The End of the Light Bulb as We Know It
As the pale, weak sun rose beyond a charcoal gray cloud bank on Sunday, November 6th, the first day of the country’s dismal return to Standard Time, it was clear that the moment had come to lighten up.
Soon I was at Home Depot making a beeline for the light bulb aisle. Why? Because the end of days is drawing nigh. Not in the Biblical sense, but in the Environmental Protection Agency sense: there were only a scant eight weeks (now only seven) before the end of the light bulb as we know it. As of January 1, 2012, Americans will have their freedom of light bulb choice snuffed out by an omnibus 2007 law requiring that general-purpose bulbs be 25% more energy-efficient than the current, justly-beloved, incandescent bulb.
There are a few exceptions, but the next 49 days are the last for the sale of 100-watt incandescent bulbs.
An excellent summary of this disaster-in-the-making and the grim options that will follow in its wake is here.
In July, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. As the House debated the ultimately failed repeal, Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, who had introduced the doomed measure, argued:
The 2010 elections demonstrated that Americans are fed up with government intrusion. The federal government has crept so deep into our lives that federal agencies now determine what kind of light bulbs the American people are allowed to purchase.
This vivid report from England in 2009 on the last days of the sale of incandescent bulbs there — ordained by a similar European Union ban on traditional bulbs — is a cautionary tale of what we can expect at lighting retailers in the United States on New Year’s Eve 2011. There could be more people at Manhattan’s two Home Depot stores than in Times Square.
As I’ve written here before, part of the meaning of freedom is freedom of choice. Every green American who wants to read by mercury-ignited compact fluorescent bulbs is free to do so. Every environmentally-motivated citizen who desires energy-efficient halogen bulbs should enjoy that choice, too. But many of us desire incandescent bulbs, just the way Thomas A. Edison invented them.
You know something nefarious is afoot when the Obama administration trundles out its own personal Nobel laureate (other than the incumbent himself), Energy Secretary Steven Chu, to lecture us — us, the pathetic, scientifically uneducated, financially ignorant, unwashed, energy-profligate, unable-to-balance-our-own-checkbooks fools he takes us to be — on light bulbs:
“Right now many families around the country are struggling to pay their energy bills, and leaders in the House want to roll back these standards that will save families money.…
“You’ll still be able to buy halogen incandescent bulbs. They’ll look and feel the same, but the only difference is that they’ll save consumers money.”
Of tea partiers’s philosophical argument that the law would deprive consumers of the choice of lighting products, Chu said, these standards are not taking choices away, they are “putting money back in the pockets of American families.”
Contrary to Secretary Chu’s disingenuous statement in July, viz., “They’ll look and feel the same,” they neither look nor feel the “same.” He may be able to fool some of the people some of the time, but I regret to inform Secretary Chu that he can’t fool me — or tens of millions like me– any of the time.
These ghastly light bulbs casting their ghoulish, glary light — all gussied up to appear to resemble the older, familiar bulbs — are the light bulb equivalent of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
I, for one, did not elect President Obama, nor did I insist that he select Steven Chu to tell me how to “put money back in” my pockets. My pockets are my business, not his. You look out for your pockets, Secretary Chu, and I’ll look out for mine.
Where do you get off telling me and my fellow Americans, “these standards are not taking choices away”? It’s obvious you think we’re idiots, but idiots of that magnitude? These standards are unquestionably taking choices away: that’s why 100-watt incandescent bulbs are flying off the shelves at Home Depots nationwide. Here’s a photo of my purchases from last Sunday alone — not my last foray by a long shot:
Expect the incandescent bulbs that people are hoarding to be of inferior quality and made to burn out quickly.
When the razor companies wanted to phase out injector style blades they made them so that the injector blade would be sure to cut the shaver when he shaved.
The new bulbs are like the toilets that don’t flush, they’ll make life worse not better. Thanks Congress.
You are right on.
The big 3 manufacturers began selling out 130 volt rated “rough service” bulbs. What most consumers did not realize was that the “100 watt” bulbs they were buying were actually only 88 watt bulbs, and not only that but only put out as much light as a 75 watt bulb! That is what you get when you plug a 130 volt rated bulb into a 120 volt rated outlet. I think the idea was to try to mislead consumers into thinking that incandescent bulbs do not really put out as much light, so the new “energy efficient” replacement bulbs would not seem so bad in comparison.
If you look at the old 100 watt bulbs Philips was making, they gave off 1670 lumens of light. The new 72 watt halogen bulbs only give off 1450 lumens, yet the packaging claims they are the equivalent of a 100 watt bulb.
The government also refuses to require light manufacturers to put a warning on the packaging about the UV radiation the new spiral CFL bulbs leak out. Over ones lifetime it could potentially lead to premature wrinkling and possibly increase the risk of skin cancer and cataracts, although no one is entirely sure.
I have skin sensitivity problems with CFL lamps. My skin starts feeling irritated/sore after about 20 minutes. Unfortunately many restaurants, and even the church I go to, have started using CFLs.
This came up at dinner tonight. My 14 year-old daughter wanted to know why we were phasing out the bulbs. Please afford her an Incipient-Bastiat award. If you are incompletely informed, there are marvelous advantages to the newer ‘wonder’ bulbs. Well, they’re actually not new at all, nor are they ‘wonders,’ but hold on. They are very PC.
The CFLs contain mercury, have to be disposed of as hazardous waste, and can only be discarded once a month in my venue without paying a large disposal penalty. The Halogens are quite hot, burn out more frequently than advertised, and contain, well, halogens. The LEDs are OK, but too new. The ‘dimmable’ LEDs don’t work properly with low-voltage dimmers. There are no ‘dimmable’ PAR16 replacements. There are no replacements for appliance bulbs, or other specialty applications…plan on a dark oven.
All of the PC bulbs are more cost effective, if you buy the promotional literature. But, for example, the CFLs burn out in about 2 weeks when used with a dimmer. The LEDs are fine if you are going to stay in the home for 30 years, but what about a student who is going to stay for 9 months? Then they’re a waste of money.
So remember Bastiat: ‘What is seen and what is unseen.’ Google it, and grok it.
CFL’s (Compact Florescent Lamps) are not to be used with a dimmer only an incandescent can. Florescent fixtures require a dimming ballast and therefore would require you to replace the entire fixture with a very expensive fixture just to be able to use a CFL as a dimming light, believe me it is not worth the added expense!
I’ve taken to disposing of mercury laden bulbs by dark of night in public trash cans. Government wants to force the use of the things, government can deal with the results.
Good idea, although I don’t expect to have to dispose of any CFL because, for some time now, I purchased regular bulbs on every trip to a store. A couple of weeks I hit the jackpot with Sylvania soft lights, 6 to a box for 16cents a box. I observed another customer with a full cart of the same bulbs. Since I am old I expect my stash to last for the rest of my living days with some to pass on in an inheritance to my children.
Your why were doomed as a species
Learn to spell
No, no, no. Every one of these bulbs should be sent to your Congressman. Imagine millions of these bulbs showing up in the Congressional mail – please folks start today.
The CFLs contain mercury, have to be disposed of as hazardous waste,
They are identical in that respect to the four-foot fluorescent striplights found by the hundreds in every office, supermarket, and school for as long as I’ve been alive.
We can oppose the incandescent ban without engaging in green-style fearmongering, can’t we?
It is true that “old style” fluorescent bulbs have just as much mercury as CFLs. However, the old-style bulbs with magnetic ballast last 12 years. (The “ballast” is a high voltage transformer.) I know, I installed them in both bathrooms when we moved in 1987, and have only had to replace them once. The CFLs, on the other hand, last 6 months. I know, because I’ve tried 1 or 2 every so often since the 90s, hoping the tech would improve. It hasn’t. The problem is that CFLs use electronic ballast which burns out easily. The bulb is still good, but you have to throw it away along with the ballast. (It would help if they sold the screw in ballast and bulbs separately.)
I would be happier about LED bulbs, which are 4 times more efficient than CFL (10 times more efficient than incandescent), and none of the ones I’ve bought have burned out (they are supposed to last decades), except they cost $40 for a 40 watt equivalent. The LEDs last longer than CFLs because they are low voltage, the electronics do not need to generate and handle high voltage.
But the most galling thing about the ban is that the 90% infra-red put out by incandescent bulbs is an *advantage* when it is cold. “Green” buildings have been designed around incandescent lighting for heat. I switch from 40W (magnetic ballast) florescent in the kitchen to 100W incandescent in the winter. We keep our heat low and cozy up near nice hot incandescent bulbs to read.
Sure there are! LED is HERE to STAY
There is another aspect: dimmer switches do not work with the new, energy-saving bulbs. I have dimmers for my dining room chandelier and in my bedroom, because I like to adjust the amount of illumination.
Not to defend the absurd incandescent ban, but halogen lamps dim beautifully. I actually like their color better than incandescents, but of course it depends on the application. So you might want to give them a chance. They are a bit more expensive than indandescents, but last longer.
The 12-volt halogens have particularlly beautiful light, but of course they would require that you replace your fixtures.
Incidentally, http://heatball.de is hilarious
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David
All halogens hurt my eyes. It may be a function of eye color. Mine are pale blue and the glare of the halogen is painful. Not an option for all eyes.
They wouldn’t hurt your eyes if you didn’t know they were halogen.
And if I told you that an incandescent was a halogen, you’d say that *it* hurt your eyes.
This is because you “know” that halogen bulbs hurt your eyes. Whether they actually do or not is irrelevant. You KNOW they hurt your eyes.
No, it’s “why is this light hurting my eyes? Let me turn it off. Oh, it’s halogen.” To be fair, it might be because halogen bulbs are brighter. However, it could be because of spectrum. Incandescent bulbs give off a black body spectrum that is 90% infrared (great in the winter, but wasteful in the summer). Halogen bulbs give off a greater percentage of visible light by working at a higher black body temperature. However, this also produces enough UV light to be harmful. The glass screen on halogen bulbs is supposed to filter out the UV.
