ago. We've had some duds that lasted only one to two years, but even those saved their money's worth in electricity. The color is fine. No light without shadow, here's the long list of complaints: CFLs are typically not dimmable, and they take a split second to turn on.
Anyway, LEDs are even more efficient, they turn on instantly and quite a few are dimmable. None of the LEDs have stopped working yet (2 years since installation), so I can't give you a first-hand account of their failure rates or modes.
Wonderful! I wonder how much they cost to run vs an LED?
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Just do what we did, call them heat-bulbs.
Heat-bulbs DO have a use in many areas though, for both lighting as well as heating an area.
They can be seen in so many areas, such as eateries where it keeps food warm while other things are being prepared all the way to chicken coops.
Sure, I am all for efficient lighting, but don't exclude the useful uses of heat-bulbs please!
I'm more for LEDs over CFLs because CFLs fucking suck, seriously.
Plus, LEDs are very easy and very cheap to make various colors in massive quantities. (but the overall price is still high since they are still fairly new-ish)
Not only that, you can even have a multi-color light in such a stupidly small space too.
To the LED lighting future!
Actually there is an idea, make an LED + heating element hybrid to replace heat-bulbs.
BRB patent office. DON'T STEAL!
Next thing the Government will want us to stop smoking, wear seatbelts and vaccinate our children against deadly diseases. Why do they think they know what is good for us?
CM www.cometenergysystems.com Blog: http://caribbeanrenewable.blogspot.com/
If consumers acted intelligibly, absurdities like elevators in gym buildings would not see much use.
The obvious exception being people who use a wheelchair and use a gym's selectorized weight machines to work the upper body. I saw one of them at a gym I used to go to.
Neither would do remote controls for entertainment devices
Then with what should one control a character in a video game, or choose a stream in a video on demand player? Or how am I misunderstanding what you mean by a "remote control" or "entertainment device"?
Once again Nicola Tesla's engineering trumps Mr. Edison's. Too bad it took 133 years.
On outside lights that I run 12 hours a day (er, "night"), LEDs had a very short payback on electricity savings. Six months, I believe. In fact, I later bought an EV and a large portion of my commuting electricity was covered by electricity savings from that very small investment. I am now converting over the rest of the house as bulbs die, prioritizing usage level and difficult to change light bulbs.
LEDs are already here for those who like to make investments instead of "consume" things.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
If you're talking heat output, the lightbulb would be 90%, not 10%
Not for 3/4 of the year (i.e. spring, summer or fall) it would not be. A lightbulb just generates waste heat most of the time. They also are pretty useless for heating when you want it to be dark at the same time as you are generating heat, like oh, when you want to sleep. There is a reason we decouple our heat sources from our light sources.
and a lot of people have older furnaces that are fairly inefficient.
Even a clunky old inefficient furnace is still more efficient than any incandescent light bulb. If you have a badly insulated house or a shitty furnace, a light bulb isn't going to fix that problem for you.
Without an SUV, how should soccer moms haul multiple kids and their gear to and from soccer practice?
Natural gas heat is usually more efficient in joules per dollar/euro than the electric resistive heat that comes from a heatlamp.
12$ for a light bulb is not "cheap".
Yes it is, IF the bulb lasts for 20 years as advertized. A 60 watt equivalent LED will draw around 12-14 watts and is supposed to last over a decade. So that IS cheaper than a $1.00 incandescent you'll have to replace 10 times So yes it is cheap if you actually account for all the costs.
Seriously? That's their argument? That if they are just "good enough" people will buy them on their own? You could give them away for *free* and people would still find some reason to prefer incandescents. Human beings are notorious idiots when it comes to choosing things that do or don't benefit us. Just ask the tobacco industry. Even faced with a long, painful death, we insist that 'we know what's best' for us. I'm not saying that CFL's are wondrous mana from heaven that will save the world, but sometimes mankind needs a serious kick in the ass in order to 'make the right choice'.
Maybe its something wacky about our power or something but CFLs don't work with crap where I live. They last less than half as long as other bulbs and don't seem to provide enough light unless they have been on for 5 minutes or more. I swear that we changed out all of the bulbs in a ceiling fan/4 port light and within a couple weeks half of them were dead and within a month so were the remaining two. I've had good luck with halogens and I'd like to try these new incandescent and maybe LED's in a few places but I won't touch CFLs. Also there are some applications where you WANT a light that generates heat, I know well houses that need just a little heat to keep from freezing in winter use a standard incandescent bulb as a heat source.
Funnily enough they are extremely inefficient at generating heat.
My heater is 99% efficient and your crummy light bulb only does 90% efficient at best!
Government isn't smarter than the free market, even given Britney Spears and Microsoft. What nightmare alternative do you think the government would force on us?
Well, that's easy to fix. Paint your incandescent bulbs black and they'll be 100% efficient at heating.
The UK has already been through this process. The new types of bulb have near zero quality control, and the life of the new bulbs vary somewhere between two months to one year on average, with frequent on/off cycles seemingly causing the greatest rate of failure.
Blair got the British to accept the change with little process by INVISIBLY (no public announcement of an actual government initiative was ever made) having the government massively subsidise the cost of the new bulbs, so for months they could be bought at 0.1 pounds (15 cents) a bulb, or less. Sensible households bought dozens or hundreds of them at these discounted prices.
The British 'willingness' to change their bulb habits could then be used as propaganda to 'persuade' other nations to follow suite, nations unlikely to realise how extensively Brits were bribed to change over.
In truth, once you lose access to decent filament bulbs in areas you need proper lighting, you should install a PROPER fluorescent stick in their place. These crappy plug-in direct replacements for filament bulbs are far dimmer than the filament types, cost far more, and have about the same lifetime as a decent filament brand. The new bulbs are great for lamps (less power/heat) and that's about it.
Also, there are no industry standards for the new bulbs. Their colour output (warmth/spectrum) varies incredibly between makes, and worse the time taken for them to reach adequate brightness after being switched on can range from less than a second to greater than a minute. Clearly, regulation should have ensured they were all 'INSTANT' on, and had accurate descriptions of their colour spectrum on the packaging.
Who are the puppet masters so powerful that they can pull strings like these, and eliminate sheeple access to a technology which has no current decent replacement? And why are these puppet masters able to assume that an army of vile shills will howl down any ordinary person who raises very reasonable concerns? Having the ability to comprehensively impose your will on the majority, without fear of consequences, is a mark of VERY bad times for Humans. The people in power don't give a flying f**k about which bulb you use, but they do care about practising master-slave power dynamics. They do care about ensuring their mainstream media propagandists and armies of vile shills can scream the sheeple into place. One day soon, it will be demanded of you and your family that you fully back one side in a World War. You are being conditioned for this day.
What exactly is the efficiency of a heat pump when the outside air temp is below 20F like it is in the upper midwest this week?
According to the Unversity of Minnesota (folks who ought to know a thing or two about cold upper Midwest temperatures), a properly installed heat pump can achieve efficiency equivalent to an 80 AFUE gas furnace. http://www.mnshi.umn.edu/kb/scale/gshp.html. When folks down South install heat pumps they generally take shortcuts during the install, trading off easier installation for lower efficiency, but that's their fault.
