In response to my post regarding the banning of lightbulbs in the state of California I recieved some information from a reader that I would like to share with everyone that details the other side of the arguement. I am always excited to hear from subscribers and value any comments and information you would like to add to the site. The following information is from a site called CEOLAS.NET:
A ban on light bulbs, as with other electrical products in current use, is strange in consumer law:
They are bans on safe products, we are not talking about banning lead paint or fireworks here.
In fact, light bulbs have been safely used for over 100 years without significant problems, unlike other lights.
The irony is that a normal ban would rather be on the main suggested replacement, compact fluorescent “energy saving” lights (CFLs), with several health and environmental concerns.
Cars give out emissions. Electrical products do not.
Banning a type of car stops emissions. Banning a type of light does not.
Cars are taxed on related carbon efficiency.
Lights -and electrical products- can be taxed on related carbon efficiency (although still wrong in principle, since energy and emission problems can and should be dealt with directly).
Old Technology – New Technology
There’s a lot of talk about old and new technology with lighting.
“Hey isn’t it great to get rid of old technology” we are told.
“Light bulbs are over 100 years old, time to get rid of them.”
The obvious counter is “if it ain’t broke – don’t fix it”.
First of all old technology means known technology means proven, reliable and, as just said, safe technology, for a product we spend half our lives using, sometimes within a few feet.
Secondly, it’s one thing to have a product fade a way from lack of consumer demand in face of a significant improvement as viewed by the people, as opposed to a ban put in place by politicians because of an improvement as they see it.
Let’s compare the light bulb with its cousin – the radio valve (tube).
Now, radio valve use faded away because everyone could see the advantages of transistors.
Did that mean banning radio valves?
No Sir, they are still around, a limited demand for a limited use, but nonetheless available for those who want them.
Yet, since they use much more energy than transistors, they could conceivably have been banned to save energy too.
Does this ring a bell?
Now, everyone is talking about how great LED lights will be. And why not – perhaps people will actually want to buy them!
You don’t have to be Einstein – or Edison – to know what that could mean. If people mostly buy LED lights, and fewer ordinary light bulbs, then energy use (supposedly) drops dramatically, and no ban is needed.
A natural market process, which nevertheless allows those who like light bulbs to continue to use them.
Notice how the opposite is of course true too:
If ordinary light bulbs remain more popular than LED or any other lighting – why ban what people obviously want to use?
Let’s expand on that….
A safe product that is not popular does not need to be banned, because so few are using it anyway.
This gives us the beautiful (and typical) logic, that the more popular a product is, the more energy use it will cause, and the more politicians can wave their arms in their air and say how great they are for (supposedly) letting people save so much money, by banning a product that people obviously want to buy and use!
Unsurprisingly, the EU is at the forefront of this logic.
The word from EU officials is
“The campaigns have failed, Europeans still choose to buy these lights, legislation is the next logical step”
Instead of saying
“The campaigns have failed, Europeans still choose to buy these lights, how can we respect this strong will of the people?
Is it really necessary to ban these bulbs?”
Light bulbs are overwhelmingly popular in the EU, as elsewhere.
They are the lights that people want to buy (9 times out of 10 in the EU, according to the European Commission’s own research 2007-8, 19 out of 20 in the USA from lighting industry data in the same period).
Speaking of the USA:
Just 18% of adults think it’s the government’s job to tell Americans what kind of light bulb they use, according to a July 2009 Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. 72% say it’s none of the government’s business, and 10% are not sure.
Now, the European Commission has also relied on data from an organization called VITO.
The music was then rather different.
As the Cambridge Network science organization point out:
A study by VITO consultants showed the following breakdown of lamp use in European homes in 2007:
• 54% incandescent (down from 85% in 1995 and still decreasing)
• 18% low-voltage halogen (and increasing)
• 5% mains-voltage halogen (and growing)
• 8% linear fluorescent
• 15% CFL
What spiel did the Brusselcrats then think up?
