UPDATE 2: 12/16/11 9AMPST It appears early reports were wrong, junkscience.com now reports that
The deal agreed to in Congress merely deprives the Department oF Energy the funds to enforce the ban for 2012. The ban is still on the books — so the DOE may very well get the money next year or the year after or who knows when.
Original post follows:
Blogging this from my cellphone.
Reports coming in from my sources say it was suspended tonight, more later.
UPDATE: from Politico –
The shutdown-averting budget bill will block federal light bulb efficiency standards, giving a win to House Republicans fighting the so-called ban on incandescent light bulbs.
GOP and Democratic sources tell POLITICO the final omnibus bill includes a rider defunding the Energy Department’s standards for traditional incandescent light bulbs to be 30 percent more energy efficient.
From The Hill –
Omnibus spending legislation greenlighted by House and Senate negotiators Thursday night blocks Energy Department light bulb efficiency standards that have come under fire from conservatives in recent months.
The legislation, which would avert a government shutdown, prevents funding from being used for the implementation of certain Energy Department light bulb standards. The standards would begin phasing in next year.
h/t to Steve Milloy at junkscience.com
What will they do to 10 year old Suzie who sets up a corner light bulb and lemonade stand?
What country do you say I live in? The land of the free and home of the brave? I hope they ban the selling of light bulbs, just so I can become a light bulb salesman.
I will place one light bulb in the center bottom of each one of their congressional chairs just so they have a proper place to sit.
So no repeal of the light bulb ban, they are just saying don’t enforce it.
Bush 43 was certainly a clown in this debacle, but merely the final clown in a long list of clowns in the FedGov Circus. Remember that 2007 was the year that both houses of Congress were retaken by radical Dummycrats. Winter 2007 (Light Bulbs) should be considered a dress rehearsal for Winter 2009 (Socialized Medicine). The common denominator of both debacles are Pelosi and Reid who comprise 2/3 of this Axis of Evil, and they commanded near veto proof majorities. Having said that, Bush 43 should have stood on principle and forced a veto over-ride.
Anatomy of this FedGov attack on America …
Wiki has an entire page detailing this premeditated murder of yet another freedom …
Towards the end of that same wiki page we get a glimpse of the actual crime scene …
This should serve as a lesson to voters to NEVER ever vote for a progressive socialist even in disguise, regardless of (R) and (D), whether or not they bribe you (with your owwn money) or promise pie-in-the-sky dreams. Just say no to Socialism.
Mark and two Cats says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Mark, thanks for the heads up on global drifting, but those cats…
….Enter your comment here
I hope also that this vote in the Congress is the beginning of a reassessment of the incandescent bulb. I am studying the issue of the substitution of incandescent bulbs by mercury containing CFLs and my conclusion is that CFLs have to be banned instead of the incandescent bulbs. The mercury pollution through the whole fabric of CFLs is so blatant that other actions have to be performed. The disposal of mercury from the CFLs in landfills is only intensified after the ban of incandescent bulbs. This is a phenomenon that is happening nowadays in most countries over the world, even in China where a ban on incandescent lamps > or = 100 W has been enforced to begin the first of October 2012.
I have a bad feeling that more is needed to stop this madness. I wrote a draft of an Open Letter to US EPA where good arguments are given to ban the CFLs and to lift the ban on incandescent bulbs. (http://www.mijnbestand.nl/Bestand-3QNMYTGZKSRE.pdf ) You can adapt it at your wishes and sent it to EPA.
A new version of my paper “Mercury in Fluoresent Lighting” can be found on http://www.mijnbestand.nl/Bestand-SLW8GTJODEFV.pdf .
In the UK you can still get up to 40W bulbs anywhere but some places still have stocks of 60W and 100W bulbs although the EU officially does not allow them to be sold, The one thing I will say for the new bulbs is that they are much cooler and do not ‘bake’ Anglepoise lamps therefore they last longer (the lamps, that is). I live in hope that sense will return and with it our proper lightbulbs!
It doesn’t matter. I prefer the CFL’s over regular incandescents. And I have really noticed a difference in my electricity bills.
