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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."
LED light bulbs have low cost and no flicker. If you need a specific lighting profile there's plenty of sites that'll sell it to you. I find it hard getting upset that incandescents are going away. It's not like we're going to pay for the power infrastructure to support them...
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LEDs are cheaper. But some basic understanding of math and economics is required to see that. People that fail at that may get to conclusions such as yours.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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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Nope.
1) Large initial outlay on the energy saving bulbs;
2) When I factor in the cost of even one or two out of two dozen bulbs which go wrong early in their life, I'm not saving money;
3) All but the most expensive do not light up nearly as quickly as traditional;
4) Colour profile of almost all of them is not as nice as incandescent;
5) Disposal of a complex electronic device is more difficult.
"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
They will happily swap the burned out bulbs with whatever is available in the store and most of them wouldn't notice much difference. Couple will find that some of the stuff they bought does not work with dimmer switches or some bulbs tend to be a bit bulky and don't fit in certain very tight enclosures. All of those will be swapped for free back in the store with suitable replacements. So what's the point of preparing in advance for the switch or knowing about it?
Now, the people hoarding incandescent bulbs are a bit more puzzling. Some of them probably have a get-rich-quick plan kicking into action and all I can say is good for them. The ones that are actively trying to avoid switching away from incandescent bulbs are completely different story. WTF people? What's the point of massively inconveniencing yourself with the storage of fragile items only to pay higher electric bills.
How is this surprising?
60% of Americans not keeping up with nation politics? Heck didn't 60% not even bother voting at some point? Don't 60% still think the world was made by an omnipotent being in 7 days?
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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If you have a brain, you got rid of those fucking things more than 5 years ago.
It would be a pretty stupid thing to buy and expensive LED or other bulb to put in a crawlspace, or attic, or even a closet. Payback will never happen. Not enough energy used to make a difference either.
If you're in a coal-fired powerstation area, then it's still a major win. There's mercury in the bulbs, but mercury is released by burning coal and the power savings more than outweigh what's in the bulb.
Incandescent technology is far superior to LEDs for electrothermal conversion efficiency. LEDs waste too much energy as visible light.
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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> LEDs also have better color rendition capability than CFLs.
It would be hard not to.
To some people having a nice warm spectrum from a bulb doesn't matter to them. But to others, inhabiting in a space lit by these new bulbs is like living in a morgue. Where I live it is dark 16 hours a day this time of year and usually overcast during the daytime. To me, the increased energy cost is worth it to live in a space that doesn't make me want to jump out the nearest window in despair. I am glad halogen bulbs will still be available because they are the only acceptable option right now.
Good grief. Turn off some lights when you're not using them man! Your drop in price for changing bulbs more than doubles my total monthly electric bill.
Of course, the fact that people who do not pay so much for electricity will not make the money back so quickly might suggest why some do not upgrade so quickly. Different circumstances result in different calculations. (I note this even though I myself moved away from incandescents years ago.)
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.
You're better off heating with a heat pump—it's about three times more efficient than resistive heat, which is what you get out of a light bulb. Of course, if all you have is resistive heat, you're right that it makes no difference, but people who live in cold climates typically don't use resistive heat because it's so bloody expensive. We use oil, or gas, or heat pump, or wood, or some combination of these.
But if I have my lights on for 5 hours a day in the evening, that 50k hours becomes nearly 30 years.
Yes, LED's are cheaper in the long run, both in capital and running costs. But the payoff periods are pretty long. You may get better value for money buying incandescent bulbs and investing the money saved in power companies.
About 6 years ago I switched over to CFLs. I dealt with the crappy light quality, flicker, and high failure rate. Then my wife broke a CFL literally inches from my 2-year old's face. I'm thinking "meh, I played with mercury thermometers as a kid. big deal". But then I read about vaporized mercury (yes, it goes to solid dust when not pressurized but still) and visited the EPA website which, at the time, recommended I replaced the carpet in the bedroom. Not cool. My wife was in a state of panic over the possible mercury inhaled by our 2-year old. We obviously have no idea about how much mercury he was exposed to. I know that eating several fish is probably equivalent to the same amount of mercury, but there is a difference between inhaled dust and food digested by your stomach. At which point I switched the entire house back to incadescent. And I bought a shitload of 75W and 100W bulbs (probably a 10 year supply). Now granted nowadays I'd just buy LEDs, but cheap LEDs weren't available in 2009-ish. After that experience and given my stock of incadescents, I'm going to keep using incadescents until my stock runs out. I can afford it and I don't a flying fuck about what others think. I do far more to reduce carbon emissions in other ways. That said, I'll only buy a small stock of 40W / 60W. LEDs are good enough nowadays that I see myself switching to those (but you never know when you want a cheap lightbulb for a cheap temporary lamp or something).
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?
This is a beautiful example of too much government by idiots. What the city slicker politicians and neo-econazies don't understand is that the 100W bulbs are useful. I use them for the combination of heat and light they produce on our farm. They are lower power than the 250W bulbs and thus safer so they're less likely to cause a fire while still providing heat in a creep setting for baby chicks, ducklings and piglets.
In my home I all of my light bulbs are LED, because I want light. But in the sheds in the winter the heat of the incandescent bulbs is useful.
If you don't want to buy them then don't. But no need to outlaw them. The law is plain arrogance and fascism.
I was president of a condo association for 5 years. I made the costly mistake of replacing all outside incandescent lights with CFLs:
- all CFLs, regardless of brand, failed within two years. Outdoors CFLs don't last as long as the cheapest incandescents, despite all caterwauling to the contrary. Please don't tell me about your special brand: I've tried it and it failed prematurely.Please don't tell me to return them to the store under the 3-year guarantee: if I did that all my time/gas would be spent driving to/from Home Depot/Lowe's/Light Store and changing bulbs.
- CFLs were frequently stolen. This was an unanticipated cost.
LEDs are even worse: thieves can spot an LED from 100 yards away and will stop at nothing to steal them (since they're so damn expensive). Great to spend $300 replacing a weatherproof floodlight receptacle and the electrical tubing because a thief tore it off an outside wall to get a $50 LED floodlight.
After 3 years I gave up and went back to incandescents, which we will use forever. Savings due to CFLs low electrical usage are not recovered when you include failure and theft in the equation. In fact, incandescents are cheaper even when you include the cost of the rugged models.
There are good reasons why incandescents have been used for so long. And, as others note, you can heat the chicken coop, keep pipes warm, and do other useful tasks with incandescents. CFLs were a political solution to a non-problem.
CFL and LED lighting aren't even close to efficient enough for me. They don't put out enough heat, and cast this annoying glow that competes with the friendly cheer from the sperm oil lamps.
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.