DEC 23

Okay, but my question is.. are the new fancy ones just as good as old bulbs? I mean, I'm totally down with saving the world and whatnot but when I got one of the fancy swirly bulbs it blew out in less than a week. I think there was a money-back guarantee but I didn't bother with it *lazy* Did I just get a bad bulb?

Big mistake. The CFL's have inconsistent color temps and much shorter lifespans than advertised. Add the mercury heading to the landfills from these bulbs and you have a real winner.

I had over 30 installed, and after a too many premature deaths, dealing with the bad light, inconsistent color temps, and inability to dim, I have reluctantly been pulling some of the CFL's and putting in halogens.

I for one will be stocking up on incandescents.

I switched the majority of my house to CFLs and had 2 bad ones. Due to the instant rebates from my local energy provider I paid less than 50 cents each! As for the 2 bad bulbs, I have an IKEA near by! What I rally want to know from Hank, what are the reputable Solar, LED, and CFL companies to invest in? I would love to get "green" by investing in "green"!

Rob - most solar and biofuels stocks, IMO, are already overpriced. The one clean tech stock I would recommend to anyone, especially in light of this news, is CREE. CREE is a leading supplier of LED lighting solutions and has over $400 million in sales over the past twelve months.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=CREE

Schultz, Thank you for the feedback!

For stable stocks that work in LEDs, Phillips and GE are both great (though long-term) buys.

A great book to read on alternative energy is Clean Tech.

I hope that the US government also makes provisions for the safe disposal for CFL bulbs, which contain mercury and computer chips. I could not find safe disposal from my garbage service, from the stores selling CFL bulbs, nor elsewhere in my county. The nearest I could find is about 50 miles away, and they only accept bulbs from residents of that county.

Banning a specific technology is idiotic unless all one wants to do is ban that technology. If they want to reduce energy usage, they should require a certain minimum efficiency, not ban incandescents outright. Otherwise they eliminate any possibility of someone coming up with a new way of making incandescents more efficient, possibly even on par with fluorescents.

I too switched all the bulbs in my house to CFL's over 5 years ago and most of those bulbs are still buring bright. I find that the light from the new Daylight bulbs is far superior to any incandescent for reading. The only place I experience short life is in outside fixtures. Someone needs to work on CFL's that work well and last outdoors. I also agree that safe disposal is a problem. I have the ones that died early in a box waiting for a good place to take them.

Time to horde the clear (not the soft white) 100W incandescent bulbs, the retro crowd will be needing them for the Easy Bake ovens. Bulb sez 'Good bye Betty Crocker, hello Antiques Roadshow'. I've not used incandescents for a couple of years myself except for the aforementioned, and a light that was always left on, now being controlled by a proximity sensor (that doesn't like fluorescents). I'm still looking for a replacement for the proximity sensor that does work with lights below 5 watts, but so far, nothing is available.

we changed our house to all CFLs about six months ago, and we've had to replace 3 or 4 already. all of this talk about saving money is starting to look like bullocks. while i try to do what i can for the environment, it shouldn't leave me feeling like i've been screwed over.

I agree that CFL's and LEDs are great alternatives in some situations. My stairs, front porch, back deck, stove light, etc are all CFL. One problem is still the quality of light, and no one can convince me otherwise. I have bought CFLs from about 8 different manufacturers. Some are green, some are blue, some are dingy brown. I have even had 3 CFL's in a pack of 4 all with different light qualities. I am in the entertainment industry so lighting is my life, and nothing beats a good 'ol incandescent for mood and reading light.
LEDs are in the same boat. They have a lot of great uses like in my landscape lighting, but for indoor living and reading quality, they are very harsh, not full spectrum, and give a strobe effect when dimmed.

I will be more likely to use LEDs in the future than CFLs merely because most of their shortcomings can be overcome. I think CFL's are just a transition medium until LEDs are more viable.

But hey, this is just one schmuck talking.

The legislation mandates that lights must become more efficient, it does not ban or mandate any type of lighting technology. Newer incandescents in development are 2-4x more efficient, so we will still have incandescents (though they may call them different things because of their higher efficiency - halogen, xenon, HID, etc., but they still heat a filament or create an arc).

