GOP lawmakers call light bulb mandate a dim idea

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Last updated March 10, 2011 1:50 p.m. PT
GOP lawmakers call light bulb mandate a dim idea
By MATTHEW DALY
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mike Enzi has a dim view of a federal law requiring light bulbs to be more efficient.

The Wyoming Republican is pushing a bill to repeal the 2007 law and give consumers the choice to buy any light bulbs they want.

"Government doesn't need to be in the business of telling people what light bulb they have to use," Enzi said. "If left alone, the best bulb will win its rightful standing in the marketplace."

Twenty-seven senators - all Republicans - support the bill, but many Democrats and consumer groups say the plan is not so bright. They call it a step backward and compare it to trading in a fuel-efficient hybrid car for a gas-guzzling SUV.




Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_us_congress_light_bulbs.html

[CC]

1. Shame they didn't take that up

with W before he signed it into law.

[Warpy]

4. No shit, one of the few decent things Stupid did, for the wrong reasons

I have a few fixtures I'll have to junk unless they make LED bulbs smaller at the top or CFL bulbs smaller on the bottom, although I do have a Costco pack of incandescent bulbs that will probably last me another 20 years, considering the light use those fixtures get. In fact, I have one that's got a 15 year old bulb in it, as of next month.

Junking inefficient fixtures won't be that huge a sacrifice.

[CC]

10. We've been using CFL

for years. I don't get what is so bad about them. (Unless it is a medical reason.) I liked the lifetime and the savings on my electric bill, and it did make a noticeable difference. I have one place that they seem to not work so looking for an led for that fixture. My understanding is that you will be able to get incandescent bulbs but they have to be more energy efficient.
Seems like a pretty small thing to get all upset about. Some of these people I've seen so upset and bent out of joint over it on TV need to find out what real life is about. Oh if only all I had to worry about was if I could get old fashioned light bulbs or not.

[tridim]

2. CFL's are the best bulbs, so done deal. nt

[Courtesy Flush]

16. Not in my experience

I've had a few go dead on me already. According to their advertised life expectancy, they could easily have lasted decades, but they lasted only about as long as a regular light bulb.

I liked the idea, but the reality is that they're not worth the money.

[tridim]

21. Even if true, they still save massive amounts of energy

In my experience only bathroom CFL's suffer from lower than advertised life expectancy, even so they still last much longer than incandescents and use about a quarter of the electricity.

It's win freaking win baby.

And one more "win" just because it pisses off the Republican regressives.

[markpkessinger]

27. And they create more environmental hazards than they solve n/t

[tridim]

28. All flourescents have some mercury in them.

Should we retrofit every office in the world with Edison bulbs?

[markpkessinger]

31. Probably not, but neither should we compound the problem n/t

[Cronus Protagonist]

3. I support abolishing this mandate

I need to use at least a few incandescent bulbs.

[tridim]

6. They will be available for applications that require them.

This isn't a ban, regardless of what the idiot repukes say.

[Cronus Protagonist]

23. Great! My bathroom lighting kills CF bulbs so fast they're useless

I heard from the propaganda machine that I wouldn't be able to buy any bulbs for that purpose anywhere after the ban. Glad to hear it's not true. :P

[markpkessinger]

11. I support abolishing it, too, b/c of environmental hazards involved in disposal of the CFL bulbs

CFL bulbs may be significantly more efficient in terms of the amount of power they require, but they also pose environmental risks that are not insignificant. These bulbs contain mercury, and if improperly disposed of, pose a significant environmental and human health hazard. It's a pretty short-sighted trade off if you ask me.

[emilyg]

20. +1

[w4rma]

37. Less mercury than a coal plant. (nt)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. Gee, it's a little late for that since the last major factory in the US closed last year

Oh, wait, I get it they want to import more from China. :think:

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Yup GE closed up shop recently. n/t

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. Yep. Around early fall if I recall.

They toyed with the idea of changing over to CFL production but, in the end, it was decided the couldn't be competitive with prices from China.

