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."

Comments

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are free to choose: that's what the ballot box is for.

Capitalistic "freedom of choice" is weighted by the size of your wallet.

Re:Seriously?

[slart42]

Ha, You could buy heatballs instead - They are little radiators which conveniently fit into your lightbulb sockets, and are 90% energy efficient (the remaining 10% of the energy is wasted as light) : http://heatball.de/en/

Re:Seriously?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's freaking cold outside!!

I wasn't the smartest cookie in my Systems and Control course, but even I understood that the alternative to increasing the input heat flow was decreasing thermal conductivity.

Re:Seriously?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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!

I suspect that Poe's Law is at work here. But I'll play it straight and point out that a heat-pump is a lot more efficient than simple resistive heating like the waste heat from a light-bulb. Modern heat-pumps work even in sub-freezing temperatures like a Wisconsin winter.

Re:Seriously?

[fluffy99]

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!

I doubt you need heat year round. The only way you don't waste energy in that scenario is if you're already using electric resistance heating which is horribly inefficient. Heat pumps are less efficient in the cold, but still outperform resistance heat down to 15*F. If you're routinely colder than that, you have gas/propane/oil backup heat or worst case electric resistance heat.

That said, there are cases where incandescent bulbs are used to provide heat, such as terrariums. For those I guess we're stuck with $4 halogens that don't last any longer instead of the 25-cent walmart specials.

Re:Seriously?

[Dcnjoe60]

You are free to choose: that's what the ballot box is for.

Capitalistic "freedom of choice" is weighted by the size of your wallet.

Really, and when was the incadescent ban put to a vote of the people? No, the ballot box is only effective on things that those in power (or the people who control them) want it to be effective for.

Re:Seriously?

[hawguy]

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!

It's still wasting money unless you heat your house with electrical resistance heating.

And many lamps aren't located where they are the most effective radiators - much of the heat from a ceiling fixture is conducted into the ceiling.

Re:Seriously?

[ColdWetDog]

Modern heat pumps are expensive and cranky of maintenance. But you don't heat your entire house with incandescents - the idea is that the 90% waste isn't 'waste' it's being utilized effeciently. And to pay another $10 for an effecient solution makes little sense.

I like the new LEDs, I have them all over the house now. But those were installed with a bit of care - I only expended the money on the larger areas that are lit frequently. Closets, hallways, bathrooms - the analysis just isn't in favor of LEDs or CFLs. The feds should just let the market figure it out. That would also minimize the problem of tens of thousands of shit quality 'effecient' bulbs pushed on the market. With the time constraints the feds created and the associated hoopla, you had every Chinese fifth tier electronics manufacturer trying to get into the game. With predictable results. Lots of people are turned off to the 'effecient' solution since they lasted six months and then died.

Re:Seriously?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Modern heat pumps are expensive and cranky of maintenance.

Bullshit. They are no more problematic than a regular A/C unit.

But you don't heat your entire house with incandescents - the idea is that the 90% waste isn't 'waste' it's being utilized effeciently

No. The choice is between running the efficient heat-pump a little bit more or running the light-bulb and paying 10x more for the marginal increase in heat.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might go back and check your calculations. 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?

Pretty good, actually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Coefficient_of_performance_.28COP.29_and_lift, so we are still talking about more than twice the efficiency of resistance heating.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, and when was the incadescent ban put to a vote of the people?

At the same time we voted for an energy price system that incorporates all externalities. Since you don't want to pay more for your energy it failed and this is what you chose instead.

What conservatives really want is to live in a fantasy world where the rest of the country and planet don't exist. Somebody magically provides cheap resources and they can build a Randian society where everybody is free to chose their brand of gas guzzler. The rest of the world begs to differ.

Re:Seriously?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You might go back and check your calculations. 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?

Resistive heat, by definition, has a COP (coefficient of performance) of 1.0.

The average heat pump has a COP of about 3.0 at 47F and only gets down to 1.0 around 0F.

A modern heat pump with a variable speed compressor like the Carrier 25VNA should have a COP of roughly 1.5 at 0F.

Re:Seriously?

