# New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE



## CKOD (Mar 12, 2008)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



subwoofer said:


> I love that on a forum dedicated to finding the next best light and buying it (a fine example of consumerism) certain participants still feel they can preach about environmental issues.
> 
> Obviously we should all be considering the impact of our life choices on the environment for future generations, in which case we should all start by agreeing only to buy another light when the environmental impact can be justified by increased efficiency or the last one has broken.
> 
> ...



The more flashlights I own, the less in the landfill. And they are all made of recyclable aluminum too )


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 9, 2012)

Gotta love American ingenuity.....heard about this listening to Rush today here who interviewed the owner and new advertiser of his show.

Basically, the "heavy duty" long life bulbs (lasting 10,000 hrs) are in a separate category called "Rough Duty" that were not the "General Use" ones banned by the bogus green energy law. These were the only ones worth buying in the first place, since they last 7 years if you use them an average of 4 hours every day. I had stocked up on a boatload of the 20,000 life bulbs that were made in China.

This guy (& his company-"NewCandescent") had to get a waiver from the DOE to manufacture these which he got, and is doing in the USA. I don't need any more bulbs, but I bought a dozen just to show my support. 

This made me very happy today.

Edit: I saw the link to Rush requires you to be a subscriber, so for those unfortunate souls who are not members, there was also an article in the NY Post about this inventor and rescue of our beloved incandescent bulbs. His grandfather was friends with Edison. When GE stopped making their incan bulbs, and shifted to producing CFL's in China, Larry Birnbaum, founder and owner of Epic Light Bulbs, bought their equipment. Brilliant move....literally.


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## Vesper (Mar 9, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Heard this today. Wanted to go check it out further, so thanks for the info and links.


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## chewy78 (Mar 9, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

home depot still sells Feit Electric 100-Watt A19 Rough Service Incandescent Light Bulbs (4-Pack) rated at 14,000hours at 120 voltsan 5,000 hours at 130 volts.


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## jasonck08 (Mar 9, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

They really need to have an easy way to recycle CFL's, with this new Incan ban. CFL's in the landfill = bad news for our water supply.


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## flashflood (Mar 9, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



jasonck08 said:


> They really need to have an easy way to recycle CFL's, with this new Incan ban.



That wouldn't suffice. The only way to keep mercury out of the water supply is to keep it out of products. Even if 90% of people recycled properly -- an unprecedented level of compliance -- you'd still have 10% of all CFL mercury being dumped into the environment. That's a human-health disaster in the making.

We will one day look back on the CFL period the same way we now look back on the days of leaded gasoline. The difference being that we will not be able to plead ignorance this time, because the neurotoxicity of mercury is well known. Perhaps we can argue, fittingly, that we were mad as a hatter over global warming.


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## SemiMan (Mar 9, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Rough Service bulbs = even more pollution in our atmosphere. Not a good idea. Rough service bulbs are brutally inefficient. They are rough service by running at cooler less efficient temperatures. Why are people proud of themselves for making such bad environmental decisions?


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## flashflood (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



SemiMan said:


> Rough Service bulbs = even more pollution in our atmosphere. Not a good idea. Rough service bulbs are brutally inefficient. They are rough service by running at cooler less efficient temperatures. Why are people proud of themselves for making such bad environmental decisions?



John Gilmore famously observed that "the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it". But this is really just the latest instance of a much older law: the free market interprets regulation as damage and routes around it. Why are most of GM's sales SUVs? Because they couldn't meet the CAFE standards for sedans, but there were no such constraints on "light trucks", so they invented the SUV. Why are people now buying rough service bulbs? Because they want the CRI of incandescent, and this is a legal way to get it. (Take that away, and they'll find an illegal way.) In both cases, central planners have actually made things worse by trying to make them better.

Related, and quite amusing: how to make hard-to-obtain Sudafed from readily available street meth


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



SemiMan said:


> Rough Service bulbs = even more pollution in our atmosphere. Not a good idea. Rough service bulbs are brutally inefficient. They are rough service by running at cooler less efficient temperatures. Why are people proud of themselves for making such bad environmental decisions?



First response: 

We are proud of ourselves because we know what we are talking about, and you just demonstrated that you have no understanding of what "Rough Service Bulb" actually means. 

They are a wonderful idea, and the types of light bulbs used by private individuals has a completely negligible effect on atmospheric pollution. They are not "brutally inefficient." Less efficient than non-dimming, mercury polluting CFL's, yes...but a very worthwhile environmental tradeoff in favor of incandescents, as flashflood just presented. Not to mention color spectrum, fixed fixture size limitations. 

Perhaps you would like to start by finding out what "Rough Service Bulbs" actually means: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-04-04/html/2011-7939.htm

Then if you figure that out, you can search for the multitude of factors causing air pollution, and work back to the real impact of light bulbs. Then let the market drive demand, rather than ignorant politicians issuing bans.


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## alpg88 (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

wow with life span like that you can overdrive the hell out of them. hm...


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## Marcturus (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



LuxLuthor said:


> ... what "Rough Service Bulbs" actually means ...


Let's not get carried away by provocation. I sure am thrilled by the decision to reuse the manufacturing equipment instead of destroying it, or sending it to say, across the Pacific. An increased number of filament supports does mean more heat lost, and cooler filament where they meet; 10000h life, all else equal, means lower efficacy. I'm trying to decipher from the A-19 packaging photos,
1055 lm @100 watt
[email protected]
[email protected]
All else equal, the color temperature will be lower compared to standard incandescents.
Please do correct me if anything is wrong with my assessment.
Clarification: It's not the company's fault that just wishing to produce and sell a non-hazardous product which might be powered by a mostly wooden windmill, they were forced, by the anti-choice, pro big-business legislation, to resort to using the intentional (similar provisions in the EU preceding US ones) "rough service" loophole.


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## Harold_B (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

With regard to mercury polluting CFL's vs inefficient use of electricity, more facts: http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf

Still better off saving electricity by using a more energy efficient solution.


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## SemiMan (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Marcturus/Harold ----- Damn you stating facts in stead of conjecture!!! How dare you!


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## SemiMan (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

CFLs do have mercury though less today then in the past. HOWEVER, if you actually care about OUR planet and OUR water, you will dispose of them properly which is more work, but is not difficult.

I am a capitalist, but not a head up my arse capitalist. Global warming is not going to be solved by capitalism UNTIL those so called ingorant politicians (which many of them are) create an economic situation for the reduction of green house gases and/or a lot of people start dying, coastal cities disappear, etc. However, waiting for a disaster to happen that you know is going to happen is a terrible idea.

So what you are saying is that the goverment should not regulate anything?

- No meat inspected to ensure it is safe
- No electrical products inspecte to ensure it is safe
- No ensuring there is no melamine in your chinese made dog food
- So safety standard for vehicles such that the smallest accident results in injury

Get real. We call it society for a reason.


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## SemiMan (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



LuxLuthor said:


> First response:
> 
> We are proud of ourselves because we know what we are talking about, and you just demonstrated that you have no understanding of what "Rough Service Bulb" actually means.
> 
> ...



Lux, perhaps you would like to do some research before spouting off your mouth. How rough service bulbs are constructed and/or defined is irrelevant. My statement, that they are brutally ineffecient is fact. It is not disputable. The BEST rough service bulb makes perhaps 1150 lumens, with many less than that. The average 100W standard incandescent makes 1600+ lumens. That means 30% more energy to do the same thing.

Individual light usage does matter. To paraphrase an add that is on the radio today, there is no such thing as small billions. That would be billions of personal bulbs just in North America. That makes for a large impact if they are replaced.


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## ratsbew (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



LuxLuthor said:


> First response:
> 
> ...the types of light bulbs used by private individuals has a completely negligible effect on atmospheric pollution.



 Are you insane!? There are tens of BILLIONS of light bulbs in homes around the country (and world). Indoor lighting is about 30% of US electrical usage. Swapping incandescents to CFL or preferably LED bulbs will have an ENORMOUS effect on the amount of greenhouse gases that are released to the atmosphere.


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## jtr1962 (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



Marcturus said:


> 1055 lm @100 watt
> [email protected]
> [email protected]
> All else equal, the color temperature will be lower compared to standard incandescents.
> Please do correct me if anything is wrong with my assessment.


Yep, the color would probably resemble those really orange, very dim bulbs which used to light up subway stations when I was a kid. Those were about as well-loved as sodium lights are today.

Anyway, these are "rough service" bulbs, not general lighting bulbs. If I recall, there was even talk that if the "rough-service loophole" was abused, then the rules would be modified (i.e. perhaps the rough-service bulbs would be required to be green or purple or some other color which would make them unsuitable for general lighting). If someone still wants to light with incandescent, they can buy halogen bulbs which give the same amount of light, the same type of light, but use roughly 30% less power. I'm really not seeing what's so great about this other than it's made in the USA. We absolutely should make more products here, but I'd rather we make high-tech products which we could sell to the rest of the world.

Oh, and there is a very good reason to go with more efficient bulbs. The electrical grid is overstressed. This was discussed in other threads around here not long ago. If we can reduce power usage via more efficient appliances, more efficient bulbs, better insulated houses, etc. then I'm not seeing that it's a bad thing. The alternative is eventual collapse of the grid, and going back to candles.


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## alpg88 (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



ratsbew said:


> Indoor lighting is about 30% of US electrical usage. .



actually according to con edison, it is about 10%.


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## Harold_B (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Perhaps the 30% figure comes from industrial usage which is estimated as being as high as 35%. This report from the DOE shows home usage at an average 11%: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/corporate/bt_stateindustry.pdf

Google. Amazing search engine but worthless if the resource lacks credibility. The DOE, IES and a handful of others are reliable. Take a blog or advertiser for what it is, a biased opinion with an agenda typically to sell a product or a sponsored perspective.


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## Marcturus (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



jtr1962 said:


> If someone still wants to light with incandescent, they can buy halogen bulbs which give the same amount of light, the same type of light, but use roughly 30% less power.


Take a clue from the EU, where right at the start of the incan ban, two major manufacturers offered halogen bulbs rated "two-year/2000h" halogens, in the following years, they did not cut the prices, but changed the labels (and probably cut quality) from 1.5 years to 1 year ratings.



> The alternative is eventual collapse of the grid, and going back to candles.


Just for the record, noticably taxing consumption of goods like those expressed in electric bills, and redistributing the taxes toward uses deemed necessary or beneficial, is a standard economics approach to decrease demand. Politics, in association with big manufacturers and "environmental" advocacy, has tried to get around the hugely unpopular taxation issue by legislating efficacy. And a nicely targeted little solar flare or EMP might also take care of collapsing the grid. Got indium tin oxide covered, conductive lenses, preppers?


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## idleprocess (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



Harold_B said:


> With regard to mercury polluting CFL's vs inefficient use of electricity, more facts: http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf
> 
> Still better off saving electricity by using a more energy efficient solution.



It never ceases to amaze me how people will fixate on trace sources of some externality/pollution they disapprove of while willfully ignoring sources that contribute the overwhelming majority of it. In this case, the irony is exceptionally delicious.


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## flashflood (Mar 10, 2012)

idleprocess said:


> It never ceases to amaze me how people will fixate on trace sources of some externality/pollution they disapprove of while willfully ignoring sources that contribute the overwhelming majority of it. In this case, the irony is exceptionally delicious.



You mean the way people focus on nuclear waste while ignoring the 2,000-fold greater radioactive burden dumped directly into the atmosphere due to burning coal instead? Totally agree. If we had not gotten our collective panties in a bunch after Three Mile Island, we would have replaced much of that truly filthy coal with clean, carbon-free, mercury-free nuclear power by now. Even if you assume that we can never avoid the occasional nuclear meltdown, we'd still have a far cleaner planet trading coal for nuclear.

So yes, mercury in fish is a bigger problem than mercury in CFLs -- but only because we burn coal so much coal, which is the main source of mercury in the oceans. It is indeed ironic that the most polluting activity in the world has been protected by the anti-nuclear greens who profess to save the planet.


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## brickbat (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



ratsbew said:


> Are you insane!?



Of course he's not insane. Just another graduate from the Limbaugh Institute


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## Vesper (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



brickbat said:


> Of course he's not insane. Just another graduate from the Limbaugh Institute



Guys, keep it civil.

At then end of the day this debate will all go away when LED bulbs are up to speed. Why are incandescent flashlights going the way of the dinosaur? It's not because the government legislated them away. Let the free market work.


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## alpg88 (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



Harold_B said:


> Perhaps the 30% figure comes from industrial usage which is estimated as being as high as 35%. This report from the DOE shows home usage at an average 11%: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/corporate/bt_stateindustry.pdf


i wouldn't worry about industrial lighting, since it is not incandescent for the most part anyway, I've been to many industrial facilities they are either fluorescent or hps\mh lights. nycmta track crew still uses paddles with 5 rough service bulbs, that they use in the tunnels, hooking them to third rail (600v), i don't see them use anything else in near future for that.


