Incan Bulbs Banned in 4 Yrs. Stock Up Now !!

[brickbat]

I'm not entering into a debate as to whether CFLs are a good choice for you. You've laid out your reasoning, and that's fine. My post was simply to illustrate that the supposed $0.56 cost of an incandescent lamp is dwarfed by the cost of the energy it consumes. I didn't make any errors in my simple calculation.

I can think for myself and have found that in my house there are lamp sockets where a CFL makes sense, and those where it doesn't. Like you, I don't like being told what lamp I'd have to use. (see my post #113) But, I also will not throw out the baby with the bathwater - CFLs have undeniable advantages in some applications, and I'm not opposed to using them there.

 

[LuxLuthor]

Kestrel, thanks for the edit. I did "wander off the reservation" a bit, sorry.

I'm not entering into a debate as to whether CFLs are a good choice for you. You've laid out your reasoning, and that's fine. My post was simply to illustrate that the supposed $0.56 cost of an incandescent lamp is dwarfed by the cost of the energy it consumes. I didn't make any errors in my simple calculation.

I can think for myself and have found that in my house there are lamp sockets where a CFL makes sense, and those where it doesn't. Like you, I don't like being told what lamp I'd have to use. (see my post #113) But, I also will not throw out the baby with the bathwater - CFLs have undeniable advantages in some applications, and I'm not opposed to using them there.

BB, I'm not really saying what people should choose, as you said you can think for yourself and have places where you believe a CFL makes sense.

My problem is a) that my choice was taken away from me without sufficient justification, and b) when you do the calculation you did (which itself used accurate math), to make a point that incands cost more money (than CFL's) over their life relative to the price--that is what I mean by an error/omission. Here's why I challenge that method, trying to compare apples to apples.

Let's say I buy 600 CFL's at $3.50 each which is $2,100. They are supposed to last 8,000 hours using 26 watts. So using your 11 cents per kWh rate, that would work out to:

600 x 26W x 8,000 = 124,800 kWh x $0.11 = $13,728 So your $2100 worth of CFL's will use $13,728 worth of electricity over their life. I knew there was another reason why I enjoyed incands even more.

Obviously, my tongue-in-cheek point is that you need to structure your energy savings benefit of CFL's a different way. I know they use 1/4 to 1/3 the energy.

 

[jtr1962]

While I do not object to encouraging the conservation side of energy management, it is ignorant to simultaneously block increasing the supply side of the equation. Increasing the supply of energy is blocked as a viable solution because cheaper energy destroys their scheme to punitively force developed nations into being better stewards of the environment. The main fallacy in their logic is ignoring China, India, and other exempt developing nations, and facing the reality that the only solution to environmental conservation is reducing world (human) population growth.

Agreed somewhat with the last sentence here, although how we live greatly influences the ultimate carrying capacity of this planet. If we recycle literally everything, grow food locally, perhaps via vertical farming, live in fairly dense cities, and generate 100% of power via fusion/fission/solar/geothermal/wind/tidal, then the planet might survive intact with 100 billion humans. On the flip side, if everyone lived as we do in the USA, then I'd put that number at well under 1 billion. So bottom line-it all depends.

Second, about the only viable answer at present to increasing the supply side is nuclear fission, but there would be major issues trying to build new fission plants anywhere except maybe the deserts in the southwest. Assuming you could overcome that hurdle, you'll have to string up thousands of miles of megavolt lines to bring that power where it will be used.

The long term answers on the supply side are either fusion (but when?) or solar. Right now neither is viable. We haven't yet figured out how to make fusion work. As for solar, right now solar panels are still too costly and inefficient to really become mainstream, although I personally think they will within 20 years. The second hurdle with solar is inexpensive bulk energy storage because you need power 24/7, but only generate it during daytime. Again, I feel this problem will be solved, probably fairly soon.