U of Minn does point out that high-efficiency gas furnaces (90+ AFUE) are cheaper to operate but at a cost of more environmental damage.
So you tried to be snarky and instead got a chance to learn something.
And hardly ever need replacing. The margin may be higher, but they'll seriously drop in volume sold.
Do I call your post disengenous equivocation, or equivocal disengenuity? I voted for the libertarian, that's a choice. So why hasn't the Fed been abolished yet, eh? Give me a break here.
Fuck'n commies. One too many hits of acid in the '60s, eh? Or maybe you were just being sarcastic? In Soviet Russia is efficient central state planning? (And much profit from other peoples labor by the "capitalists" who bankroll it, but that's another story)
Station wagons don't exist anymore since CAFE made it illegal to manufacture large numbers of them. Minivans and SUVs exist because of CAFE.
In the scheme that I imagine, which I admit might not match mtrachtenberg's scheme to the letter, the rebate would be a fixed amount related to the estimated energy use of a lamp, not the actual use. In any case, the rebate would not exceed the original power deposit paid. And the rebate coupon would be sent to the participating power company.
Stupid.
Which is why the environmentalists need to force them on us. LEDs suck too, but less so. When someone comes up with a phosphor which can decently approximate a blackbody spectrum, let me know. Until then, phosphor-based lights will continue to suck.
Out of curiosity, why is this a big deal for you? Are you a photographer?
Perfect is nice, but rarely possible. Given the ridiculous inefficiencies of the incandescent (CRI 100), I don't mind sacrificing some accuracy to get efficiency like with the Crees (CRI 93). By sacrificing a bit on color accuracy (CRI 85), you can get decent price and efficiency.
So given the "triangle" of colour accuracy, efficiency, and initial cost: why is accuracy so important to you?
Having a high CRI around mirrors so one can check how one is dressed (matching colours) is the most obvious use case, but in general most of the time it's not a big deal for day-to-day stuff.
Maybe you're buying the wrong CFLs. Since replacing the ones at my mom's house 4 years ago, and moving out on my own and buying for my apartment almost 2 years ago, neither of us have replaced a single one.
The math is pretty straightforward. A Cree 60W equivalent bulb costs $13, and uses 9.5 watts. With an average electric price of $0.10/kWh in the US at the moment, the breakeven point is about 2600 hours of usage, or about 2.4 years, used three hours a day, EVEN IF THE INCANDESCENT BULBS ARE FREE. This doesn't even take into account that you'll need to replace that incandescent 2-3x over that time period. The Cree bulbs have a 10 year warranty, although they should last more like 20. Even if it's only 10, you'll be looking at a total cost (bulb and power) of about $23 over 10 years with the LED ($13 for the bulb, $10 for power), vs. about $66 for the incandescent, even if the incandescents are free.
People are really terrible about assessing TCO. Look at cellphones, people obsess over getting an iPhone 5S or 5C (I could save $100!), when the upfront phone price is ~5% of the total cost of a two-year contract. Same with lightbulbs - the return on the higher incremental investment is huge, but people don't look at it that way.
I live in Wisconsin, seriously, that "waste" heat is NOT wasted! It's freaking cold outside!! I'm an American, I want to be free to choose!
Even worse than that --- I have a number of friends who's rooftop solar produces more energy than they consume.
For them - the energy is "free" so nothing's wasted.
But instead they're forced to use the more environmentally harmful mercury-filled incandescants, or e-waste-with-dirty-manufacturing LED bulbs.
TL/DR: with rooftop solar, they banned the most environmentally friendly bulbs.
I lived in a cruddy old farm house when these CFL bulbs first started to hit the market. Due to the shaky power out in the boonies, i had been going through at least a bulb a week. After i switched everything over to CFL's it was no longer a problem.
They were all still in place when i sold the house.
I'm actually pretty impressed with the LEDs I've been moving to, though. Decently bright, natural colors and they seem like they'll last nearly forever. I guess over the course or their lifetimes they'll more-or-less pay for themselves. If you want extra heat, you can still get a plumber's torch or a radiant heater.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Like a lot of other people I have purchased a wide variety of different LED fixtures over the years. I have the additional ability to compare industrial LED fixtures at a smallish electrical power generating plant.
THE issue is that the power supply, NOT the LEDs, fail 'prematurely'. Some of the power supplies are so badly designed that the RF output knocks both AM and FM stations out completely and even interfere with the plant operator's radios.
I used to be "into" photography in a big way, so I tell all the [expletive deleted] heads that 5700K temperature 'blue' IS the proper color for the light for proper rendering of colors on instruction manuals and signage.
? is "signage" actually a 'real' word ?
It amazes me that people who would never fall for the "really cheap" printer with really expensive ink will, at the same time, fall for the "really cheap" incandescent bulbs with the really expensive power.
Canada is planning on this as well, starting in 2014.
I for one, am stacking up on bulbs before the hammer comes down. I personally don't like the light that comes off CFL's.
I have literally refitted my whole house with LED specific lights. In most cases they are a sealed unit where you replace the whole unit on failure.
http://www.northernlighting.com.au/category/48-led-lighting.aspx
They list heaps
More specifically I fitted c20 Ecogem S9041DL downlights - I went for the 6000k white because I prefer it to the yellow.
I think most people here are missing the point. It's not at all about the efficiency of the light bulbs. It's the fact that were are being coerced into buying these products. I'd rather have the choice to buy whatever type I like. Screw the costs. I'm the one paying for it in the end. But damn, $10 and I can buy all the bulbs I need to for my house seems a lot better than spending $12 on single CFL bulb. CFL's take too long to "brighten" anyways.
PS. Feeling very anti-government at the moment.
Lead paint provided excellent coverage (of stains and such) and a durable finish that was impervious to water. Tetraethyl lead was similarly a great fuel additive that increased octane rating while increasing engine reliability. Asbestos was used in numerous products for its heat and fire resistance. In particular it made for quiet, long-lasting brake pads on cars. Drop-side cribs made it easier to place babies in their beds. DDT, Ni-CD batteries, Bisphenol-A (BPA). The list goes on and on... We'll just throw incandescent light bulbs on top of the heap of products that performed well in their intended purpose, but had unacceptable environmental or health effects.
CFL's aren't perfect. They have service life issues with enclosed light fixtures, and when they're turned on and off frequently. But they use a quarter the power, and the mercury in them, combined with the mercury in the coal burned to power them, is less than that emitted powering an incandescent bulb. LED bulbs are even longer lasting, and more efficient, and without the hazardous materials. Altogether, there's no reason to continue using incandescents, and in a decade or so, no one will have a hankering for bulbs that use 400% more energy while having 5% of the service life...
Preferred colour temperature varies by region and culture.
I think Subway (the sandwich place) looks strangely yellow, compared to most other shops and restaurants. I think Americans would consider the whiter lights here "clinical", but I just think "clean". The yellower light is more typical of a rustic restaurant or a pub.
(example)
They argue that if the new ones really are so good, people will buy them on their own without being forced to do so.