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## Harold_B (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

To be perfectly honest I don't worry much about most of it. The 35% figure is from a reference site and it kind of surprised me given the juice that industrial motors suck! My main concern is my electric bill and how much I can impact the total and anything I can do with a positive impact on the planet and for society is a secondary bonus. I am selfish but not to the point of being short sighted. Sometimes the benefit to society outweighs the benefit to my pocketbook and therefore my conscience won't allow me to do otherwise.


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## flashflood (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



SemiMan said:


> So what you are saying is that the goverment should not regulate anything?
> 
> - No meat inspected to ensure it is safe



Yes, exactly. I identified two specific, on-point instances of government intervention that exacerbated the problem they were trying to solve. Therefore, clearly, I don't want meat inspections.

Get real, indeed.


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

ROFL! So predictable are the responses...especially the need to make cheap associations because I referenced hearing about this on Rush Limbaugh. Typical feeble minded attempt to dismiss anyone who holds differing viewpoints, or questions propaganda. Did I say I believed anything that Rush Limbaugh says? I also regularly watch Rachel Maddow, Bill O'Reilly, read the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reuters, BBC, NewsDaily, WND, Politico.com, Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Media Matters, Slashdot, TheHill.com, and several other sources. Now what does that make me?

*Marcturus*, I don't buy the practical criticism of rough service vs. general service bulbs because I have both, in two adjacent, built-in overhead sockets. When I turn on the 12 x 100 Watt bulb switch, and fill my room with glorious bright white full spectrum incandescent lighting, there is no discernible color difference between the two bulb types, so on practical observation, the speculation of extra filament supports changing the heat/color is not necessarily valid, depending on the support composition. There can also be different alloys and strand thicknesses of the rough service bulbs that contribute to their practical function. I find them a perfect substitute for the general use 750-1250 hour rated bulbs. I am not saying your points are altogether wrong, as I have not done the research to determine the nuances you raised, but on a practical, observational basis they don't hold water.

*Harold_B*, thank you for that reference. I would want to check out the veracity of how the determinations were made, since there is little source references presented, and it is being issued from a govt. department with a self interest in making the case for regulations/bans it is enforcing. Their theory of incan causing mercury release is based upon "The US EPA 2005 National Emissions Inventory" (_*not their more recent 2008 version*_) where they claim:


> Coal-burning power plants are the largest *human-caused* source of mercury emissions to the air in the United States, accounting for over 50 percent of all domestic *human-caused* mercury emissions.



Note my emphasis on "human-caused" because I did not see what is the overall mercury emissions from non-human sources to know what percent of the total is from human-caused. Then, one has to make this whole other leap in logic that my light bulbs are causing more mercury pollution than CFL's because all utility power generation facilities are stuck with the same dirty coal sources. This report ignores Clean Coal Technology restrictions, use of Natural Gas, nuclear, and other rapidly developing greener supply side improvements--because they want the public to accept their incandescent ban and justify whey they should buy CFL bulbs. 

Obviously, the more electric power generation shifts away from mercury emissions from coal power plants, the less their argument in favor of CFL's holds water. I question their validity and objectivity on this one point.

*SemiMan*, the heart of this light bulb issue is based on people being forced to conserve energy because there is a finite supply, and some types are better than others. I don't accept that basic premise, and believe that there are virtually unlimited energy resources available (i.e. nuclear, solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, wave, etc.) for the foreseeable future. 

To force people into the conservation side of managing the energy needs equation, they have to come up with things like not just global warming, but man-made global warming which I also do not buy because there are so many well-respected experts that have been ignored, so many lies & cover-ups exposed, and way too much politics driving it all.

My main objection is to govt. deciding what is best for everyone, and enforcing their bans, and forcing conservation as the main way of approaching our energy needs.

*jtr1962*, we need to quit meeting like this.




I'm beginning to think with all your talk about orange light bulbs that your house must have been at the end of the electrical grid, and/or using antique, high resistance wiring where you only had 90 volts coming in. The electrical grid has been stressed for a long time and needs to be seriously upgraded with increasing population demands. It won't be incandescent light bulbs that crashes the grid. My vote is on terrorism.

Seriously, I don't recall ever having seen an OBJECTIVE study that looks at what percent of the total electrical consumption comes from indoor residential lighting. Looking at this source:



> [h=2]6.2 The Importance of Lighting[/h] Lighting uses about 18 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S., and another 4 to 5 percent goes to remove the waste heat generated by those lights. Lighting in commercial buildings accounts for close to 71 percent of overall lighting electricity use in the U.S.



If 71% is commercial, I'm guessing we must then assume 29% is residential lighting, ignoring non-commercial governmental, street, and other types of non-residential lighting.

OK, then 29% residential x 18% of electricity generated = 5.22% of total electricity generated for lighting is from residential. But we don't know how they determine that 29% residential lighting electricity. Did they measure the real time electrical consumption in a statistically significant sample with all the lights on, and then off at night, and factor in the night time heaters, air conditioners that may also be running? Did they go in and count actual inside light bulbs, verifying their wattage, and have people keep logs of which lights are turned on for how long? If you don't track down studies and look at this level of verifiable details, they could say anything they wanted.


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



Vesper said:


> Guys, keep it civil.
> 
> At then end of the day this debate will all go away when LED bulbs are up to speed. Why are incandescent flashlights going the way of the dinosaur? It's not because the government legislated them away. Let the free market work.



That is the heart of my argument. If and when LED's work, fit inside of built in receptacles, give proper spectrum, figure out their heatsink issues, and become affordable, they will likely be worthwhile alternatives....and it is happening as you said based on free market choices. Why do you think the Chevy Volt is such a disaster? Besides the battery fires, the main reason is that it is not market driven. It is another Nanny-State failed project.

Also for the record, I am not against government inspections and regulations....but they should be done as sparingly and judiciously as possible. Was a total ban on incandescent bulbs necessary to solve the issue? Nope. Neither was the ban on manufacturing larger gallons per flush toilets--nation wide. We have NEVER EVER had a water ban or shortage in southeast CT where I live, and we are not going to be sending our water to Colorado or Texas. That is another example of ignorant federal politicians. It would have made a lot more sense to charge people in water starved areas astronomical prices for water delivery, to discourage over population of those areas. Exceptions could have been given for indigent or emergency scenarios. Instead, the govt. enforces a ban that impacts people that are not affected. Loss of freedom, loss of market driving forces.


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 11, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



SemiMan said:


> Lux, perhaps you would like to do some research before spouting off your mouth. How rough service bulbs are constructed and/or defined is irrelevant. My statement, that they are brutally ineffecient is fact. It is not disputable. The BEST rough service bulb makes perhaps 1150 lumens, with many less than that. The average 100W standard incandescent makes 1600+ lumens. That means 30% more energy to do the same thing.
> 
> Individual light usage does matter. To paraphrase an add that is on the radio today, there is no such thing as small billions. That would be billions of personal bulbs just in North America. That makes for a large impact if they are replaced.








These are the bulbs I was comparing, as I have not received mine from Newtronics.com yet. These are GE 1260L 750hrs vs. Litetronics Super Service 1100L 20,000hrs. *

My beef with your comments is that rough service bulbs are defined as being designed to protect against vibration and industrial stresses, which you said nothing about, and which is their most important aspect, which is why I knew you did not know the facts about them. Their design purpose is not to run at lower voltages and cooler temps as the primary way they function and survive longer in rough service scenarios. There is a significant portion of their extended life that is a direct function of the internal components and alloys. *These have 7 support filament mounting, triple alloy tungsten filament (that is thicker and longer), three separate getters, and brass base to prevent corrosion. 














I was not using 1600+ Lumen bulbs, and it does not mean 30% more energy to do the same thing since I just put each bulb in a lamp hooked inline to a Seasonic Volt-Amp-Watt-Hz-KWH measuring display. The 750Hr GE bulb I was using registered 122.2V & 101 Watts. The LiteTronics 20,000Hr bulb registered 122.3V & 102Watts. Same energy being used with an adequate amount of white light coming from fixture.


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## JohnR66 (Mar 11, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

I use mainly CFL (until LEDs get lower prices). I do still use incans in some places, but I use these halogen equivalents.







The light is a bit whiter than standard incans, but with a boost in efficiency. At least to my eyes, the 130 volt bulbs are dimmer and more orange. A 130v 60w par would probably make 500 lumens compared to this 60w IR technology halogen.


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## idleprocess (Mar 11, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

When CFL's first hit the market en masse some 10+ years ago, statistics coming out of the DOE and other sources put lighting at around 25% of residential energy usage. Those statistics have steadily shrunk to figure closer to 10%, representing a 60% reduction (assuming the figures are solid and the reduction is real). This suggests a few possibilities:

Alternative technologies have already been embraced by the markets and this apparent reduction is genuine
The data has been refined over time and its initial estimates were too high
Some combination of the two
Regardless, residential lighting is considerably less of a low-hanging fruit in terms of efficiency gains than it used to be (or was previously thought to be) and has entered the diminishing returns phase.

Heating and air conditioning are probably the next lowest-hanging fruit. Payoff can occur in a few years, but will face even stiffer challenges convincing consumers to spend money up-front on more efficient appliances and insulation in order to realize operational savings.

I failed that challenge myself in 2009 - had I chosen a more efficient (and appreciably more expensive) air conditioning compressor, I likely would have paid down the premium during last summer's brutal heat when my electrical bills were stiff (and be on the positive side for the rest of its operational life). Live and learn...


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## jtr1962 (Mar 11, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



idleprocess said:


> Heating and air conditioning are probably the next lowest-hanging fruit. Payoff can occur in a few years, but will face even stiffer challenges convincing consumers to spend money up-front on more efficient appliances and insulation in order to realize operational savings.


While we're on that subject, I don't understand why _brand new_ apartment buildings still have openings for individual air conditioners. It would be far more efficient (and probably cost effective) to have a single geothermal heat pump unit handle heating and cooling of the entire building. Each apartment would have a thermostat in each room which simply opens and closes the appropriate vents to heat or cool to the desired temperature. From an aesthetic standpoint, it would look a heck of lot nicer as well not having walls full of rectangular holes. If we're going to legislate anything, then legislate away stand alone AC units in places where they really don't make much sense. Start with new construction first, and then move on to require retrofitting of older apartment buildings (where practical-I realize some buildings would cost more to retrofit than would be worthwhile).

And as for lighting, no reason new construction should be using screw bulb fixtures. You could put purpose-built LED fixtures in every room instead. In fact, that could be a selling point-move here and never change a light bulb again. The only caveat is the fixtures would need to have adjustable color temperature (from maybe 2500K up to 6500K) to account for individual lighting preferences, and also would need to be dimmable. With LEDs though that's easy to engineer.



> When CFL's first hit the market en masse some 10+ years ago, statistics coming out of the DOE and other sources put lighting at around 25% of residential energy usage. Those statistics have steadily shrunk to figure closer to 10%, representing a 60% reduction (assuming the figures are solid and the reduction is real).


The ~60% reduction in residential lighting use these statistics allude to can easily have been caused by people just using CFLs in a few of their most used fixtures. The cost of perhaps a half dozen CFLs is negligible in any household budget. Based on what I see going for walks at night (lots of windows lit at color temperatures which can only be CFL of some type) I do in fact think that at least in the markets where electricity costs a lot, there has been widespread CFL adoption over the last decade. Helping the matter has been the fact that CFLs have reached near price parity with incandescents. It also means unfortunately that the TCO equation changes for LED bulbs. Right now, if you're replacing incandescent, the TCO of an LED bulb over its lifetime is less. If you're replacing a CFL, the answer isn't as clear cut, although LED bulbs could offer tangible advantages over CFL (instant on, better CRI, dimmability) even if their TCO is the same.


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## idleprocess (Mar 11, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Further wandering afield OT...



jtr1962 said:


> While we're on that subject, I don't understand why _brand new_ apartment buildings still have openings for individual air conditioners. It would be far more efficient (and probably cost effective) to have a single geothermal heat pump unit handle heating and cooling of the entire building. Each apartment would have a thermostat in each room which simply opens and closes the appropriate vents to heat or cool to the desired temperature. From an aesthetic standpoint, it would look a heck of lot nicer as well not having walls full of rectangular holes. If we're going to legislate anything, then legislate away stand alone AC units in places where they really don't make much sense. Start with new construction first, and then move on to require retrofitting of older apartment buildings (where practical-I realize some buildings would cost more to retrofit than would be worthwhile).


I suspect it depends on the target market for apartments. In most places I've been, most apartments are built as _second-choice_ housing for people not sure of where they want to live or presently unable to afford it. The operators know this, so whatever amenities they offer on top of X bedrooms Y baths and Z extras are superficial and don't really contribute to making the apartment building/complex _somewhere that people want to live long-term_.