[LawnKorn]

13. GE closed the last incandescent plant in the US last year transferring production to CFLs - IN CHINA

Even if the Congress changes the law to allow sale of incandescent light bulbs, we will never make another one in this country again.

[madrchsod]

30. there`s one left...they make industrial bulbs

[truthisfreedom]

9. I love the look of incandescents. I don't think they should be illegal. CFLs are ugly as sin.

They're harsh and icky looking, and they're full of mercury, heavy, expensive, and will fill landfills with lead and mercury and phosphorus poisons. When white LED bulbs arrive they'll be an improvement... but incandescents are the best looking bulbs and by far the cheapest to manufacture and purchase. What we need is more renewable energy, not less light bulb choices. Wind farms, solar, and most of all, on-site alternative energy that's stored on site as well!

[Chipper Chat]

12. Agreed. They look out-of-place with some lights.

I just bought a new 3-globe Tiffany light for over the dinner table and the screwy bulbs that came wqith it look ridiculous. I went to Menards and bought 100 incandescent light bulbs to use in the future.

[DinahMoeHum]

15. . . .and LEDs may supersede CFLs in the future. . .

Lighting technology is getting more and more energy efficient, and as more people buy energy-saving bulbs, the prices get lower and more affordable.

Just sayin'.

[truthisfreedom]

33. I believe in LED lighting. LEDs have (easily) a 100,000 hour life. That's a long time.

There's only 8760 hours in a year... 11 years continuously, and likely twice that lifetime, realistically. I have seen so few LEDs fail in my life that it's amazing.

[alfredo]

41. I've made a partial transition to LED's.

[DainBramaged]

14. Those of you who fight CFLs are the same people who rail that hybrids are the future

you cannot have it both ways people, either we move forward to reduce our independence on petroleum, or suck ass.

[Plucketeer]

17. Yeah....

"I don' care if'n they has ta build more powerplants to support our incandescent habits, dammit!" :sarcasm:

[Courtesy Flush]

18. But it has to actually work

I have not had any luck with them. If they cost the same as regular bulbs I might say they're worth it for the energy savings, but if they're not going to last, they're not going to fly.

[Cronus Protagonist]

24. Ding Ding Ding

That's the key problem with them. I get Yellow light for the first five minutes or so, often that's all the time I want them on for, so it's hard to read the label on your prescriptions due to the lack of brightness after initial switch-on. And if you use them in the bathroom, the moisture makes 'em last even less than incandescent bulbs, at several times the cost. And they break easy.

[markpkessinger]

25. Reducing dependence on petroleum by adopting another enviornmentally hazardous solution is nonsense!

CFL bulbs contain mercury, which results in their being a major hazard to the environment and to human health when they get broken or are improperly disposed of (which they inevitably will be). All CFLs accomplish is to trade off one environmental problem for another.

[truthisfreedom]

34. Hybrids are NOT the future. EVs are the future. I just bought a Tesla. It's being delivered in

less than 20 minutes. Just spoke with the transport driver. I'm so excited I could probably explode.

[Ayanami]

19. Here are a few tidbits

GE isn't making them because they failed to innovate, meanwhile a Chinese immigrant has found a way to make them for only 10% more than in China, and WANTS to make them here. (but needs money) Check this out

http://goo.gl/L12kG - The Destrudo

The article goes into some detail about mercury emissions, GE's failure, and addresses some common misconceptions.

[w4rma]

38. Thanks! That is very useful information! (nt)

[sofa king]

22. Obviously the bulbs over these peoples' heads are burnt out incandescents.

You can fire up three of them at once, almost triple the luminous output in a room, and still use less electricity than a single 100W incandescent, because the bulb is not diverting 90% of its energy into heat.

They make air conditioning more efficient, too, because the AC no longer has to remove the unwanted heat of the incandescent lighting.

More light with less heat also means an entirely new class of indoor plants can be grown.

The bulb-makers have yet to collude and set an abnormally low lifetime for these bulbs, so it's not uncommon for one to last years before having to be changed.