[sjames]

It's actually a much more complex calculation. Nobody argues that the poor efficiency of an incandescent is good. However, it does have a cost associated with it that must be balanced against the cost of a more efficient bulb. That cost is effectively lower if the excess heat isn't waste. In that case the real cost of the heat is just the differential vs the cost of adding that heat to the room more efficiently.

Likewise, in the case where the house is being cooled, the real cost of the (actually) waste heat is the cot of the wasted electricity PLUS the cost of moving the heat out with an A/C.

Naturally, all of that will balance quite differently in Wisconsin than it does in Miami.

Re:Seriously?

[ultranova]

Its strictly dollars and cents. CFC is a toxic nightmare, and LED costs more to buy and operate than incandescent.

It's a real pity the anti-nuclear lobby ensured we have no way to produce lots of cheap, non-polluting electricity, now isn't it?

Re:Seriously?

[jratcliffe]

You're seriously basing your claim that LED costs more based on an article which uses a $119.99 price for an LED bulb??? That article is more than four years old at this point. You can get a 60W equivalent at any Home Depot for $13 or less. Plug that number in, and you're looking at $37.50 for LED vs $188 for incandescent, or about 1/5 the cost.

Re:Seriously?

[Jane Q. Public]

"Capitalistic "freedom of choice" is weighted by the size of your wallet."

I have grown so tired of this utter bullshit.

"Crony capitalism" is not capitalism. It isn't even close. That's the reason it has a name. "Monopoly" and "oligopoly" are not capitalism. Even Adam Smith, who was basically the originator of the concept of capitalism as a system, recognized that antitrust laws to keep monopolies and oligopolies from forming were a necessary part of the strategy.

Capitalism is about free market forces. Voluntary exchange. With the exception of antitrust, EVERY government interference in the market, and ALL corporate lobbying that ends up restricting your choices, is an ENEMY of capitalism.

Don't blame the system for the actions of enemies of the system. That is like blaming the food for somebody burning your crops.

Re:Seriously?

[beelsebob]

Uhh, I'm not sure "LED costs $144.49 over 30,000 hours, while incandescent costs $187.82" really backs up your claim that LEDs are more expensive ;)

Your estimates are also based off $0.10 per kWh, which is cheaper than even the cheapest states in the US. You also vastly overestimate the power consumption, and cost of LED bulbs. I recently bought 4.5W LED bulbs that are as bright as 60W incandescents, for $13.99 each in safeway.

If you redo the sums for the cheapest $0.11 and sane price for LEDs, you get $205.82 for the incandescent, $47.55 for the CFL and $28.84 for LEDs.
If you do the sums for an average $0.14, you get $259.82 for the incandescent, $59.25 for the CFL and $32.89 for LEDs.
If you do them at the most expensive rates in the US ($0.18 per kWh), you get $331.82 for incandescent, $74.85 for CFL and $38.29 for LEDs.

That, for me, makes the choice pretty obvious.

Already banned in Europe

[jonbryce]

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.

Not 10%

[second class skygod]

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.

Re:Not 10%

[zippthorne]

lumens are a weighted intensity based on human response curves. The 683 max lumens figure comes from degenerate case in which all of the spectral power is concentrated on the wavelength of peak luminous response. It's my understanding that such a lamp would be an intense, monochromatic green. But you'd really be able to see it!

The 10% efficiency figure, I believe, is found by comparing the radiant flux (total power emitted as light) to the total power input.

Lumens are a useful rating, if the spectrum of each lamp is comparable - it's a rough, relative comparison of the effectiveness of each lamp.

However non-blackbody sources have a chance to game the rating by adjusting their spectrum to concentrate on the most effective wavelengths. This may be one reason why some cfls are not living up to their equivalency claims - they're hitting the lumen target, but unscrupulous manufacturers could be using a set of phosphors that puts more energy in the peak response bands and not enough outside them.

I'm now curious as to whether there are independent spectrum analyses out there for consumers to review.

I suppose what we need is yet another unit of measure to include the fact that although humans can see one wavelength better than all the rest, we need light across the spectrum to be able to effectively and comfortably observe our surroundings.

