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

CKOD

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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 ;-)

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

LuxLuthor

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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

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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.
 

chewy78

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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.
 

jasonck08

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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.
 

flashflood

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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.

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.
 

SemiMan

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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?
 

flashflood

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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?

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

 

LuxLuthor

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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?

First response: :barf:

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.
 

alpg88

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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...
 

Marcturus

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

... 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
645@75w
515@60w
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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SemiMan

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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! :)
 

SemiMan

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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.
 

SemiMan

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

First response: :barf:

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.

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.
 

ratsbew

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

First response: :barf:

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

:eek: 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.
 

jtr1962

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

1055 lm @100 watt
645@75w
515@60w
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

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

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

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

Harold_B

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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.
 

Marcturus

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

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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