Just another reason why congressman and idiot are synonymous.
Not idiot so much as corrupt.
please stop disparaging idiots!
“90 percent of politicians give the rest a bad reputation.”
All that this will do is establish a fast growing business in light bulb smuggling. This will have the same effect as Prohibition.
Congress is a congeries of poltroons.
Love that poltroons! Poltroons padding their pockets with every law passed.
Time to go to the voting booth and flush.
Smuggled from where? At what obscene profit?
Really, where? It’s pretty technically not as easy as rolling cigarettes, you know. And, well, miswired, they can burn down one’s house.
May we disparage Jeffrey Immelt from GE in the same way we wish ill on Barack Obama? I’d say the way Democrats showed their love for Bush, but that would be a racial hate crime, at this point in our legislative life, and possibly a threat. I think a simple shunning would work.
And, sorry for the snark. Dad the dem is in town. I got the two hour disquisition on how the saintly O is going to stroll into the White House in 2012. And that the only problem the past few years is that there hasn’t been enough legislation and not nearly enough regulation and enforcement.
For the lucky living in the Southwest, the incandescent smuggling will come from Mexico.
I thought so, too. But Mexico banned incandescents even earlier than the US. It’s already been a struggle to hold the lightbulb ban in abeyance as long as it has been.
Please, please, please, call your representatives. Epilepsy is not always well-controlled, even with medicine. People go into uncontrollable seizures, and die. I’ve already lost two friends this way. One was a twentysomething mother. She was an author. She was headed to grad school. She didn’t die from a lightbulb induced seizure, but she did die from a massive seizure on New Year’s Eve, after she went to bed. One glass of champagne, to toast in the New Year.
Medicine, as well— it’s a suppressant- valium-or directly folate competitive- chemotherapy. there are enough horrifying side effects that people work to live with it, to live free from the more severe medications. Part of that involves moderating one’s living spaces and personal habits. It’s possible to not go to the mall. It’s not possible to not live indoors in one’s house. Moderations can include- living without chocolate, living without alcohol, living without dairy/grain, taking enough magnesium to tranquilize a horse ( it’s purgative- would you like permanent diarrhea?) never staying up late, no percussive concerts, or even any loud rock music, no heavy exercise- you could sweat out micronutrients, or get overtired and inflamed- and inflammation is a trigger—tiredness- so that gleaming interest in building a tech company on 18 hour work days? not happening. or even medical school can be problemmatic. Would you insult the people who do this by taking away something simple and basic that makes this dignity possible?
If you cannot beat them, others can: In Europe, 99 W incandescent bulbs became available. Entrepreneurs have also repackaged 100+ W bulbs as Indoor Heaters.
On a heavier note, due to the increased risk to health and environment caused by the expensive, harmful and hazardous CFLs, any next, sound government ought to start a criminal investigation into this scandal. Heads need to roll, literally.
I hope this is true! Huzzah, creative marketing!
Just in time, this coincides perfectly with the incandescent ban: most of the materials required for the PC bulbs (certain type of precious metals) come from China. They now state because of the “shortage” in these materials the prices will continue to skyrocket.
Thanks Congress!!
Break a CFL in your house, and you’ve contaminated your house with highly toxic mercury. Interesting that the same EPA, that is pushing to shut down coal fired electricity generation plants because of mercury pollution, wants to force us to use mercury laden CFLs in our homes.
You are referring to that magical substance that we played with and stuck our fingers in during science class not so many years ago? The same one that caused absolutely no ill effects to anyone who handled it?
Methinks there may be a wee bit of the old propaganda inherent in anything that is politically correct these days. While you don’t want to drink the stuff, it isn’t nearly as dangerous as the likes of Chu would have us believe. Scary, wild, OMG WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!11!!1! rhetoric and fear mongering are far worse for you than mercury.
Mercury is a dangerous substance and not something to play with.
Top-down ideology is far more dangerous and becomes lethal when played with.
How many people have died after sweeping up after their broken thermometers?
It’s not so much the metal itself that can be dangerous but the chemical form that results from bonding with oxygen: mercuric oxide.
Gee, You think maybe a science teacher might know if it is dangerous to handle or not? Yes, there is a reason for the old saying “mad as a hatter” but it’s because they HEATED the mercury in the process of forming the hat’s shape. Breathing the resultant fumes is indeed dangerous but how many of us are going to heat it or did heat it in those science classes? I venture to guess that number would approach zero percent very closely. But EPA says it’s dangerous and they will require very expensive procedures to be followed to clean up the broken CFL, or any fluorescent bulb for that matter, IF THEY FIND OUT ABOUT IT.
Never ever tell anyone if you break one. Clean it up, throw it away in that government supplied waste receptacle like suggested above, let them figure it out. Watch out for surveillance cameras though.
The mercury in CFLs is in vapor form, which is what heating it produced. CFLs are quite a bit more dangerous than broken thermometers. You do not want to inhale the vapor trapped inside those bulbs. That said, your body can clear itself of quite a bit of mercury – but when you go over that threshold, all kinds of bad things happen, especially to your brain.
Which is precisely why your dead toxic bulbs should be sent to the dim-bulbs that are forcing this enviromental disaster upon us. Make sure they are safely packed and marked as hazadous material. Let these idiots dispose of them.
Ask any dentist and they will tell you the dangers of mercury, but don’t make it too obvious as the ADA will reprimand them if they find out.
Playing with liquid mercury is a whole different thing than the gaseous mercury in the CFLs. The liquid stuff, if not ingested, isn’t really that bad. But when you heat the stuff up in a CFL and then release it to the environment, the mercury basically atomizes into dust particles that can be inhaled or ingested. That’s bad, although arugably not as bad as the EPA wants you to think it is.
Mercury won’t kill you if you played with a few drops of it back in the day. I did the same thing. But the people who mine the stuff in 3rd world countries (1st world countries stopped permitting it to be mined in their countries years ago) end up literally with holes eaten in their brains. Using CFL’s is an exercise in imperialism – we’re not saving pollution, we’re exporting it so that little brown people we’ll never see die.
It might interest you to know that the incremental lifetime output of a coal powered plant for an incandescent bulb is far more mercury than a CFL uses.
Ideology can be blinding.
Yes it can, how many millions and millions of CFL’s will be out there if we end up having to use the stupid things?
BTW, to the people who say they don’t last, I still have the first one I ever bought about 15 years ago. Still works fine, I run it about 3 hours a day, almost every day of the year. Doesn’t mean I want to be forced to buy them though. I’d like it to be my choice, not theirs. And I really would like a better toilet. Best one I ever found still takes 2 or sometimes 3 tries in conjunction with a plunger to get rid of the load sometimes. How’s that saving any water, not to mention, gee, I have my own well.
You’re lucky with your bulbs, I lose them at a rate that is a very serious joke. I don’t buy cheap ones either. For your toilet, get a Toto. Costs more but it gets the job done with one flush.
Please quantify. Also explain how mercury in lightbulbs in every house in the country is directly comparable to mercury emissions from coal plants, in terms of risk to human health.
Real Greg,
Do you worry about the health risk of CFL’s? Please explain first so I have something to go on. I’m more worried about a lot of other things like job loss, antibiotic resistant infections, WMA’s etc.
I realize your bias comes from a disdain of government interference which I can understand but I really think we should all go along on this one whether we like it or not. One day oil will be in short supply and this is one of those times when your business is all of our business. It’s the same as the your cigar verses my lungs debate.
No attempt to answers my questions. Not worth my time.
Real Greg, My point is that I don’t think mercury should be on our radar given all of the other problems around (antibiotics in food, for example). I heard about the coal/mercury issue in a comparison of nuclear verses coal. Turns out coal also emits more radiation than a nuclear plant, assuming both are functioning as designed. As we know though, that is hard to count on with nuclear.
So, are you stating that coal fired plants release dozens of pounds or more of Hg per year? I’m just thinking of scaling the amount from one incandesent to the 100s of thousands that a single power plant supports. This is also not counting for the amount of Hg that would have to be released for all the other electrical requirements. Do you have numbers to back up the amount of mercury in a pound of power-plant grade coal?
Meanwhile- not only is the buring coal releasing mercury, but we have thousands of CFLs ending up in landfills, which aren’t always perfectly lined, and may be close to aquifers and water supplies- and yes, I know the concentration will be low, but after several years and thousands of bulbs, a low concentration can still create significant volume.
Unless the government starts inspecting your trash, THIS WILL HAPPEN. It’s hard enough to get people to recycle full sized fluorescents, imagine how many are going to just toss the small ones. Sheer awesomeness. I guess we can hope that the radical savings in coal-burned will offset the amount we are throwing into our landfills (granted, it also means we have to mine more mercury, probably in China since God knows that’d be impossible to start up in this country, assuming we had the supplies, and process more, which leads to other pollution issues…that pound of coal is starting to look pretty damn clean, mercury wise).
Mine the landfills.
Unless the government starts inspecting your trash
This will happen, too (I think it already does in some cities, but I’m talking federal). More highly-paid, pensioned, public-union jobs for Democrat voters! And like the Lacey Act, it will be employed against those the Democrats wish to shut down.
Earlier this year I saw a TV news report about trash police in Cleveland, OH. They go around on trash pick-up days and go through the trash and recycle containers looking for mis-sorted items. The fines were pretty hefty for not following mandated sorting procedures.
Reminded me of when I lived in the Bay Area during a drought in the 1980′s. There were water police that went around ticketing home owners for watering their yards on their non-watering days, washing a car, etc.