Regulations a bit premature

[JDG1980]

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.

Re:Regulations a bit premature

[polar red]

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.

the price of leds is made up by the extreme long life they have.

Re:Regulations a bit premature

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

As of 2013 there is still no way to get a light bulb that combines the low cost and high quality of an incandescent

Correction. Low up front cost.

At the national average of 12c/kwh a typical LED bulb will pay for itself in 2.5 years and last well over 5 years. In other words, they are already cheaper than incandescents if you aren't as short-sighted as the typical wall-street broker.

Also, Philips makes a good $10 bulb too. Cree isn't the only one in the game.

Re:Regulations a bit premature

[King_TJ]

Actually, I purchased a few of the claimed "instant on" CFL bulbs that General Electric started selling.

They're, IMO, even more annoying than the regular CFL bulbs! It seems the way they achieve "instant on at full brightness" is by sending more than the usual amount of current through it for the first few seconds, resulting in the bulb coming on extremely brightly when you first turn the switch, followed by it dropping back to normal brightness. I found it really distracting.

For the record, I don't see what's not to be impressed about with the libertarian arguments? They hit the nail on the head, IMO, as to why forcing a technology change via govt. regulation yields poor results. I voluntarily switched quite a few of my incandescent bulbs out with alternatives, long before these bans began. Obviously, I'd voluntarily switch out the remaining traditional bulbs if there weren't VALID reasons not to in certain cases. Cost is a big one.... For example, I have some enclosed fixtures where the CFL bulbs just fail from cooking themselves inside the glass domes covering them up. They last maybe 3-6 months, followed by intermittently flickering on and off. Removing them to examine them reveals burn marks around the white plastic base, where the circuity is contained. It's not cost effective to replace entire light fixtures to resolve this!

The responsible consumer is a myth

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:this is the thing that really gets me

[cyber-vandal]

You mean that well-known eco activist George W Bush?

Makes 'em Feel Good

[craigminah]

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...

Re:Makes 'em Feel Good

[jratcliffe]

The mercury "issue" is a complete red herring. Using incandescents requires more power. A large chunk of that power comes from coal. Burning coal releases mercury - a lot MORE mercury than would be released if EVERY burned out CFL were just tossed into a landfill. How much mercury do power plants emit to light a CFL? About 50 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. is generated by coal-fired power plants. When coal burns to produce electricity, mercury naturally contained in the coal releases into the air. In 2006, coal-fired power plants produced 1,971 billion kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity, emitting 50.7 tons of mercury into the air—the equivalent amount of mercury contained in more than 9 billion CFLs (the bulbs emit zero mercury when in use or being handled). Approximately 0.0234 mg of mercury—plus carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide—releases into the air per 1 kwh of electricity that a coal-fired power plant generates. Over the 7500-hour average range of one CFL, then, a plant will emit 13.16 mg of mercury to sustain a 75-watt incandescent bulb but only 3.51 mg of mercury to sustain a 20-watt CFL (the lightning equivalent of a 75-watt traditional bulb). Even if the mercury contained in a CFL was directly released into the atmosphere, an incandescent would still contribute 4.65 more milligrams of mercury into the environment over its lifetime. http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/reviews/news/4217864

Re:CFLs still suck

[Skater]

I bought an LED bulb the other day (we had a coupon). We love it - instant on, and the light looks exactly like the classic incandescent. I'm sold; once they get a bit less expensive (or we find more coupons), we're buying more. I'm hoping we've bought our last CFL - they always felt like an interim solution until LEDs improved.

Now, can we get some lighting fixtures that use LEDs that are actually designed for LEDs? For example, I'd like to put in some LED downlights in the living room, but everything I can find is just an LED replacement bulb for a classic fixture, rather than a fixture designed for an LED. I'd also like to replace the 40 watt florescent tube fixtures in our garage with LEDs, but so far I can't find much that would work. I was thinking strips of LEDs, one color, but it was looking like several hundred dollars for several strips of the length I'd need.

Re:CFLs still suck

[Frosty Piss]

Cree has finally got their bulbs out and they're dirt cheap - $12 apiece for 60watt equivalent bulbs at the big box store.