No other answers are viable on the supply side. Anything which burns (coal, oil, natural gas) is out in the long run regardless because the supply is by definition limited. And then there are the negative externalities of using fossil fuel, including the damage incurred when mining, the medical costs of air/water pollution, the quality of life issues living with polluted air. China and India are already starting to feel the negative long-term effects of their rapid, fossil-fuel based expansions.

Running down the list of other possible ways to increase the supply side, you find pretty much the same things. Hydroelectricity is great but we've already pretty much dammed up all the major rivers and tapped that resource as much as we could. Wind is fine in niche uses but faces the same storage issues as solar. Even if it didn't, it couldn't hope to meet more than a fraction of our energy needs. Geothermal/tidal are fine where they work, but again are niche energy sources.

Bottom line-there are no viable, short-term means to increase the energy supply by enough to make any difference in the price, or the need to start conserving. And in the short term, the population is growing faster than the energy supply regardless. The only question then is what are best, least intrusive ways to get the population to conserve energy in the short term (say 10-20 years) until new sources will hopefully come online? I don't really have an answer to that. As you've already shown, light bulbs are a pretty small fraction of the power we use, and I'll readily admit CFLs were never a great answer. Maybe we should have waited until LEDs were more reasonably-priced and efficient for the new laws to take effect. That might have meant postponing them by only 2 or 3 years.

Assuming we have everyone using energy efficient lighting, all we've done is postpone the need to find new sources of energy. And that's really the point here-to buy us a little more time while we figure out the best way to move forwards. Long term there are two choices as I see it. Either do as you mentioned, somehow reduce the population, or drastically change how we live. The latter doesn't necessarily mean for the worse. I can easily envision dense cities as great places to live, with vertical farming, large park areas, clean mass transit, absolutely no cars, a lot more people walking/cycling to get around, etc. Heck, if we build high enough everyone can even have a large amount of their own "space". And if we recycle enough, the only major input into the system you'll need is energy. The problem is selling this vision to people who simply can't imagine any other way to live than the way they're living now. Again, I have no good answers to this. The old saying necessity is the mother of invention rings true. My guess is we'll need a major crisis or two before people will finally realize the futility of trying to continue the status quo, and buy into this. Oh, and in the scheme of things, probably what light bulb people use is going to be the least of our issues.

Minor point Lux regarding using economics to justify either continued incan use or switching over to alternatives-a lot of us pay way more than the 9.4 cents per kW-hr you do. With delivery charges which nearly equal what you pay in total, we're paying about 26 or 27 cents. I don't know how the national average of 10 or 11 cents is arrived at because this seems suspiciously low to me with people in the large cities on both coasts typically paying 2 to 3 times that. In any case, in a place like NYC even if CFLs last no longer than incans they easily pay for themselves, even at $8 a pop. Light quality? I don't like warm white CFLs but then again I find them no worse than incans, which I also dislike. The neutral and cool white CFLs seem to be less offensive, perhaps because the red deficiency is more expected in a spectrum with higher CCT. We're mostly using linear tubes here anyway, have been for the last 25 years. They offer a much better selection of CCT and CRI options, and in my opinion better color overall than CFLs. They also are about 1.5 times more efficient, last 3 to 4 times as long, and you don't toss the ballast in the trash when the tubes die. Yes, you need to replace the fixture, but it's not like any of the fixtures we replaced were heirlooms. We'll probably need to accept the same reality with LEDs-namely they may work in sockets, but they'll work MUCH better in a fixture designed for them. Now I'm finally starting to see lots of commercial LED lighting. Hopefully this will trickle down into reasonable LED fixtures for residential use where the LEDs might last as long as the structure they're in.

 

[LuxLuthor]

JTR, really wonderful and thoughtful reply. I mean that sincerely, and usually learn useful information from your posts. I have one fundamental disagreement with your thoughts, but otherwise I would only be nibbling around the edges.

