"Representatives Joe Barton, Michael Burgess, and Marsha Blackburn have just introduced the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act (or BULB). The legislation would repeal the de facto ban on the incandescent light bulb contained in Subtitle B of Title III of the Energy Independence and Security Act of
2007."
Just stop manufacturing incandescent bulbs. Eventually they will disappear. No sense using them if there is a green alternative.
There is no *GREEN* alternative. CFLs save energy, but pollute much worse with their mercury content. At the same time they produce crappy lighting, which has a lousy color tone, do not come on instantly to full brightness, and are worthless in cold unheated buildings. Add to that the fact they cost 10 to 20 times the price of incandescent bulbs, and despite their false claims that they last longer, this is really not true. If that's not enough, they are a higher risk for causing fires.
Now add up the negatives, against the one positive, and this new technology is a sick joke at best. Most of us want to save energy both from an environmental standpoint as well as saving money. However, the increased price of bulbs will never be justified in the savings of power, and the environmental damage of the mercury nullifies or is likely worse than the savings in electrical production.
Until they come up with a safe, cost effective, user pleasant and environmentally safe alternative, we gain nothing and lose more. CFLs are not the answer and never will be. On the other hand, LED lighting might have something to offer, but the technology is not yet ready for home and industry lighting. Their flashlight lighting has finally shown to be superior in many ways. Yet we have the government jumping the gun with their bans and restrictions, which is not only forcing people to use inferior lighting, but is also unconstitutional, when they are forcing people to use specific technology, without allowing the individual free choice. I would fully agree with them educating the public about energy use and alternatives, as well as funding the advancement of more efficient bulbs and other electrical devices, but when they BAN products that work, and FORCE lousy alternatives, it's time for the public to strike back.
Will this become another "prohibition", except not liquor, but light bulbs? Will underground companies begin to make bootleg bulbs? Or import them from other countries thru the black market? YES, this WILL occur.
Jw
Your =93embrace of new technology=94 is like embracing Santa Claus. New flash Santa Claus doesn=92t exist. It really amuses me when people who don=92t have the slightest understanding of technology advocate their hair-brained idiotic environmentalist ideas without doing any research, without understanding the economics and consequences of the benefits versus drawbacks or losses. They have a childishly na=EFve understanding of technology. They are incapable of comprehending that we simply DO NOT yet have the technology to accomplish what they want. Take these so called =93eco bulbs=94 for instance.
So is there an alternative for an incandescent oven bulb or will be forced to live in a world of dark ovens?
there are lots of exemptions oven bulbs are one........
as to the long list of downsides i admit when CFLs first came out they werent real good, short life, slow start, poor color, high price etc.
but over the last few years they have dramatically improved.......
I think the over reaction to the ban is more about posters mad that government is intruding in their lives than the real bulb issue...
Soon as they make affordable CFLs that work in my dimmer fixtures, or in my exposed-to-subzero outside lights, or that are rated for rough service, I'll buy them. Nothing against CFLs, and I use them in the 'vanilla' indoor fixtures, but they can't replace incandescents for all applications yet.
-- aem sends...
Interesting you mentioned this. Back around 2001 or 2002 I purchased my first CFL bulb. It was about 8 inches long and just came out straight, bent over at the tip, and went straight back to the base. It looked pretty stupid in my semi-fancy kitchen light fixture, because it stuck way out and being at an angle, it came down into the room a fair amount. But I wanted a light that I could leave on for extended periods of time and not run up the electric bill.
For personal reasons as well as safety, I want a light that is always on near the entry door into the kitchen from outside. This was that light, and it remained on all night, every night, and often times during the day if I forgot to shut it off. It worked 365 days a year from the date of purchase until December of 2009, when I had a new refrigerator delivered. The delivery man wheeled in the new fridge in a cardboard box, and smashed the bulb because it hung so low. If not for that accident, it would likely still work today.
Seemed those old ones lasted a very long time.
As for these new spiral ones, I have yet to find one that lasts any longer than an incandescent bulb. Some last less hours. I even had one explode, whereas when I flipped on the light switch, there was a shower of sparks and cloud of smoke. After shutting off the switch immediately I found a base that has bulged, turned black, and split down the side. The glass part was sitting loose. (This was a bathroom fixture where the bulb points UPWARD, otherwise the glass part would have fallen to the floor and smashed. I has another one make a loud pop and emit smoke, but not nearly as dramatic as that first one. I had a 3rd one that was dead right out of the box.
Sure, I have bought incandescent bulbs that burn out the first time they are turned on, but at 25 to 50 cents a piece, it's no big deal. But at $5 or more per bulb for CFLs, I sure as hell am going to bitch, and when a shower of sparks blasts off in my house landing on flammable materials like drapes and paper, I am furious because I could have had a major fire. Over the years I've seen many standard bulbs fail, and not one of them has ever even come close to causing a fire. The flash inside the glass globe and die. No dangers involved.
I'll admit that any products can be defective from the store, or fail prematurely, but when they become dangerous, I'm very concerned, and I have now used many CFL bulbs, and none of the new ones last long.
Well, I've got a 13 watt CFL in lamp that used to use a 60w incandescent. It is on a timer, running 8 hours a day. I'm saving .376 kwh per day, or 11.28 kwh per month.
At my electric rate of $0.108 per kwh, I'm saving $1.2184 per month. Since I paid $6.73 for the CFL 4 years ago, I got paid back in 3.17 months. My net savings since have been $51.75 for an annual return on investment of 290%. My stocks should do so well.
