CFL bulbs are absolutely evil, I hate them. The USA government has already made law that is diabolically designed to be gradually phased into effect years after it was already passed. It was a little efficiency provision burried deep within the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which few politicians seemed to notice. Big business interests have manipulated the environmentalists into supporting their scheme. Now, regular incandescent light bulbs are already becoming illegal in countries throughout the world: the USA, Canada, Australia, the European Union, the UK, Chile, and likely soon to be Mexico and China now. Despite what all the misguided environmentalists claim, they don't save energy, they end up costing more money, and they are worse for the environment. Before the phase out, countless millions were spent on televised advertisements painting the CFL bulbs as "green". See the thread: "Compact Fluorescent Bulbs: NOT a Bright Idea!" http://www.zoklet.net/bbs/showthread.php?p=3743100 And the claim that CFL's last longer than the old light bulbs is another lie. You can buy incandescent light bulbs off the internet that last longer than the new spiral CFL's, with lifetimes over 10,000 hours. Has anyone seen this video before? [video=youtube;uXt9HT50X1c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXt9HT50X1c&feature=player_embedded[/video] There was a light bulb conspiracy to make all the bulbs burn out faster so people would have to buy more of them, more profits for the light bulb companies. And guess what else? Those new more expensive CFL bulbs do not last nearly as long as the manufacturers claim. And even when they do, they become much dimmer after many years, making it hard to even see, so you will have to buy a new one before the old one even burns out. That is another little trick the light bulb companies are using, make the bulbs give off less light so people will have to buy more of them to light a room. We can also see this with the advanced LED bulbs that have just become available in stores. Interesting how the higher wattage LED's are so much more expensive. Despite what the packaging claims, a single 20-dollar LED bulb is not going to put out enough light to provide decent lighting to your room. By banning regular incandescent bulbs, the light bulb companies are forcing everyone to buy their more expensive alternatives. The Unholy Alliance between Philips and the Greens An unholy alliance (discovered by Elsevier journalist Syp Wynia) between a large multinational company and a multinational environmental organization succeeded in their lobby to phase out, and ultimately by 2012 forbid, the sale of incandescent bulbs – not only in the Netherlands but in the whole of the European Union. The multinational company wanted to develop a new market for products with a high profit margin, and the environmental multinational wanted to impress the citizens of Europe with the imminent catastrophe caused by anthropogenic climate change. That would also be of benefit to its battered public image. Philips started lobbying to phase out the very product on which its original success is based. They started this campaign ten years ago. Their line of thought is clear: banning incandescent bulbs creates an interesting market for new kinds of home lighting, such as “energy savers” (CFL’s, compact fluorescent lamps) and LED’s (light emitting diodes). The mark-up on these new products is substantially higher than that on old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. (A 70-Watt equivalent LED bulb, for example, costs 55 dollars each, while a 60-Watt equivalent costs 25 dollars. Of course, many other companies are selling cheaper LED products, claiming a "60 Watt equivalents", when in reality their bulbs put out much less light.) Energy savers (CFL’s) were introduced on the market in 1980, but they never succeeded in gaining wide acceptance from consumers. Despite their reduced power consumption, most consumers found their light too "harsh" and unnatural to light their homes. On top of that they were slow starters, annoyingly taking a few seconds just to come on while flickering, and then taking several minutes to reach full brightness. Multiple government campaigns, aimed at promoting the idea that energy savers contribute to the well-intentioned goal of reducing the energy consumption of households, failed to convince citizens. The spectre of catastrophic climate change offered a new opportunity for the strategists and marketing specialists at Philips headquarters. They changed their marketing concept and jumped on the Global Warming band wagon. From that moment on, energy-saving bulbs could be put on the market as icons of responsibility toward climate change. This would give Philips a head start in the CFL end LED business. The competition would be left far behind by aggressive use of European patent law. In 2006, Dutch legislators caved in under the combined lobbying pressure by Philips and Greenpeace. A parliamentary majority in The Hague embraced the idea of banning incandescent bulbs and ordered the Dutch Environment Minister, Jacqueline Cramer, to lobby for an extension of the ban to all states in the European Union.
In 2011, General Electric, the largest light bulb manufacturer in the USA, spent $84.35 million on political lobbying. This was more than the company paid in taxes. The old bulbs could be bough for only 25 cents each in a value pack. Since those have been phased out, the halogen bulbs (which do not even last as long) cost $1.60 each. By 2020 the efficiency mandate will only allow LED bulbs to be sold. Currently, a "70 Watt equivalent" LED costs $40 each. The big light bulb companies stand to earn enormous profits. Osram-Sylvania has been actively lobbying in Europe.
