How many politicians does it take to screw you on light bulbs?
Daily Mail (UK);
The price of energy-saving light bulbs will treble as the final supplies of traditional bulbs dry up, industry experts have warned.
Well not for everyone, it won’t.
Remember – buy physical bulbs, not bulb manufacturer stock.
Via
Posted by: john at January 3, 2011 2:02 PM
john, they’re not free. We’re paying for them through the power rates or through government subsidies.
Sorry, but people saying government controlled/subsidized entities giving away “free stuff” is a pet peeve of mine.
It’s not about energy savings or saving the environemnt the econuts used their political power to force our elected officials to edict what we as consumers can buy. I’m sick of the Nanny Nationers and I’m sick of cowardly politicians who cave in to special interest groups despite what the majority want. Harper isn’t stupid enough to believe that banning lightbulbs is going to protect the environment but he hasn’t got the guts to right the stupid econut legislation by tossing it in the face of the arseholes who demanded the ban.
“We replaced bulbs with CFCs and did not see any impact on our costs or usage”
Do you have an electric furnace or baseboard heat?
Regarding the heat emitted by incandescent lamp bulbs: the heat is emitted by the filament mostly as short-wavelength infrared radiation. Much of that passes right through the glass globe, and heats whatever it shines upon, including the lamp’s reflector (which in the typical ceiling fixture is a pretty pi$$-poor reflector, but I digress). The heated objects in turn heat the air by conduction, or re-radiate at longer wavelengths in the IR spectrum. Put your hand a foot below a 60-watt bulb in a typical desk lamp, and you definitely will feel the heat. The same bulb in a ceiling fixture won’t make you feel warm, because it’s a small source, and further away, but it is adding heat to the room, although some certainly is lost to the attic by conduction and convection within the fixture itself.
I’m not militantly agin’ the CFLs; I have two of them glimming away in an “Y” adapter in a ceiling fixture in the office as I write this. They replaced a dual F40CW fluorescent luminaire that died of a bad ballast.
The nice thing about incandescent lamps is that every colour in the spectrum is present to some extent, as they are in sunlight. Tungsten light is a lot redder than sunlight, as any photographer knows, but the human eye adapts pretty well, and incandescent lamps give us pretty good colour rendition. Fluorescent lamps and LEDs tend to emit on a few strong peaks, and nothing in between the peaks. Colour rendition can never be as good with such light, and I suspect that is why so many people find them unpleasant to use.
LickMuffin: Yes, I do notice the difference. I don’t use CFbulbs except on lights that are on timers, but if I’m cold, I sit next to a lamp with a regular bulb and if it is a tri-light, I’ll turn it on to the highest setting.
We noticed something very interesting on Fri/Sat here. We had 7 people in the house instead of the regular 2. The house never went below 21 degrees. My dh and I both checked the thermostat and confirmed it was still set to 17 and working properly. Despite the crowd and running the oven and dishwasher for hours, our electrical usage for those 2 days was down.
We were literally boosting the heating of the house with body heat. According to one of our guests, a body generates about 400 watts of energy. So with 5 extra people I had a 2000 watt heater running.
I joked with my husband that we needed to fill our house up with more people. He pointed out that the fuel costs of keeping them producing heat (i.e. the grocery bill) would be higher than the electricity cost of upping the thermostat.
So after the house cooled down on the 2nd, I put my long underwear back on instead of running an ad for roommates.
Lickmuffin yeah we’re picking on you a bit, but don’t take it personally.
Your mileage may vary as they say, but at the end of the day the fact remains that the heat from an incandescent bulb does not go to waste in the winter in a well insulated home.
The concept of wasted heat is the chief argument that the proponents of CFL bulbs use, and its a relatively weak argument for countries like Canada.
Allan — for reference: we have forced air natural gas heating.
This discussion does make me want to try a couple of things: (1) Get a USB temperature logger and log 8 hours in a typical bedroom illuminated by CFCs, and then 8 hours illuminated with incand. — I’m curious to see if the data logger will pick up the difference; and (2) rent an IR camera and head up into the attic to see if I can spot the hotspots around the electrical boxes (I would think that they will show up as warm spots, even under the pink itch insulation batts).