The typical apartment complex has seems to have more features in common with a hotel than a quality long-term residence - high density, cheap construction, and marginal livability. The complexes are built to maximize ROI for their owners and are typically sold every few years - externalities hustled off on the tenants being advantageous to the operator.

In my area of the country, there are very few apartments with what I would consider quality design - and fewer with simultaneous quality location - that I would consider as a permanent residence. Even most of the high-end places with sizzle are aimed at the young and trendy, who don't seem to stay for long. Even the bizarre "urban lofts" I'm seeing all over the place (typically located a long ways from the urban core, paired with similarly-trendy development) seem like a short-lived phenomenon since the residents still need cars and they typically clash with their surroundings in addition to offering terrible value. The goal in the DFW area for most is detached standalone home ownership, with better quality of living.

So from a renter's perspective, they seem to mostly look at how much they're out every month in rent and ignore utility costs. It's foolish - when I was renting I paid more in utilities than I ever did for my house - but seems to be the norm. It might be winning strategy in markets where renting an apartment is seen as long-term living (ie, high-density cities), but I suspect it just won't be a winning concept in much of the rest of the country.

I'm watching a large complex going up a few miles from my house and noticed that they're not only locating all the air conditioning compressors on the roofs of the buildings, but also putting them on the _south side_ with blinds that appear to restrict airflow... Makes me wonder if they're getting a kickback from the local electrical utilities.



> And as for lighting, no reason new construction should be using screw bulb fixtures. You could put purpose-built LED fixtures in every room instead. In fact, that could be a selling point-move here and never change a light bulb again. The only caveat is the fixtures would need to have adjustable color temperature (from maybe 2500K up to 6500K) to account for individual lighting preferences, and also would need to be dimmable. With LEDs though that's easy to engineer.


_Could be done_ and _*is* being done_ are two appreciably different things. Commercial LED fixtures are just beginning to encroach on linear florescent - the TCO case just isn't certain nor are the impressive lifespans claimed.

I think it's going to take many years for the purpose-built fixture market to work out the kinks, set some standards, then prove their longevity before we see uptake in the residential market. I know that many regulars here could hack together something reasonably-priced that should last decades, but the retail cost of anything analogous to those fixtures that could be certified and warranty-able would be a bit high given what the market is currently paying.


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## flashflood (Mar 11, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



idleprocess said:


> I'm watching a large complex going up a few miles from my house and noticed that they're not only locating all the air conditioning compressors on the roofs of the buildings, but also putting them on the _south side_ with blinds that appear to restrict airflow... Makes me wonder if they're getting a kickback from the local electrical utilities.



A less cynical possibility: perhaps they're trying to place the coldest air near the hottest rooms, to prevent the usual problem of the north side freezing while the south side roasts.


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## idleprocess (Mar 11, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



flashflood said:


> A less cynical possibility: perhaps they're trying to place the coldest air near the hottest rooms, to prevent the usual problem of the north side freezing while the south side roasts.



Eh, they're individual compressors that likely won't have trouble refrigerating each unit to whatever the thermostat is set to. 

Most likely the south side was chosen because that's the low-visibility side of the complex.


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 11, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



jtr1962 said:


> While we're on that subject, I don't understand why _brand new_ apartment buildings still have openings for individual air conditioners. It would be far more efficient (and probably cost effective) to have a single geothermal heat pump unit handle heating and cooling of the entire building. Each apartment would have a thermostat in each room which simply opens and closes the appropriate vents to heat or cool to the desired temperature. From an aesthetic standpoint, it would look a heck of lot nicer as well not having walls full of rectangular holes. If we're going to legislate anything, then legislate away stand alone AC units in places where they really don't make much sense. Start with new construction first, and then move on to require retrofitting of older apartment buildings (where practical-I realize some buildings would cost more to retrofit than would be worthwhile).



This is a comment typical of looking at things the way Washington DC politicians, DOE & EPA officials, and those who bought the man-made GW ruse. You are mapping your logic, aesthetics, and then feeling that your wishes should most certainly be imposed on the peon public. You don't live in the real world where people cannot buy enough groceries to feed their family, have cancelled their vacations because the price of gas is too high, can't find a job because not enough is being done to resolve unemployment. The last thing most people care about is having openings or AC units hanging out, or upgrading a major part of their HVAC systems....unless you personally are going to pay to have them all replaced--and I don't think you are making that much money.

Now, I happen to proudly be in the self-made 1% of affluence, and CHOSE....let me say that word again....CHOSE to replace my 35 year old American Standard natural gas hot water boiler, circulated by two electric motors around the cast iron baseboard with a Navien CH-180 which also let me replace my 60 gallon gas hot water heater, giving me as much continuous hot water on demand that I desire. It qualified for a $1,500 energy tax credit, so I got some of my income back that would otherwise have been wasted by the federal govt. I'm enjoying taking luxurious 20-30 minute hot showers without ever having to worry about running out of hot water.

In addition, because I need lots of air conditioning to cool off my home with all my lovely incandescent bulb heat, I CHOSE to replace two 23,500 BTU & one 18,000 BTU AC units that had become a bit weather-worn as this example below shows. I replaced them all with three Mitsubishi Mr. Slim indoor units running off a single outside inverter AC/heat pump unit that can provide AC or Heat, and have portable remote controls. Again, that was my choice, after looking at my options...which is how it should be conducted--NOT FORCED or MANDATED!
















jtr1962 said:


> And as for lighting, no reason new construction should be using screw bulb fixtures. You could put purpose-built LED fixtures in every room instead. In fact, that could be a selling point-move here and never change a light bulb again. The only caveat is the fixtures would need to have adjustable color temperature (from maybe 2500K up to 6500K) to account for individual lighting preferences, and also would need to be dimmable. With LEDs though that's easy to engineer.



That is your opinion. Personally I would not buy a home that didn't allow me the freedom of using screw in bulbs, because I strongly prefer the lighting quality of incandescent bulbs, as do many other people. I have bulbs in many locations that I have not changed in over 5 years. I would want to know that the LED options are reliable, affordable, and time tested before sticking them in my home--new or old. In any case, it should be my choice, not yours.



jtr1962 said:


> The ~60% reduction in residential lighting use these statistics allude to can easily have been caused by people just using CFLs in a few of their most used fixtures. The cost of perhaps a half dozen CFLs is negligible in any household budget. Based on what I see going for walks at night (lots of windows lit at color temperatures which can only be CFL of some type) I do in fact think that at least in the markets where electricity costs a lot, there has been widespread CFL adoption over the last decade. Helping the matter has been the fact that CFLs have reached near price parity with incandescents. It also means unfortunately that the TCO equation changes for LED bulbs. Right now, if you're replacing incandescent, the TCO of an LED bulb over its lifetime is less. If you're replacing a CFL, the answer isn't as clear cut, although LED bulbs could offer tangible advantages over CFL (instant on, better CRI, dimmability) even if their TCO is the same.



Again, this is fraught with speculation because no one has yet shown me an OBJECTIVE report explaining how they have determined percent of total energy used that comes from residential lighting. I can make just as valid of a case that the 2005 EPA study used to justify the lower Mercury issue with CFL's over Incandescents was totally flawed and as refinements and corrections were reported in subsequent years, just like many of the GW arguments, they picked the most dramatic isolated report to try and make their point.

Hey, JTR, ya gotta at least say that I make you think, and gives a certain enjoyment to reading and posting on CPF again. :wave: I'll be done with this issue shortly though, as all I wanted to do was let everyone know they can still buy beautiful Incandescents made in USA by those long lost USA entrepreneurs who figure out how to get around the ignorant political bans and regulations.


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## BVH (Mar 11, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Lux, Am I detecting quiet undercurrents that you don't want to live in this soon-to-be Nanny State we call the U.S.A.


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## jtr1962 (Mar 12, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



LuxLuthor said:


> This is a comment typical of looking at things the way Washington DC politicians, DOE & EPA officials, and those who bought the man-made GW ruse. You are mapping your logic, aesthetics, and then feeling that your wishes should most certainly be imposed on the peon public. You don't live in the real world where people cannot buy enough groceries to feed their family, have cancelled their vacations because the price of gas is too high, can't find a job because not enough is being done to resolve unemployment. The last thing most people care about is having openings or AC units hanging out, or upgrading a major part of their HVAC systems....unless you personally are going to pay to have them all replaced--and I don't think you are making that much money.


 No, I'm suggesting something here which would easily SAVE people money by reducing their utility bills for heating/cooling. The reason it's not done is simple-the contractors building the apartments want to build as cheaply as possible, but sell as high as possible. Based on what I see, many may not even _know_ how to install the central climate control systems. The irony here is the cost of putting a single heating/cooling system in a brand new building would likely be less than installing individual units in each apartment. I'd bet good money that's the case, because central climate control systems are always installed in office buildings. Why this isn't done more for apartment buildings makes little sense to me.



> Now, I happen to proudly be in the self-made 1% of affluence, and CHOSE....let me say that word again....CHOSE to replace my 35 year old American Standard natural gas hot water boiler, circulated by two electric motors around the cast iron baseboard with a Navien CH-180 which also let me replace my 60 gallon gas hot water heater, giving me as much continuous hot water on demand that I desire. It qualified for a $1,500 energy tax credit, so I got some of my income back that would otherwise have been wasted by the federal govt. I'm enjoying taking luxurious 20-30 minute hot showers without ever having to worry about running out of hot water.
> 
> In addition, because I need lots of air conditioning to cool off my home with all my lovely incandescent bulb heat, I CHOSE to replace two 23,500 BTU & one 18,000 BTU AC units that had become a bit weather-worn as this example below shows. I replaced them all with three Mitsubishi Mr. Slim indoor units running off a single outside inverter AC/heat pump unit that can provide AC or Heat, and have portable remote controls. Again, that was my choice, after looking at my options...which is how it should be conducted--NOT FORCED or MANDATED!


 Well, people can only make rational choices when they're made aware of those choices. The majority of people aren't aware of things like LSD rechargeables, geothermal heating/cooling systems, or any of a bunch of other neat technologies which are just plain better than what they replace. Sure, they can look up these things, but most lack the initiative, will only purchase whatever is right in front of them in the store. If we're going to mandate anything, then I'd say mandate educational placards which must be displayed next to any item which has a better potential replacement. Display placards describing LSD rechargeables next to shelves full of alkaline batteries, LED placards next to shelves with incandescent bulbs, etc. You're not forcing people to buy these things by doing that, but merely educating them that alternatives exist to what they're doing now. I'm not seeing the harm in that. I recall years ago schools actually used to teach kids to be critical of advertising, to examine their choices carefully, etc. Parents often did the same. A lot of the disposable crap we sell nowadays which is great for corporate income streams, but awful for the consumer, would have been left sitting on store shelves 40 years ago.



> That is your opinion. Personally I would not buy a home that didn't allow me the freedom of using screw in bulbs, because I strongly prefer the lighting quality of incandescent bulbs, as do many other people. I have bulbs in many locations that I have not changed in over 5 years. I would want to know that the LED options are reliable, affordable, and time tested before sticking them in my home--new or old. In any case, it should be my choice, not yours.


Non-incandescents have been used in commercial/office/industrial applications for decades, yet I'm not seeing anyone complaining they don't have the freedom to use screw-base bulbs. And the whole lighting quality thing is a red herring. There are LEDs which imitate incandescents perfectly if that's your thing. The high-CRI XPGs and the Nichia 119/219 are but a few examples. I'll bet in a blind test even you couldn't tell the difference. Certainly many of the other light connoisseurs here have said as much. As for reliability, it's already been demonstrated by loads of manufacturer testing. The electronics which power the LEDs are no different than any other power conversion electronics which have existed for decades, and again the reliability has been proven. So exactly what other hoops do we need to jump through to convince you? At this point your attitude seems more like "I just want to use incandescents to spite all the (environmentalists, GW crowd, politicians, or some other villian of choice)." Fine-you have that "right", for now. Like someone said in this thread, my guess is in a few years time threads like this will be moot.



> Again, this is fraught with speculation because no one has yet shown me an OBJECTIVE report explaining how they have determined percent of total energy used that comes from residential lighting. I can make just as valid of a case that the 2005 EPA study used to justify the lower Mercury issue with CFL's over Incandescents was totally flawed and as refinements and corrections were reported in subsequent years, just like many of the GW arguments, they picked the most dramatic isolated report to try and make their point.


It doesn't matter whether these reports are right or wrong because for the majority, _the more efficient lighting technologies are just plain better_. I switched mostly to linear tubes decades ago, BY CHOICE. At the time I didn't give a rat's behind that they used less energy. Rather, I liked the much longer life, much nicer (to me) color temperature, much more even lighting, and the fact that they didn't make a room hot at the light levels I found comfortable (my workshop downstairs would need about 1000 watts incandescent to provide such lighting levels). I also went to CFL in the few screw-base bulbs we have left-for the same reasons. I've even put LEDs in a few sockets. Eventually everything will be LED.



