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60% of Americans Unaware of Looming Incandescent Bulb Phase Out
Lucas123 writes "Even though production of 75W and 100W incandescent lamps were phased out earlier this year, many U.S. consumers remain blissfully unaware of The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, an energy efficiency standard that requires an initial 30% reduction in energy use for screw-in bulbs. By 2020, the federal standard requires bulbs to use 65% less energy. According to a new survey, only 40% of Americans are aware that incandescent bulbs are being phased out. However, the federal regulations are about to impact the most popular bulbs of all — 40W and 60W lamps. As of Jan. 1, 2014, the bulbs will no longer be produced. A significant portion of those who are aware of the phase out have been hoarding the bulbs in anticipation of the ban."
We have been going through this phase out (Switzerland) and while I was using "neon" tubes and halogens I am switching to LED's. They are awesome. Low energy, last forever, very bright, and do not generate any heat. IMO LED's have come a very long way in a very short time.
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You obviously dont live in an area with less than perfect power delivery.
Where I am is not bad, but still just far enough from perfect that those new 'long life' bulbs do not last any longer than incandescents. They just cost 20 times as much, they arent as bright, and they are inferior in absolutely every way.
Rich idiots in privileged settings come up with this crap and force it down the throats of the rest of us, and no offense but you sure sound like part of the problem. Just because you dont need something does not give you license to outlaw it and screw with the rest of us like that. If you dont think incandescent bulbs are a good value for you then dont buy them, but preventing those of us that do need them from obtaining them is just meanness.
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They aren't banned, as you can still buy the rough service bulbs. Newcandescent among others sells them for $2-3 a pop, and they have a 10000 hour life instead of the 1000 hour life that normal bulbs claim. They are cheaper and the light is easier on the eyes than any of the alternatives available at this time. Go rough service, I have a whole case on order and they should last me for decades.
One way they get the longer lifetime of the bulbs is to use a thicker filament, and they rate the lumens at 130V, while most homes are going to have 110 - 120V delivered to their homes, so you're getting less light out of the bulb.
You can get a quaility Halogen replacement bulb that will provide 100W equivalent performance while using only about 70 watts and will last 3500 hours for around $5.
I don't know if you think you're making a stand against government, but if you use the rough service bulbs instead of more efficient bulbs, you're costing yourself more money and getting less light than if you just bought an efficient halogen replacement.
How much more? At 4 hours/day the $2.50 10000 hour Rough Service bulb will last almost 7 years, while you'd need 3 of the 3500 hour $5 halogens to last that long, so you'll end up paying $12.50 more for the bulbs. However, saving 30 watts means 306KWh of energy savings for the Halogen, or around $36 at 12 cents/KWh.
So, you'll spend over $20 for the privilege of having less light, but you'll have proven why legislation was needed to get people to select bulbs that save them money.
Or are you going to claim that even halogen incandescents don't provide the same quality of light as conventional incandescents?
Lava lamps use a small, specialty lamp size that is unaffected by this ban, just like refrigerator and stove bulbs. The ban is only on standard-sized, non-long-life incandescent bulbs at specific wattages.
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I don't think you could have sourced a more expensive place for 60-watt replacements. I just bought a 4-pack of CFLs at Home Depot for under $4. And that's the good Phillips brand. The fancy GE enclosed CFLs with the starter halogen inside go for about $5. The Phillips 60W-equivalent LED is $10, with the Cree going for slightly more.
I'm not arguing that the phase out is a good thing, but let's be realistic about the price drops.
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It's also worth noting that LEDs last for at least 50k hours. The failure mode is that they get dimmer, not that they fail completely. Whereas that $1 light bulb will last for about 1000 hours. Maybe more, maybe less, depends on the setting and the individual variations in manufacture. So a $1 light bulb is actually quite a bit more expensive than a good-quality LED light bulb. Don't waste your money on the cheap ones. If you're desperate to continue using incandescent, get halogen bulbs—they produce good light and consume about 70% of the power doing it. But we're using Cree bulbs and loving them. The really cheap ones have lousy color rendering, but the Cree bulbs do really well.
I bought an adapter to allow the two prong style fixtures to accept a screw-in traditional bulb. look for a gu24 to e26 adapter. I bought some for about $2 each from a huge online retailer. They work great for adapting to the common screw bulbs until the new style is more available.
Consider a bulb that is used no more than twice a week for only 3 minutes each time. How long does it take to break even on the increased purchase cost of a CFL or LED over a standard 40W bulb?
Incandescents are still a better option for a number of applications.
I bought 96 bulbs for $75. a lifetime supply for me. I have changed exactly 6 bulbs in my bathroom and two in my storage area in 7 years.
I live in a cold country. I don't care about a trivial power cost. I need the heat. Doesn't matter if it comes from a bulb or natural gas. Shit, I heat with computers sometimes!
This whole bulb fiasco is a money grab and to bail out dumb governments who didn't plan for electrical growth.
My province added 150 windmills this year and will add 300 in the coming two years. We have wind, coal and natural gas. Changing a few light bulbs will make very little difference here.
You can pry my incandescents from my cold dead hands!
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"LED bulbs are out of this world at Home Depot" Those prices are for 4- and 6-packs. Read your own search result. At between $10 and $12 for a Cree LED bulb at Home Depot, the price is right, and I'm VERY happy with equivalent light output, color temperature and performance with my Z-wave dimmers. No CFL or LED bulb so far has matched them. I've had to return one Cree bulb so far because it shipped with the glass envelope loose. Been perfect otherwise (4 bulbs installed for trial, roughly 6 months in). Full disclosure: I hold 100 shares of CREE. And this is my actual experience using the bulbs in my house.
Um, no. Find me a warranty for 50,000 hours for a reasonable cost. You'll find that most warranties don't extend past 5 years, and those that do typically have a time limit to the hours burned. Ex:
(from Home Depot)
Cree: 10 years (5 years for downlights/inverted use)
EcoSmart: 5 years
Philips: 6 years, limited to 3 hours/day (6000hours!)
Sylvania: 3 years @ 4300h/yr or 5yrs @ 2160hr/yr
Many will claim a lifetime, but will only warrant for a short period. Also realize that these warranties are limited to the life of the lighting subsidiary. For Philips and Sylvania, probably not a worry. For EcoSmart and Cree...will they even be in the residential lamp business (directly) in 5 or 10 years? Will you still even have the receipt? I point this out because I've replaced every single CFL (15) in my home office area in the past 24 months, some of them twice. The manufacturer is no longer in business, the vendor just shrugs - not their problem.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The average incandescent bulb lasts about 1000 hours. Currently, the average cost per kilowatt hour is 12 cents in this country. So a 100 watt bulb run for 1000 hours costs about $1.20 in electricity. The bulbs cost about $0.57 each. An equivalent LED bulb costs $36 per, and consumes only 13% of the energy used by an incandescent. They say these will last approximately 50,000 hours.
Except your math is off by a factor of 10. 100 watt is 0.1 kW, times 1000 hours gives 100 kWh, which is $12 dollars of electricity not $1.20. That changes pretty much everything.
I agree about the toxic waste stuff, but if you're worried mostly about energy (and that's what policy mostly focuses on) then incandescents don't make sense.
I happen to work in the utility industry. Power for lighting both commercial and residential is low single-digit percentage. (Incidentally this is also why daylight saving time is a colossal mistake.)
The incandescent lightbulb ban is just a show. It's political theater. There are dozens of ways to save more power with more bang for the buck.