“We’re from the government, and we’re here to help you.” Scariest words ever.
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lomborg75/English
Here is why I oppose light bulb bans:
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/lomborg75/English
This is another example of how liberalism morphs into authoritarianism.
If these CFL and LED bulbs are so wonderful for consumers, then why do consumers have to be forced to buy them by banning the traditional alternative?
Who said they are wonderful? They are pain in the ass. The only worse pain is running out of oil sooner than later. Did you know the world consumption of oil is equivalent to the flow rate of the Sacramento River (5000 CFS)? Think of it like a giant lake we are draining. Nobody would tolerate people pigging out if they could see it like that.
5000 CFM – is that all?
The Sacramento isn’t that big of a river.
Try again.
That number is low for the Sacramento River. Try http://cacreeks.com/sac-red.htm
In any case, hello, I was making a point. River flows depend on the weather and location. Find another river to illustrate the point then in your neck of the woods. Go stand there and imagine it was oil and you will get my point.
Doesn’t matter.
Hydrocarbons are easy to make. We’ve already developed bacteria that can do it and all you need to do is give them sunshine, water, and air.
Unlimited hydrocarbons until the sun runs out.
OSHA made us use shatter proof light bulbs. Do they make them in florescent? If not, eventually do we go without lights? Probably. They required a machine guard that isn’t even made (because it will make the machine more dangerous, but it’s a a guard).
Am hoarding incan bulbs because all, lamps, ceiling, sconces, all fixtures were expensive. To use these bulbs I have to replace my fixtures. The new toxic bulbs have a far reaching financial burden to all of us. New more expensive bulbs, new fixtures, the toxicity of mercury, and new tax for disposal. Boo congress. The green movement is a money maker for some and a burden for everyone else. The color of green is money. See Algore.
It’s all part of a master plan. See, we need to make nice with Mexico after screwing them so’s we could ban guns, so now we’re going to boost their economy with the black-market lightbulb trade.
Everybody wins!
See, Libs are smart. They know conservatives are at a breaking point and the lightbulb thing is the last straw. This is the dam breaking. At 1st it’ll be just lightbulbs, but since our masters wisely didn’t build that border fence, soon we’ll have proper toilets crossing the border too! A new wave of free-enterprise will arise, Mexicans and Americans working together to provide us with luxuries like soap that actually works. Illegal aliens will stream across the border to work in Mexican factories making things the government won’t allow Americans to make.
These are the jobs you are looking for.
There’s already a market for proper-flushing toilets from Mexico across the border into Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Incandescents will be next.
Trade you one million 100W light bulbs, for 200 .50 sniper rifles, and one Eric Holder.
Only in America, a country still ravaged by the effects of a recession, would we want to actually kill an industry that makes light bulbs and import newer, more deadly, light bulbs that are filled with mercury. And now, if you need to get rid of these deadly things or, God forbid, drop one of them on the floor, you practically need a HAZMAT suit to get rid of them. Only in America is this considered progress, especially when the product that is replacing the old bulbs does not work as well as the old bulbs. Yes, this certainly was a program created in Washington. Where else could you kill an industry, ship more jobs oversease, AND hurt the environment with more mercury all at the same time? And people wonder why Congress’ approval rating is down to about 9%.
You may be missing the point of this little bit of hellish crony-capitalism. The profit margin on incandescents is very low, so the lightbulb manufacturers (e.g., GE) supported the ban to force us to buy the higher profit margin alternatives.
You mean like the CFC ban? Haven’t heard about the “ozone hole” lately have we? Here’s the reason why. When they sent up the satellites that measured ozone levels, they made assumptions about what the parameters should be for the low and high range of readings. Those assumptions were wrong for the low end. After getting flat readings ove Antarctica for a while, they changed the parameters and got real readings that were lower than they were expecting. That was the genesis of the “ozone hole.” They never had higher readings that dropped, just lower than expected readings from the start. It was just a scam, like acid rain and the new ice age. (I tried to find the article that I read years ago that explains this, but it was either never on the internet or it has been scrubbed.) DuPont did real well with the replacements for CFC’s; Freon was available for just a few bucks a pound when they started phasing it out to “save the planet.” Now we pay astronomical prices, comparatively, so the Greenies can feel good. Aren’t they special?
The whole “Ozone Hole” thing was just a scam. Anyone who has taken high school level science should realize that. Ozone is simply O3. Oxygen is usually O2. A photon of UV light is just right to be absorbed by O2 and the extra energy breaks the molecular bond. The 2 free atoms go flying off and run into other O2 molecules and form O3. Since the UV photons are absent over the Antarctic in Winter, no sunlight, no O3 forms giving us a “hole” in the ozone layer. But if you think about the process you see that the Ozone is a byproduct of the molecular oxygen or O2 absorbing UV, not Ozone absorbing the UV. Funny that the “Ozone Hole” scam appeared shortly before Dupont’s patents ran out on the original freon and low and behold they developed new freon which was reputed to be less “damaging” to the ozone. True that Chlorine atoms act as a catalyst to break O3 down into O2 and free Oxygen but so what? And if Chlorine was really so bad, why hasn’t any enviro-whacko tried to get Chlorine bleach outlawed?
Shhhh . . . don’t give them any ideas.
Bad news, Chris. They’ve already had that idea for years.
EPA has already pushed the levels of chlorine in drinking water downwards to the point of causing disease and water-borne parasite outbreaks. A ban on the use of chlorine and bromine for sanitizing swimming pools is in the planning stages somewhere in the federal bureaucracy as I write.
While all of the stupidities and inconveniences raised above are well taken, there are a few others left out:
1) In wake of the Christmas tree tax that was recently announced and then withdrawn, it is appropriate to mention that all the strings of Christmas lights and similar holiday lighting are incandescent. It is going to be a holiday cycle much less full of cheer starting in 2012—Christmas tree lights, lights for Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day and Easter (to name a few of the holidays for which people decorate their houses in my neck of the woods) are all incandescent.
2) Related to this is the vast number of historical light fixtures that will have to be scrapped. There are Art Nouveau and Art Deco fixtures which take small or oddly-shaped bulbs; even if a CFL could fit into a Nouveau fixture, the garish light (and clunky bulb) would ruin the fixture’s grace. Many of the Deco and Moderne fixtures, many of the Midcentury Modern fixtures currently popular in the wake of the “Mad Men” craze, were designed specifically for buildings of their time. Ripping them out in the service of a half-brained ecological initiative will be a great act of cultural and artistic vandalism which, once done, can never be fully undone.
Ripping them out in the service of a half-brained ecological initiative will be a great act of cultural and artistic vandalism which, once done, can never be fully undone.
That’s a feature. Think Cultural Revolution.
I have this recurring dream that one day a ‘not-crowd’ of 30 or 40 people all “individually” are visiting the offices of the EPA or OSHA, and just ‘coincidentally’ at exactly the same time, while expostulating with whoever they are meeting with, DROP the hazardous CFL bulb that they had been handling…
Would OSHA clear the building? (A consummation devoutly to be wished!).
Another dream is that a shower of CFL’s should rain onto the floor of the House and the Senate, at the same instant.
Would *they* clear the building?
Of course, rinse and repeat would be required, since it is clear that they CANNOT LEARN from logical reasoning.
So instead of bombing them with water balloons instead bomb them with light bulbs, ha that’s funny!
Love it! Occupy EPA and OSHA! Bombard them with CFLs, and (this is an Alinsky tactic, come to think of it) make them follow their own rules to their own detriment.
Yeah, yeah, I know, lickety-split comes a law making it a felony to break a CFL in public – and a felony not to use them in your own home.
If you are going to do that, and I don’t condemn the action, perhaps they could also be showered on the homes of Chu and others like him in the same manner that the OWS people have been visiting the homes of bankers.
The same administration that wants to save us money, pennies really, while saving the planet is headed by a man who said that his energy policy would make the price of energy”necessarily skyrocket”. And his energy secretary has stated he wants to see US gasoline prices as high as they are in Europe.
This administration is run by many anti-American special interests but the environmenalists have an especially outsized influence. Consider the MACT rules, cross-border pollution rules, the XL pipeline, the near elimination of phosphates in your soaps, wind and solar, the lizard in TX threatening to shut down half the state’s western oil fields, the inability of the border patrol to control “protected” sections of the US-MX border, etc. I could go on. The environmentalists and their enforcers in the bureaucracy are making life increasingly difficult, dangerous, and expensive or all of us and they must be stopped.
A good first step would be to contact your member of Congress and ask him or her to stop federal funding of environmental groups. Almost all of the big name eco-Marxists receive federal, aka taxpayer, funds including the Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Environmental Defense Fund, et al. These groups are using OUR tax dollars against us. If they can’t survive on membership funds alone they shouldn’t survive period. It would prove that they don’t have the public support they claim.
The lizard in TX and the Delta Smelt shutting down thousands of farmers in California. No wonder Rush refers to them as “enviro-nazis”.
Look at the “bright” side.
Without sufficient light, you won’t be able to see that your government mandated low flow toilet has yet again failed to flush.
Perhaps once this ban has gone into effect, it affect will be to piss off sufficient numbers of people such that we can start getting rid of these Marxist authoritarians that think they’re in charge of our lives.
Halogen bulbs are incandescent.
Hey, snork, Belladonna never wrote that halogens aren’t incandescent. In fact, she quotes Chu as saying they are. I have the same problem with them that Ms. Rogers does. The intensity of halogens is extremely irritating. I’d never want to read or do anything else with halogen light bulbs.
And talk about heat: they’ve caused countless serious fires across the country when left unattended. Dangerous and hard on the eyes. Great combo.
