Also, there’s a poll at the end of this article, asking about what you might be doing for the upcoming ban in California.
On January 1st, 2011, just a few days from now, California will begin phasing out the legal sale and purchase of 100-watt incandescent light bulbs. In September of this year, GE closed their last US light bulb manufacturing plant.
Here’s a Reason.tv video on why “compact fluorescent lightbulbs” (CFLs), the favored replacement for Thomas Edison’s most iconic invention are not all that. Personally I prefer LED bulbs/lights and have successfully replaced many incandescents with LED’s in my home.
The rest of the country will begin a phaseout in 2012, as mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
This law phases out the use of incandescent light bulbs between 40 watts and 150 watts over a two-year period. Apparently China will still manufacture light bulbs at least until 2017 when they’ll disappear there too.
So the question is, what will you do?
One of my TV reporter friends asked me if I knew if people were hoarding high wattage bulbs. Since my namesake is “watts”, this seemed to be the place to ask.
Here’s the poll:
The poll is just for entertainment purposes.
Thanks R. de Haan for reference to the NoTricksZone article.
I fear most people are too ignorant, maybe just too lazy to react against the mercury issue.
Meanwhile our ‘leaders’ coerce us to have a some mercury in each of our rooms at home – instead of making a bit more CO2 at a power station.
They must know that mercury is really toxic, where as CO2 helps plants grow better. Then comes the disposal problem as per the article.
Our ‘leaders’ are nuts.
Robin
Not to worry, mexicans will just start carrying boxes of light bulbs over the border.
Halogen 🙂
Ed Begley Jr. calmly pointing out the evil of these mini-toasters.
Can’t find the button that allows me to vote idiots out of office.
I’ve tried CFLs and am not very happy with the shorter than expected lifespan. I’d love to see a follow-up on your hallway LED fixtures. Any failures yet?
The poll is missing this option:
Fireplace + torches.
The wife says ‘candles’….
Let’s hope that our new House of Rep will restore sanity to the US and repeal the ban on selling the most popular incadescent light bulbs. This is one of the many corrections needed to the reign of terror (pelosi).
As indicated by others the heat is not wasted for much of the tear in many locations and one suspects the claimed savings are bogus. Also we have dimmers on many of our lights which apparently don’t work well with CFD’s.
Leds are not cheap, however if you buy good SMD Led bulbs, they can win in many applications. Most of my house is leds at the moment. CFLs rot and I have to make a special trip to the dump to get rid of them in the hazmat house. There are drawbacks however. The dimmers that are out on the market really do not work with Led bulbs. There are some bulbs that say that they will work with them, but they really don’t. Color temperature is not as wide a variable as they are with incandescents but color temperature in the twister at your HD is an oxymoron. You get what they got. To get anything else you really have to go hunting.
Do not buy the bazillion little leds mounted on a wafer in a capsule flavored led bulb. Leds do not emit much heat, but eventually they will mechanically fatigue the connection to the wafer and you will start to lose a wafer at a time. Wafers in free air are ok. The SMD bulbs have all their leds on a single surface in free air so the thermal fatigue is not a problem.
Bought a sh*tload of incandescent ones last year. I hope there will be no EU bureaucrat till then.
Although I would probably have already moved completely to LED lights if there were no ban, since the dictatorial governmental powers are trying to force it on us, I’ll hold off as long as possible. I’ll definitely buy up some cases of the banned bulbs before they disappear and make sure to always have one shining (even when I’m asleep) as way of telling the dictators “Mind your own business!”
Technology and the marketplace were already moving away from the incandescent light bulb before the ban came about. But, one of the techniques that the governmental dictators use to amass power and control is to find something that is already in the process of changing and to scream “crisis” and then mandate the change that would have come about anyhow. This way they can claim credit for the change as well as increase their power. And in the legislation they enact they can also earmark additional “tweaks” to the process that will enhance their careers and bank accounts. (I don’t know if that is sarcasm on my part, but it is certainly contempt for the tyrants.)
Ironically, such meddling by governments always is counterproductive to their stated goals. Wherever things are already in the process of changing, and the government then mandates the change, it always either produces a backlash against the change of else the regulations that are enacted actually hinder effective change. There are no convincing examples where the intrusive “remedies” that legislators devise actually make things better than they would have been if they had done nothing. Historically the improvements in problem situations have taken place faster or to a greater degree before the laws are enacted. This is true of environmental crises, race relations, economic downturns, education, etc. All the bureaucrats accomplish is piggybacking on the improvements that the people (society) were already bringing about. Light bulb laws? What a crock!
torches + pitchforks should always be an option when the issue involves politicians. 🙂
This is what started my journey from believer to skeptic.