If we had pollution and carbon taxes, that might be a valid argument. But we don't, and so people have no reason to take into account all the damage they're causing. With such massive externalities, any appeal to free market principles is a straw man.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
If people would:
- only use lights when they actually need them
- switch lights off when their done with them
- take advantage of the giant free light source outside
But instead we'll trade inconvenience and lighting quality for carcinogens and neurotoxins?
Up here in HOLYFUCKINGSHITITSCOLD-ada, our dumbass government, in its ever present quest do demonstrate its continual disconnect with the people it rules, is doing the same thing. Extra irony points for doing it during one of the most frigid cold spells in recent memory, not realizing that the heat thrown off by incandescents is anything but wasted during this half of the year. During the other half, we have daylight from 6am to 10pm and should scarcely need artificial lighting at all.
CFLs work like shit, last like shit, look like shit, flicker like shit and are shit. Classic florescents are all the same and worse. LEDs are maybe a bit better, but aren't ready yet. All of them contain carcinogens and toxins going into our landfills, and are overpriced. God help you if one gets broken while it's powered on.
And what are we to do with all the specialized light fixtures that only accept specific incandescent light bulbs? Yeah, way to go... middle class citizens can totally afford to upgrade their lighting so that politicians can puff up their chests and look high and mighty while they spout whatever green coloured bullshit they think will win votes.
Soon you will need to swap out your resistive heating too
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Good luck convincing a libertarian to agree to that solution. Not that I'm a libertarian...
There is a long run with LED's. But you don't have to wait long before the savings start: I got 12W LED bulb for 12€, they're as bright as 75W incandescent. For other room I got a replacement for 60W for about 10€ (about 7W).
I've calculated a bit and came up to a conclusion that at a current electricity cost an LED bulb pays off within 2 years. That figure depends on usage, of course, but I've only replaced those bulbs which fit into the calculation. Incidentally, they have a mandatory 2 years warranty so I don't really have to worry about the lifetime of the LEDs at all. Any time after the warranty expires is a bonus anyway. As for the bulbs I use less frequently: they will be replaced when they break. After replacing several incandescents around the house I have a backlog of them anyway. By the time I'll need to buy a new one, I'll be having enough LED's that have already paid off themselves.
My parents went the CFL route couple of years ago and they turned out to be better off as well cost-wise. The CFLs have some disadvantages though: the warm-up time is on top of my list. Still, my parents can replace some of the CFLs with LEDs and still be better off than they would be with old technology!
True, the electricity cost here is higher than in the US, it contributes to the calculation. But I still support the ban: IMO It did put the right pressure on the manufacturers and made cool LED technology cheap much more quickly. The only real losers are the luddites who bought large quantities of incandescent bulbs before the ban.
As for the residue heat: at the infrared footprint of the LEDs is much lower, there are much fewer insects in the summer. Besides, there is not much use in heating the ceiling anyway.
" They argue that if the new ones really are so good, people will buy them on their own without being forced to do so."
The problem with this argument is that incandescents start out cheap, so the majority of people who're cash-strapped buy them because they can afford them. Without sales volume prices won't go down, and without prices going down the bottom 75% can't afford to buy them so the sales volume never goes up. It's the paradox: in the long run it's better to buy the $100 pair of boots that'll last you a decade, but if you only have $20 in your pocket you can't afford to buy that pair and have to settle for the $20 pair that you'll need to replace in a year. The only way out is to either get a windfall so you can afford to get the $100 pair that'll save you money in the long run, or for something to kick demand for the $100 pairs up enough that prices come down to what you can afford. And remember that most power companies have been offering assistance replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs for a while now.
I started swapping out incandescents for CFLs about 7 years ago. I'd buy a couple and replace bulbs that were working, leaving the old bulbs on the shelf if I needed spares before I got more CFLs. With the CFLs lasting longer I don't need to buy replacements nearly as often, so the money I save can go to other things. I'll probably soon start the same process with LED bulbs, that way I can spread the cost out.
You claimed " if the new ones really are so good, people will buy them on their own without being forced to do so."
Rubbish
If that were true then the USA would no longer use inches and gallons
One of the biggest problems regarding CFLs is their mercury content (Actually almost all fluorescent lights use mercury, not just CFLs). Seeing how most of all these fluorescent bulbs end up in landfills, I would have thought there would be more initiatives for people to recycle these bulbs. Maybe something like a refundable recycling fee, similar to beverage containers. That and making outlets selling them have a drop-off for dead ones where the mercury is recovered.
Many times I've seen building renovations where some idiot fires the old tubes into a dumpster to hear them go pop. Maybe if there was a dollar a piece recycling fee, it would reduce how much of that stuff ends up in my tuna sandwiches.
Banning needlessly inefficient technologies when there are reasonable alternatives available is one of them.
What part of "I live in Wisconsin and that heat is NOT wasted" don't you understand, idiot?
That think their ONLY CHOICE is the curley que CFL lamp. Only a moron thinks that the old incandesant is the best, the halogen replacements that are better, put out far more light for the watts used AND are dirt cheap are the replacement. But it does not stop the drooling moron army of Fox News and Friends to wave the "OMG CFL SUXORS" flag at every chance.
Will you people get educated about the replacement bulbs, how they really are better and STFU about the CFL bulb you bought from china that is a piece of crap?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This assumes that the consumers will make smart choices with regard to the value of money now, and the value of money in the future. Looking at the use of credit cards in the USA, it is blindingly obvious that consumers do not make smart choices in this way.
I'm not a fan of legislating things off the shelves, but the argument that good products will succeed just because they're good, especially when the goodness drizzles in over some long time period... that's just not going to fly.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This argument is funny, but incomplete. Sony may have lost the consumer video tape format, but they won the commercial market. In short, Sony made out quite well selling $20,000 video tape machines, $50,000 SX cameras with recorders and ALL the tape to commercial interests for over 25 years.
Long after VHS was declared dead, Sony was still making money on Beta.
whoa. Home depot has Cree (excellent brand) LEDs, 60w equivalent (800 lumens, 25k hours) for about $13.00 -- that's half what you're assuming. You can get them for even less if you buy them a 1/2 dozen at a time. And they will save you a LOT of money as compared to an incandescent, and a reasonable amount compared to a CFL.
We went to all CFLs here (large home, lots of lights) a few years ago, went through the usual spate of infant mortality problems and finally ended up with an installed set that were dependable after spending WAY more than we planned on replacement CFLs. When home depot hit $13/LED-bulb, we began to replace those CFLs with Cree LEDs. No dead ones yet, they're all working fine and output is steady. They can be dimmed. Zero RFI. Great color, too. There's one over my desk as I type this. We expect to have the entire house done other than speciality lights by the end of 2014.
The numbers are highly compelling: Any geek who hasn't actually looked at the cost savings should be ashamed. If for no other reason than you can use that money for something else, but the environmental issues are significant, not to mention it's really nice not to have to worry about changing bulbs all the time.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If Libertarian and Conservative market idealism really is so good, people will vote for them on their own without being forced to do so by a one-party system.
...isn't spending $15 for a light bulb that is flicked on perhaps a couple times per week. An incandescent bulb is fine for this purpose, and will outlast CFLs and LEDs because they don't do well with that kind of duty cycle.