You know what else sucks just as much as CFCs? Direct-vent gas fireplaces. When they’re not in use, they allow a tremendous amount of cold into a room…
Lickmuffin @ 3:28 ‘in my own experiece, in my own home…..’ You do not own your home, you live in Canada where citizens own nothing! You are told what you can and cannot do in the place where you squat. All Canadians are squaters paying rent and taxes for a hunk of soil that they have no right to squat on. You are all for this type of dictatorship, if what you say here is any indication of your political bent.
I like your idea Abe Foreman and better to mail the ‘mercury’ as MarK Styne suggests than to leave it on the floor for some janitor to clean up; the janitor will sue the gument (us) when he gets mercury poisoning.
If the government is going to ban incandescent bulbs, why wouldn’t they also ban clothes dryers?
After all, such dryers are wasteful because clothes can be dried at zero cost to the environment by hanging them up. Think of the energy saved.
I vote for a ban on clothes dryers.
In addition I vote for a ban on large TVs. It doesn’t matter if you can *afford* a large TV, and that you can *afford* to pay for the electricity to use it. You are destroying the environment. So max TV size should be 42 inches.
Computers are also significant energy hogs. Why do households have to have multiple computers? I suggest a fine for households having more than 1 computer. The money could be used to subsidize CFL bulbs.
I also vote for a ban on large homes. People should not be allowed to build large homes. Home size should be dictated by family size, and the government should determine how many square feet you are permitted. This will help the environment. Anyone caught living in more square feet than they are permitted should be jailed and fine, the money going to subsidize CFL bulbs.
I also vote for a ban on hot tubs. I mean *please*. Why the hell does anyone need to sit in hot water outside in the winter? I don’t care if they can afford to heat the hot tub. This is just a frivolous waste of precious energy, and it is destroying the planet. Henceforth, all hot tubs should be banned.
Finally, I do not think any of the above rules should apply to rich liberals. This would not be fair.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_Atlanta's_Children%3F
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_murders_of_1979-1981
who did it and why ?
answer is big twist in North America
stop drug and alchol mix with hate crime
educate yourself with different culture
do not hate them please
Thank you
>>In addition I vote for a ban on large TVs.
I would carry that a bit further and vote for a ban on ALL TVs. Most people have computers and I can see no point, if one insists on watching pabulum, in having two devices upon which to do it when one is quite sufficient.
TJ, you have fully captured the spirit of the thread. You are The Man.
They should ban hot water heaters too. I mean, if you need to take a bath just put the kettle on the stove. It was good enough for great Grandma, so its good enough for us plebes. Except David SuitZooki, he’s pretty well connected so he can keep his hot water.
Jema54 wrote —
You are all for this type of dictatorship, if what you say here is any indication of your political bent.
Sigh!
Wow! Just… wow!
“btw, what colour recycle box do you put those burnt out everlasting bulbs anyway?”
At my house they go in the garbage seeing as how they won’t burn in the firepit.
I agree with what Jema54 said.
The government has no place telling people how they should illuminate their kitchens… equally so when based on the idea of limiting carbon footprints. If they can control this, there really isn’t anything off limits to their control. Your car uses too much gas, your heat is turned up to high in YOUR HOUSE.
More than anything, we need a constitution, that limits government involvement in our lives. More government = less freedom.
I think I’ll vote to ban TJ.
Personally, I’d prefer logic and the market determine what I should choose to use in order to light my house, not government.
Is it cheaper to turn on my 100w table lamp and curl up with a good book this evening or fire up the 52″ plasma TV?
Do I get credit for having a 80+ % efficient power supply in my computer so I can comment on this blog?
“why wouldn’t they also ban clothes dryers?”
I’ll do you one better TJ why don’t the just ban clothes? You first!
Sigh….here in Edmonton,our Red city council says don’t use your dryer for clothes,as that wastes energy,yet they have a by-law that BANS outdoor clotheslines!
Can I get a ban that bans government?
Oh.And how do these new twisty bulbs work in the fridge and/or oven?
marc in C, down south of the border there they -have- a Constitution, and you see how much good its doing them.
What we need is to get busy and ruin some fat politician’s cozy careers, is what’s needed. Make them more afraid of us than they are of the Big Guys and the Lefties. That could take some work, I imagine.
Or we can wait until they start to seize assets and people start to disappear off the streets.
Won’t be long, I figure. They just banned LIGHT BULBS for frick sakes, how far away can banning “loose talk” be anyway? Five years? Ten?
