Banning Incandescent Light Bulbs?

[JudeBrando]

I agree with you on the free part, but not the reasonable part. Markets can be incredibly stupid at times. Witness the economic meltdown of 2008.

At some point a failure to regulate markets and industry will turn into a tragedy of the commons, and we all lose.

There were no unreasonable or otherwise unacceptable forces at work in influencing the incandescent lightbulb market..

dammit...

Not you, necessarily, but..

Why must some people justify a government bureaucratic involvement and interference in everything as if they, the Politicians, know better than everyone in everything always and must therefore be involved in everything because of their obviously inherent superiority? I don't buy it but, eventually and inevitably, they persuade most everyone most of the time.

Who passed what, when and at whose lobbying instigation and insistence? Who has profited? Who continues the advocacy and why?

The questions never end and the truth never matters most anymore.

 

[Bri]

That's a made up presumption and in my case completely false. We got nuclear here. the differential in environmental impact here from eco-fascist preferred light bulbs would be exactly, precisely, ZERO.

Do the nuclear power plants in your area create nuclear waste?

-Bri

 

[tyr_13]

There are and were no unreasonable or otherwise unacceptable forces at work in influencing the incandescent lightbulb market..

dammit...

Not you, necessarily, but..

Why must some people justify a government bureaucratic involvement and interference in everything as if they, the Politicians, know better than everyone in everything always and must therefore be involved in everything because of their obviously inherent superiority. I don't buy it but, inevitably and eventually, they persuade most of you most of the time.

Because of a lot of the time the market behaves irrationally. Look at all the crazy wrong reasons for sticking to incandescent bulbs in this thread alone, and the spin that this is in fact a ban on incandescent lights.

There are things which the market doesn't have forces to correct for, and problems for which the best solution is governmental interference. Obviously this is not always the case, but it certainly is with things like, oh, lead based paint, asbestos, and in fact most safety and efficiency standards.

One can argue if this standard is necessary or useful without suggesting that all such standards are or are not.

Politicians do things for a number of reasons, but that doesn't always mean they don't know what they are talking about. In this case it appears they are listening to what many, many energy experts are saying in order to deal with energy problems. Sure, people can argue that there are better ways to deal with that problem, but that doesn't mean there is no problem it's meant to help address.

The line of reasoning, 'they are politicians, they must not now better than 'everyone' (and I note that 'everyone' seems to be a few vocal people)' is basically an ad hom. Of course the opposite line of reasoning is just as invalid, but no one is making that argument.

I'm frankly amused that it appears that the same people for warrentless wire tapping and the like, freedoms be damned, are so against something as simple as efficiency standards for freaking light bulbs because it's contrary to 'freedom'.

 

[Bri]

If you want to try to use that analogy, you need to address the AMOUNT of energy used, not the particular uses it's put to. And this law does nothing in that regard. I'm still just as free to use just as much electricity as before. What I use electricity for is no skin off your nose.

I must be misunderstanding your argument here. How would the average person not use less electricity overall with energy efficient light bulbs compared to the electricity they would have used with the less efficient old incandescents?

-Bri

 

[Muldur]

Taxes are a necessary evil, but they are an evil nonetheless.

As a quick aside, this is nonsense. taxes are the means by which we pay for the gov't to do the things we tell it we want done. They are therefore nothing more than payment for services rendered, and NOT "evil".

As for getting high, well, with something like pot, we really SHOULDN'T be denying it. Just like we don't deny people from getting drunk. Harder drugs are a more difficult call, but in any case the drug war hardly provides an inspiring example of the benefits and effectiveness of government regulations.

We've never really fought a "drug war"...if we did it would have been settled a long time ago with the last of the narco lords dead at the hands of the US military.

In terms of light bulbs, the public harm you seek to avoid is using too much energy. But banning incandescent light bulbs doesn't even guarantee that result, because energy consumption is determined not only by the appliance, but by usage patterns.

Nonsense. I use my CFBs no differently than I used my incandescents. I turn them on when I want light and off when I don't. Those patterns haven't changed just because I changed bulbs.

Surely you would balk at government dictates on usage patterns, so why do you not balk at government dictates on the appliance itself?

Because it is a silly, slippery slope fallacy.