I know, I've replaced 3 CFLs for closet and porch lights and vowed never again. Before the 75W bulbs faced extinction, I bought 72 bulbs of 40, 60, 75 and 60 watt clear for the porch lights.
This is nothing but a mandate to sell more expensive and environmentally harmful bulbs that last half as long in most applications.
I am using LED bulbs in many of my light sockets. One problem of waste heat that's not often mentioned is that most of these bulbs have AC-DC converters which have heatsinks which radiate a fair amount of heat on their own. While I'm sure it's "less" heat than a conventional bulb, it's heat and I don't want it.
It seems to me if we are going to be serious about all of this, we should convert our overhead lights and many receptacles to DC power generally compatible with LED lights and a collection of other devices which might be better suited to DC power.
I get it. AC power is great for transmitting power over great distances. But the way things are, every device must convert the power to make use of it with the exception of a few devices like ovens and large appliances like that. But my TV, my computers, my lights and a lot of things convert from AC to DC which is wasted power and wasted heat. Like many greener, more energy efficient data centers out there making a single conversion of AC to DC and powering all servers and relevant devices directly off of DC power sources, why aren't we doing the same at home? It makes sense if only for lighting.
As a plus, wouldn't it be nice if I could jumpstart my car directly from my house?
Anyway, I'd like to see some more seriousness about that. I'm no tree hugger, but I love the idea of being efficient.
"who pushed for this so they could sell you bulbs that cost 3x as much"
Kind of reminds you of the HDTV BS doesn't it? Old TV was good enough, but no, the market was saturated and electronics manufacturers needed a way to increase profits past the run to the bottom. Wow, new standard that's incompatible and no more useful than the old standard and some ways worse. Content is content, the news lady will still be telling me the same news I'll just be able to make out that one split-end follicle in her massive wig(assuming she's hot and I'm not staring at something else on her instead).
PS. CFLs also have a flicker problem that make them a headache generator when reading that incandescents don't.
That "super expensive LED" costs about $13, and will save you a LOT of money over an incandescent over its lifetime. That's with a ten year warranty.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Externalities are a market failure, and one of the reasons for government is to correct for market failures.
Only slaves think the purpose of government is to make all their decisions for them. You personally might be an idiot, but I can decide what is the best light bulb for my circumstances. So fuck off with your big brother nanny bullshit. Mercantilism is for fags.
Legally sell these "light bulbs" as "heat bulbs".. problem solved?
Because every 4 years people prove they are fucking stupid and incapable of doing what's best for them. 47% of Americans voted Republican against their own best self-interests. They clearly are not qualified to choose a light bulb on their own.
Not all heaters are 100% efficient. I know that's heresy; but hear me out. A lot of people will be chomping at the bit about thermodynamics here, so let me modify my statement a bit.
What I really mean is that not all heaters are optimal for heating the people in the room. The proper choice of heater depends on the space.
Wow, still really counter-intuitive right? I've got real world experience AND theory to back this up.
First, consider a drafty warehouse with a desk near a wall. The person at the desk is cold. The optimal heating choice is "radiant". Why? Because there is no way your little plug-in heater can heat the warehouse. The only way you'll get relief is if radiant energy goes right onto you. A good location might be by the side of the desk, aimed where you're sitting.
Next, consider a room in a shared house. Your room-mates keep the thermostat at 64 F, which is too cold for you. The optimal heating choice is "oil filled radiator style". Why? Because you can close the door. That type of heater transfers heat to the air. The air is what you feel in the room. Radiant heaters transmit heat directly to surfaces, some of which are heat sinks.
I have seen people doing really bad things like putting oil filled radiators in huge rooms where all the heat goes up to the ceiling and out the doors, and likewise using radiant heat with an annoying fan where the room is cold the minute you shut off the heater.
The "heatballs" seem like a combination of radiant and heat-transfer to the air, so deploy accordingly. My current setup is gas radiator, which transfers heat to the air, but all that air goes to the ceiling. A ceiling fan combined with the heater is actually the most effective way to warm up my room.
Indeed, you are double wasting because you have to run your air conditioner. Wisconsin does get to the 90's during the summer.
I'm also in Europe and in my experience the lifetime of CFLs has been approximately equal to the incandescents they replaced, but the failure pattern is different. Incandescents used to see a bunch failing when we got the first onset of colder weather each winter, with a bunch of bulbs going at roughly the same time; CFLs fail more evenly throughout the year but nonetheless they do fail at about the same average age, I'd guess c.12 months. The failure modes I've seen are that they simply don't start any more, start flickering like mad or just get very dark. No fires or the like.
The other issues with CFLs also all still hold - slow to start, bad colour temperature, and most significantly mislabeling ("100W" equivalent bulbs are reallty more like 50-60W, and the "true" 100W equivalents are much more expensive and difficult to find).
Overall though the impact on our lives has been pretty minimal because we basically avoided using them in areas where we spend long amounts of time. Firstly, we already had halogen bulbs/fittings in some of these areas (using a dimmer halogen still gives a nice quality of light) and secondly where we didn't we now use candles a lot more than we used to. Actually candlelight is nicer even than incandescents used to be so in a weird way it's sort of been a positive.
That depends on how you measure it.
Heating up a room will have the losses associated with the light bulb conducting heat back through the copper wires and light fitting outside the room.
100% is also pretty poor when it comes to heating a house.
My heat pump is 444% efficient
If you don't want to be forced to use more efficient lighting in your home then you should be forced to have a new power plant put in your backyard.
Simple fact: more people using more electricity means we need more power plants. Reduce per capita consumption of energy and you eliminate the need to build new power plants.
You can't have the energy inefficient lights and choose to fight against a new power plant down the street as everyone seems to do.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
So of course they'll want to continue using the same light bulbs their great-grandparents used when they first got theirs.
Given that those aren't made anymore (depending on your age), they have what we call our standard incandescent light bulbs which were made as cheaply and inefficiently as possible.
Wonderful - cheap bulbs, are like using cheap paper with modern ink-jet printers, you use up 50 bucks worth of ink by trying to save a buck on 500 sheets of paper.
Modern L.E.D. lights are innexpensive (Cree 40 and 60 watt bulbs are @ the $12.00 mark (USD), they save over their 100,000 hour life-span over 200 bucks worth of energy. I hate CFL bulbs due to their mercury content and having to call a haz-mat crew for cleanup if one breaks in your house.
Newer L.E.D. bulbs made with techniques discovered in the last 2 years (man-made saphire grown on silicon) will increase efficiencies and reduce waste-heat even further.
I truly expect to see 100 watt equivelent L.E.D. bulbs that draw a marginal 4 to 5 watts of current when the new materials are utilized, I also expect to see the costs involved go down dramatically to where they will be about the same cost as incandescent bulbs are today...
The curly bulbs installed base up fried because of heat, I've not had that issue with LED.
LED chips are susceptible to heat, too. Don't put them in fixtures that seem to offer poor air flow (like recessed downlights).
Actually, as I sit here, I am being warmed by a 60watt bulb in a $6 aluminum parabolic reflector. It's a spot heat,heats just my hands, and it works very VERY well.