It’s about time someone mentioned the fire risks of halogen bulbs. Those halogen floor lights that became popular some years ago were a major cause of fires. I’ve had several of the halogen “work lights” literally vaporize the porcelain end caps that hold those thin bulbs. I wonder how many people will burn their hands on those bulbs too. Incandescant bulbs can be painful to handle when they are hot, but I cant think of anyone who has ever actually gotten a severe burn from them. Halogens can cause a severe burn in less than a second.
I am another person who finds the light from halogens to be hard on my eyes. Before they were made for car headlights, I could drive at night and except for people who failed to dim their “brights”, I was never seriously bothered by headlights. Now, I find it very hard to drive at night. Probably 90% of vehicles have halogen. I can always tell the ones with older incandescant headlights.
One other thing. I’m a farmer in a very cold winter climate. CFL bulbs do not work at all in the winter. That includes my barn, sheds, garage, etc. I’m already wondering how many more injuries will occur on farms due to poor lighting. Did you ever have your foot stepped on by a cow or horse? Or what about accidents with tools in an poorly lit garage? I need to see what I’m doing when I am around dangerous things such as tools, farm equipment, and livestock. My barn has eight 100W bulbs in an aisle. Will I now have the added expense to add an additional fixture between each bulb, for a total of 15 bulbs, and run 15 60W bulbs to compensate. But wait, that’s 900w instead of the 800w I currently use. I’ve used CFL bulbs in the garage in warm weather and they work fine, but as soon as I see frost on the lawn, it’s time to replace them with incandescant bulbs, or I cant see what I’m doing, and thus enhancing the possibility of an accident.
It might not be worth wasting your energy on this issue.
I’ve been using florescent bulbs for twenty years. In the south, where air-conditioning and not heating is the major household energy expense, it makes no sense to use a bulb that pumps heat into a room. (I do keep some incandescent bulbs on hand for those rare times when the heating system breaks and I need a way to keep warm until the repair.)
The mercury issues should be resolved when the LED bulbs go up in power and come down in price. Considering the lowering prices on flat-screen TVs, I think this is likely to happen.
I live up north, and I like incandescent. It may have worked out for you, but they’ve taken away my choice. Why should I pay more for something I don’t want? As far as LEDs coming down in price, they also told us that wind and solar energy will become more cost effective and practical, if only we legislate to use more of it, and create an artificial demand. Then, let the marketplace and capitalism work its magic. During the 1990s, the State of California legislated that all vehicles sold in California were to be zero pollution emission by 2000. They extended the deadline a number of times before they got it through their heads that neither Japanese nor Detroit engineers knew how to do it using carbon-based fuels. And, electric cars were very expensive. This was a perfect example of what happens when they try to legislate invention and engineering from the bench, and why we are still waiting for inexpensive wind and solar power. And oh ye, the oil companies have bought the patent rights to an engine that runs on water and are keeping it a secret, to maintain a demand for oil. Everything is possible with engineering, and if not, it’s because someone is obstructing(a bit of sarcasm).
I switched to compact fluorescent and LED bulbs several years ago out of curiosity. There’s not much difference in power used, but I’ve never had to change (burned-out) bulbs since. That’s a nice bonus since I never liked changing bulbs in those complicated ceiling fixtures. And the LED Christmas tree lights always work!
I don’t know what world you live in, but in Seattle those compact fluorescent bulbs burn out sooner than incandescents, no matter what propaganda our betters intone over NPR.
I’ve changed over to CFLs where they made sense. I like having that choice. But…they don’t make any sense in some applications – like outside (or with a standard dimmable switch). When it’s cold it takes a few minutes for them to “warm” up and get to their regular brightness, and they don’t last as long as an incandescent. Maybe that’s why they’re so much trouble up in Seattle, there Sensitive.
I need 100 Watt incandescents for my garage-door and front-door lights. I need 60-watt incandescents for my garage door openers. I simply cannot replace them with anything else.
Your post suggests the incandescent ban is fine with you. Please give consideration to the diminution of individual rights with such laws. Your acquiescence to bans on items that are value to others, but not to you undermines your ability to stand against bans that may come on items in the future that you value. What makes you think that day won’t come? Whether you want to believe it or not, principles do matter.
My comments about CFLs have nothing to do with freedom to choose. This is not the hill I’m planning to die on! I simply tried them out of curiosity and find they last last for years compared to incandescents, and they don’t use much juice. Given the freedom to choose in my home, like the factory where I work, fluorescents of any size are a no brainer.
There’s only so many free hours in a day, and I suggest it’s better to save that time for advocating on more useful issues like freedom of religion or concealed carry. Light bulbs? Let it go! Save your energy for something REALLY important.
This is about reading, and the freedom to read in light that is congenial inside one’s own home. People who read enjoy reading by 100 Watt incandescent bulbs.
This is as important to readers as the issues you say are more important to you.
The great thing about a democracy is that different interest groups may express their opinions and make their demands to their government on issues of vital importance to each of them.
Readers, writers, knitters, quilters, craftspeople, chefs and many others who require dependable, non-flickering, pleasant light consider this a do-or-die issue.
you gripe about guns, I’ll gripe about lightbulbs, and between us, we can have a recognizable free America.
for migraineurs, and epileptics, it really is a life and death matter.
I find it quite bizarre that you bring up freedom of religion or gun issues in the same paragraph regarding the government taking away our freedom of lighting types. It’s not “just a lightbulb”, it’s our freedoms in general which are at stake. Todays ban on bulbs is tomorrows ban on our choice of religion our ability to own a gun, maybe our ability to own a power saw, because they too can be used a weapon. Maybe you missed the words “land of the free” in the Star Spangled Banner. That means I should be free to choose my type of lighting, whether or not I want to wear a seatbelt, or own a gun, and more. As long as what I’m doing is not harming others, it should be my choice.
Don’t get me wrong. I support many environmental causes, after all, I’m protecting my own planet and the only one any of us have. At the same time, I like to save money on my electric and other bills too. But there are times and places for many types of lighting, and I use what uses the least energy but still provides adaquate lighting for my tasks and for my safety.
Personal anecdote: I know someone who used to identify as a libertarian. This person voted for Obama. This person supports the light bulb ban (yes, I know it’s not a ban, but a “mandated efficiency requirement”; we are not fooled). Draw your own conclusions. Yes, Bush was President in 2007, and we’d still be pissed off about this if McCain was President.
In 2007 both houses of Congress were controlled by the Democrats. And, Bush was a weak president who was in the pockets of the Democrats because he needed their votes for increases in the military budget to pay for the war in Iraq.
My point was that it makes no sense for any libertarian to believe that light bulb bans are a good idea. I was repeating the talking points of light bulb freedom deniers to indicate that I’m not a retarded teabagger, or whatever KosKids think non-cult members are.
Like ethanol,cfbs do not save energy but actually waste it. Most light bulbs are used in ways that negate any energy saving. The expense of the new bulbs is hidden by government subsidies,but the cost is absurd. Many light bulbs are only used briefly,such as in bathrooms,closets, and guest rooms,so the real expense of cfbs will never be recovered. The advertised life span of cfbs has been exaggerated and is shortened if the bulb is turned on and off frequently. Like ethanol, it is alarming that real facts about efficiency are so easily ignored.
How can these bulbs save money? I have to use more bulbs to obtain the same level of light so I’m actually using more electricity. Same with the toilet I have to flush three times as much water just to flush, howinaphuc does that save water?
These idiots won’t be happy till we are using Chem light technology to see by and shittin’ in the woods..
22. HEP-T: “How can these bulbs save money? I have to use more bulbs to obtain the same level of light”
This kind of thinking doesn’t help your cause. A 100W CFL puts out the same light as a 100W incandescent. But it uses only 23W of juice. You just sound like an Occupy Wall Streeter saying stuff like that.
You think it’s the same light, but it’s not. (See my post below, #33, about our 3-week inadvertent kitchen experiment.)
I’m beginning to think that young eyes don’t notice the differences that middle-aged and older eyes do. Don’t know if you’re young or not. Just saying – no, the light isn’t the same.
A 100W CFL puts out the same light as a 100W incandescent.
Light is measured in lumens, not watts. Go to a store that sells lightbulbs. Look at the boxes. The box for “100W equivalent” CFL will give a number of lumens that is 20-40% lower than the box for 100W incandescent.
Now that you’ve learned you’ve been lied to, please stop repeating the lie.
In other words, the light bulb people are lying to us when they give us a 60-watt bulb – and we should check the lumens?
That *is* depressing.
Here is a website that will clear up what different lamps do including the lumen of each type LED incandescent and CFLs along which all sorts of criteria!
http://www.designrecycleinc.com/led%20comp%20chart.html
There is a “bright” spot with CFL’s:
At some point in the future, they can be substituted for rotten vegetables for use as throwing objects in the company of corrupt politicians – just think of the panic that will induce in the object of our affections.
It would strike me that a great means of protesting this abomination would be for citizens to sneak CFL’s into public buildings and break them en masse. The entire Federal government could be paralyzed.
Good suggestion. Everybody who uses them should collect the burnt out ones for future use in government chambers whether local, state or federal. At the same time it would save the public the nuisance of recycling the bulbs.
This regulation, not a ban, is a small victory for our precious Mother Earth against the continuous rapine of the corporate oil plutocracy. The oil plutocrats who own the minds of most of the commenters here will scarcely lose pennies becuase of this, and the consequent despoilation of the Earth will continue almost unabated! Could the oil barons in their Armani suits fear this one small trickle of compassion might open up a deluge of love that will wash their greed away? One can only hope.
Mercury poisoning is only a minor threat to the environment. The scorching of the earth from the burning of oil will destroy her if it is not stopped! We can always pass more laws stopping mercury pollution if that is an issue. However, global warming must be adressed immediately before we all die!
25. Throbbin Yobbin:”However, global warming must be adressed immediately before we all die!”
I don’t think so! “Global warming” has turned out to be just another dishonest make-work scam for unemployed left-wing dilettantes.