> Hey, JTR, ya gotta at least say that I make you think, and gives a certain enjoyment to reading and posting on CPF again. :wave: I'll be done with this issue shortly though, as all I wanted to do was let everyone know they can still buy beautiful Incandescents made in USA by those long lost USA entrepreneurs who figure out how to get around the ignorant political bans and regulations.


Well, I wouldn't celebrate prematurely. If the number of rough service bulbs increases greatly from years past, then it'll mean people are using them for general service. When that happens, I'm sure the loophole will be closed. Like I said earlier, if you really still want incandescent, exactly what is wrong with the halogen bulbs being sold? It seems like a win-win situation-the same light (~1600 lumens) for less power (72 watts versus 100 watts).

Oh, and a real entrepreneur invents a brand new product which performs some function previously not possible (skirting a ban doesn't fall into that category). I'm glad we have something made in the USA but let's be realistic-incandescent is a dying technology. It might go even faster than I think it will. As a good example, I was floored how quickly CRTs died out once the kinks with flat screens were worked out. Even I thought CRTs might be made in good numbers until about 2015. I have a good feeling it'll be the same with incandescent light bulbs, ICE vehicles, and mechanical hard disks.


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## flashflood (Mar 12, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



jtr1962 said:


> It might go even faster than I think it will. As a good example, I was floored how quickly CRTs died out once the kinks with flat screens were worked out.



Yes! Exactly!

We never needed a CRT ban, because LCD won on the merits -- flat, light, cool, less power hungry. For that reason, there is no retro CRT market (other than some fetish site, somewhere, surely). People were thrilled to get rid of their hot, hulking CRTs. It would have been a very different story if we had forced people to switch from CRT to LCD in 1995, when the resolution was lower, frame refresh was like molasses, color rendition was terrible -- and the price was stratospheric. This is why I think the incandescent ban is a mistake. There are better technologies in the pipeline, probably just a year or two from being able to win on their own. The people who are inventing this wonderful future for us are going as fast as they can, because hey -- they want to get rich. We can't legislate them into inventing faster. On the contrary: by banning their most cost-effective competition, we reduce the market pressure to lower cost, thus ensuring that both CFL and LED will be artificially expensive.


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 12, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



BVH said:


> Lux, Am I detecting quiet undercurrents that you don't want to live in this soon-to-be Nanny State we call the U.S.A.



You picked right up on that, didn't you! It is already a Nanny State....but worst case scenario, I'll be dead before it really gets as ugly as it is headed for. The kids today won't know what hit them. Energy use will be the least of their concerns. Unfortunately.

JTR, we have already gone down this road previously, and we can remember your prediction result. You believe in govt. banning, forced mandates, and regulating things you think are best...at least that has been a repeating theme in almost all your paragraphs and responses. I feel in the vast majority of actions, the govt. makes things worse because they make political decisions, govt/institutional workers don't understand private economic forces, and cannot foresee complex consequences. Anyway, I made my points about this guy's company continuing to make Incandescent bulbs in USA....and that's a great contribution to the country.


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## jtr1962 (Mar 12, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



LuxLuthor said:


> JTR, we have already gone down this road previously, and we can remember your prediction result. You believe in govt. banning, forced mandates, and regulating things you think are best...at least that has been a repeating theme in almost all your paragraphs and responses. I feel in the vast majority of actions, the govt. makes things worse because they make political decisions, govt/institutional workers don't understand private economic forces, and cannot foresee complex consequences. Anyway, I made my points about this guy's company continuing to make Incandescent bulbs in USA....and that's a great contribution to the country.


 Government is only as good as the people running it. Unfortunately, we've chosen to pay our civil servants so little that government service only attracts either the incompetent or the idealistic. Idealists usually mean well but often lack practical experience to make their ideas work. Incompetents, well, that speaks for itself. We have a bunch running the country now (both parties) without the faintest idea of how science, engineering, economics, infrastructure, etc. work. Maybe if we try paying people in government enough to attract real talent, then government will in fact offer some good solutions. If nothing else, higher pay would reduce the influence of lobbying.

Another problem is people nowadays are less accepting of leaders who tell them things they don't want to hear. Sometimes things just have to be done, even though they're unpopular. People sometimes just have to accept decisions which might require sacrifice now for a better future later. In the past the average person understood this. Nowadays we just prefer to pass our problems down to our children. I too am glad I'll likely be gone before things get really ugly, except it's not a nanny state I'm envisioning. Think something closer to a Mad Max scenario.


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## jtr1962 (Mar 12, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



flashflood said:


> This is why I think the incandescent ban is a mistake. There are better technologies in the pipeline, probably just a year or two from being able to win on their own. The people who are inventing this wonderful future for us are going as fast as they can, because hey -- they want to get rich. We can't legislate them into inventing faster. On the contrary: by banning their most cost-effective competition, we reduce the market pressure to lower cost, thus ensuring that both CFL and LED will be artificially expensive.


 There is no incandescent ban right now. You can still legally buy halogen incandescents which do the exact same thing as the bulbs they replace, but use less power. The real ban isn't until 2020, when the minimum 45 lm/W provision kicks in. By then LEDs will easily have already taken over the marketplace.

As for costs, don't LED bulb makers still have to compete amongst themselves? That will certainly drive prices down to the bare minimum, even in the absence of low-cost incandescents. Now if there was only one LED bulb maker, your prediction would be spot on. Also, while I want there to be some downward pressure on prices, there shouldn't be so much that quality suffers. This has already happened with CFLs. You just can't make a reliable CFL for a buck, regardless of where they're made. I personally hope we never see $1 LED bulbs as I'm sure they will be complete garbage. I do think we can eventually bring the price down under $5 which is good enough. Nobody is going to replace every bulb in their house at once. They'll probably buy them as the old lamps die. $5 once or twice a month won't break the bank. Once all the bulbs are LED, then the replacement cycle might be one bulb every year or two.


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## flashflood (Mar 12, 2012)

jtr1962 said:


> Government is only as good as the people running it. Unfortunately, we've chosen to pay our civil servants so little that government service only attracts either the incompetent or the idealistic.



Actually, just the opposite: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-04-federal-pay_N.htm

Public sector workers are paid considerably more than their private sector counterparts.

What you say used to be true, but the advent of public sector unions really changed the dynamic. In the private sector, unions argue for higher pay while management tries to minimize costs. In the public sector, unions argue for higher pay while their political managers... also argue for higher pay, because it's not their money.


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## flashflood (Mar 12, 2012)

jtr1962 said:


> There is no incandescent ban right now. You can still legally buy halogen incandescents which do the exact same thing as the bulbs they replace, but use less power. The real ban isn't until 2020, when the minimum 45 lm/W provision kicks in. By then LEDs will easily have already taken over the marketplace.
> 
> As for costs, don't LED bulb makers still have to compete amongst themselves? That will certainly drive prices down to the bare minimum, even in the absence of low-cost incandescents. Now if there was only one LED bulb maker, your prediction would be spot on. Also, while I want there to be some downward pressure on prices, there shouldn't be so much that quality suffers. This has already happened with CFLs. You just can't make a reliable CFL for a buck, regardless of where they're made. I personally hope we never see $1 LED bulbs as I'm sure they will be complete garbage. I do think we can eventually bring the price down under $5 which is good enough. Nobody is going to replace every bulb in their house at once. They'll probably buy them as the old lamps die. $5 once or twice a month won't break the bank. Once all the bulbs are LED, then the replacement cycle might be one bulb every year or two.



I wouldn't worry about $1 LED bulbs ruining the party. Those will be the budget bulbs, but you'll still have standard and premium and luxury bulbs. That's the beauty of the free market: you can choose to pay more for things you value, and pay less for things you don't value. I will pay a small fortune for exotic flashlights. I won't pay squat for shoes. And that's OK.


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## jtr1962 (Mar 12, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



flashflood said:


> Actually, just the opposite: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-04-federal-pay_N.htm
> 
> Public sector workers are paid considerably more than their private sector counterparts.
> 
> What you say used to be true, but the advent of public sector unions really changed the dynamic. In the private sector, unions argue for higher pay while management tries to minimize costs. In the public sector, unions argue for higher pay while their political managers... also argue for higher pay, because it's not their money.


I'm not talking about the grunt workers here, but their leaders. The union workers don't make policy, their leaders do. What we pay Congressmen and the President, for example, is a pittance compared to leadership positions in private industry.


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## flashflood (Mar 12, 2012)

jtr1962 said:


> What we pay Congressmen and the President, for example, is a pittance compared to leadership positions in private industry.



That I agree with, and it's bad policy. All of the money is in lobbying/consulting after you leave.

We would almost be better off if we just changed congressional and presidential pay to a one-time payment of a billion dollars. You get half the money the day you start, and the other half the day you leave. These people would be impossible to bribe, and would have no reason to stick around for 20 years other than a genuine passion for public service.


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## subwoofer (Mar 12, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

I love that on a forum dedicated to finding the next best light and buying it (a fine example of consumerism) certain participants still feel they can preach about environmental issues.

Obviously we should all be considering the impact of our life choices on the environment for future generations, in which case we should all start by agreeing only to buy another light when the environmental impact can be justified by increased efficiency or the last one has broken.

Anyone here happy to pledge not to buy another light until all the lights they have are broken, or until a new LED is developed that is powered by ambient heat energy and doesn't need a battery at all? ;-)


Tongue firmly in cheek ;-)


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 13, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



CKOD said:


> The more flashlights I own, the less in the landfill. And they are all made of recyclable aluminum too )



It appears this thread went to the back with a posting date from CKOD of 03-12-2008, 01:31 PM, and showing as the first post. I don't really have anything else to say, just wondered what happened to the thread. Maybe this is done to bury threads, rather than lock or delete them? It seemed this was remaining civilized, but who knows.

Thanks for everyone's input.


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## jrmcferren (Mar 14, 2012)

These bulbs are rated for 100 watts and 10,000 hours at 130 volts, they will run at 89 watts at 120 volts with a loss of output and efficiency, but with an INCREASE in life.

An important note about the low energy halogen lamps, if you buy the Sylvania ones, they are made in St. Mary's, Pennsylvania, USA.


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## alpg88 (Mar 14, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



jtr1962 said:


> While we're on that subject, I don't understand why _brand new_ apartment buildings still have openings for individual air conditioners. It would be far more efficient (and probably cost effective) to have a single geothermal heat pump unit handle heating and cooling of the entire building. Each apartment would have a thermostat in each room which simply opens and closes the appropriate vents to heat or cool to the desired temperature. From an aesthetic standpoint, it would look a heck of lot nicer as well not having walls full of rectangular holes. If we're going to legislate anything, then legislate away stand alone AC units in places where they really don't make much sense. Start with new construction first, and then move on to require retrofitting of older apartment buildings (where practical-I realize some buildings would cost more to retrofit than would be worthwhile).
> 
> .


lol, on paper may be.

i'am a building engeneer with about 15 years of experience working in different kind of buildings.
if anything central ac\heat is not practical\efficient in med to large appt buildings, that is why you don't see many. (not central water or steam heaters)
if anything it would be chillers with heat\cold coils inside appt, work a lot better than single evaparator with ducts thru entire building. but they are still not as practical\flexible as individual units.

as for legeslations, i couldn't dissagree more, if anything they shouldn't legestlate what ac unit me as a builder\owner\tenant chose to install.

so far most if not all legeslations created more problems that they were made to solve.


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## jtr1962 (Mar 14, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



alpg88 said:


> lol, on paper may be.
> 
> i'am a building engeneer with about 15 years of experience working in different kind of buildings.
> if anything central ac\heat is not practical\efficient in med to large appt buildings, that is why you don't see many. (not central water or steam heaters)
> ...


Why then is central AC/heat practical on office buildings but not apartment buildings? Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems a central geothermal unit with either air ducts or fluid pipes for distribution would be a lot better than a bunch of individual units. The individual units can only exchange waste heat to ambient air, not the ground which usually colder in summer/warmer in winter. That's a big inefficiency right there. And then smaller units are always less efficient than larger ones owing to proportionately larger mechanical losses. I would think the bottom line would favor centralized climate control, as seems to be the case in office buildings.

On another note, with better building design the need for climate control could be greatly reduced, without giving up one bit of comfort or convenience.


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 15, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



jrmcferren said:


> These bulbs are rated for 100 watts and 10,000 hours at 130 volts, they will run at 89 watts at 120 volts with a loss of output and efficiency, but with an INCREASE in life.
> 
> An important note about the low energy halogen lamps, if you buy the Sylvania ones, they are made in St. Mary's, Pennsylvania, USA.