Seems like a shame. When it burns out, I'll have to switch over to a 1500 watt space heater, and run an extension cord through the house to find a circuit breaker that won't be overloaded.
I supposed I could just turn the furnace thermostat up another 5 degrees...
... More envirowacko nonsense to control the people, "You will buy what _I_ SAY", with no consideration of the poor. The replacements are _all_ significantly more expensive than the incandescants they supposedly replace, and for a double whammy, they are all made overseas, and so have almost certainly thrown out of work those Americans who were making incandescent light bulbs.
It is becoming of increased interest that studies estimate that living in poverty will subtract 6.5 years from your life, and if you do it as a child, those 6.5 years can't be recovered by more affluent living later. Since there are 50 million Americans in poverty, that is potentially 330 million person-years of less life. How many person-years of life is using these supposedly less-power-hungry light bulbs going to save us through less emissions from coal-fired power plants that are being phased out anyway, again at an icreased price, to be replaced by more expensive but cleaner-burning natural gas?
"Saving the planet" is great, but only if it means that the planet can nurture humans better, and allow them to live better and longer. This doesn't do that.
we already have more power plants than we need, with idle ones on standby. We only use 13 percent of electricity for lighting anyway, why focus on the small stuff?
LEDs only light a small fraction of an area that incandencents do, and they do it poorly, they are not yet a viable solution for general purpose lighting.
At first there was a lot of grumbling and the first gen of CFLs certainly had issues. Now there are $10 LEDs and everyone has gotten used to slightly different lightning and stopped complaining. When the rules are made clear, marketplace responds with solutions. The world would have been such a better place if Bush also launched mandatory, subsidized health insurance and a mandate to cut carbon emissions by half in a decade. Then Obama could have tried single payer and 100% clean energy and got shot down while we would have something that frigging works like the outdated lightbulb ban.
Heat isn't always a waste. Sometimes it's a desired outcome.
Give me a break! I was once doing fiberglass repairs on my boat and I needed a trouble lamp to see what I was doing. I burnt myself on the hot lamp and then finally acciden tally knocked the lamp to the floor. Naturally the bulb broke. Being out of incandescent bulbs I used a CFL instead. What an improvement! No more burns even though I came into contact with the lamp. I also knocked it over and it didn't break.
Moral of the story... For trouble lights, CFL bulbs work far better than incandescent bulbs. There is no reason for "rough service lamps" because there is far better alternatives. Although I didn't have LED bulbs at the time (10 years ago), I'll bet they are even better than CFL bulbs.
Went to the Dollar store and bought them out of 100 watt'ers. (4 to a box) I had enough to last me a very long time.
Think there's a reason they were sold at the Dollar store they are a lot like pop corn.
I'm down to less than half in the course of a year.
On the bright side I don't have to go far for a replacement.
I'm still pissed that the evil guvmint won't allow us to run Carbon arc lamps to light our houses! Now that was a light source. Bright, gives you a tan, and approved by real patriots.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Oh noes! What will I use for my lava lamps?
"Actually, I enjoyed this in the same vague, horrible way I enjoyed the A-Team" P. Opus
The point (apparently) of this rule is to drive people to make the 'right' choice (i.e. non-incandescent bulb) by eliminating the 'wrong' choice. Of course, as TFA says, if the no-incandescent choice were really so obvious, no rule would be needed. I was enthusiastic about cfl bulbs but the enthusiasm died really quickly with real-world experience. CFL bulbs are dim initially, slow to power up to operating temperature, expensive, release dangerous waste mercury powder if broken indoors, create toxic waste when discarded, have a much-shorter life than advertised, and grow dimmer as they age. They probably also consume more power than advertised (based on all of the other false claims) but I have not measured that. Undoubtedly, though, they produce more light per watt than an incandescent bulb but even that comparison is not completely correct. If incandescent bulbs are in a heated space, then the 'waste' heat that they produce is still used by offsetting the amount of heat that must be added from the room heating system. For home use, incandescent bulbs still have a place, as many consumers know, and THAT is why they need to be banned, because otherwise, people would still use them. So, now that we have the George Bush ban on incandescent bulbs, we can look forward to more household toxic waste (much of it probably improperly disposed of...when did you last see your local hardware store collecting spent cfl bulbs?), more toxic dust released in living spaces, more spending by consumers on light bulbs, lower lighting levels in residences (leading to less reading, more eyestrain, etc.), and lights left on more to avoid waiting while the dim cfl bulb warms up after being powered on. Sounds like a typical federal government program...wasteful, ill-advised, unwanted, unneeded, and expensive.
I haven't gotten over being mad about them phasing out buggy whips yet!!
The bulbs will continue to be manufactured, sold and installed by housing contractors. You can buy them at any
contracting supply store. These moonbat lies are total BS.
I hope this brings down the cost of LEDs in general, and in particular SmartBulbs. I recently replaced most of my bulbs with white EasyBulbs (which are RF enabled, dimable and color temperature adjustable), and they are awesome, but I really want the RGBW bulbs to come down in price so that I can use those instead. Being able to dim and adjust the color temperature is cool, but being able to adjust the hue throughout my home would be spectacular.
The problem with current mainstream LED bulbs is that they are expensive and do absolutely nothing more that the bulbs they replace. There is little incentive to switch. But SmartBulbs could change all that. I'm very surprised they haven't caught on. Adding a RF chip can't cost much more than the LED chips themselves, so it should almost come by default.
My wife has meniere's disease, which results in debilitating vertigo attacks. At this point the balance sensors in one of her ears are essentially totally destroyed, and those in the other are slowly degrading.
One of the results is that her vision is now a much bigger part of here balance system. Anything that disrupts it can trigger vertigo attacks.
The flickering of arc lamps and many fluorescent lights causes these attacks. (For instance, she can't spend more than about 20 minutes total in a "warehouse store" such as Costco, Lowe's, Home Depot, etc. because of their use of arc lights (with substantial regions of the store on a single phase). We have to turn off the tube-style kitchen lights
120 Hz flicker is well above the "flicker fusion rate", so you can't perceive it. We believe the attacks occur because the strobing causes slight delays and errors in the apparent position of objects when they are, or she is, moving.
Some compact fluorescents trigger attacks, some do not. (We believe this to be because, on those that don't phosphor persistence or adequate filter capacitors after the rectifiers "fill in" the "valleys" of the post-rectifier waveform, reducing flicker until it's not a problem, while cheaper lights skimp on capacitors, allowing the light to strobe.)
LEDs are good for flicker rates into the GHz. Some of those we have examined flicker quite dramatically. So we will be very cagey about switching to them, until they're both efficient AND the manufacturers have begun making a practice of supplying enough capacitor filtering to avoid significant flicker.
Incandescents, of course, don't have the issue. They heat up and cool down very slowly "filling in the valleys" just fine.
When this regulation came along, though, we were concerned that we would soon be unable to purchase replacements for burned out incandescents in our Nevada home, which would have been a serious health problem if non-flickering replacements were not available.
So we purchased enough current production bulbs for each of the fixtures to last for the remainder of our expected lifespans.