Nibble #1) I don't think you can extrapolate much for the rest of the country/world by looking at unique, high density population centers like NYC (including the burroughs)--especially with costs of energy, housing, food, utilities, environmental, crime, etc. People who do not grow up in that environment find it claustrophobic, extremely restrictive with laws, taxes, fees, and other consequences of jamming 8-9 million huddled masses yearning to breathe free into a postage stamp plot of land (210 square miles useable). Be that as it may, and admitting to having lived at 24th & 2nd for 8 years, I love many things about The City, but never enjoyed the government using oppressive fees, taxes, and laws to dominate and manipulate people's behavior to such a degree. I do not believe it would be a viable solution for most people used to more open spaces and freedoms, unless as you say there is some catastrophic emergency leaving no other choice. Never mind my biggest fear that it is too tempting of a target for a WMD that would make 9/11 look like a picnic.

Nibble #2) I agree with your assessment of (viable) long term energy supply limitations, but don't see other limited resources holding up to the kind of increases in population you suggested. Natural resources, minerals, water, food, land will become larger concerns than energy supply.

My only fundamental disagreement is believing we should increase use of nuclear & hydrocarbon energy sources (particularly natural gas) for much longer (30-50 years), and make it cheaper, and more available to help bolster and strengthen our private economy and reduce our debt and foreign oil dependency. Otherwise, the USA is on a fast track towards world irrelevancy, leaving us to wistfully commiserate with our British mates over a pint at the pub of glorious years gone by.

To follow this course, one is required to seriously question and mostly dismiss the man-made GW assertions, which is a topic for the Underground--but I have no interest in entering that Lion's Den. Suffice it to say that very few man-made GW proponents have allowed themselves to review the substantial body of legitimate criticism with an open mind.

If this increase and cheaper energy supply could be used as a bridge to save money, reduce debt, repair infrastructures, and help build up our country's surpluses, then I could see embarking on serious government funded projects (akin to The Manhattan Project) to develop specific fusion and solar energy sources that are actually viable. Instead what you are seeing is an environmental agenda-driven restriction of increasing known workable supply side options, and increasing imposition of energy conservation as the most important approach. There are many misguided bipartisan government attempts to force development of green energy ideas where Solyndra is but the latest example of lead balloon designs. I fundamentally disagree with the general approach, and intolerance of objective/practical thinking about our current energy management and consequences. Instead most people feel righteous by using a CFL bulb, or putting their soda bottles in the recycle bin.

 

[Stillphoto]

Listened to this last week and thought of this thread. An interview NPR did with the merchandising VP of electrical for Home Depot, who sells around 1/3 of the bulbs in the US. http://n.pr/sauENR

 

[jtr1962]

JTR, really wonderful and thoughtful reply. I mean that sincerely, and usually learn useful information from your posts. I have one fundamental disagreement with your thoughts, but otherwise I would only be nibbling around the edges.

Thank you for the compliments, and although we sometimes disagree, I do in fact learn a lot from your posts, and the posts of others who hold different views.

Nibble #1) I don't think you can extrapolate much for the rest of the country/world by looking at unique, high density population centers like NYC (including the burroughs)--especially with costs of energy, housing, food, utilities, environmental, crime, etc. People who do not grow up in that environment find it claustrophobic, extremely restrictive with laws, taxes, fees, and other consequences of jamming 8-9 million huddled masses yearning to breathe free into a postage stamp plot of land (210 square miles useable). Be that as it may, and admitting to having lived at 24th & 2nd for 8 years, I love many things about The City, but never enjoyed the government using oppressive fees, taxes, and laws to dominate and manipulate people's behavior to such a degree. I do not believe it would be a viable solution for most people used to more open spaces and freedoms, unless as you say there is some catastrophic emergency leaving no other choice. Never mind my biggest fear that it is too tempting of a target for a WMD that would make 9/11 look like a picnic.