12$ for a light bulb is not "cheap".

We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[sjbe]

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.

Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[Pentium100]

Besides, you can just connect a big resistor in series with a halogen bulb. This lowers the color temperature to that of a regular incandescent and probably makes the bulb last longer. As a side effect it makes the efficiency even worse than that of an incandescent bulb.

While EU kindabanned regular light bulbs, the "specialty" ones are still available. That includes rugged and longer life bulbs, both of which have efficiency rating of "G", while the normal light bulbs had a rating of "E". A 60W long-life light bulb produces about as much light as a 40W regular. OTOH, the color temperature is even lower, so I like them. Both are also labeled "not for room lighting",

If they ever decide to ban the long-life bulbs as well, I will buy a lot of them. I still have mu stash of ~100 regular bulbs.

The reason is that I like the light they produce. A point source of continuous spectrum light with a low color temperature. I do not care about the efficiency - after all, my computers use ~1kW and my Bitcoin miners use ~600W, I really do not care about the 40W or 60W that goes to a light bulb.

Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[icebike]

Banning needlessly inefficient technologies when there are reasonable alternatives available is one of them.

Reasonable alternatives would not be priced at $27 a pop or pose a serious mercury contamination risk for disposed of bulbs, or evacuation in the case of broken ones.
.
Contrary to the article and the summary, the payback period on some of the newer bulbs is way longer than the devices actually last in real-life environments. And again, inefficiency is not an issue if you are heating your house anyway.

LED is the only technology with any real promise, but the cost has to come down to 1/10th what it is today before they
will be accepted by people on a budget.

Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[hb253]

Well, I just bought a reasonable 72 Watt bulb with the output lumens equal to an older style 100 Watt bulb. Seems like a no-brainer to me. I get a lower electric bill without having to use an ugly CFL or super expensive LED.

Remember the ban is on older inefficient incandescent bulbs, not incandescent bulbs in general.

The news organizations and tin foil hat wearing types are focusing on the "ban" part for their own ends.

Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[Harlequin80]

I have replaced almost all of my lights with LEDs. For 90% of the house I actually replaced the whole fitting with flush mounted LED down lights. Each downlight cost me $36 AUD. (about 32 US) and produce 800lm. They look much nicer and gave my house a more modern look. On top of that I really like the light they produce. I know this is a taste thing but we went 6000k throughout. It takes a little while to get used to it (about a week or two) but now I find the "warm white / Yellow" to look dirty to my eyes.

On a power consumption side I have one of those electricity usage sensors in my meter box which gives me real time electricity consumption. When I turn those lights on they basically don't register on the meter at all as the bounce between readings is greater than their usage.

My electricity cost is 27c / kwh. So a 100w bulb will eat basically 65c per day (assuming on all the time). These use under 10w and are rated with mttf of 50,000 hrs. Even halving the life time I am saving $600 in electricity costs alone.

The cost here for drop in replacements is about $20. More expensive than an incandescent of course but they simply don't seem to fail. I fitted 9 of these during our update - 4 to hanging fixtures and 5 to a vanity rail.

Drop in - http://www.northernlighting.com.au/products/5451-candle-3w-led-energy-saving-lamp-lca35-sunny-lighting.aspx
Down lights - http://www.northernlighting.com.au/products/4337-ecogem-10w-daylight-dimmable-led-downlight-s9041dl-sunny-lighting.aspx

Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[ShanghaiBill]

Reasonable alternatives would not be priced at $27 a pop or pose a serious mercury contamination risk for disposed of bulbs

Get a clue. You can buy good 10w (60w equiv) LED light bulbs for $4 a pop on eBay. I bought a batch of 10 from this guy. They come on instantly, are very bright, and contain no mercury. Even after an hour, they are barely warm. Unlike CFLs, they work in the cold, so you can use them for a porch/garage. They are made of impact resistant plastic. While installing one, I accidentally dropped it 8 feet onto a concrete floor. It bounced, but didn't break. So far, I have had zero failures. Since the seller has a 99.4% approval rate, my guess is most other customers are happy as well.

Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[ShanghaiBill]

Who do you think pays for those subsidizes?

The same people that benefit from less coal mining, fracking, and global warming.

Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[khayman80]

Pardon me for nitpicking a bit, but incandescents are not "continuous spectrum". Generally speaking, they are more continuous than fluorescents and LEDs, but continuous they are not.

MIT society of physics students: "one can observe a continuous spectrum by looking at an incandescent light bulb."

Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[Guppy]

Reasonable alternatives would not be priced at $27 a pop or pose a serious mercury contamination risk for disposed of bulbs, or evacuation [epa.gov] in the case of broken ones.

A bit of perspective here. I worked out the numbers once, and found that a typical CFL has about as much mercury as ~5lbs of swordfish steaks. So if a CFL is a serious mercury contamination risk, then all over the U.S. there are seafood vendors who are shipping around what are essentially batches of mercury contamination, for people cook and eat.

Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[WaywardGeek]

Speaking of numbers, did anyone else here gag when reading in the post that incandescent bulbs are 10% efficient? Try 2% efficient at creating light we can read by... all that infrared they put out just keeps you warm. The poster must have gotten incandescent efficiencies mixed up with the latest and greatest bulbs - LED bulbs from Cree, which can do 11% efficiency. Still, most of that energy becomes heat. There's still room for a lot of improvement.

Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs

[AmiMoJo]

You used to be able to dump all your waste in the local river rather than paying for disposal. Sorry, but we have to share the environment we live in.

Leave our kids alone

[masonc]

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?

$12 is cheap IF you account for all the costs

[sjbe]

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.

The Argument

[webdog314]

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'.

U of Minn says: about 80 AFUE from heat pump

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Are they coming to my house to do a survey?

[jd2112]

Why would you become a politician, if you didn't want to tell other people what to do? That's the whole point of politics.

I thought the whole point of becoming a politician was it doesn't carry the social stigma of being on welfare?

I thought the whole point of becoming a politician was it doesn't carry the social stigma of being a prostitute.

Making smart choices

[fyngyrz]

They argue that if the new ones really are so good, people will buy them on their own without being forced to do so."

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.

Re:Making smart choices

[PopeRatzo]

How dare the government force me to buy seat belts for my car!

Re:Making smart choices

[PopeRatzo]

Economically speaking, people *always* behave rationally.

I just want to take this opportunity to point out that Economics is the softest of all the sciences. Compared to Economics, psi research is practically classical physics. Sociology and Psychology have long eclipsed Economics in terms of rigor and honest application of the scientific method.

One of the most valuable things I've learned in my professional life in academia, at an institution with numerous Econ prize winners, is just how shoddy the methods, how dishonest the practitioners, how low the standards. Even their math is abominable.

When my institution closed its school of education, I remember how unjust I felt it was that they allowed the School of Economics to keep its doors opened. The world would be better off if every economist was sent to work in a Chinese electronics factory for ten years and their offices turned into cozy lounges for the biology students.

Re:Making smart choices

[Caffinated]

...Government has decided that it is a bad decision for people to not purchase health insurance. I know many perfectly reasonable, rational people who did not purchase health insurance before the ACA because it was not worth it to them. I made the opposite decision; but there is no way that I could ever objectively come to the conclusion that their decision (or mine) was a good or bad one. Value is entirely subjective and for someone to impose their own subjective values onto another is asinine, coercive, and straight up maddening.

Except the value of insurance isn't subjective from the perspective of everyone else. If one of those "reasonable, rational people who did not purchase health insurance" gets hit by a bus and has the good luck to survive, then almost certainly it'll be everyone else paying for their treatment in one way or another. That's a direct 'objective' reason why having everyone be covered is beneficial, but there are other reasons why the requirement is there.

One such reason would be that removing the ability of insurance companies to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions pretty much compels something like it. Otherwise your perfectly reasonable, rational people would just wait until they got sick and buy insurance, and drop it as soon as they were better. That behavior would, of course, destroy the insurance market pretty quickly, which might be a bit of a problem.

No!

[dxkelly]

I haven't gotten over being mad about them phasing out buggy whips yet!!