We have the incandescent light bulb ban in Australia and its worse than we thought. I live in the country at the end of a long electricity line so the voltage fluctuates a lot. I HATE dim lights. The CFLs dont tolerate fluctuating voltage and wont work well, the halogen lights cost $10 a bulb. The new different types of bulbs wont last here like the old cheap incandescents did. Anyway, at 60c a piece for cheap chinese incandescents we didnt care they didnt last long (but often they did). The new bulbs at $10 a piece only last a few months. Now we are spending at least $200 a year on light bulbs instead of less than $50. Our electricity has also gone up. We were spending around $2500 a year and it has gone up to about $4000 a year.
Hope the bulb ban does not happen for you. Stock up on the old bulbs.
I wonder if we Aussies can import them? Our household is running low on the cache we grabbed when our stupid government banned them. We’ve not had to resort to one of those toxic curly dim things yet but alas it’s only a matter of time.
Why have governments usurped the rights of people to buy their preferred light bulbs? Talk about soft totalitanarism!
Australia suffers from the scourge of compulsory voting. No doubt a pedant will contradict me and say voting is not compulsory in Australia but turning up to have your name crossed off the electoral roll is.
Well derr, the result is the same: morons turn up to vote because they’ll get fined if they don’t turn up so they may as well vote while in the polling booth.
Despite the media’s constant stories about dangerous climate change I still sniff a whiff of victory. Sanity will prevail. The climate science establishment’s story is idiotic and increasingly people are recognizing it: as if CO2 – a beneficial and necessary atmospheric trace gas – could possibly be the main driver of the climate! It’s absurd.
This was the moment when the nuttiness began to recede and the economy began to heal.
Too late:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706933.html
In the future well have flexible OLED panels that we stick on the ceiling
You can make incandescent bulbs last a whole lot longer on a dimmer. How long? At half power, about a decade. Since high power bulbs are (temporarily?) exempt, you can get 200 W bulbs and run them at 100W and they last a decade (if less efficient and a bit yellower…)
3 – way bulbs also get a pass for a while, and a 3 way where the ‘low’ setting has burned out can be used in a regular socket for the ‘medium’ power (high is both together). So buy 50-200-250 bulbs and run that on low in your 3-way lamps. When the 50 W filament burns out, you now have a ‘regular’ 200W bulb that will last a decade on a dimmer as a 100 W bulb… (clearly a 50-100-150 bulb gives you a ‘regular 100W’ when the low filament burns out…)
There’s more at these two links (though the first one used to have a neat graph that Wikimedia has now deleted… that basically showed how bulb life was something like inverse to the 12th power of voltage… but now you get to imagine two lines making a steep X, one volts, the other life…)
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/happy-bulbs-to-you/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/a-good-bulb/
Folks in California get to ‘go there’ before everyone else… due to that I now have a closet full of bulbs… and the manufacturers all came out with ‘odd sizes’ to just sneak under the cut offs… so 100W bulbs disappeared a couple of years ago, but 95 W showed up 😉
Come on! Get used to it.
I know most, if not all, on this thread are going to disagree with me on this, but to me it makes perfect sense to reduce your electricity bills by replacing obsolete light bulbs with modern, alternative light sources.
In Denmark, where I live, we also have a ban on the traditional bulbs. And in the beginning we also had the same objections to the alternatives: The cold light, the price, the toxic content. But these objections seem to have vanished by now, mostly because they had nothing to do with reality.
You can buy the new ones with Warm White colors around 3000 Kelvin – just have a look at the specifications before you buy. They are no longer as expensive as just a few years ago. Today they are at about the double price as the incandescent bulbs – and in my experience they last longer. Some of them are still toxic (mercury), however.
An example: I just exchanged two 50 Watts bulbs with two 1.1 (one point one!) Watts multi-LED lights. A 97.8 % reduction in energy consumption. The color temperature is the exact same, if not warmer than the old ones. They were the exact same size and same fittings as the old ones. The apparent lumen is a little less than the old ones – equivalent to a 40 Watts bulb – but still quite sufficient for reading lights in our bed room. As an extra bonus we are no longer getting burn marks when switching off these lamps, as the new LED lights produce pure light instead of heat.