In the interest of fairness, doing the same test with these Newtronics bulbs that I did with the 20,000hr ones from Litetronics did give worse results. From previous post: 



> Seasonic Volt-Amp-Watt-Hz-KWH measuring display. The 750Hr GE bulb I was using registered 122.2V & 101 Watts. The LiteTronics _(listed on box as 120V) _20,000Hr bulb registered 122.3V & 102Watts. Same energy being used with an adequate amount of white light coming from fixture.




These Newtronics 100W bulbs are listed on box as 130V 10,000Hrs, and when plugged into the same lamp and watt measuring device, reports 91W at 121.4V, and is not as white as either the 750 Hr GE general use or the LiteTronics bulb. It's not a sickly yellow as JTR likes to categorize all the incan bulbs of his youth, but it is a lesser output. The Litetronics is made in India. Both have 7 support strands to qualify for the rough service designation. Put in an overhead bank of lights, still performs fine.



jtr1962 said:


> Why then is central AC/heat practical on office buildings but not apartment buildings? Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems a central geothermal unit with either air ducts or fluid pipes for distribution would be a lot better than a bunch of individual units. The individual units can only exchange waste heat to ambient air, not the ground which usually colder in summer/warmer in winter. That's a big inefficiency right there. And then smaller units are always less efficient than larger ones owing to proportionately larger mechanical losses. I would think the bottom line would favor centralized climate control, as seems to be the case in office buildings.
> 
> On another note, with better building design the need for climate control could be greatly reduced, without giving up one bit of comfort or convenience.



While this is completely off topic, what the hell's the difference among friends. I don't know what newer designed central building HVAC geothermal pumps have available in terms of variations in practical function, but I do know that the 3 Mitsubishi Mr. Slim units that are piped into the one outside "heat pump" can work as a heater or A/C, by changing the remote wand settings for each room. I know it has dramatically lowered my overall AC monthly charges.

One problem I could forsee if a geothermal pump works the same way as these Mitsubishi's which would cause a problem in apartment units...is that if one room is being used for heating, you cannot have another room used for A/C. The outside pump needs a "buffer" time before it can switchover from being a heat pump to a cooling pump function (I was told it just reverses the flow). You may think this is a completely illogical and irrelevant problem, but there have been times during the change of seasons where we had not yet brought our separate hot water iron baseboard heating system up online for winter, or turned off in spring. Because of doing physical exercise and/or sun warming sides, I needed the A/C function, but on the other side of the house, sitting in her office, my wife wanted heat. The problem had to be resolved with an electrical space heater.

Then there is also a total BTU cooling/heating output per unit...and if you are one of those people like me that want it REALLY cold, depending on how low I set the temp, it will steal cooling from other air handling units. If all units are all set to really cool, you can max out the BTU's which are typically inadequately matched for more aggressive use to save equipment costs...and collectively, individual apartment users are not going to be happy--especially if they find that several units are hogging all the cooling.

Again, I don't know how the type of things you are talking about work, or if they have capabilities to address these individual desires/issues, but I have lived in school dorms, Navy housing, etc, where there was one setting for all. Even in offices I have worked in with central air, it was impossible to get the right A/C to suit individual needs depending how far from the output source the rooms were, and personal preferences. We would go through all these never ending gymnastics of getting the HVAC guys out to clean/replace filters, rebalance the vent openings, yada yada yada....it was never right. We even found that some employees climbed up on a chair and manually opened up the vents for their work areas to increase cooling.

Govt. and theoretical planners like to assume they know all the answers, and people are ignorant lemmings, and will take what they are given, and be told to smile about it. That was how things worked in the Navy, or college dorms, but no one liked it. You and your link are demonstrating some of that same attitude, and none of those "we know best types" seem to have even the remotest idea why such a wonderfully thought out and efficient practical idea could ever "torque" someone off who doesn't agree with them. That is the heart of the light bulb and toilet examples....people are ignorant=we need to decide for them and regulate/ban their way to Lemming Nirvana (aka: The Cliffs of Dover).


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## jtr1962 (Mar 15, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



LuxLuthor said:


> One problem I could forsee if a geothermal pump works the same way as these which would cause a problem in apartment units...is that if one room is being used for heating, you cannot have another room used for A/C. The outside pump needs a "buffer" time before it can switchover from being a heat pump to a cooling pump function. There have been a few times during the change of seasons where we had not yet brought our separate hot water iron baseboard heating system up online for winter yet, and because of physical exercise and/or sun warming a side, I needed the A/C function, but on the other side of the house, sitting in her office, she wanted heat. The problem had to be resolved with an electrical space heater.


I know some office buildings mix air from hot and cold ducts to obtain the desired temperature, similar to mixing hot and cold water. The problem is how to obtain heat when the unit is set to cool, and vice versa. I would imagine the solution is resistance heating during times when the unit would be cooling, but a few people might want heat. In winters to cool while the unit is heating you could just draw in ambient air.



> Then there is also a total BTU cooling/heating output per unit...and if you are one of those people like me that want it REALLY cold, depending on how low I set the temp, it will steal cooling from other air handling units...if they are all set real low, you can max out the BTU's which are typically inadequately matched with aggressive use to save equipment costs. Again, I don't know how the type of things you are talking about would address these individual issues, but I have lived in school dorms, Navy housing, etc, where there was one setting. Even in offices I have worked in with central air, it was impossible to get the right A/C to suit individual needs depending how far from the output source the rooms were, and personal preferences.


 Distribute fluid heated or cooled by the central unit via pipes, have a heat exchanger for each zone where the fan speed controls how much heating and cooling you have. This is the same in principal as the system you have. As far as getting the right temperatures, honestly, individual A/C units mostly stink. They cycle on and off, so you alternate between freezing and sweating, instead of adjusting compressor speed and fan flow to maintain a steady temperature. Oh, and I like it cold myself in summers, sometimes 55°F.



> Govt. and theoretical planners like to assume they know all the answers, and people are ignorant lemmings, and will take what they are given, and be told to smile about it. That was how things worked in the Navy, or college dorms, but no one liked it. You and your link are demonstrating some of that same attitude, and none of those "we know best types" seem to have even the remotest idea why such a wonderfully thought out and efficient practical idea could ever "torque" someone off who doesn't agree with them. That is the heart of the light bulb and toilet examples....people are ignorant=we need to decide for them and regulate/ban their way to Lemming Nirvana (aka: The Cliffs of Dover).


 The problem is when you have people in government making policy on subjects they're just not knowledgeable about. That begets bad policy, which in turn results in people hating government interference. Any legislation involving technical matters should be vetted first through appropriate experts to see if in fact what the legislation seeks to do is technically possible. As far as I know, that's rarely done. And almost invariably those in charge in the military and college dorms are morons on a power trip. Same with most politicians. The problem is the selection process discourages anyone with a shred of common sense or brains.

The situation you describe about people being ignorant lemmings and accepting what they are given pretty much describes what often happens in the absence of standards or regulation. Companies produce whichever products give them the most profit, regardless of whether or not better products exist. End result-many potentially wonderful things are never made, not because they're not profitable, but because they're less profitable than something else. Most people won't know about the better product. Those who might demand it by boycotting an inferior product just don't exist in large enough numbers.

No, we don't need to decide HOW people live, but I feel we should always use the least resource intensive means to achieve any given standard of living, even to the point of prohibiting less efficient alternatives _if the better solution is functionally equivalent, or nearly so_. My reason is because resources are finite and humanity shows no signs of reducing our numbers in the near future. I do loathe forcing people to use decidedly inferior solutions in the interests of efficiency. The irony is our profit-driven economy does something nearly the same-forcing people to use decidedly inferior solutions in the interests of profit. Just an observation.


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 16, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



jtr1962 said:


> The situation you describe about people being ignorant lemmings and accepting what they are given pretty much describes what often happens in the absence of standards or regulation. Companies produce whichever products give them the most profit, regardless of whether or not better products exist. End result-many potentially wonderful things are never made, not because they're not profitable, but because they're less profitable than something else. Most people won't know about the better product. Those who might demand it by boycotting an inferior product just don't exist in large enough numbers.
> 
> No, we don't need to decide HOW people live, but I feel we should always use the least resource intensive means to achieve any given standard of living, even to the point of prohibiting less efficient alternatives _if the better solution is functionally equivalent, or nearly so_. My reason is because resources are finite and humanity shows no signs of reducing our numbers in the near future. I do loathe forcing people to use decidedly inferior solutions in the interests of efficiency. The irony is our profit-driven economy does something nearly the same-forcing people to use decidedly inferior solutions in the interests of profit. Just an observation.



There is a complex interplay of having an idea or accidental discovery, creating an optimal design, understanding financial viability, finding a motivated producer, interested buyers, mastering competitive forces, ensuring ongoing adjustments and quality assurance repairs/service, buckets of patience, persistence, and tolerance for failure that all enter into the multitude of products used, and the way we live our lives.

You misinterpreted the last paragraph of my previous post, and you may wish to pause and notice how/why you read it the way you did. I did not say that people are ignorant lemmings. I said: 



> Govt. and theoretical planners like to assume they know all the answers, and people are ignorant lemmings, and will take what they are given, and be told to smile about it.



I do not believe people are fundamentally ignorant, or lemmings. However, that is frequently the assumption and justification when standards or regulations are imposed. Let's go back to the light bulb. For thousands of years, everyone was running around using candles, oil lamps, or torches despite their obvious fire hazards. Along comes Edison and develops a light bulb and electrical delivery systems (I won't get into who actually invented it). 

To follow your logic, the only way Edison could have succeeded was if governments phased out, then banned all fire based sources of illumination--following their typical assumption that people are too ignorant to start using light bulbs when candles and oil lamps are so familiar, cheap, and in front of them at the country store. Edison's brilliance was not from "inventing" the light bulb, but presenting & packaging it as something people would want instead of what they already had. He created the market and a demand that had bulbs fly out the factories as fast as they could be made.

Ford did it with the assembly line and Model T's--horses did not have to be banned. LED's have done that with hand held lights--small flashlight incan bulbs did not need to be banned. Apple has done it with many of their products--Sony's Walkman, IBM/Microsoft's PC, other cellphones did not need to be banned. Sanyo has done it with eneloops--alkalines don't need to be banned. Successful companies do not view consumers as ignorant lemmings. Rather, they find ways to educate and entice them into using their new products.



> No, we don't need to decide HOW people live, but I feel we should always use the least resource intensive means to achieve any given standard of living, even to the point of prohibiting less efficient alternatives _if the better solution is functionally equivalent, or nearly so.
> _



Your sentence is in conflict with itself, and at the heart of my points. I don't know if you can see it. I suspect the logic of your justifications (efficiency, finite resources, profit limitations) is obscuring your ability to understand fundamental human nature--specifically the desire for freedom. Given the rate of population growth, there will never be adequate resources going forward--no matter how much more conservation is employed.

I recognize this is all a very complex, multifaceted series of issues, and that some degree of government intervention at various levels is required and useful for a civil society. To flush it all out properly, you would need to write many books on all the nuances. I'm really only addressing the fundamental issue of individual freedom, free choice, and enrolling people in new products and behaviors as the preferred approach when reasonable...rather than the more common use of force, mandates, threats, penalties, bans, more laws, etc.


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## flashflood (Mar 16, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Well said Lux. It is indeed a difficult balance to strike. I forget who said this, but it's on point: "Liberals and conservatives agree that government is a necessary evil. The only difference is that liberals worry more about the necessary, and conservatives worry more about the evil."

One quibble: you observed that "Given the rate of population growth, there will never be adequate resources going forward--no matter how much more conservation is employed." That seems intuitive, but in fact our planet-wide collective wealth (as measured by something one can't fake: life expectancy) has grown faster than the population for several centuries thanks to technology. Some of these effects are obvious -- better mining technology gets you more metal ores, and more efficient manufacturing produces the same item while consuming fewer resources. But others are population-scale effects that are almost always overlooked. For example, computers make all sorts of tasks more efficient; but only a vast population can produce computers, because so many specialized skills are needed, and the fixed cost of building a CPU is so high (a new fab costs $5-10 billion) that the economics don't work unless you can sell millions of them.

I think it's a very hard concept to grasp at a gut level. It's easy to think of seven billion mouths to feed, and to view that as an enormous burden. (It is.) It is much harder to conceptualize seven billion people, each one (or most, anyway) producing more value than he/she consumes, by engaging in a million different activities, and somehow all of this adding up to a civilization that can not only feed itself, but create sculpture and poetry and iPhones, and can explore the smallest particles of matter and the farthest reaches of space and time.

How complex is the global economy? Consider this: the number of people on earth (roughly 10^10) is comparable to the number of neurons in the human brain (10^11). And the number of people you interact with economically over the course of a day (at least hundreds -- consider every ad you see, article you read, etc) is comparable to the number of synapses per neuron (about 7,000). Even if you assume that each person's economic behavior is no more complex than about 10 neurons, this suggests that the global economy is just as complex as the human brain -- and that, like consciousness, the economy at this scale is an emergent phenomenon.