Too soon for me, I’m still young enough to see lightning and hear thunder.
keep solar system in house sell electricty and save electicity bill for inside your home
such a great idea
oh
not work we must pay bank lots of bribe first direclty and big interst to get it. or big bribe lendor fees indirectly
Any tax more than 2 to 5% is not going to permitted
Any loan more than 5% must get stopped
Any private lending more than 5% must get stopped
Any HST with 13% must get stopped they need to bring it down to 2 to 5% depend on kind of place or business
Any tax over home need to get stopped
Tax used only when sell the house not when you keep the house.
Price of electricity and hydro and gas must go with control with Canadian average budget salary
Every body has right to live in Canada as long as create job and not kill other in return
It can be foreign or immigrant
There is border between
Foreign and new immigrant, work permit and student visa and older immigrant and new citizen and people who live longer here
One can not bother other group in return
Do not challenge people live here let them live in peace find solution not find way fight each other for jobs
Each has border line and limit
Every human has right to live anywhere they like with laws and freedom of choice
Review student loan cut cost cut the salary and market admission of university
Keep job for student to not face default
Put private school separated fund than public university
Control federal loan for student
Let student go to university with no admission fees in public university
And let them pay anything they wish for in private school.
Link international student admission to link multicultural group together in cost of money
Where is our friend Harper on this?
An enterprising German has found a way around the problem. He’s selling “heat balls”, technically indistinguishable from light bulbs but with a very different purpose — heating, with light as a by product. Demand has been so brisk there are now long delays while back orders are filled:
https://www.heatball.de/index.php
My husband keeps telling me to stop buying light bulbs, and I keep telling him I’m going to keep buying them.
‘Can’t stand the blue light a lot of the new bulbs throw and am clear that the “new” bulbs are going to make a few people exponentially rich — at our expense.
“The federal government will ban the sale of inefficient light bulbs by 2012 in a move to reduce energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gases, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said Wednesday.”
You can be sure Lunn wasn’t lit by CFCs at the news conference.
This is the first time I’ve felt truly let down by the Harper Conservatives. Really discouraging and disappointing.
Gah.
When the first R-2000 houses were built they said some could be heated with lightbulbs, and no extra heat.(probably in Van)
I think Lickmuffin needs more insulation in his attic. I have at least a 2 feet.
I go to the store for food about once a week, I buy at least one pack of 60 watt bulbs every time I go. I have a large storage container full and am starting in a second. My hope is to have three full up by the end of the year…
They’ll get my bulbs when they pry them from my cold, dead hands.
looks like “new” is back in the form of “okay”
should be alright as long as the topic stays off of Loblaws
Mark Levin was saying today on his show, there were 31,000 new laws passed in the past year in the USA. I don’t know what the figure is in Canada, or even where to begin looking for such information here, although in the US someone keeps notes (what? like the old “doomsday clock”?). How many are passed to make life easier? or to update old legislation?
How many, are intrusions into your life? I don’t see a difference anymore between doing something for someone, or doing something TO THEM, to control people.
cal2, I always shop at Loblaws. … always.
Just came back from a bulb buying safari…add another couple hundred to the stash.
I for one will illuminate with candles and oil lamps before I use those goddamn twisty bulbs.
So B.C. is officially the dim-bulb province then?
I could have told yers that.
So here in canada to there will be no more incandecent bulbs either or more specifically alberta ?
Is this real not to sound dumb or sarcastic but can someone give me a serious answer like as to what is going on ?
Saskpower handed out a CFL to use in an outdoor light. It’s Sask. Saskpower handed out a cold weather CFL to use in an outdoor light a month or two later. Mine is a 100 Watt clear in clear glass.
Speaking of dim light bulbs…yuppers…new is back.
paul in calgary, please read the first link that Kate has on the top of this thread. It’s labeled, “How many politicians does it take to screw you on light bulbs”?
This is the man responsible for this idiocy:
http://www.garylunn.com/
His contact information is listed on his above web page.
email him here: lunng@parl.gc.ca I don’t think he’s ever heard of “Watts Up With That” or “Climategate”
and his prior federal election history is here, although I don’t advocate for voting for a Liberal candidate, he does appear vulnerable, only taking the vote by less than 3000 votes..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Lunn
John: “Most power companies offer FREE CFL bulbs to their customers.”
Spoken like a true socialist. I hate the word ‘free’ because it invariably means that someone else is paying for it. A classic example I just complained to my MP about was the full page newspaper advert by our local multi-culti Assn., inviting ‘new immigrants’ to partake in ‘free’ english lessons.