 

[Ziggurat]

As a quick aside, this is nonsense. taxes are the means by which we pay for the gov't to do the things we tell it we want done. They are therefore nothing more than payment for services rendered, and NOT "evil".

That is wrong on every count. Taxes are not levied in proportion to services received. In many cases, such differences are an intended consequence of the tax structure and not simply incidental. Furthermore, while the voters in toto may have determined what they want government to do and what to charge, *I* sure as hell can't decide what services government provids or what I should pay for those services, which makes it entirely unlike a market transaction. You seem to be ignoring the rather central role that coercion plays. Payments for services rendered in the private market are not coerced. If I don't want to pay for a service, I simply don't get it. But I have no choice with taxes. I can't opt out of government services in exchange for paying no taxes. Coercion is what makes taxation an evil, and while I can see no method of avoiding this evil (as in, it's a lesser evil than the alternatives), it is an evil nonetheless.

We've never really fought a "drug war"

Your objection to a commonly used term is purely a semantic issue, and has no bearing on the substance of my argument.

Nonsense. I use my CFBs no differently than I used my incandescents. I turn them on when I want light and off when I don't. Those patterns haven't changed just because I changed bulbs.

And everyone else behaves just like you? That's not a safe assumption.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

That is wrong on every count. Taxes are not levied in proportion to services received. In many cases, such differences are an intended consequence of the tax structure and not simply incidental. Furthermore, while the voters in toto may have determined what they want government to do and what to charge, *I* sure as hell can't decide what services government provids or what I should pay for those services, which makes it entirely unlike a market transaction. You seem to be ignoring the rather central role that coercion plays. Payments for services rendered in the private market are not coerced. If I don't want to pay for a service, I simply don't get it. But I have no choice with taxes. I can't opt out of government services in exchange for paying no taxes. Coercion is what makes taxation an evil, and while I can see no method of avoiding this evil (as in, it's a lesser evil than the alternatives), it is an evil nonetheless.

...

 

[mhaze]

Do the nuclear power plants in your area create nuclear waste?

-Bri

If you have a point, why not just make it.

 

[DC]

If you have a point, why not just make it.

you know his point, that is why you did not answer the question.

 

[666]

Okay, you didn't get it. With a true incadescnet on a dimmer (not one like a halogen which depends on photon emission by the gas, or a fluorescent in which even if "dimmed" the color temp is constant) the color temperature is selected with the dimmer.

Sorry for this slight derail from the good-natured discussion going on. I didn't realise that this process was involved. I thought that the presence of the gas was primarily concerned with increasing the life and the operating temperature of the filament. Have I got it wrong?

 

[Bri]

666, I believe you are correct. A halogen incandescent bulb should also change to a warmer color temperature as it dims.

LED bulbs have a constant color temperature when dimmed, but there are LED bulbs which can change color (I believe they have red, green, and blue diodes built in). LED's cannot be dimmed using a standard dimmer, however some LED bulbs have the dimmer built into the base of the bulb. These are sold with a remote control that can be used to change the color and the lumen output.

-Bri

 

[mhaze]

Sorry for this slight derail from the good-natured discussion going on. I didn't realise that this process was involved. I thought that the presence of the gas was primarily concerned with increasing the life and the operating temperature of the filament. Have I got it wrong?

impossible that it does not when gaseous tungsten is involved, but at filament temps lower hence dim I think u are dealing with softer or some yellow. I will check later I have some halogens on dimmers.

I think at the far dimmed range you have some yellow then it rapidly shifts to bring harsh white.

That bright, harsh white from halogens is IMHO their main disadvantage.

 

[mhaze]

you know his point, that is why you did not answer the question.

I know of about four things that might be his point.

 

[mhaze]

.....
Nonsense. I use my CFBs no differently than I used my incandescents. I turn them on when I want light and off when I don't. Those patterns haven't changed just because I changed bulbs.

.

mine have in part. Exterior led lighting I do not bother to turn off ever.

 

[elgarak]

impossible that it does not when gaseous tungsten is involved, but at filament temps lower hence dim I think u are dealing with softer or some yellow. I will check later I have some halogens on dimmers.

That bright, harsh white from halogens is IMHO their main disadvantage.

Halogen lightbulbs are pure incandescents. You have a hot tungsten filament, and that's the only source of light.

