The good old fashioned electric light bulb may have had its death warrant signed very shortly, new EU legislation is banning the importation and manufacture of the old fashioned 100 watt bulb in favour of its energy efficient cousin.
Energy efficient bulbs are said to use 80% less energy than is full fat brother and if everyone in the country were to instantly start using energy efficient bulbs it would have the energy saving effect of taking an astonishing 70,000 cars off the road.
The program is not without it’s critics however as people rush to back the old fashioned bulb stating the new energy saving lights look ugly, take too long to warm up, don’t give out enough light.. (kind of essential when you think about it) and they contain mercury which means they are hazardous and expensive to dispose of.
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August 31st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
It is extraordinary to ban a safe popular product,
instead of dealing directly with any energy and emission problems.
See http://www.ceolas.net/#li1x onwards
The particular error of banning 100W+ ordinary bulbs is that bright CFLs or LEDs are comparatively difficult and expensive to make,
and the high wattage heat effect is not necessarily wasted (room heat substantially rises towards the ceiling by convection, and spreads downwards from there).
Banning frosted lights smacks of particularly unwarranted EU pettiness, for any marginal savings involved.
Clear lights (including halogens) have a strong glare – hence the overwhelming popularity of frosted lights for ceiling use.
Another problem is that small bright CFLs and LEDs are difficult to make, so that candle/golfball lights are bulkier and may not fit some lamps.
Supposed savings don’t hold up for many reasons:
Just a few examples here: CFL Lifespan is lab tested in 3 hour cycles. That does not correspond to real life usage and numerous tests have shown real life type on-off switching reducing lifespan. Leaving lights on of course also uses up energy, as does the switch-on power surge with CFLs
Also, CFLs get dimmer with age, effectively reducing lifespan
Power factor: Few people know that CFLs typically have a power factor of 0.5 – that means that power stations use up twice as much power than what the CFL rating shows. This has to do with current and voltage phase differences set up when CFLs are used.
Although consumers do not see this on their meters, they will of course have to pay for it on their bills.
This is explained with official links including to US Dept of Energy here:
http://ceolas.net/#li15eux
Emissions?
Does a light bulb give out any gases?
Power stations might not either:
Why should emission-free households be denied the use of lighting they obviously want to use?
Low emission households already dominate some regions, and will increase everywhere, since emissions will be reduced anyway through the planned use of coal/gas processing technology and/or energy substitution.