[Which suggests humility. When we debate the merits of "stimulus" versus tax cuts, it's something like debating electroshock versus thorazine. A blunt instrument either way, and we're kidding ourselves when we pretend to understand precisely how this will affect the patient. We could use a little more Hippocratic Oath in our governance. By all means, try to heal the sick -- but if it doesn't work, recall FDR's admonition to admit it frankly and try something else. Don't just double the voltage until you get a response.]


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## jtr1962 (Mar 16, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



LuxLuthor said:


> You misinterpreted the last paragraph of my previous post, and you may wish to pause and notice how/why you read it the way you did. I did not say that people are ignorant lemmings.


You didn't say it, but based on 49+ years of living I'd say it's a pretty reasonable assumption _with the current state of education_ that the majority of people are incapable of any kind of rational thought on any number of complex subjects. In other words, when certain things become too complex for the average poorly educated person to deal with, it's necessary to have people with more knowledge making at least some of the choices. It's also sometimes necessary to disincentivize really poor choices which might happen to also be really profitable for companies (i.e. I might have taxed incandescents just enough to achieve cost parity with CFLs, as opposed to banning them outright). The fact that this is sometimes done poorly doesn't negate the validity of this line of thinking. At the very least, _I feel people should be fully informed of the consequences of the poorer choice_, as we already currently do with the numerous warnings on packs of cigarettes. You could do something similar on packages of alkalines informing people of LSD NiMH. You could have TCO analysis of CFL or LED bulbs on packs of incandescents, etc. I don't object to people coming to a decision when they're fully informed. I do object to people making bad choices solely because information on better choices isn't readily available, or the negatives of the poorer choice are papered over with clever advertising. In a perfect world where everyone received a great education, you would probably be right-people would be capable of making informed choices. Sad to say, large numbers of people can't even compose a coherent sentence.



> I do not believe people are fundamentally ignorant, or lemmings. However, that is frequently the assumption and justification when standards or regulations are imposed. Let's go back to the light bulb. For thousands of years, everyone was running around using candles, oil lamps, or torches despite their obvious fire hazards. Along comes Edison and develops a light bulb and electrical delivery systems (I won't get into who actually invented it).
> 
> To follow your logic, the only way Edison could have succeeded was if governments phased out, then banned all fire based sources of illumination--following their typical assumption that people are too ignorant to start using light bulbs when candles and oil lamps are so familiar, cheap, and in front of them at the country store. Edison's brilliance was not from "inventing" the light bulb, but presenting & packaging it as something people would want instead of what they already had. He created the market and a demand that had bulbs fly out the factories as fast as they could be made.
> 
> Ford did it with the assembly line and Model T's--horses did not have to be banned. LED's have done that with hand held lights--small flashlight incan bulbs did not need to be banned. Apple has done it with many of their products--Sony's Walkman, IBM/Microsoft's PC, other cellphones did not need to be banned. *Sanyo has done it with eneloops--alkalines don't need to be banned*. Successful companies do not view consumers as ignorant lemmings. Rather, they find ways to educate and entice them into using their new products.


 The key thing here is in every single case the new item was better than what it replaced by any reasonable measure. Same thing happened in the railroading world when diesel locomotives replaced steam, and later when diesels were largely replaced by electrics, except on lightly used lines where the investment in stringing up wire wasn't justified. In some cases the adoption of the better alternative was sped up with government help. If the government hadn't built smooth roads (which incidentally were first built for bicycles), then the auto may not have been as successful (I could argue that the commercial success of autos has been largely bad overall for society but let's save that for another time). In the case of incandescents, by imposing a time limit on their use, the government effectively sped up the adoption of LEDs. Without a "guaranteed" market by 2020, do you think private enterprise would have invested the money needed to advance LED efficiency, and even color quality, as fast as it did? I know we're jaded by this stuff, but really it's amazing when you think about how white LEDs have increased in efficiency tenfold over the last decade. I'm sure this might have happened eventually without government legislation, but I'll bet it would have taken 25 years instead of 10. The fact that LED has largely supplemented incandescent in our flashlight world is mostly of spinoff of larger government policy towards solid state general lighting.

I bold-faced the part about Sanyo and Eneloops because this illustrates one of my points perfectly. Here we have a product which many in the know, including me, and it seems you, agree makes alkalines obsolete, yet I'm still seeing shelves full of alkalines in stores, along with Energizer bunny commercials. My speculation as to why is outside of rarified circles like CPF, _people just don't know about Eneloops_. Add in the fact that if I see rechargeables in a store at all, they're generally in a hidden corner, and they're never the LSD type. I can understand why all this is done from a profit motive perspective. I can't understand why it's not required to at least put information on LSD NiMH right on packs of alkaline batteries. In world full of informed people, none of this would be needed. Alkalines would have died out already. Sadly, this isn't the world we live in.



> Your sentence is in conflict with itself, and at the heart of my points. I don't know if you can see it. I suspect the logic of your justifications (efficiency, finite resources, profit limitations) is obscuring your ability to understand fundamental human nature--specifically the desire for freedom. Given the rate of population growth, there will never be adequate resources going forward--no matter how much more conservation is employed.


 No, I agree as things stand, we're going to run into a resource problem sooner or later. I'm hoping that conservation measures simply buy us enough time to come up with some sort of technological solution (and flashflood also seems to agree that technology could save us in the end). At the heart of everything is energy. You can recycle resources given enough energy. You can artificially grow all the food you need in 100 story vertical farms given enough energy. You can even mine asteroids given enough energy. If you had to ask me, I'd say it's critical for mankind's survival that we develop commercially viable fusion sometime in the next 50 years. I'm just toying with some ideas to keep us from going to war over resources before then.



> I recognize this is all a very complex, multifaceted series of issues, and that some degree of government intervention at various levels is required and useful for a civil society. To flush it all out properly, you would need to write many books on all the nuances. I'm really only addressing the fundamental issue of individual freedom, free choice, and enrolling people in new products and behaviors as the preferred approach when reasonable...rather than the more common use of force, mandates, threats, penalties, bans, more laws, etc.


Thank you for at least acknowledging that some level of government intervention is needed and useful. We can argue all day about how much but that's not the point. The point is a world where companies are free to do as they wish, and individuals are totally unconstrained in their choices, isn't a world either of us would want to live in.

Really, in the end, I'm more for the use of education to influence choices than force. Force should only be used as a last resort, and then only when the end goal is important enough to the smooth functioning of society to justify it. As for how this applies to the topic at hand, I feel accelerating the adoption of solid-state lighting is a worthy goal for many reasons but the legislation could have been a little better. What the government got wrong here was its utter failure to educate the larger populace on the rational behind the ban. All people are seeing is they can't buy their light bulbs any more. If maybe they knew about the fragile state of the grid, pollution from power plants (not just the CO2 GW proponents harp on), plus the consequences of failing to reduce power usage, then many people might voluntary switch to alternatives. Also, it really helps when stores display their bulbs lit up.

Oh, and both Lux and flashflood-great posts!


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## flashflood (Mar 16, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



jtr1962 said:


> Oh, and both Lux and flashflood-great posts!



Ditto! :devil:

You're spot on about energy: with unlimited clean energy, all kinds of crazy things become possible. Like making elements from scratch.

When I was a kid, I planned to grow up to be a physicist working on nuclear fusion. But along the way I fell in love with pure mathematics, and then tripped over computer programming and fell in love even harder. Nothing would make me happier than to see one of the fusion efforts succeed, but I'm not sanguine about it. Around 1980 I read about the early tokamaks in Scientific American. After three decades of nothing but failure, what is the ITER project building? A much bigger, much more expensive tokamak. Just to break even. There is no pathway from this technology vector to mass production of small, affordable reactors. It's a giant waste of time. I am much more hopeful that one of the smaller efforts, like polywell, will pan out. But I'd still put that in the "hope" bucket, not the "plan" bucket.

Over the next century, the most promising thing I've seen is thorium-based nuclear reactors. They have a lot of nice properties, the most important being that they are subcritical -- they only work when supplied with an external neutron beam -- so they can't melt down. They also don't use, or produce, anything that you can make an atomic bomb out of, and thorium is more plentiful than uranium. If you're interested in the topic, here's a place to start:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...nd-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html

Lux, jtr -- in some small way, this thread gives me hope. People with different assumptions and worldviews can still conduct civil debate and find common ground. More common ground than perhaps they expected. Good! I am so weary of the current dynamic: "I have an idea for how to solve world hunger." "Oh, really? Please tell me more -- is it a liberal idea or a conservative idea? I have to know that first so I know whether to mindlessly support it or mindlessly oppose it." Enough!


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## budynabuick (Mar 16, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Do not mean to go OT, but as FYI, none of your post"s are being counted.

Keith
Just checked and mine was counted. Mine are counting every other one.


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## SemiMan (Mar 16, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Funny comparison as the "Reveal" bulbs do not have a true incandescent spectrum but a color enhanced spectrum .... actually blue shifted. They are filtered .... just like those annoying halogen headlights with the blue filters on them that actually reduce the output considerably as do the Reveal bulbs. Your rough service bulb and the reveal bulb will look completely different. The Reveal is noticeably bluer. To "accurately" compare your 100W rough service bulb, you should be comparing to a 75W incandescent which will be the same output and/or 50W halogen.

Lux, who is going to finance the new power plants and distribution systems to support your inefficient lighting? Are you going to explain to my grand kids our lack of tough choices for their higher levels of flooding, severe climate changes, etc? For every one of your experts who denies human driven climate change, I can counter with 20 that can show it is real. And it is not just pure climate change but the real effects of pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, it is the short sited nature that keeps building cheap coal plants instead of climate safe and far less polluting nuclear plants.


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## idleprocess (Mar 16, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



SemiMan said:


> Lux, who is going to finance the new power plants and distribution systems to support your inefficient lighting?


I would be more worried about air conditioning compressors, pool pumps, electric resistance heating, and acres of parking lots lit 365 nights a year with metal halide fixtures before worrying about the macro effects of residential lighting on the grid.

From the residential electrical consumer perspective, it would seem that electricity simply isn't expensive enough to motivate a great many of them to invest in alternatives. I do find it curious that electricity isn't more expensive in regions where the grid is said to be straining to supply demand and also wonder what it's going to take for investment in grid/generating capacity to meet that demand lest the grid start to fail more often.



SemiMan said:


> Unfortunately, it is the short sited nature that keeps building cheap coal plants instead of climate safe and far less polluting nuclear plants.


The final bill on nuclear plants has tended to be an appreciable multiple of their original estimate. Could be argued that's a result of post- Three Mile Island paranoia, a shifting regulatory landscape, the long build process, or just the unspoken nature of nuclear design. Sadly, we're still making PWR's/BWR's without a truly workable fuel reprocessing model thus throwing away most of the energy in the fissionable elements in the form of long half-life nuclear waste. And even if we didn't reprocess the fuel, we could make reactors a great deal safer with pebble bed or other form of gas-cooled reactor with immensely simpler and inherently-safe designs.

I do believe that _whatever_ the legacy we leave behind for future generations happens to be, our nuclear waste isn't going to be as big of a problem as it's made out to be.


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## LuxLuthor (Mar 16, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



SemiMan said:


> Funny comparison as the "Reveal" bulbs do not have a true incandescent spectrum but a color enhanced spectrum .... actually blue shifted. They are filtered .... just like those annoying halogen headlights with the blue filters on them that actually reduce the output considerably as do the Reveal bulbs. Your rough service bulb and the reveal bulb will look completely different. The Reveal is noticeably bluer. To "accurately" compare your 100W rough service bulb, you should be comparing to a 75W incandescent which will be the same output and/or 50W halogen.



Unless you have done a practical comparison with the various specific bulbs I mentioned, you are only trying to make points based on theoretical logic. Reveal bulbs are incandescent bulbs, and despite their faint light blue frosting, they do not in fact appear blue when illuminated. You may wish to review their specifications, noting the kelvin measurement. They are nothing like the annoying halogen high 4500-6000 kelvin headlights. I did accurate comparisons for my intended use, and the LiteTronics 20,000 120V have the actual readings I described and look the same as the GE bulbs in terms of lumen output. I'm not going to do any further measurements or checking them out next to halogens because I'm not going to need more bulbs than I have for the rest of my life.



SemiMan said:


> Lux, who is going to finance the new power plants and distribution systems to support your inefficient lighting? Are you going to explain to my grand kids our lack of tough choices for their higher levels of flooding, severe climate changes, etc? For every one of your experts who denies human driven climate change, I can counter with 20 that can show it is real. And it is not just pure climate change but the real effects of pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, it is the short sited nature that keeps building cheap coal plants instead of climate safe and far less polluting nuclear plants.