-- Doug
In , Molly Brown wrote, which I edited for space:
I have heavy experience with them, and with some exceptions notably to avoid, in my experience over 95% of the time they give most of their claimed life.
Modern CFLs of 60 watt equivalent or more reduce mercury pollution even if they are broken and all their mercury is sent to the environment after only half their claimed life. This is because about half of electricity generation in USA is from burning coal, the biggest source of mercury pollution.
I know for a fact that they are not good everywhere that incandescents are used. However, they are good for most places where incandescents are used. Applications where CFLs are bad for replacing incandescents have an extremely high rate of using incandescents of types exempted from the upcoming ban.
If you overtighten them while screwing them by the tubing rather than by the base region.
Dimmable ones are a little common already.
A $7 CFL lasting 5,000 hours and reducing power consumption by 45 watts, at USA national average residential electricity rate of 11 cents per KWH, saves $17.75 even if the incandescents cost nothing to obtain.
Meanwhile, I find it easy to find CFLs $7 or less in up to "100 watt incandescent equivalence" (26 watts), and $6 or less in up to "60 watt incandescent equivalence" (13-15 watts). Even in 1-packs in major chain drugstores and supermarkets.
In packs of 3 or more, they usually cost near or under $5 apiece, sometimes around $2 apiece.
"60 watt equivalent" spirals that fit everywhere a 60 watt A19 fits are common. I have yet to find a fixture that is rated to allow a 100 watt A19, that a 100 watt A19 fits in, and that fairly common 26 watt spirals do not fit in.
Let me put it this way...
OSRAM, who manufactures incandescent, fluorescent (both CFL and long), and LED screw-in light bulbs did a study that determined that 98-plus % of the life cycle energy consumption of incandescents, CFLs, and LED screw-in light bulbs from manufacture through disposal, including transportation, is from the electricity consumed during their rated life.
As for fixtures - I have yet to see any residential fixture replacement being done to accomodate replacement of incandescents with CFLs, and not a lot in commercial buildings either.
I use plenty of spirals, and have had few die in less than 4,000 hours, with most of the young-diers lasting around 3500 hours.
Most early mortality of spiral CFLs in my experience appears to me associated with at least one of the following:
1) Use of one over 14 watts in a recessed ceiling fixture or a small enclosed fixture. (Most name brand ones 19 watts or less can usually last reasonably long there, though some good chance less than full life.) 2) Use of ones of the Lights of America brand or dollar store stool specimens. (I have made little use of L.O.A. in recent years due to a large number of disappopintments in life expectancy and a very high rate of falling short of claimed light output in my experience. They may have improved without me knowing for all I know.) 3) Use of a bad batch of 25 watt ones made around 2001 4) Use of them in motion sensor lights or other places where they are switched on and off a lot 5) Use of non-dimmer-rated ones with dimmers or other electronic controllersFirst time I ever heard of one other than a dollar store stool specimen behaving that badly. What brand was it? When was it purchased?
That was an occaisional failure mode of earlier spiral CFLs, before the manufacturers started using better capacitors that can take the heat encountered in actual use of them.
I had a 3rd one that was dead right out of the box.
I had a dollar store stool specimen or two that was DOA, but never a single one of dozens of non-dollar-store spiral CFLs that I have purchased in my life. I also don't know anyone who has mentioned a non-dollar-store spiral CFL being DOA.
Largely not true, since most CFLs have less mercury than they save the environment from by reduction of coal burning (or reducing the need to build more coal fired power plants).
I find it easy to get CFLs with color tone that I like, often even better than I liked incandescents.
Most bare spirals in my experience aren't too bad in that area. (Ones with outer bulbs are worse in that area, though they take colder temperatures better.)
Ones in enclosed fixtures or with outer bulbs have a high rate of doing well there, though then they need time to warm up.
They save money anyway. And at supermarkets, the ratio is more like 6 times.
I have heavy experience with them. On average, my CFLs last about 5 times as long as incandescents.
How many fires are caused by UL listed CFLs other than dollar store stool specimens? For that matter, CFLs even with those lumped in were never the biggest fire hazard of lighting types because that distinction is of halogens.
The ones used in ovens are of kinds exempt from the ban.
The ban has many exemptions:
I am finding those easily enough now.
Reflectorized flood bulbs are exempt from the incandescent ban.
Rough and vibration service incandescents areexempt from the ban.
I'll have to look again. I need candelabra base, flame shaped, though. Unless I can find a kitchen table hanging fixture with a down-light like the piece of junk I have, of course. The upper sockets on it are shot, but I need that down-facing reflector bulb to have enough light to read the paper while I eat. (Yeah, I live alone- why do you ask?)
I hadn't even thought about my floods, since I turn them on maybe once a year, at Halloween. I was talking about the 'coach' lights by the front and back door, and the motion-sensor 'coach' lights on either side of the garage door. I'm tempted to replace them all with generic modern-style fixtures since they don't really fit the style of the house, and the lenses over the non-aimable motion sensors have self-destructed from facing the setting sun for 20 years or so. I probably should have snaked wires to the corners of the house that don't have floods (which is most of them), before I had the attic insulation upgraded. No desire to go wading around up there at this point- it would be a major PITA to rake all that smooth again.
I almost never bother to turn the outside lights on anymore anyway. Since they put a bigger bulb in the streetlight right over the end of my driveway, and the neighbor put a lamp at the peak of his shiny new pole barn, I can't even see stars at night unless there is a power failure. :^(
-- aem sends....
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