The problem is that the greedy plutocrats you rail against at least serve everyday human desires on a vast scale. They give something in return for what they get.
In contrast, you rabid environmentalists frustrate those everyday desires on a vast scale. You just want to take away, giving nothing in return.
According to you environmentalists, people’s everyday desires must be squelched to fulfill your perverse and grandiose ambition: to purify Mother Earth of the dreaded by-products of artificial production. This entails scaling back artificial production itself–preferably by totalitarian means.
You are for an abstract ideal in the far future, but against flesh-and-blood humans here in the present.
The banning of incandescent light bulbs is a case in point. Their fading away appropriately symbolizes the retreat of the enlightenment.
Please note that artificial production immeasurably enriches people’s lives. It domesticates a natural world otherwise antithetical to human aspiration, providing us with food, clothing, shelter, medicine, transport, leisure, and light. Indeed, artificial production ironically enables people to appreciate nature more, because it allows them no longer to be slaves to it. The carbon-consuming airplane permits far-flung wildernesses to be enjoyed by the masses.
Hence, any by-products of artificial product are overwhelmingly worth it. They can be, and are, dealt with tolerably well much of the time–by technical means, by doggedly holding producers accountable, and by extending property rights (as owners husband land and resources more efficiently than non-owners).
A wholesome organic analogy may commend itself. Having eaten (=good) I must poo (=bad). But the badness of the latter does not outweigh the goodness of the former; rather, it’s the other way around. The dumb solution to minimizing the badness of the latter would be to eat less. The smart solution would be use toilets, plumbing, sewers, purification plants–all wonderful artificial inventions, not part of Mother Earth preexisting bounty. I guess that makes them evil.
Of course, appropriately, you environmentalists are the people who gave us toilets that don’t even flush properly. Frankly, I don’t need moral lecturing on from a facile ideologue whose only contribution to civilization is making it more difficult for me to dispose of my faeces.
Of course, you environmentalists also claim that catastrophe beckons unless artifical production is scaled back massively, and we submit ourselves to the whims of Mother Earth. I rather think human being can adapt to all our problems through ingenuity, and rise to the challenge of developing and regulating our environment sensibly. Indeed, refusing to face up to that challenge–retrogressing, retreating, receding–has the unmistakable whiff of cowardice about it.
Which is better to help fight rising sea levels: making Bangladesh as rich as Holland, or Holland as poor as Bangladesh? If you environmentalists get your way, I sense there is going to be a lot of collateral damage, in terms of perpetuating poverty. You will be sentimentally hugging trees while trampling on the dreams of the indigent.
Ultimately, I think you environmentalists suffer from a needless guilt complex over existing, which you proceed to generalize to everyone else. You want to coerce everyone to make amends for having the temerity to prosper. Well, I suggest you hang out in the wilderness, living hand-to-mouth, exposed to the elements, preyed upon by carnivores, until your neurosis is curbed.
If prospering is evil, then human life is evil, and we should be extinct.
You first, environmentalists.
Semi quoting Robert Heinlein, the environmental movement presupposes that a beaver’s dam built for a beaver’s purposes is somehow better than a human’s dam built for a human’s purposes. Muddy thinking that, done by self hating idiots.
You need to get off of whatever it is that you are on. Believe me it will be beneficial for your brain health.
I think you forgot a /sarc tag in there somewhere.
I’m not going to plant a stake in the ground over lightbulbs, I actually prefer the CFL, once they got the color of the light warmed right. But still… This is a taste of govt by Obama and his liberal buds. They essentially think just like San Franciscans do. Their ideal nation is simply San Francisco, everywhere. They have no idea that this kind of behavior by govt is antithetical to the founding principles, and care even less.
Now you did it Belladonna. I read your article and went on line and bought enough varied wattage incandescent bulbs to last until repeal or this administration drives us back to candles.
Well that was short lived. I just received a polite cancellation of my order “due to regulations the bulbs are no longer stocked” The order included bulbs from 40 watt to 100 watt and they are all gone.
Maybe if we drilled for our own oil, dug for more of the plentiful coal and had government as lrge as the brains of the 536 in washington (pea sized) life would get better for all.
Very troubling, indeed.
If you don’t live near a Home Depot, I hope this may help:
http://www.amazon.com/SYLVANIA-12709-100-Watt-130-Volt-Household/dp/B000BPASJM/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1321246438&sr=1-2-fkmr0
On that page you’ll see ads from other purveyors of incandescent light bulbs.
Do not give up hope! You still have 47 days to find what you need, and, as one commenter mentioned, we may yet have the chance to buy 99-watt incandescents even after the ban begins.
But I’d place my bet on what is available in the here and now, and not allow my hopes to soar for what may one day appear on the shelves, now crowded with pernicious Chu-approved light bulbs.
Note: According to the various comments on light bulb threads, the “130″ variety is for European countries, and though they will work here, it is at a cost of less light.
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but the U.S. version of 100-watt bulbs can also be found on Amazon (as of two days ago).
The obvious questions is, “How many liberals does it take to screw in a light bulb?” or maybe better, “How many liberals does it take to screw up a light bulb?”
Says Stephen Chu:
“Right now many families around the country are struggling to pay their energy bills, and leaders in the House want to roll back these standards that will save families money.…
“You’ll still be able to buy halogen incandescent bulbs. They’ll look and feel the same, but the only difference is that they’ll save consumers money.”
This is the economic bozo who fell all over himself to ensure that taxpayers’ dollars be lavished on Solyndra and other failing greenscams owned by Obamacronies. Like hell he cares about ‘families struggling to pay their energy bills’.
Steven Chu was at Stanford U then at Berkeley (UC) labs before he scored his current job. This is all you need to know about the guy. SF Bay area influenced all the way.
Thanks for the heads-up on the deadline for stockpiling incandescent bulbs – I thought it was 2013.
I can NOT read with the compact fluorescents, so I already have a good stockpile of 60-watt incandescents and 60-watt Verilux full spectrum Natural Sunshine incandescent bulbs, which I use in my three ceiling fixtures with four lights. Interesting that, in my four-bulb kitchen ceiling fixture, I had one full spectrum compact fluorescent and that has died first, which makes me wonder if they really are longer lasting to offset the higher unit price.
I do not mind using the compact fluorescents in my basement, garage, enclosed in frosted glass hall fixtures, and exterior light fixtures, but NOT for reading!
Plus, I do not like this Federal mandate, or the loss of American jobs because all the compact fluorescents have to be Made In China because of the mercury poisoning. How truly ironic and sad.
Black market trade in light bulbs awaits!
Choice, except for abortion, is heresy to the Political Class. A people used to making all sorts of choices and comparative evaluations in their personal lives as a matter of course; just might decide that the collection of fools, miscreants, maladroits, and unindicted co-conspirators that run our lives have to be changed.
My situation. I already use CFL’s where they are feasible. Some applications, they do not work in. If you need the light in the bathroom in the middle of the night, you sometimes need it right now, not 30 seconds later. I live in a rural area, and have a two light floodlight outside the door. One is CFL, one is incandescent. Because if someone comes in the middle of the night, I want to know who they are now, not 30 seconds later. One major fixture is on a dimmer, and they will not work there. My house was built in 1910. The only code it was built to is Morse Code. Had to re-wire completely. No forced air furnace, and no place to put one. I use a large natural gas heater with blower. The kitchen does not get the full benefit of it. The incandescent bulbs are a significant heat source in that room in the Winter. In the summer, I replace them with CFL’s to keep it cooler. All of which is my choice.
Am I stocking up on incandescents? Hell yes. Do I expect there to be some sort of Federally mandated CFL Police to be snooping around any house with suspicious light if we do not overturn the regime? Yeah, but if we don’t; we will be dealing with that and other problems anyway. Light bulbs are not the only thing people are stocking up on.
Do I like the idea of using CFL’s as a replacement for rotten fruit or cream pies? Yeah, they can explain how it is assault with a deadly weapon if it is done around a politician or bureaucrat, but no problem if they break around our kids.
Subotai Bahadur
Two shattered in the playroom. Someone turned on the lights- and the lightbulb shattered open. Regular lights don’t do that.
How is showering my children with broken glass and mercury a good idea?
I have called every single rep that I can. I’ve made logical, well-laid out arguments. I’m pleasant, and logical, and I try to be funny, so they don’t think I’m crazy. And they all sound helpless,like they are caught in front of a runaway freight train. This is terrible- when even the congress’s staff feels helpless in the face of a law.
Leftists are totalitarians. You MUST do what they want because they know what is best for you. Scratch a Democrat and you get a Stalinist.
I am fully stocked up.
A year or so ago, my husband replaced the kitchen ceiling fixture with curly-que bulbs without my knowledge. He’d heard they last longer, and he hates changing those bulbs.
I couldn’t see! I asked him if he was sure he’d put in 60 watts, and he said he had. I couldn’t figure out why the kitchen was gloomy.
Three weeks later, I was so mystified and annoyed, I had my daughter climb up there, and discovered he’d put in the curly-que light bulbs!
Of course, he wasn’t lying – they were sixty watts. He’d just omitted to mention they were the new curly-que light bulbs. Boy, did he get an earful!
So I started stocking up on incandescents. These new light bulbs are harder to see by for older eyesight. And cause health problems in people with migraines, etc.
But you know, today’s government doesn’t care a whit about individuals with health or vision needs. They believe individuals should always sacrifice – even their health – for whatever the government decides is the “greater good.”
My other daughter was pooh-poohing the whole thing (being all greenie herself, like nearly all propagandized young people), laughing at me for my hoard of light bulbs, and saying that the new ones were no different in visual aspects. Until I told her the story of the inadvertent 3-week experiment. She’s smart, so that gave her pause.