Some of the tungsten evaporates from the filaments in all incandescents. That limits the temperature achievable at the filament and thereby light output, and eventually rips the filament and ends the bulbs life. In halogens, the halogens react chemically with the tungsten deposited on the (relatively) cool glass wall. The halogen-tungsten gas then splits up again at the hot filament, depositing tungsten there. The halogen gas allows the bulb to be driven harder and produce more light, and extents the life of the bulb. It has NOTHING to do with light production.

Halogen light bulbs can be dimmed, but that reduces the temperature of the filament. If the filament is too cool, the splitting up of the tungsten-halogen gas at the filament does not work anymore. As such, you'll destroy the main advantage of halogens over normal incandescents when dimming.

 

[Bri]

I know of about four things that might be his point.

What are they?

I was responding to this:

The differential in environmental impact here from eco-fascist preferred light bulbs would be exactly, precisely, ZERO.​

Obviously there are environmental impacts from using more electricity even if you got 100% of your energy from nuclear power (which you don't).

-Bri

 

[666]

A halogen incandescent bulb should also change to a warmer color temperature as it dims.

Mine certainly do change from a bright almost-white to a dim yellow-orange, as far as I can tell with my uncalibrated eyes.

 

[mhaze]

What are they?

I was responding to this:

The differential in environmental impact here from eco-fascist preferred light bulbs would be exactly, precisely, ZERO.​

Obviously there are environmental impacts from using more electricity even if you got 100% of your energy from nuclear power (which you don't).

-Bri

Kindly look back at my following post which compared a 150 watt pure incandescent driven by 60% contracted nuclear power with a 60 watt bulb driven off of coal.

And sorry to say this, but environmental lobbies have a long string of failures on "getting things right" with respect to the bolded part. Some of us have developed a very, very healthy skepticism with respect to claims of these sorts. EG paper vs styrofoam containers, DDT, landfills, endangered species of the ridiculous kind, cow farts, CFL bulbs...

Wait...that last one...we are discussing it!

 

[mhaze]

Halogen lightbulbs are pure incandescents. You have a hot tungsten filament, and that's the only source of light.

Some of the tungsten evaporates from the filaments in all incandescents. That limits the temperature achievable at the filament and thereby light output, and eventually rips the filament and ends the bulbs life. In halogens, the halogens react chemically with the tungsten deposited on the (relatively) cool glass wall. The halogen-tungsten gas then splits up again at the hot filament, depositing tungsten there. The halogen gas allows the bulb to be driven harder and produce more light, and extents the life of the bulb. It has NOTHING to do with light production.

Halogen light bulbs can be dimmed, but that reduces the temperature of the filament. If the filament is too cool, the splitting up of the tungsten-halogen gas at the filament does not work anymore. As such, you'll destroy the main advantage of halogens over normal incandescents when dimming.

I'm not sure we disagree much, but there is not any way a gas of this temperature does not actively emit boatloads of photons. As compared to hot metal.

Good refererence:

http://www.lowel.com/edu/color_temperature_and_rendering_demystified.html

 

[elgarak]

I'm not sure we disagree much, but there is not any way a gas of this temperature does not actively emit boatloads of photons. As compared to hot metal.

Good refererence:

http://www.lowel.com/edu/color_temperature_and_rendering_demystified.html

I fail to see where the link says anything about where the light comes from.

Nevertheless, the temperature of the filament is not high enough to excite gas molecules to emit visible light. If I didn't screw up my math too much, in order to excite a molecule high enough so that it can emit a photon of 530 nm (nice green), you would need about 18,000 K. The filament is not THAT hot ... (A small part of the filament's spectrum is THAt hot. The part that we see as visible light. But that's only about 5-10% of the whole. The vast majority is in the lower energetic infrared ... waste heat)

If you start a gas discharge (with electrodes a bit apart and a high voltage between them), yes, then the light comes from the gas molecules. Such lamps are commonly called HID (High Intensity Discharge) when they use halogen (salts). If they use mercury, they're FLs or CFLs.

A standard tungsten-halogen bulb is still incandescent, and the light comes from the filament. The higher color temperature is solely an effect of the filament being driven harder and thus being hotter than a standard incandescent.

A halogen lamp, also known as a tungsten halogen lamp, is an incandescent lamp with a tungsten filament contained within an inert gas and a small amount of a halogen such as iodine or bromine....