This cost about a thousand bucks, so far. (We still need to buy the replacements for the "can" fixtures over one of the minor countertops, and some more "daylight" ceiling fan bulbs. Probably another $400 by the time we're done.)
We really didn't want to do this, preferring to buy replacements as needed and switching to LEDs in about another three years IF flicker-free devices become available. But the new regulation created enough of a risk to force us into it.
Now that we've bought them, we'll probably continue to use them long after we'd have switched to LEDs.
So in our case the unintended consequences were quite the opposite of what was intended.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Hmmm, The one I have guarantees listed output to -15C"
Its -17C here now
"and "works" to below -40"
So what do you do when it drops below -40 then?
IMHO the regulations (if the government felt it NECESSARY to regulate) should have been written in terms of minimal efficiency, not banning certain types of light source.
There are two technologies I'm aware of that produce an incandescent that's about as efficient as a CFL. They're pricier than the highly competitive commodity bulb. But with an efficiency floor taking those out of the running, these might have become competitive.
The first is quite a few decades old: You make a substantially spherical bulb and put the filiment at the center. Then you coat the bulb with an interference coating that reflects most of the infrared but passes most of the visible light. The small percentage of energy that forms visible photons escapes, while the bulk that forms infrared photons are returned to the filament, reheating it and having another chance to be re-radiated in the visible.
The second is recent: A nanotextured surface for the filament. It radiates almost entirely in the visible wavelengths (much like an antenna tuned to a band of frequencies, which it launches well while bouncing other bands back toward the transmitter).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I think you spelled antichrist wrong
I've been living in this flat for about four years now, I got a couple packs of energy efficient bulbs for free not long after I moved in from my electricity company. I'm pretty sure I haven't had to change a bulb in that whole span. In the future I think that changing a lightbulb will be one of those hilarious things people used to do in olden times like rewinding a tape or using a floppy disc.
But the rules have drawn fire from a number of circles — mainly conservatives and libertarians who are unhappy about the government telling people what light bulbs they can use. They argue that if the new ones really are so good, people will buy them on their own without being forced to do so."
Yes, because people always buy whats better, SUVs, disposable plastics, the list goes on and on...
What worries me is the fact that CFLs contain mercury and no one is told to quickly open a window and leave the apartment or home for ~20-39 minutes so when they break as not to inhale the neurotoxin. Though this is only important to do so when the bulb is warm and the mercury is a vapor.
http://eartheasy.com/live_led_bulbs_comparison.html
Comparison is made on the bulbs that are available in 2013, and the lumen/watt for LED lighting is still improving.
By the year 2017 the LED bulbs for lighting purposes will be at least 60% more efficient, which means even less electricity used.
Yes, you could buy a pack of 10 incandescent bulbs for less up-front money than an LED that will outlast all of them, though my wife just bought some LED bulbs for $5 (I think they're 40-watt equivalent), and I've bought 60-watt equivalent bulbs for $10. But you can't run the bulbs for all that long without the cost of electricity making up for the lower purchase price, and for the guy in Wisconsin who considers the waste heat to be a feature, remember that that's only true half the year, and if you're in Wisconsin, you've probably got a heating system that's much more efficient than the electric heat I have here in California.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
To ALL Energy Saving Bulbs... ;-)
I'm leaving them on 24/7 and saving tons of electricity!
Where do I put it all???
...and people would stop smoking if it were so bad for their health.
If the companies were all producing short-lived lightbulbs but there is market demand for long-lived bulbs then one of the companies would get a clue and start producing quality lightbulbs to take customers away from it's rivals.
All companies have an incentive to produce cheap, crap products and charge high prices for them but, unless they have a monopoly (or are members of an effective cartel) they will lose customers.
However, some customers may prefer the cheaper, shorter-lived lightbulbs. I rent, I typically move about once per year, and I'm responsible for replacing burnt-out lightbulbs. Usually, incandescent lightbulbs are by far the most cost effective solution for me (even when taking the cost of electricity into account). Fortunately, I don't live in the US (man, I write this a lot these days).
You heat your CEILING to keep the FLOOR warm???
And is your living room so bright you gotta wear shades?
They don't want you to have a choice, you will buy what democrats want you to buy, or they will pass a law making you buy it. I stocked up enough to last my lifetime. If you don't like this, don't vote democrats, because this is what they do. Bush should have refused to sign it
in winter there is no such thing as waste heat......and the days are shorter and you use the bulbs more. you probably don't save that much energy in winter. would be an interesting calculation....
When they got rid of the 100W bulbs I just started using 150W bulbs in all of my fixtures, since they were not criminalized.
Why don't you just use halogen bulbs? They are still available in a wide range of wattages, as are 90W 130V commercial bulbs that have just slightly less output than a 100W 120V bulb. The halogen bulbs are more expensive but last much longer, especially if you have a soft-start digital dimmer.
I installed halogens on a digital soft-start dimmer in my living room in 2005 when I remodeled, and haven't had to replace one yet. The light is very nice, too.
"They argue that if the new ones really are so good, people will buy them on their own without being forced to do so"
They're free to argue this, but that won't make it true. There's literally a small moon's worth of data showing people will make *very* bad choices in order to lower up-front costs. You know, like 2-year contracts on their phones.
> I'm blaming the bulb makers
That's right, because *everything* is a conspiracy.
Note, of course, that the best-selling LEDs and CFLs are not from the same companies that made the best selling incandescents. Cree never made an incandescent, for instance.
For your conspiracy to be true, it would require new, small, poor companies to be able to outspend old, large, rich ones. But let me guess, that's part of the conspiracy too, right?
...is a BRIGHT idea! let us rise from the DARKNESS, and embrace this new age of LIGHT! thank you, thank you, ill be here all...LIGHT!
My sig has no nature
The high efficiency incandescents cost about $1.50 each, compared to 50 cents or so for the old bulbs. But they last twice as long, and use 28% less power.
Now let's look at the number on this incandescents(INCAN) v old(OLD) bulbs. From the TFA, the INCAN has twice life time as OLD but cost $1.5 v. $0.5. If I divide the lift time of INCAN by 2, I get $0.75 (the cost with the same life time as OLD). Now I am going to compare the use of energy (28% less) with the OLD's by applying the 28% to $0.75, and as a result, would reduce the cost down to $0.54. Is that really saving compared to $0.50 if the heat output is ignored?
Just think of the dismay little girls around the country will feel when they can't get replacement 60W light bulbs for their Easy-Bake Oven! It's not like CF and LED lamps are gonna work for that purpose.
Think of the children!! (?)
for the oil and blubber. then harvest them with wind and solar powered whaling vessels. it's the only answer.
A typical "rough service" incandescent lamp intended for use on 120V contains a filament actually designed for normal light output at 130V. By underheating the filament, the filament retains more strength when lit, and is better able to handle shock and vibration in hand-held worklights, etc.
This negatively impacts efficiency, though.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
As long as it was you doing the numbers - that's enough for me.
Now uses a conventional heating element, rather than a 100W bulb:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/23/business/la-fi-easy-bake-20110223
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
ISO/FOGRA specifiy 5000K black body for print proofing, where does your 5700K come from?
