Let There Be Energy-Efficient Light
Posted on July 1, 2009 by
For all the controversy surrounding it and complex plans used to preserve it, sometimes the environment is simple. Not every conservation measure has to be as complicated as climate change bills or alternative fuels. Sometimes, it’s as simple as a light bulb.
President Obama’s energy secretary, Steven Chu, is working on developing tougher efficiency standards for light bulbs. According to a statement given by the president at the White House, lighting makes up 7 percent of all energy consumed in America. With stricter efficiency standards, we could save $4 billion per year by 2022.
If you’ve not already placed all the bulbs in your home with energy-efficient CFL bulbs, please take the time to do so. It’s a simple, inexpensive way to significantly decrease the amount of energy you’re consuming, and you’re not only helping the planet, you’re helping your wallet as well.
Certainly energy saving is good for peopkle in saving money – but should they be forced into it?
All lighting devices have advantages, and give out different types of light: none should be banned.
While ordinary light bulbs use more energy,
they are quickly responding with a broad spectrum bright light and their heat isn’t necessarily a waste.
“We save lots of energy”,
the president says.
That is as said only from banning what people actually want to buy, and can be questioned
from several viewpoints including that many household lights aren’t used that often
(price v usage cost), that fluorescents use more energy than supposed for equivalent bright light, and that extensive hoarding
and/or illegal imports will impact on savings.
America doesn’t need to save on electricity, there are plenty of energy sources and no oil import is used for electricity.
“We save lots of emissions”,
the president says.
Certainly it’s good to lower fossil fuel emissions for all that’s in them,
whatever about carbon dioxide and the effect of lowering them on global warming.
But light bulbs don’t give out any gases.
Power stations might not either, whereby
the unfairness for emission-free households
not to be allowed to use the lights they obviously want – for example in California and some East Coast states, where around half
of electricity delivered is free of emissions.
Emissions of all kinds will increasingly be dealt with anyway as planned with cleaner coal or energy substitution
(coal power which already is decreasing rapidly in mercury emissions, from the use of new processing technology as shown by
Government EPA data).
Note the irony of promoting high-energy high-emission mercury containing fluorescent lights from unregulated coal-powered China
with added intercontinental transport emissions and recycling emissions, compared with promoting local American jobs in low-energy
low-emission simple safe Edison light bulb making factories.
Allie, we do need to think of the environment,
but we could think more positively about it and deal with it directly – nearly everything has a beauty and a use, including the traditional light bulb…
I have not rplaced all the bulbs in my house because throwing out the existing bulbs seems like it would not help the situation. I have bought only energy efficient bulbs to replace as current bulbs burn out.
The price of fluorescent bulbs have come down so low that they are comparable to traditional incandescent bulbs. Yet people are still resisting the move.
Some cite personal liberties. Why should they be forced to switch? If they can afford to pay the electrical bill and want to use incandescent then they ought to be allowed to. That’s what we do with cars, right? If I can afford to buy a gas guzzling SUV then I must be able to afford to buy the gas that goes with it. Celebrities feel no guilt driving around in custom painted Bentley automobiles so why should we worry about our Suburbans? The same argument can be transferred to light bulbs.
Second, fluorescent light bulbs contain a lot of nasty chemicals. If you break an incandescent then you simply sweep up the shards and throw them in the trash. But, if you break a fluorescent then you probably dumped enough mercury and phosphorus on the floor to legally warrant an EPA disaster. This also means that you can’t just throw them away in the trash once they reach the end of their life. Those chemicals then end up in our landfills and pollute the soil. Consider also the manufacturing behind them. All manufacturing processes leave an environmental footprint. Almost every low cost fluorescent bulb sold the US is made in China and, believe me, the Chinese don’t give a hoot about the environment. Remember all the ballyhoo about the poor air quality in China during the Olympics?
In some sense, we’re simply shifting the footprint from something we pay attention to and are directly affect by (i.e. the monthly electric bill) to something we don’t think about (i.e. dirty manufacturing, toxic chemicals, etc). Metrics drive behavior but we have to think and wonder if it’s the right behavior. Modern power plants, even some coal plants, are extremely clean compared to what they used to be. With the rise in wind and solar power, energy is slowly becoming cleaner.
Don’t get me wrong… I love fluorescent bulbs and their energy efficiency. My house is outfitted with them top to bottom, left to right. I’m OK with China turning into an environmental wasteland if it brings my monthly bill down. Our culture, and our leaders, encourages it. Everything is a compromise. It’s just a matter of what you are willing to give up.
Honestly, I think the real future of lighting will be LED based. Solid state lighting is available now but it is very expensive in terms of $$/lumens. The price is coming down and will probably follow the way of fluorescent bulbs. Incandescent bulbs will certainly have their place where a broad spectrum of light (fluorescent bulbs give off a “blue” light) or sheer power (stage lights) is required.
Boris,
sure, LED lamps are on the way….
If they are good, people will buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (little point).
If they are not good, people will not buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (no point, since they are preferred today).
———–
About that people might not buy CFls cause they are/were more expensive…
Consumers don’t avoid products only because they are expensive – or no other expensive products would be sold.
Nor do they keep buying cheap but poor products.
There are – for example- well known batteries and washing up liquids that are expensive but sell well because they “last longer”
- as they show in their advertising.
Fluorescent light manufacturers and distributors seem happy to let governments promote their case,
and happy that they ban the lights that people are buying, so that the fluorescent (and/or LED) light manufacturers can win market share
- so why should they bother making better products and advertise them?
They can clean up the market and charge what they like when those cheap competing ordinary light bulb rivals that are keeping down prices have gone….
I have to say that I don’t think there’s beauty in inefficient technology that costs us dearly in energy usage, without providing any real advantage.
Also, we’ve talked about the mercury levels in CFLs before. The mercury levels are very low, and there are easy ways of safely dealing with a broken bulb – http://thegreenists.com/home-care/cfl-disposal/577
And, I’m not sure I see “developing tougher efficiency standards for light bulbs” as a ban. We have tougher emissions standards on automobiles than we did 20 years ago, but that doesn’t mean we’ve banned gasoline engines. Higher standards inspire innovation, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.