Let's not forget that NYC is composed of 5 boroughs, and the outer boroughs are still dense enough to allow less energy intensive living, but not as oppressively dense as Manhattan. Also, I'm envisioning dense cities more as they could be, rather than as they are. If someone asked me what the one single thing which I feel negatively affects the quality of life in NYC the most is, I would answer without hesitation motor vehicles. We devote far too much valuable street space to a mode which at best provides less than 20% of passenger miles. Moreover, automobiles and the various constructs needed for them (i.e. traffic signals, highways, etc.) negatively impact pedestrians and cyclists to a huge extent in terms of both travel times and carnage. In short, other than emergency and delivery vehicles, large motorized vehicles are largely incompatible with dense cities, and frequently are far slower than mass transit or cycling. Indeed, in Manhattan you can often walk faster than you can drive. If we come to that realization, start planning cities by prioritizing mass transit, walking, and cycling, then dense areas needn't feel as oppressive. It's really all about managing space properly when you have a limited amount of it. You don't buy a grand piano if you have a 200 square foot apartment. And you don't devote acres of space in a dense city for roads or parking when you can instead use 1/10th of that space for transport if people bike or walk or take mass transit.

Great example was today. I was down by Rockefeller Center. My first reaction was that the pedestrian crowding could have been greatly eased by just closing off the surrounding streets to motor vehicles. Sure, some minority using motor vehicles may have had to walk a few blocks further, or take a more circuitous route, but the 99% majority who were on foot would have been ten times better off. By prioritizing land use in cities based on the majority users, we can make cities a lot more liveable. This trend is already starting overseas where motor vehicles are either restricted or prohibited entirely from city centers.

Nibble #2) I agree with your assessment of (viable) long term energy supply limitations, but don't see other limited resources holding up to the kind of increases in population you suggested. Natural resources, minerals, water, food, land will become larger concerns than energy supply.

I fully agree that in the future if population growth isn't checked the energy supply will be the least of our problems.

My only fundamental disagreement is believing we should increase use of nuclear & hydrocarbon energy sources (particularly natural gas) for much longer (30-50 years), and make it cheaper, and more available to help bolster and strengthen our private economy and reduce our debt and foreign oil dependency. Otherwise, the USA is on a fast track towards world irrelevancy, leaving us to wistfully commiserate with our British mates over a pint at the pub of glorious years gone by.

Ironically, we're not in that much disagreement here. I'm all for building more nuclear plants, but unfortunately this would be an impossible sell given how the general public currently views nuclear fission. Indeed, if I were put in charge of energy policy tomorrow, and given free reign, I would build fission plants while simultaneously electrifying as much of the transportation system as possible. This would mean high-speed rail to replace shorter (<1000 mile) journeys by air, electric cars where mass transit isn't practical, and down the road converting heavy cargo ships to nuclear power. The sad reality is as much sense as all this might make, we both know what happens the minute you mention nuclear anything. Because of this, nuclear fission is largely off the table, as much as I might wish otherwise. Maybe when things get desperate down the road the public view on this will change, or so I can hope.

Developing hydrocarbon resources are a mixed bag for me. Let's face it, oil and coal are dirty. That basically leaves natural gas. The question is do we have even remotely near enough natural gas to bridge the gap between now and some future where fusion/solar is viable? I don't have the answer to that. And any plan to greatly increase the use of any type of hydrocarbon is increasingly problematic from a political standpoint (it doesn't matter whether you believe in GW or not, fact is that it does and will affect energy policy for the foreseeable future).

My personal views on all this is sooner or later reality will hit home, and we'll need to decide between hydrocarbon or nuclear fission. Of course, this assumes no miraculous breakthroughs occur on the fusion or solar fronts. I'd personally prefer nuclear fission simply because the known supply of uranium could tide us over for thousands of years, if need be, and modern reactor designs create far less radioactive waste.