Those of you who don't like the color of your new lights need to remind yourselves that light sources are almost always behind some sort of shade, filter, or glass, and all of those things change the character of the light. So consider changing the lamp shade or light cover before going back to those hot, rudely inefficient, designed to fail early and on purpose incandescent bulbs.

[Cronus Protagonist]

26. I want that heat

I need it to heat the place up a little. In southern CA, I don't use a heater, but the bulbs help keep the bathroom from getting too cold. The incandescents are multi-purpose, providing both heat and light, which is needed and desired, and they like wet bathroom environments a whole lot better than these failure prone, dim CFLs.

[w4rma]

39. So, buy an infrared heat lamp. Jeeze. (nt)

[Cronus Protagonist]

42. I don't want to be wasteful

And I like to see all the details in the bathroom, so the light output is important. Two 60 watt incandescent bulbs are fine enough without burning all that extra electricity.

[w4rma]

43. Sorry, that's wasteful. Use energy efficient bulbs for light, and get a 125 Watt infrared heat lamp

You can more efficiently heat up the bathroom with the heat lamp on a timer and keep the CFLs on for light at about 26W - about 1/4 the power use of two 60W incandescent with the an equivalent lumen output.

[Cronus Protagonist]

47. 191 or 151 watts vs 120, your idea is more costly.

and I'd have to pay an electrician to upgrade the outlet. 121 watts if you'rce talking about two 26W CFLs, 151W if that's for two.

And as I mentioned, CFLs do not last as long as incandescents, so there's a cost issue as well, what with them being so damn expensive. Sorry, you're just not making sense on the cost scale OR the "saving power" scale.

[sofa king]

57. Obviously, GE hasn't stolen your pension yet.

If you have a CFL that doesn't last as long as an incandescent, you have an electrical and/or moisture problem which needs to be fixed. If you're having that problem in a bathroom, you need a ground-fault circuit interruptor in there right away. Chances are, that's also covered by a law in your state.

Your math above incorrectly assumes that your heat lamp will be running constantly, which is totally incorrect. You're also currently relying on heating the top eighteen inches of your bathroom with a couple of refrigerator lamps (and likely sucking that heat straight out of the bathroom with an overhead ventilation fan), which suggests that any benefit you receive from them is almost entirely imaginary.

If you really think that producing more light with less heat for less consumption and more durability and versatility is somehow bad, then it's somehow bad for you in a way that you've yet to disclose, because you are not on the side of math, economics, electrical theory, physics in general, or the law.

You also blew straight past my observation that this is a national security problem which you yourself can help alleviate. That pretty much means you've got money on the side of established inefficency, and not the insignificant sum you have to spend up front and will get back in a comparatively short time. Either that or you are sadly obtuse.

[sofa king]

46. It's just a multiplication question.

First, 120 watts of heat is not enough to warm a bathroom. It's about the equivalent of having someone taking a crap in there all the time.

Second, a heat lamp of 125 watts is the virtual equivalent of two 60W incandescents (120W total) in energy consumption, and is more efficient at producing the kind of heat you want, where you need it.

Third, if you like bathroom details, why not improve the lighting in the bathroom by adding two 100-watt equivalent CFLs, which will increase the visible light by 60% and still produce about 60 watts of heat. Heck, you can get a honkin' 300-watt equivalent monster and probably grow a banana tree in there, and still use about the same power.

Always keep in mind that the spectrum of the light can be easily changed by using colored glass or seeking out the newest soft-white equivalents, which are already approaching the yellowish spectrum people seem to miss. You have the ability to adjust almost any lighting to suit your tastes, so why not use something that is more efficient and better at doing what it's supposed to do.

Edit: Look, I'm not the kind of guy who normally backs a consumer product, but this is ultimately an economic and national security question, if you can believe it. One of the few avenues left to us after eight years of fiddling in the face of peak oil is a dramatic improvement in energy efficiency. Reducing the wattage per home is a critical component of that, and the sooner we adopt efficient technologies, the better off we're going to be.

And it's one of the very few things a powerless and poor person can do to help.