I have an unheated chicken coop. 100W is just enough to keep the ice on the water bowl thin most mornings, and the light is what triggers the hens to keep laying into the winter.
If I use a lower-wattage light, I get less heat. For my purpose, an incandescent bulb is 100% efficient.
Should I be installing a heat pump in my coop? I don't think so...
Cost is not the important factor, margin is. With today's business always focused on the short time, the margins would need to be higher than 3x on the alternatives in order for the suits to be bothered with greasing the palms to get a ban on the older bulbs.
Do you have any data on the difference in margins between the incandescent and newer bulbs? Because I'd really like to know what they are.
My karma is in a nose dive
I think you're absolutely right. Govt. mandated safety rules aren't what made the auto-makers sell vastly more reliable cars that the American public wanted to buy. And for the record? Most cars STILL lose "almost half their value the moment you drive them off the lot". As much as anything, that's just due to the public's desire to own a new car with the new car smell and everything. As soon as someone takes ownership, it's impossible to resell it as "new" -- so the perceived value drops sharply. (There's also a somewhat baseless fear of what the previous owner might have done to the vehicle before reselling it, or what he/she might have discovered and not wanted to deal with.)
And sure, it's not good for consumers when several big companies get together and agree not to improve what they sell. So what? A free marketplace cures that every time -- because it's called a "huge window of opportunity" for the next small business to pop up with something better and take over. Personally, I think we're seeing it now with cellular carriers, and would see it more clearly if they didn't have so much govt. regulation and assistance behind them to start with. (EG. T-Mobile comes in with all sorts of plans that NONE of the other 1st. tier carriers were ever going to offer people otherwise, since they all colluded to sell contract phones under the same business model they've always used. Now you see carriers like AT&T following suit with $45 for unlimited talk/text plans bundled with a little bit of monthly data.)
Use the wattage you save to mine for BITCOIN!
Everybody wins.
German, perhaps? Land of the $1200 dishwasher? Y'all make some nice stuff, and I'm happy for you that you can afford it, Billy Bob over here would just sit in the dark before he'd spring $20 for a light bulb.
You are all missing the most important thing--this will utter destroy the EZ-Bake oven market. Do you have any idea how fscking long it takes to make a cupcake in there with a CFL or LED bulb?
Won't somebody think of the children?
I am not a libertarian (nor do I oppose reasonable environmental regulations) but I take offsense at your suggestion that I should always obey what the majority decides at the ballot box.
Majority decision is reasoanble in many situations, but in other situations it leads to the majority trampling over the rights of dissenting individuals. At the very very least, we need checks and balances - multiple levels of government (local, state, federal), multiple branches at each level, and all limited by a good Constitution. Like the USA was supposed to be.
It's just that the light specturm of ordinary and most used and sold energy saving lamps is restricted to very few light colors.
This is opposed to natural sun light (which is very much like light bulb light), which contains the whole specturm of visible light.
As a result, rooms lighted with those energy saving lamps tend to look unnatural and awkward.
This light is quite different from the one that makes one feel good.
This "awkard feeling" you get is a consequence of an evolution where human beeing have been exposed to sun light rather than some weird enery savings lamp light for 2 million years.
Unfortunatly, the government cannot change the way the human race evolved by law -- at least not as far as I know.
Unlike CFLs, Incandescent bulbs contain no mercury.
I'm betting in a few years, you will be seeing articles about the environmental disaster of CFL disposal leaking mercury, and all the evil that entails. How many poeple ignore the "properly dispose of " warning and just trash those stupid CFLs? At least LEDs don't have that.
IMHO the regulations (if the government felt it NECESSARY to regulate) should have been written in terms of minimal efficiency
That's what they DID do. They specified the maximum allowable wattage for lights of given light output.
Read here and find the table "GENERAL SERVICE INCANDESCENT LAMPS" on page 121.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
One problem with LEDs (and even more so with CFLs), is that they are not compatible with certain dimmer systems. My church, for example has a ca. 1990 dimmer rack (probably early-80s technology) that modulates both the house overhead and stage spotlighting for the sanctuary (auditorium). The overhead fixtures are rated for 200W and 300W incondescents. We've experimented with direct-replacement LEDs, but, with our dimmer system, they experience a nasty strobe effect when set below about 90% brightness. In addition, they weren't bright enough to be a substitute for the incondescents, and the light cone was much too narrow. Basically, to upgrade to LEDs, we need an entirely new dimmer rack, and new overhead fixtures, to the tune of about an $80k project.
On the other hand, for the fixed lighting in other parts of the building, LEDs are working out awesome!
I live in Montreal, about 45 minutes from the northern border towns or cities. Plattsburg or Burlington are a short distance away.
We in Montreal are all electric homes, as the province has abundant electric power. In summer, daylight begins at 4am, and ends at 9:30 to 10pm. In the summer we don't need to turn on lights, or we use a light for one hour per day.
In winter, daylight begins at 7am, and ends at 16:10 hrs. We have lights on until breakfast is over, and from 16:00 hours to bedtime.
Any heat from the incandescents displaces the heat from the resistance elements in the furnace. So, there is no savings in winter.
As for outdoor lighting, CFLs do not light when its 0F degrees or so, and only glow a dull yellow. The CFLs filaments are not durable and while they are only used for starting the lamp, I have not had CFLs last more than 15 months before having to be replaced.
Inside the house, the CFLs consume fewer watts, and so they produce less heat. Ergo, my furnace has to provide what I lost by switching from incandescents to CFLs. And by the way, Incandescents are easy to discard, We can't do that with CFLs.
Lately I have been experimenting with LEDS. Here again, there is a problem of light dispersion. LED lamps need the chips to be soldered to a two half circle substrates. These lights do not produce light at their top end. Another type has the LEDs facing upwards to the globe, but just under the glob envelope is a defusing lens. These are very good but are not widely available. I have both kinds and noted that some LEDs are powered via a miniature transformer, allowing for use with dimmers, and the other LEDs are powered with switching electronics. The latter are more energency efficient.
What I do like with LEDs is that they work in the -20F to -30F temperatures, so work ideally as a street lamp, or an outdoor lamp for home entrances.
But all of these LED lamps are very expensive, don't produce sufficient lumens in most cases. Local prices are unit prices from $8.00-$18.00.
I will stick to incandescents.
I bought a bunch of 8.5W (50W) equivalent bulbs online for $5 each. Not exactly breaking the bank there. They also have a nice color tone (3000K). The only down side it they take about half a second to come on when you flip the light switch, which took a bit to get used to. The price is really coming down. A lifetime of 30,000 hours too. They are also still available at that price. I just checked.
They contain mercury which gradually leaks out. Mercury is a toxic metal. And it's almost impossible to dispose of properly even if still unbroken. You can't just throw these things in the trash. I live in Massachusetts. The only recycling center is a single Home Depot in Pittsfield. I live in Andover. If I had to properly dispose of this hazardous waste, I'd have to drive 150 miles to do it. There's a good video about how Germany phased out incandescent bulbs. In turned into a classic clusterfuck. They didn't think of safety concerns or the claims of their supposed efficiency. Here's the link: http://www.linktv.org/programs/in-focus-toxic-light-the-dark-side-of-energy-saving-light-bulbs
Unless you live in Hawaii or some other extreme southern clime where it rarely gets cold, heating your house through electric resistance is not "doing it intelligently." Only way I can imagine it being more expensive is if you hired whores to hold their bodies against you.
