Shot in the Dark

Pay No Attention To Those Facts Behind the Curtain

The regional leftymedia has been tittering about the Republican bill to repeal the ban on incandescent lightbulbs.  Of course, for the regional left(y media), the fact that Michele Bachmann is among the 12 co-sponsors is all it takes to initiate the tittering.

Kouba – who knows about actual science and stuff – has the facts that would make a thinking lefty…well, stop tittering, if they bothered to think about it.

Excerpt, from a Tim Carney piece:

As reported previously in this column, the energy bill was loaded up with all sorts of favors for energy companies, manufacturers and other corporate bigwigs. The light bulb law follows the same pattern: A regulation touted as an environmental boon that will have dubious benefits to the planet, real costs to consumers and guaranteed profits for a handful of well-connected corporations.
…
Today, the clear successor to Thomas Edison’s incandescent bulb is the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). CFLs are more expensive, but they last longer and use less electricity. They have real downsides, however.

First, the light is not as attractive to many consumers — a problem with which the industry has struggled for years. Second, they take a little time after you flip the switch to reach full brightness.

Third, most CFLs can’t be used with dimmer switches or three-way fixtures. Fourth, the bulbs contain mercury, creating a potential health hazard in case of breakage and an environmental hazard for disposal.
….
These companies will get rich thanks to energy bill, but it’s not clear the public or the environment will share the windfall GE and Philips will experience. GE makes its CFLs and other fancy light bulbs in China, while it makes its incandescents in the United States.

The light bulb law will ship more American jobs offshore, shift manufacturing to China’s dirtier and less efficient factories, and increase shipping distances. Add in the mercury, and it’s not clear how good this law is for the environment. Its clearest benefit is to the companies who lobbied for it.

Ah, well.  Whether it’s environmental policy, self-defense law, John McCain’s teeth, whatever.  Being a lefty means never letting anything get in the way of tittering.

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Mitch Berg

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28 responses to “Pay No Attention To Those Facts Behind the Curtain”

  1. Master of None Avatar
    Master of None

    You’d think lefties would be for this bill.

    They’re pastey white enough without fluorescent lighting.

  2. Badda Avatar
    Badda

    They are disingenuous in their tittering.

  3. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    Do they cock and eye while they titter?
    Something I’ve never seen mentioned — incandescent bulbs are less efficient because they give off more heat. If you lose a thousand watts of heat from incandescent light bulbs your furnace will have to make up for it.
    In the summer that would be a blessing, I suppose.

  4. BobCollins Avatar
    BobCollins

    Minor correction: It’s not true that CFL’s can’t be used with three-way switches. There are three-way CFLs. The weird part about it is the brightest of the three is the middle switch, not the third.

    Oh, and there are also CFLs that work with dimmers.

    The “color” of the light is a fascinating issue and is a matter of wavelength. I don’t know what solution for it is but I imagine CFL manufacturers have already played with the wavelength since they’re not quite as as white as they used to be.

    Wouldn’t surprise me, though, that CFLs don’t have the future that LEDs have anyway.

  5. Master of None Avatar
    Master of None

    CFL’s also don’t work in cold temperatures. Tried them in my garage, but they wouldn’t turn on when it’s cold.

    LED lighting is the future.

  6. flash Avatar
    flash

    – First, the light is not as attractive to many consumers
    Maybe at first, but most of the ones I see look very much like incandescent plus most of ones lights are shaded or covered anyone so you don’t see it

    – Second, they take a little time after you flip the switch to reach full brightness.
    Yes, so little time it is barely noticeable.

    – Third, most CFLs can’t be used with dimmer switches or three-way fixtures.
    Yes, this is somewhat of a deal breaker, not sure where technology is at on this

    – Fourth, the bulbs contain mercury, creating a potential health hazard in case of breakage and an environmental hazard for disposal.

    The minuscule amount of Mercury in these bulbs is WAY outweighed by the significant savings in green house gasses, mercury emissions, and other pollutants by their use of significantly less energy

    As for the longer life, that has not been my experience. I have seen some extension in life compared to incandescents, but not at the significance the promoters brag about.

    Overall, I think the ban was premature, but anything Bachmann signs on to should cause any intelligent individual to have pause *grin*. In this case, it may be that broken clock thing *laughing*

  7. flash Avatar
    flash

    MoN, I had the same experience in the Garage and agree *gasp* that LED is where it is at.

    On a Tech note, wait till computers, in the very near future, eliminate all moving parts and go to strictly flash and/or plasma based storage. Think of the speed improvement.