The climate going down the gurgler: and the solution ……………………………… everyone change our light bulbs.
I’m going to buy all I can, and then buy from China.
Two choices…..
Other countries besides China will still make them…
Instead of light bulbs you can buy the new “heat bulbs” (100 W):
http://de.picclick.com/100W-Heat-Bulb-fr-her-100W-120646546886.html
The same bulb for a “different purpose” -> (c)heating. ;-))
The silliest political thing that the world has ever seen and this is the answer.
Imho leds will soon replace every kind of light we use today.
Buy the new heat bulbs before they are banned too!!! ;-)))
I am surprised to see that many of the reactions here are relatively mild on the issue of incandescent light bulb banning. I feel this is an outrage. Certainly here in Europe there is a strong feeling that the Philips Corporation succesfully lobbied the green EU technocrats in order to sell more mercury based power saving bulbs. The environmental reasoning behind this whole thing is utterly insane. This is worse than nanny state. It is a conspiracy between zealous but misinformed environmentalists and clever industry salesmen. Even left wing politicians here in the Netherlands have openly admitted (alas, after the fact) that they have second thoughts on this.
These power saving bulbs suck, it takes minutes before there is some meaningful illumination. The LED lights still give a very cold type of light.
I agree with an earlier comment, when these new things are obviously better the market will automatically shift towards them. I suspect this is not the case. It is Orwellian stuff.
John from CA:
The correct answer, buy high wattage bulbs from other states, who haven’t lost their minds, online and end up not paying CA sales tax.
That’s cheating, John. Look up CA use tax.
Juan from Azusa
This goes very well along side AGW and environmentally concerned citizens still wailing over global warming/cooling/drought/floods/disruption/change/. Hell, you don’t even need the blown up kid video. Just show pictures of Chinese workers making regular bulbs versus those making CFL’s. I’m sure they’ll tout the environmentally friendly nature of their jobs. Right? Right? Right? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
Must rethink the idea of “No pressure”.
http://www.science20.com/make_love_not_war/blog/mercury_poisoning_chinese_factory_workers_making_cfls_concern/feed?quicktabs_1=0
I’m with Physics Major except that Home Depot is closer to my house. My home has a lot of flood lamp cans, especially in the basement, and I’m building up an inventory. Nothing beats the warmth of these incandescent flood lamps in the basement.
I have an old Alladin lamp with a mantle. With regular liquid paraffin that sucker throws the light and heat! I also have a few Coleman gas lanterns. They throw a lot of light and heat as well. For romantic evenings I still prefer candles, although every room in my house has one or two oil lanterns. So y’all can keep your lightbullbs! :-). I just make sure my fire insurance is all paid up
Rudolph with your nose so bright
You can’t come to town tonight
Then how the reindeer loathed him (P.C. dilettantes all)
As they shouted out with glee
Rudolph the red nosed reindeer
You can no longer play with me
We changed to CFL bulbs over four years ago – first using the “straight” ones and then later when they became available, using the “twisted” ones. I replaced the highly used bulbs first and used up the old incandescents in seldom used lights.
We did it because I worked out that for any light that was on for an hour or more a day we saved more than the cost of the bulbs (which when we first started was quite high) even if you assumed that the bulbs only lasted as long as the old incandescent ones. We have lowered our power bill significantly through doing this, even though I decided after the success of the first batch that I would take some of the “gain” as better light – we had tended to live in “low light” with a lot of 40 and 60 watt bulbs to keep costs down. Now I only by the equivalent of 60 and 100 watt bulbs – and the light level is much better.
An additional benefit is that we have found they actually do last heaps longer. In our main kitchen/family area (where we live every evening so the lights are on the most) there are 14 bulbs. With the incandescents seemed to have one blow a week. I have just counted the CFL bulbs and 8 of the 14 are the original “straight” bulbs put in over four years ago.
There is no way I would go back to incandescent bulbs – and that is not because of the “green” arguments – it is because I can think of much better ways of spending my money than wasting it on high-cost bulbs.
People should watch this Senator saying truth about the bill to ban incandescent lightbulbs:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=video&cd=1&ved=0CEMQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4ZalyKzXnlo&ei=HQAZTcSSO8nJhAfV27C3Dg&usg=AFQjCNEC7o522Dmx5f3UJR87MupGIS1Ykg&sig2=pRwnYfo9QEw4fBl8N2tcxQ
Here in UK they have stopped the sale of most incandescent bulbs. I have a cellar and it contains several large cardboard boxes full of incandescent bulbs of all the shapes and sizes that we use. There are certainly enough to last my wife and me for the rest of our lives.