Never mind the multi-million dollar tax grants to the Associations, the cost of administration, the employees, the facilities and everything else that has costs associated with it – it’s all free!
Maybe it’s because gov’t considers my hard earned dollars to be ‘free money’ available for taxation.
When I drive to the liquor store, they have “free parking” out front. They’ve Never charged me for it…
They just give it away.
When the first R-2000 houses were built they said some could be heated with lightbulbs, and no extra heat.(probably in Van)
I think Lickmuffin needs more insulation in his attic. I have at least a 2 feet.
End quote:————–
No I think it needs to stop licking said insulation and stop edicting what I should be legally allowed to buy. If it wants to buy poisoned light bulbsit can but it should not have the power to tell me what I can buy. Let it suck on some mercury for a decade and we’ll talk.
I wonder
how them new fangled bulbs will work when i put them in with my 100 chicks I get every spring to keep them warm 13 watts = 100 a 150 watt would uasally work to keep them warm for the first few weeks it looks like they thought of everthing
” Politicians-many of whom decry the role of special interests in Washington-enjoy these new levers of power and the lucrative fundraisers sponsored by those seeking to do business in the world that Congress has created. ”
a congress consisting of members of both parties.
“they all do it”. m’kay? got it yet? still hero worshiping SDA?
CBC has closed this story to commenting. That is perplexing,is it because even the lefties see this move as wrong.
Something else to ponder. I work with “new Canadians”. Many, but not all, dispose of their broken appliances,furniture,and just anything,on the front lawn or behind the bushes,or piled up next to the dumpster. I really,really doubt that any take the time to dispose of thier twisty bulbs properly. But hey,don’t let reality get in the way of a feel good idea.
Just what will be the heat source in the Easy Bake oven if incandescent bulbs are done away with? Some of the finest pastries in all of Canada have been baked by little Granddaughter when she has me over for tea…
By some strange coincidence just when I started reading this thread one of the CFL’s in a ceiling light fixture started to flash and failed. I have yet to get a year out of a CFL. At least this one didn’t fail in a catastrophic manner.
I was going to say that I can’t notice the difference in light between CFL’s and incandescents but when I replaced the CFL with a good old fashioned 60 W bulb the light was clearly different. I still prefer fluorescent lights as I spent so much time in university computer centers and labs during my younger years that I didn’t know there was any other kind of indoor light.
At our home, my wife uses all incandescents as she can’t tolerate fluorescent lights for long periods of time. Also, she likes the heat they produce and 300-400 W of incandescent bulbs in a small room will greatly increase the temperature. This neatly solves another problem; she likes it warmer than I do and so when she’s in her area incandescent lights keep it warm. A nice dual purpose solution which the government has seen fit to ban.
For outdoor lights one needs incandescents and I’m really glad as I have 3 100W bulbs in my workshop as it makes starting a fire in the stove a lot easier as fluorescents don’t operate at -10C. Also, there’s that extra 300 W of heat.
For those who want to do temperature monitoring, the USB temperature monitors that one can buy through the weather shop are great. I have 3 of them and the only complaint I have about them is that they use a very non-standard 3.6 V battery that I haven’t been able to find a source for in Canada. Temperature resolution is only 1 F degree but I was surprised at how closely all 3 monitors tracked one another when I put them first in the freezer and then under an incandescent lamp. Can’t use them to monitor my house temperatures now as they’re currently in use in my shop obtaining data on how often I have to reload my wood stove to keep the computers happy.
@ Lickmuffin
In some parts of the world (e.g. Quebec and British Columbia) central heating for homes is provided by the burning of natural gas, whereas electricity is primarily provided by hydroelectric or nuclear power. In such areas, heat generated by conventional electric light bulbs significantly reduces the release of greenhouse gases from the natural gas.[61] Ivanco, Karney, and Waher estimate that “If all homes in Quebec were required to switch from (incandescent) bulbs to CFLs, there would be an increase of almost 220,000 tonnes in CO2 emissions in the province, equivalent to the annual emissions from more than 40,000 automobiles.”
From Wikipedia
***
btw I hate the light from CFL bulbs. It’s awful for reading and the colours look different. One can buy “Daylight” CFLs but these are more expensive and still colours look unnatural.
Quick outline of how the scam works:
When the patent ran out on Freon 12 it was coincidentally banned in advanced countries and replaced by a much more inefficient and more costly patent protected product to “save the ozone layer.”
