Posted on 06/25/2010 4:56:04 PM PDT by jazusamo
In the midst of an economic crisis, troubles in Afghanistan and various terrorist threats around the globe, the last thing on the minds of Americans is the light bulb. That didn't stop the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) earlier this month from releasing 91 pages of regulations that will force manufacturers to revise their packaging and make costly compact fluorescent bulbs appear more appealing to consumers.
Congress ordered these changes in 2007 as part of its decision to force the dim, overpriced, mercury-filled product on a public that so far has refused to embrace it willingly. Beginning Jan. 1, 2012, bureaucratic rules will phase in, and 100-watt versions of Thomas Edison's venerable invention will be first on the contraband list. Sylvania, the largest light-bulb company in North America, found in a telephone survey last year that three-quarters of Americans have no idea that Congress is coming for their light bulbs. If you like a safe, warm glow with your lighting, now would be a good time to start stocking up on incandescents.
Congress wants to force the pale, cold fluorescent curlicue fixtures on everyone because it makes members feel that they are doing their part to "save the planet." Fluorescent bulbs certainly are more efficient, and they do use less power. They make sense in many applications, particularly in workplace environments. The FTC's new labels dethrone the watt as the primary measure of a bulb's effectiveness and replace it with the lumen as a measure of light output...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I one breaks in your home, the EPA says you will have to call in government certified experts to remove the mercury.
The darn things give me a raging headache. Had a client who bought into this fraud. He was replacing them every 3-4 months. Turned out when turned off the heat at night, the life of those bulbs was severely shortened.
I won’t use them. I won’t trade a raging headache for a government mandate.
I've had them in outdoor fixtures for that last two years - the same lamps. They actually give out more light in my yard than the incandescents did.
I have them all around the house. Not in high work areas but the garage, basement, etc. They work fine for me.
Fluorescent TYRANNY! And an environmental disaster befitting of the law of unintended consequences.
They will stop producing the old ones in 2012.
The new bulbs aren't ready for prime-time: you can't dim them and frankly, most of the new ones I've bought haven't lasted all that much longer than incandescent bulbs. They're sh!t.
we refuse to emrbace them because they suck shit. the are dim, they make colors look bad, and they are slow the fully light up.
I used my AMEX gift points to buy a Home Depot gift card. Went to the store, filled a shopping cart with good old fashioned honest to goodness light bulbs in every variation I use in my home. When I was checking out the cashier asked if I was building a new house.
Just a few weeks ago, my local grocery store had bulbs on sale, so i bought some more.
I have a nice floor to ceiling cabinet in my garage that’s filling up nicely with bulbs, and when I can get either get more on sale or accumulate enough points on my AMEX card again, I’ll cash those in for another Home Depot card and get some more.
Earlier this year my family stayed in a very posh Disney hotel in Orlando. Every bulb was the curly kind. The whole hotel was so dark, I asked the girl at the front desk how she could even see to type on her keyboard. She told me they had already complained and the original bulbs had been replaced with brighter ones, but she said she still couldn’t see. She then pulled out her Blackberry and showed me how she used it as a flashlight to light her work area.
Congress' thought that truly massive power savings will occur as a consequence of eliminating incandescent lighting is misguided in the extreme. Lighting in homes is only a very minor fraction of the lighting in this country and the savings, if any will be negligible.
Now, as a matter of fact, we are already moving as fast as we can into the use of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) which are cooler and safer. Although it may be a few years before I can completely replace all the fluorescents in my home with LEDs, we no longer have "incandescent bulbs" ~ nothing beyond the one in my microwave door lamp.
One way to get cheap LEDs is to visit your friendly neighborhood IKEA store, or CBS, or Home Depot AFTER CHRISTMAS and buy the leftover LED light strings. You could easily install several strings around the perimeter of your garage or basement, hook them into a common power source, and eliminate the need for any incandescent or fluorescent bulbs.
The CFL of today produces light that looks much better than what came from the CFL of yesteryear, and a range of hues is available rather than the old choice of pale and cold. The factories (in China) are also doing a much better job than in decades past of keeping the mercury in the bulbs where it belongs rather than poisoning the workers — Sylvania has done a particularly good job from what I hear.
I am most definitely pro-choice when it comes to light bulbs. I began using fluorescent replacements for light bulbs back when they were big clunky ring-lamp adapters. The reason was simple — they don’t fight the air conditioning as bad as incandescents do in the summer. (Of course, the extra heat might be a boon in the winter.) The cooler bulbs are also less likely to burn clumsy or hurried fingers reaching into a lamp shade for a switch.
However, I’m skeptical that much energy is going to be saved by throwing out the old incandescent bulbs. Most of a household’s electricity goes to run appliances, not lights.
Remember, if you are stocking up on 100W bulbs, make sure they are at least “1500 lumen” on the package. Some manufacturers are already trying to sell low-lumen 100W bulbs that only give the same light as a 60W bulb.
Using the “cradle to grave” energy consumption the enviros are so fond of, I find it difficult to believe that a fluorescent screw in bulb is cheaper. This is particularly true when you consider that Edison’s first light bulb still works. When the filament burns out, they just replace it. One of the biggest reasons for outlawing the old style bulbs is that they can be manufactured and sold for 25¢ each. Compare that to a three pack of fluorescents for $10. Although the fluorescents use less energy to operate, the manufacturing costs are much higher, and the mercury content makes them hazardous. The hazards of mercury are the reason you can’t buy a mercury thermometer anymore. However, GE couldn’t compete with no name companies churning out cheap bulbs, sooooo... the cheap bulbs had to be outlawed and replaced with patented designs.
They will have to pry my light bulbs from my cold, dead fingers.
This is particularly true of “double life” light bulbs. They are sometimes rated at 130 volts, which is above the normal household supply.
**The darn things give me a raging headache. Had a client who bought into this fraud. He was replacing them every 3-4 months.****
Same for my wife. Because of her headaches I had to replace them with incadesant bulbs again. I use florescents only for sockets that are hard to get to and they still do not last as long as the package says they will. They only last about twice as long as an incadesant bulb.
Look on the side of the flurescent bulbs. there you will see the letters HG for mercury. I toss the used up ones in the trash.
I have quite a few 100 watt bulbs stashed away.
***Wal-mart has already dropped them.***
Walmart here still has them but they are 90 watt, made in Mexico! Ever heard of such a thing?
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