The same thing is happening with Primatine Mist. Due to some worldwide agreement, they are banning the only over-the-counter asthma inhaler by the end of this year, because of the minute particles of chlorofluorocarbons that might get into the atmosphere from them.
Me, I’m now all stocked up with both light bulbs and inhalers.
What is the government going to take away next? It would be one thing if they decreed you couldn’t buy a dress from designer A, and had to buy dresses from designers B-G instead. You could still have a dress. But these things are very much health and quality of life issues.
I never thought there would come a day where the government existed only to take things away from me. Besides money in taxes, they are now taking away things some people really need.
If chlorine in freon is bad, why aren’t they banning chlorine bleach?
It’s not chlorine that are the problem, it’s the chlorofluorocarbons. These are very stable molecules that remain in the environment for decades without breaking down. But up in the stratosphere, strong ultraviolet light from the sun can release atoms of chlorine which react with ozone, weakening the ozone layer in the stratosphere.
Ordinary chlorine molecules don’t do that.
Ordinary chlorine molecules are highly reactive (that’s why it can be used as bleach and to kill germs), and combine with other chemicals almost immediately, long before they can migrate into the stratosphere.
Read my reply to #13 above about the chemistry involved. It’s a hoax.
Light is not measured in “watts”, it is measured in “lumens.” If you compare the light output in lumens listed on the box of a “60W equivalent” bulb to the output in lumens on a real 60W bulb, you will see the “equivalent” puts out 20-40% less light.
People keep believing and parroting that lie about “equivalent light” when the numbers are right there smack in front of all of us. That fact depresses me even more than being unable to read at night and getting migraines from the flickering.
Philips used to make 100 watt halogen bulbs. They put out the same exact light as a regular 100 watt incandescent bulb, except these halogen bulbs lasted 3000 hours. The filament inside was the same temperature, it was just that the halogen gas filled capsule inside made them last longer. The only reason they never became popular was that they cost 6 dollars each. It was just cheaper to go through 4 regular incandescent bulbs, despite the trouble of changing them out more frequently. Unfortunately these 100 watt halogen bulbs are all discontinued, banned by the government.
If you look very hard, you can still find some stores selling these long-lasting bulbs. It just goes to show that long-lasting incandescent bulbs DO exist if you absolutely hate changing light bulbs.
Light bulbs used to be made to last 1000-1250 hours, but in the last decade the big 3 manufacturers started making all their bulbs to only last 750 hours. That way they could advertise how much longer their new more expensive bulbs last.
But the truth is that CFL bulbs do not last anywhere near as long as the packaging claims, at least not in real-life use. Vibration, being placed in an enclosed fixture, and being frequently turned off/on will all reduce the lifespan of a CFL. In addition, CFLs put out less light as they age towards the end of their rated lifetime. After 4000 hourse, if the bulb even lasts that long, you will barely be able to see.
“scientifically uneducated, financially ignorant, unwashed, energy-profligate, unable-to-balance-our-own-checkbooks fools”
I’m pretty sure that each one of these adjectives can be scientifically ascribed to the American people… that is, it probably isn’t wrong, you can prove that Americans ARE scientifically uneducated and that they are FINANCIALLY ignorant.
I don’t know about “unwashed” because that a religious term, but, eh. there you go.
If someone wants to buy the old bulbs and someone wants to sell them, I don’t see the problem. It’s supposed to be a free country.
I prefer the curly bulbs because they save electricity. There’s no doubt that if everyone or most people used them, it would take a strain off the grid. An old 75W bulb only uses 13W with the curly bulb.
The curly bulbs or CFLs also increase safety and decrease crime, because you can keep the light going for longer periods of time using the same energy. You can leave a 13W CFL on all night (8 hours) in the living room, to deter a break-in. This is the equivalent of leaving a 75W old bulb on for 1 hour 24 minutes.
thanks for being reasonable.
I have now in the attic and garage over 1,000 hundred watt bulbs and I’m not working on 40s and 60s. I may end up willing some of them to my children. Screw that in your socket and flip the switch, Secretary Chu.
Oh MY GAWWW—–
I could cry. I thought the ban was lifted. I haven’t started stockpiling, but I will now. Oh MY.
I do all my reading by 100-watt incandescents and my writing, too. I’ve tried other bulbs and nothing is as pure, comfortable on the eyes and
clear as soft-white 100-watts.
After stockpiling, where can I start ordering? From Amazon, or from overseas? Nigerian light bulbs?
This isn’t just inconvenient. This is evil.
Nobody has banned sales of candles.
Why is mercury in the fridge a good idea? Fridge lightbulbs? Hello? Are we going backward?
Who did this in the first place? Who? Some crazy lady in California, who didn’t know anything about anything?
Why not let CFL’s fight it out in the market-place? The owners could swan on about money-saving, and modern building tech. It’s how high-rises made it in the 1950′s. The, early adopters could buy the new ones, sort of like people who got all up about turquoise and brown tee-shirts a few years ago. Great if you’re on the cutting edge, a new excuse to buy grey for the rest of us.
Now that there has been one push that failed, would whoever gets the Republican nomination please, please, please repeal the lightbulb ban? It could be a new, awesome college wall poster- “Free to Choose!” and have the campaigner holding up a magic lightbulb like David Bowie acting as Nicola Tesla in that magician’s movie– The Prestige.
Although, I’m thinking at this rate, there will have to be an asterisk- and a note at the bottom of the poster, explaining what Free and Choose really mean.
Isn’t there a garbagemen’s union? B/c you know people won’t be recycling every little bulb. That’s mercury collecting in garbage cans. And in landfills. That’s mercury poisoning of usually low-income, minority men. Will they look so heartbreaking in their Minamoto pictures? Or will they just look outraged and not-one-of-us- like the photos of oil-well discharge in Louisiana swamp-waters? Or the photos in the Nigerian delta- oil- well pollution?
Plus, one good Pacific Ocean storm—that’s light bulbs overboard, and mercury-poisoned fish banned for years. Pregnant women are already warned off Pacific big fish b/c of mercury accumulation. Will dolphin fishermen sue? Whom? General Electric? The US Congress? To allow safe light bulbs back in business.
For that matter, what about the real estate business? Isn’t hard to sell contaminated houses?
By now, you’d think they’d've learned. They pushed CFLs until the mercury problem leaked out (pun intended). Now they’re pushing halogens. Let consumers decide.
As a frugal (read that “cheap” if you want) individual, I have been buying lights that draw less power for the same illumination for some time now. I think it’s a good decision for me, but I’d in no way want to force other people who don’t think so to do as I do just because I think it’s a good idea.
Good ideas should be able to sell themselves. Bad ideas always seem to require government to enforce them.
The government is unforgivable in their desire to massively damage the environment and our health with MERCURY light bulbs. The government is well aware of the fact that once the mercury light bulbs are disposed of, the mercury from the light bulbs will seep into our rivers, lakes and streams, the air and soil. The mercury will be taken up by crops growing in the fields. The increase in cancer and other diseases will be enormous. Americans will become a very sick, diseased people thanks to their ruthless government.
I say it’s about time to take out Grandma’s old oil lamps and dust them off…
Bought and “lamp grade” kerosene lately? The last I bought for the kerosene heater on my boat was over $10/gal. Good kerosene lamps like the Alladins use a mantle that puts out a very nice white light, but in doing so they put out a lot of heat and use a lot of kerosene. You also have to tend them and adjust them from time to time to keep the light consistent and to prevent them from smoking and carboning up the mantle. Light your house with kerosene for a few days and you’ll see why our grandparents couldn’t get hooked up to electricity fast enough.
A few years ago an avalanche wiped out the transmission line that carried hydroelectric power to Juneau at about 10-12 cents per Kwh. The utility had to switch to diesel generated power at almost $0.50 Kwh. Over the almost two months that our electric rate went up five-fold, we got very, very good at not using much electricity, but it is VERY time consuming and often inconvenient. It is however a good thing to experience to see how much you can save with practical measures. We kept on with the clotheslines in the garage and outside because it is quite practical and saves a good bit of money to dry bulking things like comforters and similar as well as delicates on the line.
We long ago switched most area lighting to flourescent and task lighting to halogen, but there is no substitute for GE “Reveal” incandescents for the bathroom mirror where She Who Must Be Obeyed puts on her makeup. I suspect you could make every woman in America hate Democrats by putting CFLs on the mirror she uses to put on her makeup.
“I suspect you could make every woman in America hate Democrats by putting CFLs on the mirror she uses to put on her makeup.”
Belladonna to Art: Every thinking woman in America already does. Putting on make-up is no laughing matter.
I’m seriously considering breaking out Grandma’s old oil lamps…
i bought several different types of these new fangled bulbs, and have been using them for a couple years now. they have some problems.
1. i tried using one of the circular snake looking ones on a light that only comes on at dark. it brought back old memories of the 70′s. the strobe light effect was comical and i’m still to hear anything from my neighbors. doubt it would have lasted long like that.
2. i installed a new (very bright) outside one on my porch, so i could see who was at my door while i was sitting at my neighbors for our usual chew, brew and smoke sessions. the problem was that it put out a very strange light, and the one place i really couldn’t see was around my doorway, over which i had installed it.
3. they cost way too much, as has always plagued forced socialism; and, the light they put out is kind of creepy too.
The new, dimmer bulbs, will eventually cost more in power consumption because people (most of them dim bulbs themselves) will use them like their incandescent forbears–ie on/off/on/off over and over again. Yikes.
But the point made by Belladonna is that the choice factor has gone. This is the crux of the matter. Not mercury contamination or the dimness of the new bulbs. We can’t choose because government knows better. Get government out of our lives. Get lobbyists out of DC; let the pack of poltroons live on their salaries and perks.