[Cronus Protagonist]

48. Gosh, I wonder what happened to make these CFLs the best thing since sliced bread

I only have two light sockets in my bathroom, both bulbs must fit inside a glass globe. I can literally squeeze two CFLs OR fit two regular bulbs in there. There is no additional outlet for a heat lamp. And the CFLs take several minutes to warm from a duller glow to the brighter output, by which time I've already used the bathroom and I turn them off.

[w4rma]

52. Newer CFLs work better as the technology has improved. (nt)

[sofa king]

56. It sounds like you have an intractable problem, then.

I guess you'll be moving over to candles soon, 'cause that Republican bill ain't ever going to pass.

[LanternWaste]

51. I think we are all environmentalists...

I think we are all environmentalists... that is, until we get the smallest hint of inconvenience.

Then we immediately defend, forcefully justify, and righteously rationalize our own personal excesses while simultaneously railing against those excesses of everyone else.

[madrchsod]

29. i support that....

right now i`m buying as many bulbs that i can afford. i`ve the new bulbs do`t last any longer that the old bulbs. when the new bulbs burn out they go right into the trash..no one recycles them where i live.

[No Elephants]

32. Planet calls inefficient bulbs of any kind an even worse idea.

[groundloop]

35. Moving back to old incandescents is dumb

First off, it's true that there's a MINISCULE amount of mercury vapor in each and every CFL. It's far far less than the amount of mercury given off by coal fired powerplants in the course of producing the electricity to operate an incandescent bulb. As for the life of CFL's all I can say is I'm having good luck with them - we built our house 6 years ago and equipped it totally with CFL's. There were two that died after a couple of years, but after 6 years I've only had to replace a total of 6 bulbs (out of over 50). I've even got CFL's in my bathroom fans and none of those have failed yet. I have no doubt that they've already more than paid for themselves.

[logosoco]

36. I can't help but see how sick/sad it is that repubs want

to make sure you have a CHOICE as to what light bulb you use, but they don't want you to have a CHOICE over having a baby or not.

sorry if this is off topic, but the way they use the word "choice" in the article, this was my gut reaction.

[Throd]

44. I'm pro-choice on both issues.

Don't like incandescents? Don't buy 'em.

I resent having the choice taken away from me.

[LanternWaste]

53. As I resent the mission of the FDA...

As I resent the mission of the FDA-- if I want to sell rancid meat, I should have that opportunity...

(Six of one, half a dozen of the other)

[Cronus Protagonist]

54. Choice is good

It's a shame that some Democratics appear to think that abortion choice is good and should not be banned, but no one should have the right to use these evil incandescents and they need to be legislated out of existence.

I wonder how much toxic emissions are made from the gear used in a live birth vs. an abortion. Clearly, if abortions result in more pollution, we need to ban them forever.

[alfredo]

40. Gotta keep that oil company money flowing.

[lighthouse10]

45. The Darker Side of the push to use CFLs: Documentation Link

The Darker side of the push to use CFLs:
How manufacturers and vested interests have pushed for a ban on
popular regular bulbs,
and lobbied for CFL favors - with happy political cooperation:
http://ceolas.net/#li1ax
with documentation and copies of official
communications

In my view, all lights have their advantages -after all, that is why
they are on the market for people too choose -
none should be banned:
and this is a ban,
since bulbs not reaching the standard will be disallowed. Halogens
have construction and light output differences to regular bulbs, as
well as costing much more, for the marginal savings obtained.
LEDS are not yet suitable or attractively priced for bright,
non-directional general use:
Hence the push for people to use CFLs, as described ...

[Lorien]

50. Um, CFLs aren't the only solution. LEDs are the next Big Thing. nt

[lighthouse10]

55. Read it again...

Thanks Lorien...LEDs seem promising

But you did not read it?
"LEDS are not yet suitable or attractively priced for bright,
non-directional general use:
Hence the push for people to use CFLs, as described ..."

[Lorien]

49. Sorry repugs "WE ALL HAVE TO MAKE SACRIFICES"

Crybaby 'pugs won't even give up their preferred energy gobbling bulbs for the good of the Nation. No energy security= no security, period. Conservation is part of the solution. They need to get out of the 19th Century.