You're so far behind the times, you can't even smell the old father's worst farts. I'm onto LED lights. You get way longer life than anything, produce lovely light, are totally flicker free (even to a house fly) and cost almost nothing to run. I think you need to get a little past the 'banging rocks together' stage and hit the 21st century at the run.
If the new technology was so much better, the old technology would not have to be banned. The plain truth is that many consumers prefer the light from incandescent bulbs. Even many environmentally conscious consumers have tried the energy efficient bulbs, decided they do not like them, and have begun stockpiling the old bulbs. Many utility companies have been heavily subsidising energy efficient appliances and CFL bulbs, raising their electric rates to do so. Then, after they raise the rates on their captive customers (utility companies are granted a monopoly by local governments), they turn around and claim how much money the CFL bulbs will save customers. The truth is they have just raised the rates on consumers who used the old bulbs to fund their environmental insanity. CFL's have nurmerous problems and are not appropriate replacements for incandescent bulbs in numerous situations, not least of which as a reading light. And the environmental crazies who tout LEDs fail to mention that there currently is no LED bulb being sold that has the same light output as the old 100 Watt incandescent bulbs. When one does finally become available, it will likely be very expensive. And yet still the government is setting efficiency mandates that will not allow incandescent bulbs.
Some people just resist change because they're too stuck in their ways. Do you still have a crank handle on your car? Do you still have a valve radio? My beautiful, warm, flicker free house lighting hardly moves the meter and my 50 inch TV runs on just 60w. How does yours compare? If you don't give a toss about environmental issues, consider your wallet.
So the government should take away their choices? Did the government have to ban crank handle cars to get cars to change? You are still free to buy crank handle cars. It is just that they are hard to find because virtually no one wants to buy them. Did the government have to "phase out" valve radios for them to be replaced by transistors? If a technology is truely better, the government does not have to force it. You don't think I have tried spiral CFLs and LEDs ? They are not a completely superior technology. This is why the government has had to subsidise them so heavily to get consumers to buy them. Different consumers have different preferences. Even without any subsidies or "phase out" there would still be consumers would would buy each different type of bulb. In some situations they may prefer different bulbs in different places in their house. For me, the light from CFLs is too glaring and "harsh". These spiral bulbs also make my skin feel sore if I sit next to a lamp for too long (probably from the UV leaking out). The LED bulbs make the colors in my room look a little off, dull, and greyish. The "warm white" ones, that are suppossedly the same color as incandescent bulbs, actually have a strange orange-purplish tint. I prefer the soft light from incandescent bulbs, even if it is more yellowish than I would prefer. The plain truth is that none of the three types of light are completely perfect. Each has its own unique desirable and undesirable qualities. For those that think incandescents are too yellowish, perhaps you should try Halogen Reveal bulbs (still a type of incandescent) and compare the quality of light to CFL's. Do a side-by-side test, and try reading a page from a book under both types of light. http://img3.targetimg3.com/wcsstore/TargetSAS//img/p/13/77/13771667.jpg
Yes, some people certainly don't want to change. Consumer experiences such as this one are not uncommon. Apparently many of the manufacturers are being deceptive (or just plain lying) about how long their CFL bulbs actually last: If CFL's are not lasting nearly as long as is being claimed, it could negate the environmental justifications of promoting them, since each bulb consumes much more energy to make and results in much more pollution than the old incandescent bulbs.
In the last few years, GE has spent more money on political lobbying than it has paying taxes. I think Phillips, GE, and Osram have been the reason for this world-wide phase out. They stand to make enormous profits when peoples only option becomes high-priced LED lighting. You can make whatever environmental and economic arguments you like, but I am sure there would not have been such relatively coordinated action among so many different governments in the world if it had not been for the lobbying from these three big lighting companies. With the price of an LED bulb (that actually puts out enough light for a room) being well over a 100 times that of the old incandescent bulbs, you really have to wonder what the real motives behind this phase out are.