Some clever rent seeking whores decided on an enviro scheme to ban ordinary no patent dirt cheap commodity light bulbs and replace them with very expensive patent protected “photonic” light sources. They faced two great obstacles: The first obstacle was the need to be very sure their investments in “photonic” technology had ironclad protection against loss from being undersold by old tech combined with huge profit potential, and the second obstacle would require an interim supposedly “more efficient” technology that would easy to have governments ban at the “right” time.
Of course if the “photons” choose not to cooperate, there are more years of delay, and voters wake up and start to catch on to the scam then all bets ……
Read somewhere that most Led lamp consumer products around today contain iffy items that couldn’t meet the quality standards for commercial devices like traffic lights etc. Guess that is what brought the costs down. It’s a start.
Isn’t the silence of our sensitive environmaniacs a bit odd. When you consider the mass distribution of frangible mercury containing light sources to homes containing helpless babies and fur people …………………
I’m not a fan of using legislation to influence the market. That’s the only legit complaint that’s been brought up. Well, that and the guy using lightbulbs for his chickens – I guess nobody ever raised chickens before the bulb was invented, and there’s no WAY modern technology could help you out, so you’re screwed (*rimshot*).
Other than that, it’s all nonsense. Similar complaints were being made when LCD screens started replacing CRT monitors. Hell, I was talking to a guy a few months ago who was pining for the day when he could buy large CRT screens for his “studio work” – says the colors look completely wrong on these newfangled high-def flat-screen digimawhatsit doohickeys. Every time a new technology start to dominate a market, some small segment of the population get their panties all tied in a knot. You’ll get over it.
Alex, I don’t recall the government legislating the demise of CRT monitors, I think the market simply did what it wanted.
The new light bulbs, fail, in that they are mandated expensive replacements of dubious quality and potentially much more damaging in the form of freed mercury in the environment…
I don’t think it’s something to “get over”.
and for those that need excellent flat screens for photo work, look here:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/10bit.shtml
B&H photovideo have it for about $2400. … but maybe you’ll get used to paying that much. Some of the related products are available for half that price, or about 10 times the crappy monitor price…
I think Sony still makes an archival quality CRT monitor, widely praised.
“Alex, I don’t recall the government legislating the demise of CRT monitors, I think the market simply did what it wanted.”
Please refer to the first sentence of my comment.
“The new light bulbs, fail, in that they are mandated expensive replacements of dubious quality and potentially much more damaging in the form of freed mercury in the environment”
Half truths and lies. Don’t buy your CFL’s from the dollar store and the quality will be fine. Total cost is lower. More mercury gets released into the environment by coal being burned in order to power your incandescent bulb than what’s actually contained in the CFL. Etc, etc. These points have all been addressed ad-nauseam, yet they keep getting brought up.
Again, nothing new here. Every time a new technology starts to dominate a market, some small segment of the population get their panties all tied in a knot. You’ll get over it.
“More mercury gets released into the environment by coal being burned in order to power your incandescent bulb than what’s actually contained in the CFL”
Prove it please. Show us the scientific reference for this.
Alex tells me where I shouldn’t buy CFL’s from.
Alex “knows” that I need to read his first sentence of his comment, even though I alluded to it.
Alex “knows” the quality will be fine.
Alex “knows” my costs will be lower.
Alex “knows” I buy electricity from a coal burning facility, even though there’s a natural gas burning facility is a couple of kilometers from my house. (Does he know which direction the wind blows from here too?)
Alex “knows” I’ll get used to the quality of these lights.
Alex “knows” I’ll get over it.
Alex “knows” how sub par products need legislation in order to dominate markets.
Alex “knows” who wears panties, and the type of knot they’re in.
In the previous thread, where ET talks regarding tribalism, from her experience in university… Alex “knows” she’ll have to “do better than…
“ET: If you want people to take your definition instead of Websters, you’re going to have to do better than “well I study this stuff, so everyone else is wrong!”. It’s nice of you to clarify that you were talking about the anthropological definition, but when we’re speaking about “tribalism” as it relates to human behavior, we’re not talking about anthropology.
Posted by: Alex at January 2, 2011 11:33 PM
… and you see, Alex “knows” who’s wrong and who’s not. Some things, are just known. LIke some folks know, that Alex is an asshole.
Alex “knows” half truths and lies, Alinsky “knows” too. 7.13 from Rules for Radicals… ” Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
kill pussycat kill.