Ole of Denmark says:
December 16, 2011 at 5:10 am
Come on! Get used to it.
I know most, if not all, on this thread are going to disagree with me on this, but to me it makes perfect sense to reduce your electricity bills by replacing obsolete light bulbs with modern, alternative light sources.
—
That’s great – for you. But please let others make this choice for themselves. In my opinion, the current crop of CFL and LED bulbs do NOT give the same quality of light as incandescents. BUT…there are places where CFLs are fine (I’ve been using fluorescent lamps in my workshop for years) – I have that choice.
By the way, the best way to reduce your home lighting bill is to use the off switch – try it sometime.
I’ve been stocking up on incandescents for more than a year now, usually buying “contractor” packs (24 bulbs) at Lowes. This is the only retailer I’ve found that still stocks a brand made in North America – Sylvania. According to the package, they have plants remaining in Ohio, Ontario (Canada), and Mexico. More recently, the contractor pack has disappeared, so I bought packs of 8, 100 w bulbs for less than $5 each.
Don’t bother with Home Depot or Walmart – all they carry are GE (NEVER) and crap from China.
Finally, this stupid ban in the US will only go away after we have a change in government in about 10 1/2 months, and we finish the job started in 2010 and sweep the rest of the radical green left from Washington, DC.
Ole,
I too have bought LED lights, dimmable bars for under counter in my new kitchen. But they were waaaay more expensive although the total wattage for 13 light bars is about 45 Watts. I bought them because of the no heat factor. I installed a GU10 ceiling light bar as well but used halogens for that. Six lights cost 15 bucks. I looked at dimmable GU10 LED lights and one light here in Ontario, Canada is $40. When the LED bulbs get cheaper I’ll replace the halogens. So yes there are good alternatives but the economics still doesn’t make sense.
Ole of Denmark says:
December 16, 2011 at 5:10 am
Come on! Get used to it.
I know most, if not all, on this thread are going to disagree with me on this, but to me it makes perfect sense to reduce your electricity bills by replacing obsolete light bulbs with modern, alternative light sources.
You are completely missing the point. Governments have no business mandating a particular type of lightbulb, or more generally, forcing people to “save energy”, which is tantamount to eco-fascism. If the newer light bulbs truly are an improvement, then people will buy them of their own accord, and without Big Brother telling them to.
Madness at the heart of the legislature. One can only hope that some bright spark (sorry) starts up a new U.S. incandescent lamp factory soon.
That said, we use a mix of lamps here in Blighty: if to be left on a long time (e.g. desk lamp) we use CFL daylight temp, if not it’s halogen incandescents which are 30% more efficient than tungsten, have a slightly less yellow light than tungsten, have not been banned in the UK and are readily available everywhere.
Let’s call it what it really is – FASCISM. Is it only a coincidence that Jeffrey Immelt is ‘jobs czar’?
E.M.Smith says: December 16, 2011 at 4:57 am
Another way to get long life from your incandescent bulbs is to buy 130V bulbs to run on 110V. They can last for 10-15 years in my experience.
Good to hear Gov’t making an ever-so-small step backwards out of micro-managing our lives. While we all agree with being more efficient, compact florescents, like low flow toilets, don’t end up saving anything when it is all said and done. When they are new, they come on quickly and bright. But, after a few weeks, they are much slower to warm up. The more efficient CF looses its efficiency when I have to turn on a ceiling fixture to augment my desk lamp. Three bulbs then struggle to do what incandescent would have: light the top of my desk.
Further, in my garage, I have CFs in most fixtures. Since it takes a minute or so for a CF to warm up and provide good light (dangerous, in my garage), I now just leave the CF ceiling fixture on all the time. Again, measures taken to deal with the CFs short-coming completely erode whatever efficiency was allegedly available.
Low flow toilets are another pet peeve. But, I won’t go there.