Well this part of your post and my response may finally move this thread into a closed status, but so be it. I'll respond as thoughtfully as possible.

I and the people who use the electricity they use are financing new & existing power plants and distribution systems. As I said to JTR in the previous thread, before you talk to me about my lighting, go back and find a reliable study that determines the actual use of electricity for residential lighting. I took the time to go around my house, making an accurate listing of all the various incan bulbs, noting their watt ratings, and average time used and compared that to the kwh's billed on a years worth of electric bills...and it is a very small percentage. I would have to go find that other post, but from memory it was 1-2% of my bill.

Then the next thing I want to see before you come and assault residential energy users, get rid of all the decorative and lighted advertising sources. Finally, after you get that taken care of, I want at least 30% of the federal government eliminated. That will lead to such massive savings, consolidation of duplicated resources/functions, and require thoughtful, functional prioritization of what is really important. Then come talk to me about my light bulbs.

In any case, I won't be explaining anything to your grand kids, since I won't be alive that long, but I don't believe for a minute in the GW scheme which they had to change to "climate change" to deal with the negative vibes from recent global cooling trends. There are still those sticky exposed lies, distortions, and cover-ups to deal with from the repeated rounds of leaked emails. 

You would have to take the time to actually read the logical points raised by credible experts in the aging 10 point article posted at Canada.com to understand why thoughtful and intelligent people have long had doubts and questions. On a very simple level, there are too many variables and factors that were not taken into account with their predictive modeling, combined with not using reputable statistical analysis to give valid predictions. 

For the record if legitimate dissent from experts was welcomed, and given due consideration--leading to more accurate conclusions as a result, I would be wholeheartedly supporting the idea of man-made global warming. For now, I say "flood, schmudd." Having a 20 to 1 ratio of scientists is truly meaningless, especially since many of those scientists have no expertise in the fields of predictive climatology. Things like that have been used to eliminate the normal scientific back and forth challenging of new ideas that leads to a healthy consensus. Ideally, there should be no politics in science. The single worst thing that GW proponents ever did was to give the leadership mouthpiece to a former U.S. Vice President. That moved it out of being a scientific inquiry into a political debate....where it remains today. How's that working out for ya?

As far as your inaccurate representation about building cheap coal plants, you may wish to pick up today's Wall Street Journal, or purchase a subscription to read this article. I'll just post one of the punch lines:






​


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## SemiMan (Mar 21, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Lux, time for some education for you:


1) Have you investigated how "green" Natural Gas is currently? Sure if it comes out of the ground in Iran, it's pretty green. However, what is going to be collected in North America is not green. Sure, it is green to burn (completely), but it is not green to collect. Actually any released unburnt Natural gas is terrible for the environment. It is a very strong greenhouse gas.

2) It is obviously pointless to argue global warming with you. However, you cannot for a minute contradict massive human generated increases in C02. That makes the seas acidic and actually causes plants to aspirate considerably less. That lasts point could have significant effects we are just starting to understand. Let's not forget, we "were" in a down solar cycle and yet temperatures were rising ... but hey, that was just a fluke. Sort of like it was a fluke that we 3 of the warmest winters in the North ever were in the last 5 years and its a balmy 79 degrees today in a part of the world where there should still be snow on the ground ... that stuff we had 1/3 of normal this year as well. You know the earth could be in a natural warming cycle, but not at the speed things are changing.

There is a saying in the science world that change happens not because new ideas are so obviously right, but because all the detractors finally die. The sun used to revolve around the earth and the earth was flat in the past. It is just a matter of time before "there is no global warming" will be viewed the same way.

3) My point about the Reveal is that it is NOT a blackbody radiator light. It has a modified spectrum. To JTRs point, No, not even experts can reliably tell what is an incandescent, a florescent or LED bulb. What experts you may ask? How about interior designers who tend to be the most critical about the color of things.

4) LUX, it's NOT YOUR PLANET. It's OUR planet. You know what, I do believe you should be free to pretty much do whatever you want as long as it does not either directly or indirectly impact me. Unfortunately, you don't seem to be able to think big enough to realize every time you turn on a light, take your 30 minute shower, etc. it does effect me. Pollution and CO2 knows no boundaries. It's just like smoking. IT IS NOT UP TO YOU TO DECIDE FOR ME WHETHER SMOKING BOTHERS ME. THAT IS UP TO ME. I, and others like me have decided we don't want your excessive CO2 and coal related pollution and green house gases. When you stop dumping crap into the atmosphere for your excesses then I will stop caring.

5) I will say it is a typical 1% response to try to take the easy way out and blame such nebulous things as escalating energy prices for unemployment. (For the record, I am part of that nasty 1% as well). However, you and I know that is bull. Unemployment in the U.S. comes almost exclusively from one thing and one thing only. Off shoring of jobs and the related general greed to have something for nothing including you having a $200 TV and your neighbor no job. This situation has been made even worse by government and general public excesses that had us in the west living well beyond our collective means for the last 30-40 years and now faced with paying that back and hence even less money flowing in the economy to pay that back ...... yes, yes I know, Obama created that complete situation in the last 3 1/2 years. I am not sure how gas prices even came into play in this whole argument? What the heck does fast growing demand in China and India and a lack of financial controls allowing speculation have to do with pollution from light bulbs? 

I have managed many a people in my career and if it is one thing I have learned about the vast majority of people, some quite smart, is that they are not focused on long term results, but short term gains. It's the whole "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" mentality. That may be true for hunting quail, but it is not true for smart investing, whether that is financial investment or investing in the future of our planet. People WILL NOT make the right long term decisions until it is painfully obvious what that decision is in many cases. There are times, i.e. CRT versus LCD, CD versus turntable where it really did not matter to anyone but the purchaser when or if the change was made. Energy efficiency, whether it is bulbs, air conditioners, etc. do matter. There are real and significant social benefits towards driving higher efficiency. Joe Public is not only thinking just about himself, but thinking just about himself over the next month, 3 months perhaps, not 3 years, or 10 years. That is why we have government ultimately ... big picture stuff when it really comes down to it.

Let's get back to your argument about people about people not eating, trips, etc. by being forced to spend more. Well in theory, if they are spending more money in one area, that should drive down the price of others things. If fuel prices are going up, then the price of houses and mortgages should go down. In some ways that is exactly what happened in the U.S., though most of that was unviable loans. I could argue that in a TRUE supply and demand environment, that this is exactly what will happen. However, as soon as you have "speculators", or perhaps we should call them "investors" to soften the blow, or the 1% to make the leftists happy, then that TRUE supply and demand situation does not happen. You now have a manipulated market where the people with the money, not the actual consumers and supply/demand curve have control over the pricing. Yes, eventually even this can and does fall down like a big house of cards as it did recently, but we know who took it on the chin for the bailouts.

P.S. when you are reading the Wall Street Journal, perhaps you should actually check their facts and what they mean. That addition to generation is PEAK generation. That is capacity, that IS NOT how much power will be generated by new sources. Hence that chart is highly distorted. Natural Gas plants will mainly be used for peak power, not base load. As you know, wind cannot be base load and with exception either are other renewables. That will fall on coal and nuclear with will run 24 hours a day flat out in most cases.

To the person who complained about all the metal halides in parking lots, yes at first glance they seem terrible and yes the **** me off. However, keep in mind, parking lot = 1fc /10 lux. Interior is likely 20Fc/200lux. The interior lighting for whatever that parking lot is for is using way more power.

Advertising ... yup, hate that too, but in the big scheme of things, not as much as one would think. A couple 100W incans uses as much power as a couple of 100W metal halide advertising lights (and yes I know some are bigger).

I know that residential lighting is not the be all and end all of energy and environment saving, but at the end of the day, it is low hanging fruit. Let's face it, it is virtually no "burden" to use other sources of light. Maybe the light is not "perfect", but it is good enough. Hell I would love to drive 90 in 50 zones all the time to get where I want to go faster, but I can't ...... For the same reasons ... it impacts others negatively.

As much as I believe in most of the fundamentals of capitalism, capitalism and the concept of I WANT, are not the be all and end all and have their place, but that place is not everywhere. Unchecked capitalism, as has often been shown, fails miserably, almost as bad as unchecked socialism. I not a fan of rampant socialism either. Capitalism and market forces do not solve all issues in the most efficient fashion. By the pure nature of our financial systems and stock market, capitalism is best at solving short term problems, not long term problems. ROI is measured in years, not decades.

It is just that issue that creates many issues that we are facing. When a company is looking at a 3 year window, it is much easier to outsource production to a cheap labor country versus the long term investments in engineering, process, machinery, etc. to keep manufacturing domestically. Outsourcing creates short term profits. Over time though, it creates competitors. It also shifts wealth away from intended customers to other areas who are better served by your new competitors. It potentially reduces your long term competitiveness as knowledge and knowledge growth is lost, etc. On the surface, there will appear to be a net wealth growth, as is (was?) seen in the U.S., but this growth will be concentrated in a smaller and smaller percentage of the population erasing decades if not 100's of years of social growth and ultimately the foundations on what some western democracies were founded (i.e. power to the people). 

Frankly, I don't live in the U.S. so I don't give a damn whether you eliminate 30% of your Federal government, though I would gladly eliminate 30% of mine though current our provincial (state equivalent) government is my bigger issue. However, just like you talking about advertising, etc., etc., this is just more passing of the buck and not taking any personal responsibility for the issue. LUX, that is at the end of the day what I want you to bloody well to. Stop passing the buck and making excuses and bloody well take some personal responsibility for the state of the planet. If it just like stealing music, rioting, etc. Just because everyone else is doing it does not make it okay.

Ok, enough of my soapbox, I need sleep.

Semiman


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## flashflood (Mar 21, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



SemiMan said:


> Unchecked capitalism, as has often been shown, fails miserably, almost as bad as unchecked socialism.



Hmmm... I'm open to your argument, but I'm struggling to think of an example. I certainly agree that _crony_ capitalism fails miserably, but crony capitalism isn't capitalism at all -- it's feudalism by another name. Can you think of a case where a truly free market, undistorted by government intervention, catastrophically failed? I don't mean just the ordinary boom/bust cycles, I mean a case where free markets took a country to oblivion (i.e. revolution). I can easily list dozens of countries taken down by socialism/communism just in the last century, but I can't think of one taken down by free markets. Any examples come to mind?

I would also note that, historically, the worst pollution has been committed by state-run economies. In an ideal world you have healthy competition between businesses, which will gladly externalize their costs, and the government, which won't let them. Modestly regulated free markets approximate that ideal. By contrast, highly regulated or centrally planned markets are run, regulated, and exploited by the same people, so it should be no surprise that they become corrupt and cease to serve either their customers or the public interest. If you want a cleaner planet, the first step is to make it a freer planet.


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## SemiMan (Mar 21, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

First off I did note I am a capitalist. I am not a socialist and stand my Maggies stattement that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of others peoples money to spend. 

I think I could argue though that social democracies are the least polluting on avergage. Let's hope the U.S. Does not default as well.

Love Canal, even health costs from cigarettes could be viewed as capitalist failures. Keep in mind, I defined capitalism as small picture and government as bigger picture.

Another potential capitalist failure .... Average US vehicle fuel economy and how currently damaging that is. 

The issue with most of your comments though is that you defined socialism as goverment intervention and it is not. Socialism is direct government spending. I am not advocating that. I am advocating government controls ... As there always has been, to common for the good of all goals. Capitalism can and does work effectively in that framework today. Any number of safety and security issues comes to mind. Environment is both.

Semiman


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## alpg88 (Mar 21, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

why did they need a waiver from doe???? rough service bulb fall under special bulb caregory that was exempt from the ban in the first place?? 

In December 2007, the federal government enacted the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which contains maximum wattage requirements for all general service incandescent lamps producing from 310–2600 lumens of light.[39]​ However, these regulations never became law, as another section of the 2007 EISA bill overwrites them, and thus, current law, as specified in the U.S. Code, "does not relate to maximum wattage requirements."[40]​
The efficiency standards will start with 100-watt bulbs and end with 40-watt bulbs. The timeline for these standards was to start in January 2012, but on December 16, 2011, the U.S. House passed the final 2012 budget legislation, which effectively delayed the implementation until October 2012.[41]​
Light bulbs outside of this range are exempt from the restrictions. *Also exempt are several classes of specialty lights, including appliance lamps, rough service bulbs, 3-way, colored lamps, stage lighting, and plant lights*.