Of course the story was then “how Europeans are taking to these lamps”, and that the “reports that they don’t like them” are “unfounded”!
The problem is, that this kind of data of course means that the supposed great savings aren’t there, and, as outlined in Old Technology – New Technology above, that a ban is again unwarranted, this time because a conversion is taking place anyway.
As the good Cambridge scientists put it:
“If we assume that all remaining filament bulbs are replaced by CFL at some point in the future (unlikely, as use of halogen bulbs is likely to increase), that these bulbs are used to the same extent as those they replace and that the energy reduction per bulb is 80%, the total reduction in EU energy use would be 0.54 x 0.8 x 0.76% = 0.33%. This figure is almost certainly an overestimate, particularly as the inefficiency of conventional bulbs generates heat which supplements other forms of heating in winter. Which begs the question: is it really worth it?”
No, scientists, it isn’t – whether the bulbs are popular or not – but try explaining that to anyone who commutes to Brussels.
Besides, if people like halogens, then that door must – and will – be shut too, as laid out in the December 2008 EU banning documentation linked above. Remember: Soviet Union, not European Union.
The assumption is that people only buy light bulbs because they are cheap.
Certainly they are cheap -no crime- but you don’t keep buying something only because it is cheap, and attractive features of light bulbs will soon be given.
Nor do you avoid buying a CFL or anything else just because it is expensive:
Otherwise no expensive alternative products anywhere would ever be bought.
In normal advertising manufacturers themselves highlight advantageous features of their products.
Think of long-lasting batteries and Energizer bunnies, think of washing up liquids that wash piles of dishes.
“Expensive to buy but last long”:
CFL/LED manufacturers wrongly rely on public campaigns and bans to make sales.
So, when politicians say “a ban is the only way” for the public to buy an expensive product that “people will find very attractive when they do buy it”, advertising by manufacturers could highlight that, and people would buy one and then buy more if they are so good, as with the other products.
That said, many households already have at least 1 CFL (the UK is typical, 1/2 of households there and in most countries have at least 1 CFL and the average UK and European household has around 2 CFLs and 20 light bulbs, Commission research).
So maybe they feel that is enough:
There is no reason just to use CFLs -or light bulbs- in a house, all lights have their own advantages and different uses (see below).
Of course, the other explanation is that maybe people simply don’t like CFLs, having tried them…
Certainly CFLs can improve, but it hardly justifies banning bulbs now, and hardly justifies it later either:
if people actually like improved CFLs or LEDs and buy them in greater numbers, there is again no need to ban ordinary light bulbs, as explained above.
Light bulbs have many attractive features, apart from being cheap.
A warm bright light quality:
This is the biggest loss, in banning “incandescent” lights (=ordinary light bulbs and halogens).
For displays and in some home decorating schemes, designers use the sparkle effect that one can get with the point source incandescent lighting.
Also the beam can be focused, by lamp shades in reading lamps for example.
Small bright incandescent lights are particularly useful, since small CFL or LED lamps technically can’t be made as bright, and the bright types that can be made are particularly expensive.
One Response to “The Otherside of the Lightbulb Debate”
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(re ‘a useful product’
there are many other properties listed in that section, but I know the posting is lengthy!)
Thanks for showing that side of the argument!
Yes, I do think the ban is a bit hasty and not too well thought out,
on the Ceolas.Net website I also try to show how energy and environmental concerns can be addressed more directly, with minimal impact on consumers.
Whatever one’s position at the end of the day,
this is about a ban to reduce electricity consumption – not because the bulbs are unsafe to use….
Tax -unlike bans- gives government income and keeps consumer choice, which can include energy saving bulbs cheaper than today, from reducing overall tax on them
Govmt income can go to renewable energy and house insulation projects etc = lowering energy use and emissions more than remaining light bulbs raise them.
Tax is in my view not justified for similar reasons to bans,
but a better alternative for all sides, if bans are the only alternative
I wrote an article on that a while back,
which the figures might be amended a little on,
but the principle holds:
http://ceolas.net/LightBulbTax.html