I know a bit about lighting as one of my hobbies is my aquariums. I have many different types of lighting and have used the CFL and virtually all other kinds of lights on the market. I can tell you this much. In my home, as far as my living area, I much prefer the incandescent bulbs. As for my aquariums I prefer the LED's and CFL twist style bulbs. I use the 6500k super daylight twist style bulbs in one of my tanks and the light, before being filtered by the water, looks very white. I can buy these in a variety of wattage and lumens for brightness. Another tank uses the LED's. The LED's, the ones that are affordable, are not very bright. I do like the look it gives my aquarium. I do have some LED bulbs throughout my house in a couple different rooms. The light is very white appearing and they are around 5000k in temperature. I don't really care for these but they do give more natural coloration.
Yes, LED and fluorescent work much better for aquarium, especially when there are reefs in it. Usually special reef LEDs, with specific frequencies of light, are used instead of normal white phosphor LEDs. (a subject I find interesting but this thread is not the place for it) Different types of light work great in some places, but bad (or not as good) in others. I would hardly call those 5000K LEDs natural light - the only thing "natural" about them is that they give off so much blue light! It's not so different from those "Chromalux" and "Reveal" bulbs that they started selling many years ago. They claimed in was "just like natural sunlight", that it was "full spectrum". But what it really was was just a regular incandescent bulb with a color filter that removed most of the yellow frequency light - making it look more bluish. All the so-called "full spectrum" and "natural daylight" bulbs you will usually see do not really have spectrums anything like natural daylight. It is just deceptive marketing. There are actually real filtered halogen spotlights and fluorescent tubes that are similar to the spectrum of natural sunlight. But these are specialty products that are never sold in normal stores. Here, this is a rare example of a specialty fluorescent tube that actually is not being deceptive about its claim of being full spectrum: http://www.truesun.com/proddetail.php?prod=TrueLite_full_spectrum_light
The big lighting companies have even conspired with the United Nations to try to get regular light bulbs banned across the entire world: http://www.enlighten-initiative.org/portal/Home/tabid/56373/Default.aspx The UN is funded by mandatory allocations from its member nations. How much of my taxpayer money is going to try to get light bulbs banned in other countries? This is just ridiculous. Yet another example of the UN actively working to take away our freedoms. Those brainless progressives in the UN are more naive than I thought if they think Osram and Philips are pushing this to "help the environment". The lighting companies have simply just put a new marketing spin on their more expensive products. "Efficiency mandates" combined with patent law will effectively give them a government granted monopoly over the market. And the environmental benefit will be negligible, if not worse. All the alleged benefits are exaggerated. And the authors of those environmental studies have never set foot inside the Chinese factories actually making all these things.
Here's another link: http://greenwashinglamps.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/anti-lightbulb-campaign/ There have been several light bulb conspiracies in the past.
Typical incandescent bulbs are made to last between 750 to 1500 hours of use. You could even buy halogen incandescent (double-enveloped to protect the inner capsule) bulbs which would last 3000 hours. Americans could have long life light bulbs available for only $1.50 each, but the big manufacturers would not like this. Instead, they make all their $1.50 halogen bulbs to burn out very fast, by running the filament at hoter temperature, without any added supports, and are only manufacturing them below 72 watts. They use "promoting energy savings" as a justification. It would cost virtually nothing extra to make these cheap halogen bulbs be 100 watts, with a regular filament temperature to last 4 times longer. But that would not be very good for profits. There is a giant conspiracy going on right now. It is a conspiracy to ban incandescent bulbs, forcing consumers to buy more expensive alternatives. The light bulb manufacturer GE, at least, is also part owner of countless local electric utility companies across the country, and has been lobbying state regulators to allow them to raise rates to fund energy saving programs. Conveniently for them, many of these "energy saving" programs just subsidize products manufactured by GE. And conveniently again, the higher electric rates allow them to justify more "energy savings". You see, the high price of those new bulbs might not be worth it if the price of electricity was not artificially being kept high. They have also been deceptive about the lifespan and light output of their CFL bulbs, with no warning on the packaging about the numerous potential health hazards. Did I mention the deceptive "color temperature" quantification, to try to mislead consumers into thinking that the new bulbs can give off the same type of light as the old? (in other words, if you are a naive consumer, you might assume that a 2700K compact fluorescent is the exact same type of light as a 2700K incandescent)
That is interesting. I will have to read up on this. Good explanation. It reminds me of how cap and trade is a good idea in concept, but since it was designed by Goldman Sachs it ended up being just another route to screw us, by the time it was actually a bill to be voted on.
Yep, they just wanted to commodify pollution, using the government to turn the permission to pollute into something that could be bought and sold, so some people could make huge profits on it. Plenty of potential for cronyism. I favor a flat carbon tax. I know many people in Australia are complaining about their carbon tax, but at least it is far better than "cap and trade". If it sounds too overly complex, someone probably intentionally designed it that way so they could exploit it and make lots of money.