On Solyndra and other similar projects, let's not forget that funding for such projects is often based on politics rather than scientific merit. One great example is the hydrogen car. Sure, I thought the concept sounded great, at least until I studied it. Once I did, I realized a plain, old chemical battery (the kind which are getting better all the time) could do the same job as hydrogen, but 3 times more efficiently, and without the Rube Goldberg complexity of an entirely new, scratchbuilt distribution network.

 

[milkyspit]

Guys, I'm not about to jump between the two of you as I find a lively debate to be hugely beneficial, and thought-provoking for all: we can agree to disagree on points and (hopefully) learn from one another in the process. Wish some of the folks in our nation's capital would take that simple truth to heart!

Anyway, some offhand thoughts in no particular order, and not necessarily meant as a direct response/rebuttal to anything... just some things that came to mind...

On nuclear, I'm not a big fan. I see nothing wrong with it as an energy source, but rather, am skeptical that the infrastructure for storing spent fuel is even remotely well developed. My understanding is there are scads of spent fuel sitting in "temporary" lakes and similar on-site, makeshift containment media. That's not good! Combine that with the typical profit-obsessed operator, for whom things like site security and disposal safety are little more than expenses to be minimized, and I see the ingredients for an epic fail. If we cannot get such issues MUCH better addressed, further development would be sort of like taking the knife from a suicidal individual, and handing him a loaded gun instead.

I'd very much like to see nuclear FUSION become a viable energy source, and I believe this is definitely achievable. However, to date precious little real effort has been put into bringing fusion energy to fruition.

I also believe there are numerous avenues for energy that we've yet to recognize. What are they? I have no idea! ...and that's the point. I think we as a nation, need to be somewhat open-minded about the potential for useful energy production from more than the usual suspects. It's not a one-size-fits-all game. For example, one of many intriguing possibilities is piezoelectric energy harvesting. (Interesting Wikipedia entry on this.) Among other things, research has progressed on this front in using arrays of such energy harvesters to generate electricity from ocean waves. I have no doubt there are countless similar technologies yet to discover, with the only issue whether we are clever enough to recognize them, and open-minded enough to realize their potential and give them sufficient development.

In solar itself, I recall reading about a thin film capable of maybe half the efficiency of the best conventional panels... but the thin film (a polymer?) is perhaps 10% as expensive to manufacture. The idea here would be to roll the film across the surface of a building's roof, and given the pricing, this could presumably be done far more cost effectively, and with far less infrastructure investment, relative to what we all imagine whenever someone mentions solar energy. Such technology could presumably be made more efficient and still lower cost, given sufficient refinement.

We won't solve all energy problems this way, nor will it all just magically materialize with a snap of the fingers. It's a PROCESS or even a mindset, always to be developing such things... and that, I believe, is how we'll get there.

...and I still believe LED lighting rules all. :naughty:

 

[deadrx7conv]

Free lollipops won't make a smoker quit. But, cigarette packs are so expensive now that I've notice many quit without the lollipop subsidy.
If you want to eliminate the incandescent light-bulb, you need to make it too expensive to use. You either charge $100 per bulb, or you can triple the cost of electricity. Energy costs will rise on their own. Instead of outlawing incans, all they had to do is ban bulb imports and only allow incans made by the UAW. Should work great!
There will be nothing but failure if you try to outlaw something so common in a rebellious society. We're bred to rebel, just as the British.

I love the few incan's that I have left. I even have one of those 'antique' bulbs. And, its beautiful to look at while sucking down 60w.
I do enjoy the halogen bulbs, in the newer clear, frosted, and crystal scattered beam designs. Anyone stuck on old incans should look at this halogens.
The halogen shape now looks almost identical to regular bulbs. Past halogens had some oblong or weird bulb shapes that made no point whatsoever(poor marketing to differ the bulb type). Newer halogen shapes seem identical to incan's.
Still hope that they might get the HIR treatment one day. Makes me wonder if we will ever get Xenon/Krypton/Halogen home incans.

