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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."
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.
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/
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.
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.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
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.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
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.
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.
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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'.
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.
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?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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.
"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.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
...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.