I just bought a few 60w bulbs. I looked at "replacements" such as halogens. In most cases, the lumens for the replacements are lower than the incandescents. Buyer beware.
The light temperature is off for the wood interior. We had it the way we want it and intend to keep it that way.
The TEMPERATURE is too high, too. (Halogens last long because the gas reacts with the evaporated tungsten that's landed on the inside of the capsule - picking it up as a tungsten halide, then depositing it as tungsten metal again at the hottest - i.e. thinnest - part of the filament.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
...that you often always have to flush multiple times. or the automatic sensor toilets in public places that flush 6 times before you are done!
I've also replaced several expensive compact florescents that were supposed to last years!
Reading the replies to this article really illustrates what a European shithole this place has become. Used to be it was a Libertarian hangout, back in the day. Now it's a forum for EuroSocialist douchebags to come blather about how much we need Big Brother to help us make the right decisions.
Fucking scum.
You can build them yourself
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
Please see this article about the connection between market failure and externalities and its references.
There are a lot of LED proponents on here, poo-pooing critics. Some LED issues have been covered - they're more expensive, they have some...interesting...claims about durability.
Some have mentioned the problem where LED bulbs lifetime rating glosses over the fact that by the end of their "lifetime", LEDs will be 1/2 of their initial brightness.
But there's ANOTHER problem with LED durability. LEDs may also color shift, which some people might find very unpleasant. Especially if they paid a bunch of extra money for a "daylight" bulb, only to have it turn into something yellower than a regular one!
Bottom line: arguments that LEDs are the second coming because of their durability ignores a whole pile of potential pitfalls. They might color shift, they're still expensive, they dim over time, the shoddy Chinese electronics that drive them might crap out, and a lot of the savings might be eaten up due to the time value of money.
I'm not opposed to energy efficient bulbs. I've replaced 90% of the incandescents in my home with CFLs or LEDs. But people need to be realistic and sober when making claims about their value, and recognize that there are legitimate drawbacks! I think LED proponents risk alienating a lot of people, just as a lot of people were alienated by shoddy early CFLs that didn't live up to their promises.
Won't the poor be hit hardest by this?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
My electric bill was cut to about 1/4 the previous amount from the time I had incandescent bulbs to my current mix of LEDs and a few CFL bulbs.
I find the current LED bulbs are brighter than my old incandescent bulbs were, and much brighter than the CFL bulbs were.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Thanks. (The media had me thinking they'd specifically banned incandescents and I hadn't read the actual law.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What you are missing is competition. A monopoly light bulb manufacturer might behave in exactly the way you describe. In a competitive market, while manufacturers might like to ensure a high demand for replacement bulbs by designing them for short lifespans, they would end up with dissatisfied customers who would no longer buy their product, but instead buy from manufacturers who provided the long-lived bulbs people really want.
Until the next round of "more efficient" bulbs. repeated every two years...
1) Beta.slashdot is atrocious.
2) CFLs not designed for ceiling fans can fail early because they're not designed for fully enclosed fixtures, the constant vibration produced by a running ceiling fan (non-potted electroncis), and/or the ceiling fan incorporates a dimmer circuit and you're using a non-dimmable CFL.
3) A "four port light"? Generally, these fixtures are in high humidity areas, such as bathrooms, and get turned on/off many times throughout the day. CFLs tend to fail early in these fixtures because they are an affront to good taste, the CFLs are not meant to be used in a high-humidity area with poor ventilation, and high on/off cycling will reduce the life of any light --particularly instant-on CFLs.
Maybe. But once you reach about 80% efficient, it's going to hit a point of diminishing returns.
I'm in Ikea, looking at light bulbs with my Dad. I mention that LEDs are environmentally better than CFLS, and that years from now you will probably see some sort of TV special on how CFL bulbs and the mercury in them will ruin the environment. A raving guy comes rushing up to me, and says "Say that again! About the Mercury!", and I explain to him how each CFL contains a tiny amount of mercury, then point to the warning label on the box. He gets a crazy look in his eyes, says " I...never... knew... that!", ala Kirk, turns around, and literally runs away.
It's going down to -22F (-30C) tomorrow night.
Around here gas energy costs about a third as much as electric energy, and our electricity mostly comes from fossil fuel anyways, so unless you can get an average COP of 3 or more then gas makes more sense (and is far easier to set up).
For larger installations (high rise, hospital, etc.) then a dual system makes sense where you can use the gas heat on really cold days and the heat pump the rest of the time...but that starts to get pricy for a single dwelling.
Around here a lot of electrical power is from coal and it can be very cold in winter (we usually hit -40 several times), so on some days burning natural gas may be better for the environment than using a heat pump.
You can get "ecosmart" fixtures at Home Depot that are made by Cree that replace entire 4" and 6" pot fixtures. They're quite nice, I have four of the 6" replacements. They're even dimmable, though the fact that the colour doesn't shift when you dim them takes a bit of getting used to.
I haven't found good options to replace fluorescent tube fixtures...but that's less of an issue since a T8 is not all that much worse than LED for efficiency.
Come on, it's not like they want to kill the goose that lay golden egg.
However the reason for high prices should be clear to anyone, and it has more to do with long lifetime than manufacturing costs. Still it's a way better deal for customers.
Expect cheaper models coming out when they find the way to implement planned obsolescence with new technology...
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
The correct link for my post is, of course http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Light_bulb_conspiracy.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
These bulbs end up costing a lot more due to their operating life being so dramatically short. They replaced out lights with these expensive types in Australia. Everyone hates them, they flicker just on the edge of your vision, causing strobing which irritates the brain. They break very easily when installing. Add to that, wheras a normal globe runs for say a 'length of time' the equivalent globe will break at about 10%-20% of the same time length. You end up getting uttlery shafted, price, breakdowns, and the inevitable strobing/pulsing of the light.
Is, in a nutshell, that while you can rationalize banning smoking and mandate seatbelts and now health insurance, when you aren't doing it to just loot the country, and really are trying to be safe, is that, you don't recognize that we think it was your stupidity that made you need to get euthanized, aborted, or made you poor to begin with, and yet you call us dumb all the time, and we're the ones that have the money.
Once again, I'd say, sure, go ahead and do your euthanizations if you want to, but I don't need to buy health insurance when I'm young, or wear a seatbelt, and quick taxing smokes.
Liberals would never shut up enough about other people such that they would ever make that deal about government. Therefor, you have to stay alive and we don't want to pay your medical bills either.
This is my sig.
Unless you are building and maintaining your own systems off the grid, you have effectively forced society to support your habits, including using wasteful bulbs. An alternative to having cheap incandescent bulbs might be to have a carbon-tax like surcharge for the extra infrastructure ... then your "cheap" 40 and 60 watt incandescent bulbs would also carry a hefty excise tax that would make them less competitive. Of course, we all know that infrastructure is free, at least in the minds of the typical Walmart shopper.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.