    Mr. Centrisity tends to align much closer to the Republican platform on issues related to Global Warming, not sure if I would go as far and call it a ‘myth’. though. Reality is, we need to be smart about how we use the planet and how it may effect future generations.

  8. Master of None Avatar
    Master of None

    “As for the longer life,”

    You get the longer life if you don’t turn them on and off frequently. I don’t use them in bathrooms or hallways where they are only on for short amounts of time. Also, with their initial dimness, they don’t work well in those places anyway.

  9. Master of None Avatar
    Master of None

    not sure if I would go as far and call it a ‘myth’. though.

    Me neither. I’d call it more of a “hoax”.

  10. Terry Avatar
    Terry

    – First, the light is not as attractive to many consumers
    Maybe at first, but most of the ones I see look very much like incandescent plus most of ones lights are shaded or covered anyone so you don’t see it
    Some people are more sensitive to the ill effects of flourescents than others. The flicker makes their iris’s twitch, eye fatigue and headache result — it’s a real phenomenon for for the sufferer, more than just a matter of esthetics.

  11. flash Avatar
    flash

    Terry, as one who had botulinum injections before they were used for cosmetics, I know what you mean. I had what they called blephrospasms. an uncontrolled eye blinking exasperated by light, especially in the bright white winter, but it also could be triggered by flicker florescence. Fortunately, the one treatment was enough to hold it at bay

  12. Andrew Rothman Avatar
    Andrew Rothman

    Exactly. And that doesn’t-work-in-the-garage thing is a deal-breaker.

    I just got my first LED bulb in the mail today. I’ll let you all know how it works.

    http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1475

  13. Master of None Avatar
    Master of None

    Are you going to try that in a garage?

    These are the LED lights I’m interested in,

    http://www.destinationlighting.com/storeitem.jhtml?iid=270483

    When something like that gets down to about $30 ea., I’ll give it a try.

  14. nerdbert Avatar
    nerdbert

    Terry, modern compact flashes are well above the frequencies that typically cause problems. The large FL cycle at 60 Hz, which is very annoying (which is why refresh rates above 60 Hz were pretty much required in the old VGA days), but at the 20+K rates of modern CFLs I doubt you could get anything reliably reported as detectable. From my old grad school days, the cutoff was VERY sharp above 120 Hz for normal human detectability.

    The color balance of CFLs and the slow warmup are much more serious. I have had some brands of CFLs that take 30 seconds to warm up, and others that put out a very harsh light. You have to look carefully at the Kelvin scale to determine which bulbs put out a good light, but not all manufacturers put it on their packaging. Note that if you shop around you can find different color balances in the large bulbs, too, and it’s really worthwhile to choose balances that are pleasing to your eyes.

    CFLs? Eh, I mostly use them. But I’m careful about which brands I choose, since there are some VERY bad ones out there.

    Good for the environment? Maybe. I’m yet to be convinced of it. Good for the pocketbook when electricity was $0.18 KWhr in Vermont? Absolutely.

    The LEDs will eventually trump CFLs by a large margin, but from what I’ve seen so far they’re still working on the color balance problem. The early LEDs have worse color balance than CFLs, but that will be easier to change with time than getting the CFL balance right.

  15. Bike Bubba Avatar
    Bike Bubba

    Yes, LED bulbs are in the future–now they may be there for all the future. They’re nowhere near as efficient as CFs, and due to the work functions of the diode, dimming them can create wonderful variations in the color of your light. Nice for a disco, not so good for your dining room.

    Also, if Andrew’s bulb is scaled to emit the light of a 60W incandescent, he’s paying about $40/bulb.

    Maybe they’ll keep coming down and get better. It would be cool. However, I’d sure like to have the alternative of Edison’s invention in case this doesn’t come to pass. As others have noted, diodes aren’t there yet, and CFs don’t do too well at 20 below, or in any number of other applications where compactness is critical. CFs also don’t tend to do too well in high wattage situations; their intrinsic inefficiency creates heat that accelerates the degradation of the circuits that provide the voltage to the bulb.

    (that’s why most flourescent bulbs are long–not just because it’s easier to make, but also because it allows better heat sinking of the ballast)

  16. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    The minuscule amount of Mercury in these bulbs
    How many incandescent light bulb are going to be replaced? Several hundred million could make “minuscule” significant, no?

  17. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    “The minuscule amount of Mercury in these bulbs..”