I also have one friend who demands a 'battery' of incans in her bathroom. It can get cold here in the winter. Having 6x100w of bathroom mirror lighting really can warm up the 'room when reading or showering ;-) 6 exposed, over or on the mirror side, CFL or LED bulbs are just not going to happen. And, who can argue with IR heating bulbs in the middle of a Maine winter when stepping out of the tub. They'll dry you quicker than the towel. I do not think that they make a suitable CFL to replace a 'heat lamp' yet, do they?

Its funny 'cause I was hoping to see the incans outlawed. I would've enjoyed seeing the black market open up for them. Get your R12 freon, moonshine, and incans at.... the speakeasy or Indian reservation. Prescriptions for incans? incans for medicinal purposes?

 

[LuxLuthor]

JTR - If you look at the consortium of aristocratic govt and private leaders that got together and empowered the Port Authority with its unprecedented power and outright thuggery back when they could get away with such chicanery...there's no way they could do it again today. No way anyone is going to rip out or close all the streets & roads in NYC (including burroughs) and replace them with mass transit, however much sense it would make. You saw Christie's "reality approach" when he cancelled the 20 year Hudson Train tunnel project as it was on track to rival Boston's Big Dig boondoggle. He was dealing with current financial and regulatory reality, however noble the idea.

I go back to the imploding state of our Federal economy and the current astronomical fees and taxes in NYC...there just is not the local, state, or federal resources for such project, and I don't see much hope on the horizon as our National Debt explodes over $15 trillion.

It's quite sobering to watch and read details on this page for more than a few minutes: http://www.usdebtclock.org and the foreign debt is going to keep getting worse as regulations continue cutting back domestic exploration/production, while we increase our imported energy and resource borrowing.

I don't see any way to avoid continuing the use of existing energy supplies (mostly hydrocarbon & nuclear), given the lack of money required to build new infrastructure networks, an increasingly dysfunctional federal government, paralyzing mazes of punitive regulations--combined with a growing public entitlement dependency that doesn't seem to notice the waning supply of mother's milk. I see the most likely average American's scenario being one of continuing riding the horse at full gallop until it drops dead. Then after the bewildered traveler retrieves his iPad-laden saddlebags, looks around at the trees asking "What am I supposed to do now?" The trees trying to play dumb for fear of being chopped down in some misguided moment of frustrated American retribution, remain silent. They are chopped down anyway, as the traveler needs to have an energy source to stay warm.

Oh yeah....let me be the first to also wish you a Happy New Year !

Milky, I agree with you about the spent nuclear fuel rods. I believe there are safe ways to encapsulate and deeply store them in isolated areas, but the politics of transporting them, dealing with environmental regulatory obstacles, and "not in my backyard" mentalities make proper solutions unobtainium. I don't see enough evidence that everything is somehow going to get worked out in time to save the USA, despite cleverly harvesting the piezoelectric output of all the jumping, pounding fists, and gnashing teeth associated with their "energy tantrums."

By the way, I have it on good authority that the trees are not at all happy being on this list with some sort of perverse "Tree Metabolic Energy Harvesting" scheme. They wish we would all just go away and let them recover their majesty in peace. Bless your heart on your continued love of LED lighting though! :kiss:

 

[jtr1962]

Thanks for the New Year's wishes, Lux, and same to you!

I pretty much agree with your last paragraph, except I might say the average American will continue to drive their car at full gallop until it drops dead from either lack of fuel, or potholes on increasingly poorly maintained streets. My only consolation is I've kept myself in good enough physical shape to travel reasonable distances by bicycle. I suspect that might be the only option for a lot of people in a generation.

And I agree wholeheartedly with Milky-LED lighting rules! :rock:

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

Oh, boy: Lux, jtr, and milky, three CPF titans...it's like reading a really good book with incredibly intelligent authors all spinning different views, sometimes complementary, often at odds...it's fascinating to "watch" more than read...keep it going, guys!

And—when it comes to pure efficiency / lumens per watt, I'm with ya on the LEDs!