Hate hate hate twisty bulbs!!!! Bought a bank for my bathroom light bar and lo and behold, discovered that I had gray hair in my long locks of red! Lots of it! I could not get those bulbs out fast enough. Raced down to BiMart and payed for “cut crystal”, bright, sun-light warm, old fashioned incandescent bulbs. Poof! Gray gone!
So to those dems who are still voting the green ticket…shove it!
(damn…this has got me Irish temper up and feathers ruffled)
Come on! [self-snip] me.
Objections do not vanish, they are just ignored. You know what I am talking about because you are doing exactly that right now, ignoring them. As far as reality, you are clearly not acquainted with it. The ban is effectively lifted pending further action, so we will happily get used to that. Anyway, reality is not legislated, it is experienced. Were the socialists in our Congress to legislate Electric cars over Fossil Fuel, or simply legislating the banning of free speech, reality would still not be changed. The objections to this bulb banning are quite real in reality, and they are threefold …
(1) We object to nanny state government holding our hands picking what is best for us. This is because we are naturally born free people, not serfs or slaves. Don’t try to tell us what to think or do. You can love your particular government as your surrogate parents all you want. Don’t even suggest we also do so.
(2) We object to corrupt state-sponsored cronyism which in this case has enormous firms donating to the politicians backing the lightbulb transition who planned to reap fortunes on the new mandated product. How very convenient.
(3) We object to the scientific fraud at the root of this, including replacing a harmless product with one that is not harmless. If you disagree I suggest you buy a crate of CFL’s and throw handfuls of them onto the floor of the US Congress or a supermarket or a school. After the crime scene tape is removed and the hazmat team has left, the FBI will likely arrest you for terrorism of some kind. NB: that was not sarcasm.
Pardon me if I don’t trust your math. In my experience it takes around 40 watts LED to actually replace 100 incandescent. But this is highly subjective because of perception and the directionality of LED over the spreading of incandescent. For example, this chart states it is more like 20 watts. But the entire premise here is based on when all other things are equal, WHICH THEY ARE NOT. Incandescent, LED and CFL are three different beasts, and all have their place when people are left to freely choose.
Those two statements (in the same sentence LOL) are mutually exclusive. That means impossible. Regardless, because once again this is highly subjective. Unlike communist or socialist thinking, all people are not the same. What does nanny state-ism plan to do with people who get sick under fluorescent lighting or those that can see the AC flicker on LED’s? Screw them of course.
Subjectivity again, and that apparently is all that is required to seal the deal for you. However, do you see us trying to tell you not to use LED or CFL? Of course not.
Anyway, here is something you have not stated because it is a very inconvenient truth: In many circumstances an incandescent bulb can be 100% efficient, which is even more than CFL or LED. What’s that, you say?
Right now it is cold. Using an incandescent in the lamp in a room results in 100% of the light being used and 100% of the heat being used to warm the surrounding air, where the people physically reside.
Place an LED in there instead and 100% of the light is being used, but *no* heat is warming the surrounding air (waste heat is sinked away by design so that the component does not fail). To warm this room, the people near this light must head over to the thermostat to compensate. And this often means oil burning, or gas in the furnace and ducted warm air from the basement up to the room where the people are, or via a radiator, or even a worse case with electric heat where the same fossil fuels are consumed miles away to push the electricity to that room where the people are.
You see, placing the energy saving bulb in that room in this situation simply moved the energy use elsewhere, and quite possibly increase it in net. There is waste in all these operations at many locations, so pick your poison. But do not ignore the concept of a ‘space heater’ which is in this case a warm incandescent light-bulb right at the spot of human occupation. Bumping up the thermostat to replace the heat NOT given off by an LED in a room setting in most case results in heat being added to multiple rooms or even all rooms, not just the occupied space. Adjusting the thermostat almost never ‘just’ raises the heat where you need it. Consequently, because of the cold LED bulb, we waste heat elsewhere in the house, and even down at the power plant.
This is a fine example of a blind spot existing in the thought process of many eco-warriors: unintended consequences.