    I can’t believe that came from the mouth of a moonbat. Trust me here, if CFL’s are mandated buy stock in haz mat companies, because once they force you to use the damn things the “CFL recycling” mandate won’t be far behind.

    $5 to buy something you don’t want; $25 to get rid of it. Democrat ecology in a nutshell.

  18. nerdbert Avatar
    nerdbert

    Bike, the efficiency of prototype LEDs has exceeded that of CFLs for a while. The latest LEDs are above 80% efficient and going higher. The LEDs can still go a ways higher, too, while the CFLs have hit diminishing returns. The cost of LEDs just isn’t there yet, though.

    As to the mercury, I believe the numbers are essentially that even the best modern CFL bulb out there will contaminate 1000 gallons of water.

    But the issue with CFLs and mercury isn’t so much how much it costs to recycle or even if to recycle, but the percentage that actually do. How many “bubbas” out there are going to remember or bother to actually dispose of the bulb properly rather than just dumping it in the trash and taking the absolutely minimal chance of getting caught?

    (In Vermont we actually had mandatory recycling, to the point that they had inspectors go out and dig through trash bags trying to find folks who didn’t recycle. They didn’t just look for CFLs, but paper, cans, etc. Mandatory recycling worked about as well as a conservative would expect, much to the horror of the lefty treehuggers.)

  19. flash Avatar
    flash

    Leave it to Tom to disrupt an actual dialog taking place on an issue where, for the most part, I actually agree with you guys on. Again, I flunk the purity test I guess.

  20. J. Ewing Avatar
    J. Ewing

    Here’s a silly question: If CFLs save you money, last longer and are good for the environment, why not ALLOW consumers to freely choose them? If consumers are worried about mercury, believe that global warming is a hoax, and are putting these bulbs in the guest room closet where a CFL would NEVER pay for itself, why force them to buy one?

  21. Kermit Avatar
    Kermit

    Well J. I actually have chosen CFLs for some household uses. Every major light fixture I’ve replaced has been with the big, non-compact variety. It had nothing to do with global warming. It was for economy. No government required.

  22. BobCollins Avatar
    BobCollins

    If folks really are interested in CFLs for the garage, I finally found one last fall that works great — unlike the CFLs I had been using which come on as a weak pink when it’s REALLY cold.

    Try the GE Helical.

    I’m using a 32W model and the amount of light it emits is MUCH better than the incandescents, and certainly better than the CFLs I had been using (the Home Depot variety)

    I wish they weren’t made in China but that’s not a CFL specific issue, of course.

  23. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    I’d been thinking about CFLs – for purely market reasons, of course. Haven’t bought any yet, but I hear good things about the cost savings.

  24. Master of None Avatar
    Master of None

    I’m trying them out in about a dozen locations in the house. I have about 30 recessed lights througout the house and I’m constantly replacing them, so I’m most interested in that application.

    So far, of the dozen that I’ve installed, I had two fail after about a month, and I’ve removed the ones in the garage because they won’t turn on when it’s colder than about 40 degrees.

    I have two in a couple of stairway footwell sconces that are on nearly all the time that have lasted at least two years.

  25. BobCollins Avatar
    BobCollins

    These things come with “7 year guarantees” and the like. HAs anyone ever tried taking one back to the store. I have a bucketful of old receipts but I can never reconcile the darned things with the burned-out CFL (which never lasts 7 years)

  26. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    “I bought one of those rubber combs. It says “lifetime guarantee”. Where would you take it for service?”

    — Steven Wright

  27. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    “I had what they called blephrospasms. an uncontrolled eye blinking exasperated by light, especially in the bright white winter, but it also could be triggered by flicker florescence.”

    Let me guess Flash. This started happening just about the same time you had your first Kool-aid “Big Gulp” at “Drunken Liberals”, right?

    Take it from me buddy, forget the botulin injections…just lay off the Kool-aid and ebrey ting be O-tay!

  28. swiftee Avatar
    swiftee

    “I had what they called blephrospasms. an uncontrolled eye blinking exasperated by light, especially in the bright white winter, but it also could be triggered by flicker florescence.”

    Let me guess Flash. This started happening just about the same time you had your first Kool-aid “Big Gulp” at “Drunken Liberals”, right?

    Those weren’t “blephrospasms”, they were “batspasms”. It’s your brain rejecting the insanity your moonbat drinking pals were pumping into you.

    Take it from me buddy, forget the botulin injections…just lay off the Kool-aid and ebrey ting be O-tay!

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