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Trump Administration Dims Rule On Energy Efficient Lightbulbs (npr.org)
An anonymous reader shares a report: If it's been a few years since you shopped for a lightbulb, you might find yourself confused. Those controversial curly-cue ones that were cutting edge not that long ago? Gone. (Or harder to find.) Thanks to a 2007 law signed by President George W. Bush, shelves these days are largely stocked with LED bulbs that look more like the traditional pear-shaped incandescent version but use just one-fifth the energy. A second wave of lightbulb changes was set to happen. But now the Trump administration wants to undo an Obama-era regulation designed to make a wide array of specialty lightbulbs more energy efficient.
At issue here are bulbs such as decorative globes used in bathrooms, reflectors in recessed lighting, candle-shaped lights and three-way lightbulbs. The Natural Resources Defense Council says that, collectively, these account for about 2.7 billion light sockets, nearly half the conventional sockets in use in the U.S. At the very end of the Obama administration, the Department of Energy decided these specialty bulbs should also be subject to efficiency requirements under the 2007 law. The lighting industry objected and sued to overturn the decision. [...] NEMA argued that Congress never intended for the law to apply to all these other lightbulbs. After President Trump took office the Energy Department agreed and proposed to reverse the agency's previous decision. Critics say if the reversal is finalized it will mean higher energy bills for consumers and more pollution.
At issue here are bulbs such as decorative globes used in bathrooms, reflectors in recessed lighting, candle-shaped lights and three-way lightbulbs. The Natural Resources Defense Council says that, collectively, these account for about 2.7 billion light sockets, nearly half the conventional sockets in use in the U.S. At the very end of the Obama administration, the Department of Energy decided these specialty bulbs should also be subject to efficiency requirements under the 2007 law. The lighting industry objected and sued to overturn the decision. [...] NEMA argued that Congress never intended for the law to apply to all these other lightbulbs. After President Trump took office the Energy Department agreed and proposed to reverse the agency's previous decision. Critics say if the reversal is finalized it will mean higher energy bills for consumers and more pollution.
Am I wrong to consider energy efficiency problem with light bulbs largely solved? LED bulb are affordable and efficient. Is there anything else left to do?
However, modern LED bulbs are not as reliable as an early models. I have very first Phillips LED bulb that was sold, it cost almost 80$ when it was new and it still works. About a year ago I purchased 20$ LED bulb and noticed it already intermittently fails to light. Such lack of reliability is a significant e-waste issue.
...it has nothing to do with the benefit to either the consumer or the industry and is totally about trying to erase anything Obama did as a way of getting his petty revenge.
Now we're going to have to generate about 25 large coal-burning power plants' worth of extra electricity if this rollback goes through
They assume everybody is going to remove the LED lights, and replace them with incandescents ?
I've converted nearly all my house to LED, including most of the decorative lights. They look a bit tacky when they're not turned on, but you can't really tell the difference when they're turned on. I bought a whole boatload of LED lights from Walmart when they were like something like $2 for a 4 pack of 60 watt equivalents, and replaced every normal light in my home. The net result so far is to lower my energy bill from $121 to $104 a month.
CFL light bulbs sucked in every way imaginable. Not only were they bad for outdoor use (slow to light up), I never had one that lived up to its supposed 7 year lifespan. Then you had to package them up and bring them to a store to dispose of them. I wonder how many of those are lying busted in landfills across the country, leaking mercury into the water table?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Many specialty bulbs are very odd shapes. CFL and LED lights are difficult to fit into these shapes, and end up being highly unreliable. For what the special nature of these bulbs, the conventional style works more reliably.
Very odd? Most of them are round, round is not an odd shape. If they could fit a filament into it, with their space requirements etc., there should be no problem fitting an LED into one. I have LED candelabra bulbs which work quite well, is there a shape more awkward to fit into than those?
My whole house has been LED for years. I've had zero issues and only had to replace 1 bulb. That issue wasn't that the LED failed, but the smart components failed and I coudn't use the app to control it. My house is fairly large for this area and the power company sends us averages every month. I'm always well under the power usage of houses in my area. I don't see any issues with quality of light as they now sell LED bulbs in different spectrums or even with adjustable spectrum. The cost is nominal you can get 24 60W equivalent bulbs now for $22.