And remember, make candidates write and deliver their own speeches. Amen.
What about those three level bulbs – 50-100-150 etc.? Are they going to be outlawed, too?
I stocked up on the 50-100-150 bulbs the other night, thinking that since they have “100″ in them, they would be outlawed, too. However, I later found a site saying they would be one of the exceptions. I didn’t save the link, though, so I don’t know if that’s true.
Incongruously, the three-ways are indeed one of the exceptions.
No to work around that you will then be offered the 25-50-75 watt versions but they will also offer a tandem socket where you can plug in two bulbs that operate off one switch and achieve the same result!
And they flicker. We haven’t had half as much eyestrain and blindness since regular light bulbs. The constant little muscle adjustments!!!!! How can one do fine needlework except in sunlight now? Why, oh, why are we going directly back to the Middle Ages?
Plus, the nauseating lights flicker. How is anyone to read?
How was this ban not lifted? HOW?
The flickering causes epileptics to have seizures, of course.
repeated seizures: the neurons die. a long-term epileptics brain looks about like a long- term dementia patient- lesions, dead zones, black spots, you name it. there’s a reason people weren’t supposed to marry epileptics- they would become debilitated and then die young. The Travolta family’s eldest son died before age 20, from this sort of thing.
The thing that gets me is that it might be possible to get a medical waiver. And then, the light shining out one’s window is qualitatively different than one’s neighbor for a reason. And the heat signature on one’s house is different, from an infra-red survey plane. And, you know how HIV+ mothers in Africa tried to hide their gov’t issued baby formula- well, in the age of Obamacare- can’t you just see an infra-red survey finding out who uses regular lightbulbs, and then correlating that information with zillow, or some google entity, and then an outcry about using too many medical resources? Sickle- cell anemia grownups already face ” using too many resources.” We know socialized medicine at all times creates shortages…
I literally do not know what else to do. I’ve called my reps. I do have a dog in this fight. Asking permission from a stranger to purchase legal, safe, sold for one hundred years, an American Edison invention, is truly outraging. How can these people so cavalierly simply outlaw a simple, inexpensive ubiquitous tool? How? HOW? HOW?
so- what I can do, is ask you. all of you. if you care, would you please call your representatives? it’s two minutes of lobbying. They obviously didn’t hear from regular people.
I don’t think Americans are lazy. At least two hundred were thrown out of work when they closed the last American lightbulb factory. I think 200 Americans would like to go back to work. And other Americans would like to buy their products.
I have been stocking up on 40, 60, and 75 watt bulbs this year. I have enough 40s and 60s to last approximately 9 years at my rate of usage. I need to stock up on more of the 75 watts but I don’t use them as much. As for 100s, I rarely use those but will be looking to get them too this month and next before the ban sets in.
I figure that I need at least enough bulbs to last me two presidential elections. If Bam wins in 2012 (four more years of hell)then it will be five years from now that we will have another chance to overturn the ban. If the 2016 election results in another socialist in the executive office then I’m ok for that four year period too. If we can’t get a true American into the presidency by 2020, then I don’t think the ban will ever be overturned. But I’m hoping if that’s the case then by that time a better technology will be available so I don’t have to buy toxic CFLs.
NOTE: I don’t think the double-life bulbs that the author got at Home Depot are incandescents. I think they are something else. I bought them myself earlier this year and realized they are much hotter and brighter than regular bulbs; they hurt my eyes. I think it’s a different technology inside the bulb but that they just retained the shape of the traditional incandescent to please people like us who don’t want toxic CFLs.
By the way, I live in Manhattan and I have no idea how I would dispose of CFLs in my apt building. I can’t throw them down the garbage chute. I don’t see any sort of drop off area for them. The building mgt has told us nothing about disposing of these light bulbs. Honestly, I think people are just throwing them away in their garbage and they are being sent to the landfills and incinerators. I don’t think the eco-nazis were thinking of folks like me in apt buildings while they were dreaming up this gem of an idea in their limousine liberal suburban homes.
Your comment piqued my curiosity about Home Depot’s Sylvania “Doublelife” soft white 100-Watt incandescent bulbs, the kind I bought last Sunday, and did again today.
I performed the following experiment: I placed one of the brand-new bulbs into one of a pair of identical reading lamps. In the second lamp was an old 100-watt soft-white incandescent. I invited a young neighbor, an architect, to judge whether there was a visible, discernible difference. He could see no difference (neither could I, but I wanted a completely unbiased judge.) Other neighbors joined in the test, and none could see a difference.
Because the eye can err — and even many eyes can err — I photographed each lamp with the bulb on, and compared the color of the two. Identical.
different bulbs do give off different light. it depends on the glass coating material and the metallic content of the filament. Not sure if one is better then the other, but they are still incandescent bulbs.
have you tried to measure the light with a photographers meter?
I have been buying up bulbs myself …just as a principal I will not buy GE since they are selling out Americans with their china policies.
Well, the Home Depot double-life bulbs I got were definitely hotter; the light seemed more intense too, which might not be a bad thing but for me it hurt my eyes. I don’t think these are the regular light bulbs as far as I can tell. I suppose one way to determine what’s inside is to break one open (carefully by wrapping in lots of paper towel and smashing it a counter or outside on the pavement) and see what the filament looks like. You can easily see the filament of an incandescent light bulb by buying the ones that have a clear covering (as opposed to the Soft White, which have a white-ish covering in the glass)…GE calls theie clear ones Reveal.
I found the box of double life Soft White 60s I bought earlier this year from Home Depot. I didn’t break one open but I can tell you it’s different from the regular Soft White 60 bulbs for two reasons: 1) it is much heavier and 2) the white-ness of the glass is much more white than the opaqueness of the regular 60 Soft Whites. This would indicate that there’s a different filament inside and that it’s much brighter than the regular bulbs so they had to put in a thicker white coating into the glass.
That’s what I’m doing with all my light bulbs, of any time.
I don’t believe in recycling.
It’s a waste of effort, designed to make neurotic liberals feel good about themselves.
Sanitation crews have to make extra effort and expend extra energy to treat each kind of waste differently.
We used to have separate bins like that in my own apartment complex. It proved to be such a waste of everyone’s time and effort that they gave up.
A Watt is not measure of light intensity. It is a measure of energy conversion. A 100 Watt incandescent bulb uses the same energy as a 100 Watt florescent bulb, but does not necessarily emit the same light intensity. In fact, since florescents are more energy efficient, 100 W from an florescent source would be much brighter that a 100 W incandescent bulb.
Isn’t is so, initial fire-up of the halogen and fluorescent bulbs requires a surge of energy, and that, in the kitchen say, on-again-off-again usage makes the incandescent there more efficient? And, isn’t the voltage spike in initial ligh-up, the main cause of fluorescent and halogen burn-out?
…the same surge that incandescent get when you first turn them one has an effect on them too. flipping them on and off diminishes their life as well, there is a point where it is cheaper to leave them on then turn them off for a short time. They used to tell this to people in community awareness programs decades ago …before the carbon police were instituted.
But it’s not – see my inadvertent kitchen experiment in post #33.
Between you and Heather, one doesn’t know what to believe. As I understood heather, the label may say 60 watts, but the lumens say lower.
But I can tell you for a fact that *I* cannot see as well by these bulbs. For whatever reason.
So it is not a fact that they are much brighter. So I will go with Heather (as I understood her) on this one.
I believe it is in Germany that incandescent light bulbs are still available after they were banned. They have been re-christened ‘heating devices’ and as such are readily available in the market.
OK, let’s vote!! Which was dumber?
A. This stupid lightbulb tyranny
B. The corn ethanol boondoggle
Our government at work!
Obviously the ethanol subsidy since it directly lead to a massive increase in food prices in several third world countries (Mexico being the worst affected).
So that would explain the illegals coming to America from Mexico like the potato famine in Ireland we now have a tortilla famine, with less tacos or fajitas etc. so they come here to get cheaper tortillas!
My wife and I have been replacing all of our incandescents with Philips LEDs as a way of preparing for this and punishing GE for siding with Obama. The 12 and 17W Philips LEDs are, so far, great products. If the lifespan more or less pans out, we’ll be telling GE to go f#$% themselves for a generation.
When I first heard of outlawing incandescent bulbs, I thought it was some crazy story from The Onion or The Daily Show even. It’s actually true?! Reminds me of the novel 1984. The narrator goes into great detail about how the mandatory, uniform government lighting in this odd world is so bleak and depressing. It sounded a lot like the new mandated lighting we will now enjoy. It’s weird to see 1984 materialize in our own lifetimes. Sick.
If you don’t live near a Home Depot, I hope this may help:
http://www.amazon.com/SYLVANIA-12709-100-Watt-130-Volt-Household/dp/B000BPASJM/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1321246438&sr=1-2-fkmr0
On that page you’ll see ads from other purveyors of incandescent light bulbs.
I have a friend who owns rental property – although he’s a true conservative, he switched all his apartments to CFLs not for environmental reasons but just because of the upcoming ban – and guess what happened? His tenants stole them when they left! So, now, he’s had to switch back to incandescents because it was too expensive to replace all the CFLs each time. He says tenants don’t steal incandescents as often.
Leave it to ‘we-know-better-than-you’ liberals to run our lives . . . . . into the ground.
My own personal story of dealing with liberal idiocy is once having to replace a single-pane of glass in a old door at a vacation home. The glass people told me it had to be ‘tempered-safety’ glass b/c of the ‘danger of breaking and cutting someone’ – it was $90 to replace one stupid pane of glass! Thanks liberals! Next time I’ll buy regular glass and replace it myself!
There is a cure for that you simply remove all the bulbs in the house or apartment you are renting and let the potential renter know that they must supply their own bulbs as you do not furnish them or if they wish to keep them them fine if they are not there when they move out you will charge them the current price of said bulbs plus labor to replace taken of course out of the security deposit you charge!
