Forum Moderators: open
Wow, this guy let them have it! Kudos to him, Kudos!
Without expressing an opinion on light bulbs, I'd like to point out that nothing in the constitution mentions child safety seats, airplanes, medication, or a million other things.
I can't imagine ever going back to bulbs. You pay more money, the light really isn't very good (too yellowy), and they burn out in no time.
Having said that only a fool would purchase a regular incandescent bulb over a fluorescent unless they had a specific reason for an incandescent. Other than the initial higher cost to purchase them there is no reason not too.
If flourescents really make sense, probably no need to make a special law for them, their prices seem to be dropping already.
I think they are a backwater technology, in a few years we will all be using LED light bulbs which will use even less energy, be much brighter, have no annoying delay, and contain no mercury. So why legislate for something that is a poor stop gap when LED bulbs are just round the corner.
So why legislate for something that is a poor stop gap when LED bulbs are just round the corner.
Probably because they are un-informed, or that they feel they have to do something now.
Flourescent bulbs make me sick (migraines)
Geez, are you using the ancient ones that flicker? The good ones don't do that any more. Spend a few more dollars and get decent lights.
His point is not that everyone should use incandesents. His point is that Congress can find better ways of conserving energy than by regulating light bulbs (ie natural gas, solar, crude oil).
Although don't get me wrong - I hate the CFLs. They are WAY to bright and provide hideous light source. Not to mention, they're dangerous. CFL's don't provide a constant light source - they flash on and off very rapidly - that's what causes your migranes, onepointone.
LED lights are an excellent innovation and might very well be the next "phase" of Congress's light bulb act.
Without expressing an opinion on light bulbs, I'd like to point out that nothing in the constitution mentions child safety seats, airplanes, medication, or a million other things.
He also points out that these bulbs come from China. China is one of the biggest threats to the US right now, and by importing light bulbs, we only fund them, increasing that threat.
Has it really come to this? It's a shame that the government has nothing better to do than regulate what kind of light bulb we use.
They are WAY to bright and provide hideous light source. Not to mention, they're dangerous. CFL's don't provide a constant light source - they flash on and off very rapidly - that's what causes your migranes, onepointone.
The old/cheap ones were like that, but the new ones aren't. I hear what you're saying on the migraines - it happened to me with the tubes, so I resisted trying the CFL's for a long while. I read up on them before I bought any, and checked how they were working at my neighbour's house.
The key is to get ones with the colour range around 3000K or a little lower, and buy quality units that are advertized as non-flickering. If you buy the cheapest units, yeah, they're garbage. The good ones are truly much better than my old incandescents, and much less expensive to run and replace. And I like the slower boot up time when I turn them on in the middle of the night - gives your eyes a chance to adjust.
I regularly use LED's (I'm a caver), and for sure, I'll replace all my house lights with them as soon as possible. But for now, good quality CF's are the way to go.
As for legislation, I'm in Ontario and it's already done. I don't have a problem with it.
True - but those laws are for public safety - not "saving" energy.
Thanks for intentionally missing the point. :)
In any event I'd kinda like to see a comprehensive energy policy. Doing it one piece at a time is silly.
I like them, the light they cast does not bother me.
I'm really looking forward to LED technology becoming a viable alternative. I tried to kit out our kitchen with LEDs, but, the price was prohibitive. I was prepared to invest more for them, but, it was like ten times the cost.
I think the CFLs have a place but to be forced to buy them will cost Americans a lot of money in hidden expenses like I discovered.
I guess I'll just get my Edison light bulbs from over-seas if the law passes :) What are they going to do, take me to jail?
My main caving headlamp, which uses them, is phenomenal - it has several settings (4 ultrabright LED's on the sides at two levels, and a 3W centre beam at two levels), but the middle range pumps out great light for many hours on 4 AA's. At full brightness, you're only good for about 40 min's, but you just use that for a minute or two at a time when route-finding in large chambers - it's tremendously bright. At the lowest level, which you can still read by fine, it will go for something like 150 hr's. One thing, though - the colour is very, very white. I don't know if I'd want my whole house lit up that way. I suppose you could put filters in front to mellow it a little. Definitely, they cost peanuts to run. Well, less than peanuts, which are not so cheap anymore ;-)
Turns out there is more mercury in the air from burning coal for electricy than is released when a CF bulb is smashed.
Care to elaborate on that? I'm not even sure how you would make such a comparison. Mercury is released into the atmosphere for either activity but i don't see how you would make a correlation.
Mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants comes from mercury in coal, which is released when the coal is burned. While coal-fired power plants are the largest remaining source of human-generated mercury emissions in the United States, they contribute very little to the global mercury pool. Recent estimates of annual total global mercury emissions from all sources -- both natural and human-generated -- range from roughly 4,400 to 7,500 tons per year. Human-caused U.S. mercury emissions are estimated to account for roughly 3 percent of the global total, and U.S. coal-fired power plants are estimated to account for only about 1 percent.
[epa.gov...]
Guess its time to ban mother nature too?
In any event I'd kinda like to see a comprehensive energy policy. Doing it one piece at a time is silly.
We need a comprehensive energy policy that does it in steps, trying to take big bite out of it all at once will have disastrous results for the economy of the U.S. It's going to take 2 or 3 decades to ween the U.S. off of fossil fuels. Just for example if they stopped production of gasoline cars tomorrow it would take 10 years for the new cars to begin to filter down to the working class and probably 20 years before they fully saturate the market.
That's besides the fact that we can make all the pollution laws we want but it's not going to make a bit of difference if China, India and third world developing nations keep going at the pace they are. They'll more than make up for any pollution we stop producing and then some.
I guess I'll just get my Edison light bulbs from over-seas if the law passes.
If 300 million people can save 100 Watts, each, then that is a very large amount of power no longer being wasted.
I hope LED is the solution, not CFL.
The same catch 22 exists with hybrid cars... those huge batteries aren't just going to decompose. :)
We don't often hear about the back-end to any "energy saving" program. Conservation is good, but we need a paradigm shift in energy production to really solve the problem.