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## Hooked on Fenix (May 27, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

While you guys are on the topic of banned bulbs, I thought I'd point this out to you: http://www.connexions.com/t12-phase-out. Apparently, the government isn't going to stop at banning regular bulbs. Nope. They're moving on to florescents, starting with T-12s and some T-8s being banned on July 14, 2012, about a month and a half away. The article I read stated that nearly 30% of all florescents sold in the U.S. are T-12s. This means that anyone with a T-12 fixture will have to replace the fixtures to more expensive T-8 or T-5. How much do you think this will affect business across America? When is this insanity going to end? These bulbs are selling because they are cheap. All these bans do is make the cost of doing business skyrocket in the U.S. when the economy is failing. Why can't the American people have the choice? Let the free market work and people will make the best choice for themselves. Any outdated technology will go away when people naturally move on to newer and better technology and companies stop making products simply because no one buys them anymore. When people can afford to make the switch to something better, they will. Apparently, when you can afford to just isn't fast enough for the government (who can't live within their own means). How is this environmentally friendly? 30% of all florescent fixtures in the U.S. will have to be disposed of, well before they stop working. This will be just like Cash of Clunkers. What a waste. Rant off.

I am glad to see some companies still being able to make their product despite the ban. However, having to get permission from the government, that depends on you for revenue, to continue to make your product legally is like a dog biting the hand that feeds it while expecting filet mignon the next time it's fed.


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## idleprocess (May 28, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



Hooked on Fenix said:


> While you guys are on the topic of banned bulbs, I thought I'd point this out to you: http://www.connexions.com/t12-phase-out.


The _commercial_ you linked doesn't substantiate its claim. 40/60/100W incandescents are still on the market in spite of the ban supposedly taking effect at the beginning of this year, so it's hard to imagine how immensely-more-efficient T12's are going to be banned.

Given that the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 sets targets for lumens-per-watt for general lighting which T12's should handily meet (assuming they fall within the categories in the legislation to begin with), it's hard to envision how they're being banned. Perhaps manufacturers have lost interest in the declining market for T12's and are simply dropping their lines? As best I can tell, businesses - the biggest market for floros - haven't been buying T12 fixtures for some time given the overall superior performance of T8 & T5 floros.



> These bulbs are selling because they are cheap. ... All these bans do is make the cost of doing business skyrocket in the U.S.


If *cost* were truly the concern that some many claim, a simple ROI calculation would reveal that the operating costs for a $0.50 incandescent will greatly exceed its purchase cost by orders of magnitude (At $0.10 / kWH over 5000 hours it costs $30 to run a 60W incandescent). Also, last time I shopped fixtures, bare-bones T8's with electronic ballasts were fairly competitively priced relative to similar T12's ... the modest price difference being compensated by the increase in efficiency and longevity.

I suspect that the real issue with incandescents is not _cost_, but rather _personal preference_ ... which is fine, but I wish that people would just admit as much.

Of course, I can't remember the last time I saw an Edison-socket incandescent used in a business - all the incandescents I've seen used in business are specialty types exempt from legislation.


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## alpg88 (May 28, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

yea, t12 are being phased out too, it is getting harder and harder to get those, i,m not even talking about ballast, that is even harder to find than bulbs, at my work we have to relapm 100000sqft of space, but no need to replace fixtures, ballast and sockets are all you need to swap to make t12 fixture work with t8 or t5 bulbs. 
but depending on electrician labor, parts cost it might be cheaper to buy\install entire new fixture, electrical companies will be happy to sell new fixtures, and make money on them and labor, think of energy needed to recycle those old fixtures. 
i personalty think it has nothing to do with saving energy, and everything to do with money. one hand washes the other.


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## idleprocess (May 28, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

I've found hints at some DoE fiat driving this, but it's downright baffling. I seem to recall that better 40W T12's hit around 80 lm/W while better T8's get as high as 100 lm/W - a lot of expense for not a lot of gain. As-is, the markets would have moved away from T12 as the fixtures wear out.

Curious how my workplace is going to manage this transition with its thousands of triple T12 fixtures...

_EDIT: Found the DoE brief. They're calling for crazy efficiency standards..._


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## Hooked on Fenix (May 29, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



idleprocess said:


> I've found hints at some DoE fiat driving this, but it's downright baffling. I seem to recall that better 40W T12's hit around 80 lm/W while better T8's get as high as 100 lm/W - a lot of expense for not a lot of gain. As-is, the markets would have moved away from T12 as the fixtures wear out.
> 
> Curious how my workplace is going to manage this transition with its thousands of triple T12 fixtures...
> 
> _EDIT: Found the DoE brief. They're calling for crazy efficiency standards..._



Don't worry. They'll probably pay for the upgrades by laying off some people. Oh wait...


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## oldwesty4ever (May 30, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Nope, T-12s are not really being phased out. The DOE exempts lamps with a CRI of 87 or greater. So colors such as Cool White Deluxe, etc will continue to be available and also 90 CRI triphosphor lamps are coming out. The news about T-12s being phased out really is nothing more than conspiracy.


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## idleprocess (May 30, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



oldwesty4ever said:


> Nope, T-12s are not really being phased out. The DOE exempts lamps with a CRI of 87 or greater. So colors such as Cool White Deluxe, etc will continue to be available and also 90 CRI triphosphor lamps are coming out. The news about T-12s being phased out really is nothing more than conspiracy.



OK, I see where this is going. The DoE brief rattles off the first table specifying minimum standards of 89 and 88 lm/w for <4500K and >4500K 48" bi-pin tubes - respectively - on the basis of lamp category, color temperature, and minimum efficiency. It then lists current standards (as of March 2011) on the basis of lamp type, wattage, CRI, and minimum efficiency. The _very last exception_ to "General Service Florescent Lamp" is a lamp with CRI >= 87.

So the net effect of this will be the less-efficient low-CRI lamps are off the market while high-CRI lamps of pretty much any efficiency are still sold. Perhaps I'll buy a box of tubes for the T12 fixtures I've still got around that are destined to be installed in the attic and used perhaps 4-6 times a year.


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## blasterman (May 30, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



> I suspect that the real issue with incandescents is not _cost_, but rather _personal preference_



+100.

The real goofy thing in all of this is that residential lighting costs have little relative impact on domestic energy consumption or grid load. Certainly not even in the same ball park as air conditioning. Given over all population shifts to more southern and western states the entire incan thing has me scratching my head. As you previously pointed out, commercial entities already use tubes or halides. If you have a McMansion with 200 down lights and a 75watt incan in each one and live in Alabama you probably spend as much money cooling them as anything else.



> I seem to recall that better 40W T12's hit around 80 lm/W while better T8's get as high as 100 lm/W



Dept of Energy uses 79lm/W as a benchmark, which is typical of most commercial class fluorescent fixtures running silvered (not white) reflectors. I've seem some T5 based fixtures using very exotic reflectors claim 100 lm/W, but that's a tough mark to hit given tube stability and strikeback. Obviously if you wait for tubes to start flickering and dying you're not getting anywhere near 80 lm/W.

Seen a lot of white papers that last year or so that claim that fluorescent tubes are made cheaper than the they should be, and if minor changes were made to the cathodes and anodes the lifespan of tubes could be tripled and efficacy could be increased. However, tube makers want product turnover, so cathode/anode materials are designed to fail and be as cheap as possible. 

79 lm/W is still a tough mark to hit for LED fixtures, and there are only a handfull of LED fixtures that break that barrier.


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## oldwesty4ever (May 30, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



blasterman said:


> +100.
> 
> "The real goofy thing in all of this is that residential lighting costs have little relative impact on domestic energy consumption or grid load. Certainly not even in the same ball park as air conditioning. Given over all population shifts to more southern and western states the entire incan thing has me scratching my head. As you previously pointed out, commercial entities already use tubes or halides. If you have a McMansion with 200 down lights and a 75watt incan in each one and live in Alabama you probably spend as much money cooling them as anything else."
> 
> ...


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## idleprocess (May 30, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



blasterman said:


> The real goofy thing in all of this is that residential lighting costs have little relative impact on domestic energy consumption or grid load. Certainly not even in the same ball park as air conditioning. Given over all population shifts to more southern and western states the entire incan thing has me scratching my head.


I vaguely remember reading somewhere that for all the ire that heavy air-conditioning use attracts, it uses appreciably less gross energy than home heating in colder climates ... which can only be done effectively by burning hydrocarbons.



> Dept of Energy uses 79lm/W as a benchmark, which is typical of most commercial class fluorescent fixtures running silvered (not white) reflectors. I've seem some T5 based fixtures using very exotic reflectors claim 100 lm/W, but that's a tough mark to hit given tube stability and strikeback. Obviously if you wait for tubes to start flickering and dying you're not getting anywhere near 80 lm/W.


I was thinking ideal "bulb lumens" rather than "out the fixture lumens".



> Seen a lot of white papers that last year or so that claim that fluorescent tubes are made cheaper than the they should be, and if minor changes were made to the cathodes and anodes the lifespan of tubes could be tripled and efficacy could be increased. However, tube makers want product turnover, so cathode/anode materials are designed to fail and be as cheap as possible.


So long as they hit their ~10k lifespans and do so as cheaply as possible, the buying public doesn't really seem to care.



> 79 lm/W is still a tough mark to hit for LED fixtures, and there are only a handfull of LED fixtures that break that barrier.


LED fixtures are designed conservatively with LED ruggedness in mind so they can hit their ~25k hours warranties, which means more "mature" chips with lower efficiencies than the latest uber-chip being crowed in the latest press release and also excludes the latest wunder-chip that DX is using in their latest 2000"lm" / 5"W" flashlight _(scare-quotes added quite deliberately)_.

Will be a while until LED fixtures are hitting 100 lm/W, but I see it happening in another year or so.



Such unrealistic standards for floro of all things and the 87 CRI loophole is probably large enough for a steady stream of containerships to pass through.


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## idleprocess (May 30, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



oldwesty4ever said:


> Here in Southern California most people told me they absolutely got no savings after fitting their whole houses with CFLs. The claimed energy savings for most households is exaggerated really. You will need to have large installations used a lot in order to see a difference in the bill.



The savings are there - even with the sub-1.0 power factor of CFL's - just that the lighting load on most residences is a fraction of other major loads (like appliances and climate control) and the savings may be lost in usage fluctuations of the major loads.

Savings will be more visible via things like replacing old appliances with more efficient ones or better insulation even if the theoretical ROI is about the same.


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## alpg88 (May 31, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



oldwesty4ever said:


> The news about T-12s being phased out really is nothing more than conspiracy.


 defiantly not conspiracy, but fact. anyone in construction\building maintenance business will tell you that.


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## blasterman (May 31, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



> So long as they hit their ~10k lifespans and do so as cheaply as possible, the buying public doesn't really seem to care.



Hmmm, more like the buying public has been 'cowed' into accepting the lifespans relative to other fixtures I would guess. Re-lamping constitutes most of the cost in the commercial sector (biggest cost drive for LED street lights as well). I've seen long life T8 tubes advertised as high as 40k hours, and obviously the price is higher :thumbsup:

Not that I'm huge fan of fluorescent, but just that the technology hasn't been fully utilized. I work for a few places that have been using cheaper brand LED retrofits (much to my disagreement) and failure rates are running higher than CFL.


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## idleprocess (May 31, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



blasterman said:


> Re-lamping constitutes most of the cost in the commercial sector (biggest cost drive for LED street lights as well).



Oh sure - electrical contractors probably charge a multiple of the tube cost to swap it ... but since it's a task that's often as not performed by a contractor who supplies whatever tubes he can source for the cheapest, there's a convenient bit of self-interest there that happens to coincide with the lamp manufacturers. Seeing the building management periodically herd electrical contractors around my workplace, it's pretty apparent that they're scraping the bottom of the barrel for their multiple-choice lamp selections.

Funny, it would almost seem more cost-effective to have _employees of the company_ do it after some mulling over of the options ... but that apply the harsh light of reality to the simplistic dogma of "contracting is always cheaper!"


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## Bullzeyebill (Jun 10, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*

Moving this to the Cafe. This thread is more editorial/opionated than a discussion about fixed lighting per se.

Bill


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## cdrake261 (Jun 11, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



LuxLuthor said:


> Gotta love American ingenuity.....heard about this listening to Rush today here who interviewed the owner and new advertiser of his show.
> 
> Basically, the "heavy duty" long life bulbs (lasting 10,000 hrs) are in a separate category called "Rough Duty" that were not the "General Use" ones banned by the bogus green energy law. These were the only ones worth buying in the first place, since they last 7 years if you use them an average of 4 hours every day. I had stocked up on a boatload of the 20,000 life bulbs that were made in China.
> 
> ...



What can you say, he's a bright guy!


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## LuxLuthor (Jun 22, 2012)

*Re: New USA Company Making "Banned" Lightbulbs After Getting Waiver from DOE*



SemiMan said:


> Lux, time for some education for you [clipped in the interest of brevity]



You made some good points. I don't want to spend the time answering all of them since it won't make any difference to either of us anyway. 

I did want to post this interesting story that showed up on today's Drudge Report, given his stature. http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel


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