“we’re not taking away your choices” heh. I’m reminded of P.J. O’Rourke’s comment about socialism: “They say that there’s plenty of choices, but I always get the idea that they mean if I want to get downtown I can take this bus, or the next bus, or the bus after that one.”
What about outdoor uses? We are in our barn most cold evenings and at start up and beyond they are much dimmer than normal bulbs. We use 300 watt bulb now, CFLs in this equivalent size are about $15 each, if they can be found (which I haven’t yet, didn’t grab them when Lowe’s had them.) We are trying to stock up on the 300s too, but they are something like $4 a piece now. If we have to switch we’ll have many hundreds of $$ in putting in many more fixtures for the CFLs. Thanks, socialists!
Fluorescent lights work by a UV arc passing between lectrodes at either end of the lamp. The inside of the glass is coatined with phosphors that glow in response to the UV bombardment. (The mrcury helps in, aintian the arc. The phosphors glow in specific narrow bands of the visible spectrum.If you saw the emittance spectrum of a fluorescent light graphee, it would look like three or slightly more largspikes. Each of these spikes is in the range of one of the primary colors:red, blue and green. The overall effect is that of white light. But it also means that the color rendering, especially in the purple ranges, is, well, frequently somewhat problematic. (Which can also be true of incandescents, which although they emit continuously along the spectrum, it tends to be shifted toward the reds. Blues look a little muddy under incandescent light.) If colors are important, using cheap fluorescent lamps will be very problematic. A combination of halogen lamps, and high end fluorescent lamps (with CRI’s of greater than 80) is the way to go.
People in cold climates will have ENORMOUS problems using fluorescent lamps in outdoor applications. They do not work well when exposed to temperature extremes.
If you want o get your incandescent light bulbs to last longer, dim them. Even just slighting dimming them can make a HUGE difference in extending lamp life. (Dimming by 50% can double the life of the lamp, so just dimming by10% can extend lap life considerably.
If this bugs you enough to comment, would you please call your reps? I would call, and be considered somewhat eccentric. If all of us called, maybe Joe Barton could get traction for his bill. He might re-introduce it. It is not a trivial matter to me. I hope that you could take a few minutes and call your reps.
An LED light costs about $45. I clicked on the link above. A small chandelier-style one costs $15. To light the two chandeliers in the sink/ dressing area/ linen closet- would cost two weeks groceries. The living room? A week’s groceries, were we to dine on meat. The playroom? Again, a week’s groceries, this time with beans. That doesn’t get the kitchen, which already needs re-wiring from CFL’s resistance burning out wires. or the garage. or the bedrooms.
The health consequences alone……most anticonvulsants work as a moderate form of chemotherapy. They are “folate competitive.” The wan look of most movie of the week cancer patients is from chemotherapy, not from the tumor. Would you willingly subject someone to that?
So, would you please call your reps? Help them grow a spine, or something?
This is an argument that can be easily solved by getting rid of the Democrats (socialist/communist) and RINOS. We are giving great cases against it even though we should not have to. The environmentalist and communist that go along with them are ruining our country. It is time to get back to small limited government.
I have a Handgun Carry Permit link to law http://www.tn.gov/safety/handgunmain.shtml which required me to go through hoops and expenses not to mention the cost of my firearms. The Second Amendment allows this already so why the additional expense to be able to do what the Constitution already allows?
In 2012 we have the right and the obligation to rid ourselves of these power hungry democrats that want us to live a miserable existence because it is for the common good, sorry bozos but I will determine what is in my good and it does not coincide with your views
I’m a stage-lighting director. Thirty-four years of looking at light for a living.
This unconscionable commissar, Chu, might as well pimp a law to gouge my eyes out.
Rage.
*Rage*.
I wondered how a 3-way bulb works. They’re still available – for some unaccountable reason.
The filament is divided into a 50W part and a 100W part. (Think of the letter “E”) Connect taps A and B to get 50W output. Connect taps B and C to get 100W. Connect the end taps to get 150W.
“just the way Thomas A. Edison invented them.”
I’m surprised nobody’s picked this up yet. Edison didn’t invent the incandescent light bulb. He came up with a better design, absolutely. And he commercialized his design, yes. But he didn’t invent them, any more than james watt invented the steam engine.
And if you want a light bulb like the ones TAE sold, you’ll have to find somebody prepared to knock one up for you using a carbon filament. Not sure, but you might have to step down the supply voltage as well.
People get worked up about some very odd things. Is anyone over there still banging on about seat belts?
Well, if seatbelts promised a humiliating, awkward, mentally destabilizing life followed by an early, painful death, then yes, I do think people would get worked up about seatbelts.
As it is, despite mounds of documented harm, even from leftists! the gov’t has overstepped its regulatory bounds to make my family’s life extraordinarily difficult fairly large ways.
Karen Armstrong, beloved atheist and relativist, shows lightbulbs triggered her epilepsy. I’d think she hates the Christian God enough that at least one person in the O administration has read her books. She’s from Britain, so it’s not like she’s writing for our political edification.
I’m wondering if this is some “sacrifice to Gaia” thing, b/c ideologues keep saying we have to sacrifice for global warming and the earth. I’d like to point out the usual excellent sacrifice is a virgin- which is possible if you’ve been epileptic since childhood- Emily Dickinson- but that some of the medicines deform one’s body. I thought the idea was physically perfect specimens of untouched human potential. These are the wrong virgins for that sort of thing.
We have articles about the evils of the Hacker Collective putting seizure-inducing patterns up on a computer screen. The government is worse- every house is supposed to have these lights- every house, by law, is supposed to have these lights, every house, by law, is supposed to have these lights that cause seizures. there is no escape.
that’s why people are getting upset.
Do you actually believe ANY of that?
On this business of lumens: I looked at the packages of several regular 60-watt bulbs, as well as a “60-watt equivalent” CFL bulb, on Amazon.
The regular bulbs gave 630 lumens; the CFL, 800 lumens. That is MORE lumens, not less, for the CFL’s!
And yet I cannot see by them – as shown by the inadvertent blind kitchen experiment above (post #33).
Therefore, some other factor or factors are in play here. What are they? Some function of older eyesight and CFL’s versus incandescent? Some other difference in individual’s vision? The light fixture itself (somehow)? The color quality of the particular CFL bulbs?
They certainly had plenty of time to warm up sufficiently in those three weeks, as the kitchen light stays on for hours.
Whatever the reason, I know I couldn’t see by them. The light quality with the CFL bulbs was probably 15-20% inferior to the incandescents I’d always used in the kitchen.
The spectrum of frequencies in CFL light is different than incandescent light. The blue and green frequency spikes in the spectrum of CFL light give it a higher lumen rating, but also do not do as good of a job at illuminating a room as their lumen ratings may suggest. The perception of different frequencies of light in the human eye is a very complicated subject I am not going to get into here. Many people describe the light from CFL bulbs in seemingly contradictory terms, that things seem both bright and too dim to see at the same time. In other words, it looks as though the bulb is giving off lots of light, but the room is still poorly illuminated.
Here is an article I found which you may be interested in:
Do you ever feel like your new energy efficient spiral bulbs are not as as bright as the old ones? Does it seem like you can barely see? It might not be just you.
Buyers of the main type of energy-saving bulb, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), are told on the packaging that they shine as brightly as an old-fashioned bulb. For example, an 11W CFL is labelled as being the equivalent of a 60W incandescent bulb.
However, the European Commission, which was responsible for the ban, has now conceded that this is “not true” and that such claims by manufacturers are “exaggerated”.
The Sunday Telegraph has conducted its own tests on level of illuminance provided by light bulbs from different manufacturers to see whether their claims stand up to scrutiny.
We found that under normal household conditions, using a single lamp to light a room, an 11W low-energy CFL produced only 58 per cent of the illumination of an “equivalent” 60W bulb – even after a 10-minute “warm-up”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6110547/Energy-saving-light-bulbs-offer-dim-future.html
How do you know if you are a terrorist?
When the wife asks, “what are we going to do with all these light bulbs?”
ALL known incandescents (including those Halogen replacements) are banned before 2020
See the 2007 EISA legislation
http://freedomlightbulb.blogspot.com/2011/07/yes-it-is-ban.html
More on regulations and official links http://ceolas.net/#li01inx
Of course the temporarily allowed Halogen-type incandescents are
different in light quality etc anyway, and are not popular due to marginal savings for a much higher price.
As mentioned in other comment, all known incandescents including the halogens are banned before 2020 as per 2007 EISA legislation.
Besides, apart from affecting people’s product choice,
the actual switchover savings are not that great anyway =
less than 1% of overall energy use, and 1-2% grid electricity is saved,
as shown by USA Dept of Energy, EU statistics and other official information
http://ceolas.net/#li171x
with alternative and much more meaningful ways to save energy in
generation, distribution or consumption.
Light bulbs don’t burn coal or release CO2.
Power plants might.
If there’s a problem – deal with the problem,
rather than a token ban on simple safe light bulbs that people
obviously like to use
(or there would not be a “need” to ban them!)
My last place of employment had overhead flourescent bulbs. They gave me a headache. I brought in table lamps with incandecents from home instead. I now live in a rural area with lots of outside lights and unheated out buildings where only incandecents will work in cold weather. I too have stocked up on REAL light bulbs. I also have the old toilets that actually work. I is a shame our government cannot just leave us alone. They have to continue to manipulate us because we are too stupid to run our own lives.
I can see the feds raiding the writers home and smashing all them wonderful warm light bubs. oops bulbs . I almost bought into the scam and then realized no way and I have a store house of light emitting, filament tested wire, made of tungsten light bulbs. Just maybe I might have enough to last me.
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