This legislation was a good thing. It pushed manufactures to find a way to lower costs on LED bulbs and brought lower consumption of electrical use. Why change it?
...to stop these people?
I honestly have no idea who you mean by "these people".
Do you mean:
1. Obamatards who imposed silly rules?
2. Trumptards who don't care about pollution?
3. Stupid consumers incapable of understand long vs short term costs?
4. Greedy light bulb companies wanting short-lifetime bulbs?
5. Slashdot editors who post silly articles?
6. Frist-posters?
Please clarify.
Where do you live where all of the external costs of electricity are reflected by its price?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Because given the choice a lot of people will still choose the cheaper incandescent bulb, - even if it costs them roughly the same or even less in the long run.
The point of the legislation is to save energy and reduce CO2 emissions by getting rid of incandescent bulbs, - which the original legislation did very effectively for standard sized bulbs. If that legislation hadn't passed, you'd still shelves full of incandescent bulbs and people would still be buying them.
Voting
Which after this week and the fall out of the Mueller report and the spectacular flameout of AOC's "Green" new deal in the Senate soon to come is looking to be a pretty tall hill to climb.
Don't be too sure. Trump just put health care in play. I doubt he'll get votes by withdrawing protection for pre-existing conditions.
And although Trump may have been left unscathed by Mueller's probe, he is still facing lots of other legal issues.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
It isn't clear Trump is left unscathed by Mueller. We don't see the full report.
Put yourself in Mueller's shoes. If he issued an indictment of Trump, the right-wing nuts would froth at the mouth...well, more so than they already do. And his boss has already declared Presidents are above the law. So by failing to issue an indictment in the way he did, i.e., evidence on both sides, he makes Barr decide not to indict and now Barr has to defend being a toadie...my apologies to toads.
And Mueller seemed to do a fair job of spawning off other investigations that were not in his direct purview. So now Barr has to contend with the rank and file knowing what a sleeze Trump is and attempt to bottle up those investigations.
In my opinion, Barr got the job because the Republicans needed a patsy and he was pleasured to oblige.
the light from LED bulbs seems more harsh
I personally find "daylight" bulbs very harsh, and I'm wondering if you got one of those. They are slightly brighter than "warm" bulbs but I don't like the color.
Ironically we say "warm" bulbs for bulbs with a lower color temperature. Color temperature is measured using the number of degrees that an ideal black-body radiator would be to glow at that color. "warm" bulbs are 2700K, and "daylight" bulbs are 5000K. The hotter color temperature means the light is shifted toward blue, so it's brighter. The "warm" temperature is less bluish. (We are used to fire being considered warm, and it's only red-hot; blue-hot is hotter. But ice looks bluish so I guess we think bluish colors are cooler.)
I have Cree brand tube bulbs that replace fluorescent tubes and they are 3000K color temperature. I like 3000K; the "warm" temperature of 2700K seems kind of yellowish to me. I found that Cree has some 3000K bulbs on the Home Depot web site (I've never seen them in a store) and I plan to try buying some.
Also, bulbs have a metric called "CRI", which I believe is "Color Rendering Index". A CRI rating of 100 is theoretically exactly as nice as sunlight. Higher is better. The most expensive Cree bulbs have CRI of over 90. Your "harsh" bulb may have a low CRI.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
And although Trump may have been left unscathed by Mueller's probe
All we've seen so far is a summary written by the guy who literally covered up Iran-Contra. And even that summary explicitly states the report did not exonerate Trump:
While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him
Btw, one of Barr's "interesting" legal positions is that you can not be charged with obstructing justice unless you can be charged with the crime you obstructed justice to hide. Which would seem to fit extremely well with that quote. It's also an insane opinion that isn't backed by anything other than convenience to the powerful.
Yes, I agree with all of that, and have made similar points in other stories. Please see my reply to gtall above.
Barr's claim that there was no obstruction because there was no crime of conspiracy is ridiculous. Tell that to Martha Stewart, who was not convicted for insider trading, but was convicted for obstructing the investigation of her alleged insider trading.
And it gets better with Barr. He maintains that the President cannot obstruct justice. Not hard to see how he got the nod from the WH to be the new AG.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.