If capitalism resorts to competition, why should it matter if Firms compete in a market for non-incandescent light bulbs and reach an equilibrium in that new market analogous to the previous market for incandescent bulbs?
It is a complicated topic, and I do not want to go into too much detail here, but basically yes. For 1.50 US$ each, they could easily be making 100 watt bulbs that would last 3000 hours. They are already making these cheap halogen capsule bulbs, but they just designed the filament to be smaller and burn hoter, ostensibly for energy savings, but more likely also to make them burn out faster, and lower wattage to give off less light so that consumers would be more likely to buy one of their alternative expensive bulbs if they wanted a bit more light, like their old 100 bulbs put out. Because the efficiency mandates that will come into effect are set so high that any type of incandescent bulb will not be practical, and neither will it be practical to use one of the other technologies to exactly replicate the spectrum of incandescent light. To fully explain this, I would have to go into very complicated technical reasons. They might be able to make special LED bulbs that give off the same exact light as incandescent bulbs, but they are going to be much more expensive than even regular LED bulbs. Each technology gives off its own unique type of light, to try to adapt a non-incandescent technology to put out the same unique light as incandescent is very complicated. Because of the high cost, most people will probably not buy them and they will not be very practical, except perhaps in high-end museums and expensive art galleries where exceptional quality of light is critical. And probably even then, the quality of light will not be exactly 100% the same. If you impose artificial restraints on the market, it will eventually adapt, but prices can go up very high. And quality often goes down too. Remember all that boot-leg vodka in Russia that was making people go blind?
Cap and dividend is my vote. Tax it however they want, as long as it is payed out each year 100% to individual American's to make efficency upgrades, or consume some other way.
I've had 100% spiral cfl bubs for 2 years now. Not only have i not had to replace a single one, they have shaved 4o euros off my electricity bill every 2 months. They have paid for themselves several times over. I would not go back to incandescents now if you paid me.
What you are explaining is that the market for non-incandescent bulbs is not very mature yet. Prices could come down when that market matures. Your analogy is not very accurate since we are discussing open market transactions, not black market transactions in this case.
But the quality of light is likely to remain inferior, there are no guarantees that the prices will not also come down for the special LEDs that put out better quality light. And how much will prices come down? That question is very intertwinned with several complicated technical factors, which most economists would probably be unnable to grasp. Why not just have not have any ban? If the new bulbs save so much money and are not inferior, the government will not have to force anyone to buy them. As for talking about prices falling with increasing scale of production, why does the government have to be involved?!? The light bulb manufacturers are huge corporations, with plenty of investment money at their disposal. If they thought prices would come down, why not just make the investment in LEDs themselves? GE and Philips could have just started mass production before the phase out. What does competition with incandescent bulbs have to do with anything?! If LEDs were truely better, they would take the market share away from incandescents on their own. The consumer is getting screwed here. There is absolutely no sane reason that incandescent bulbs have to be banned - other than some insane environmental agenda and corporate cronyism. Some in the government are saying consumers are just too stupid to make the best decisions for themselves. But the cost of electricity is clearly labled on light bulb packaging now. There's no excuse. And, like I have explained, there are obviously many other factors besides just money why consumers would prefer incandescent.
I agree to disagree; technology is not standing still and advances are being made, practically every day. Here is one rationale for the effective "ban" on incandescents. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs
As chronicled many times on this web site, California is in a hopeless fiscal death spiral. Most blame fat pensions for state workers and runaway entitlements for illegal aliens, but wait there's more! According to the WSJ, California is also burning money they don't have on Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: Despite the fact they are swimming in red ink, left wing legislators in Sacramento still managed to find money to subsidize the forced adoption of these ugly light bulbs. The California Public Utilities Commission has handed hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds over to the electric company to drive down the real cost of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: And back to Obama's Chinese dinner, guess who benefits from the government's force feeding of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs? So there you have it, hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money wasted to force us to use a product we hate and who makes money on it? China! Here's a question for any environmental whackjob who gets this far in my post, how do you know that China isn't burning dirty coal to power the factory that manufactures these bulbs, spewing massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere? How stupid can we get?
I think we merely need to convince the right, to stop being so cognitively dissonant regarding marijuana sales taxes, as a seed bearing plant that was allegedly created and declared Good, by a god.