Under the measure, all light bulbs must use 25 percent to 30 percent less energy than today’s products by 2012 to 2014. The phase-in will start with 100-watt bulbs in January 2012 and end with 40-watt bulbs in January 2014. By 2020, bulbs must be 70 percent more efficient.

I switched all my light bulbs last june. I haven't had any bad one yet.
Leed light bulbs will more efficent.

I read the article on the phase-out of incandescent light bulbs which will begin only in 2012, (all incandescents gone by 2014). The .Why will the bill only be past in 2012 to replace the bulbs with LED and CFL bulbs, why not SOONER???

Whenever something like this occurs, 5 years is the standard waiting time until it takes effect. It gives manufacturers time to change their assembly lines and figure out how to implement it, or to leave the business entirely.

Implementing something too fast and one could easily put a company out of business and all the people that work for it.

I was just doing some baking yesterday and turned on the oven light to see how the rolls were coming along. And then I thought of this incandescent ban: Won't CFLs be a problem in ovens? I doubt you'd want one there. Another problem area would seem to be the fridge light - those CFLs don't seem to work as well when they're cold.

cfls are great for many applications. not all. incandescent are great for some applications. not all.
LED are great for some applications. not all.

efficency needs to be looking at the lumens/watt delivered to the appropriate location from the light fixture, not the theoretical number produced by a lamp, which may not all be usable in certain applications.

a CFL is a great omnidirectional non-point source. (table lamps, globe fixtures) an MR16 halogen is a great dimmable, directional point source(desk lamps, task lighting). LEDs are great color changing, cold condition, and directional.

a compact fluorescent is not a good outdoor motion sensor lamp in the north, where the intermittent use will shorten it's life, and the cold will prevent it from operating at all.

no one's mentioned the noise or increased neutral load on the electrical grid from CFL ballasts which are full of lead.....

personally, i have 80% of my house converted to CFL, and love them for the purposes i use them for, but they're not a panacea. use the best, most efficient solution for each need, don't throw out good products that fit appropriate uses.

I think it is a bit of a stretch the people that claim "without any drawbacks." I have switched to nearly 100% CFL in my house, but it does require sacrifices and/or work. The ones I happen to have give pleasant enough color temp, though the simple fact is that the light quality/temp does vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. If one has particular aesthetic desires or true need, such as working in artistic endeavor where color perception is critical, then CFLs do pose a real problem. However, the biggest complaint and reason for not using CFLs I hear from talking to people is that dimmable ones are not yet commonly available. How can this not be a drawback?

I'm living without dimming, but even had to replace some of my dimmable switches because the electronics in them proved incompatible with the CFLs... causing buzzing and/or flickering.

So... be real... don't try to claim we have perfect replacements for incandescents.

I read that dimmers and CF bulbs are a bad combination. Where can I get a CF bulb that is dimmable? Or would an LED bulb do better? what are my energy efficient alternatives here?

Do you realise the amount of mercury in a single floresent bulb? I knew someone who ran a water treatment plant, he said there is more mercury in one bulb than mercury he can pass through his plant in a year. So what a few more tons of CO2 is in the air, at least we are feeding trees, mercury filled bulbs as the answer is an environmental nightmare!!!

Article X of the US Constitution states that the government doesn't have the authority to declare incandescent bulbs illegal. Let the market sort out who wants to use CFLs and LEDs over incandescent bulbs. I personally don't use CFLs because of mercury in them, why should it be illegal for me to own a non hazardous bulb?! It's more big government telling people how to live their lives.

I changed out almost all of my "regular" bulbs for cfls, when they were finally affordable, and I've thrown away about 5 due to failures. I must say I hate to see the government get involved in mandates, I'd rather see them encouraging innovation..and I haven't seen to much of that.
As far as disposal goes, that's going to be an ugly issue. I live in a community that has what it calls recycling..and having been involved in early recycling efforts, I realize that they fall far from what the intent of recycling is.
My theory is that these changes need more thought.

While LEDs are certainly easier to dim, there are dimmable CFLs out there. The most interesting to me have cold cathodes (as opposed to the hot cathodes in the standard coil-type CF bulbs we're all used to), which use significantly less power than other CF bulbs. They tend to be smaller, and less bright (because they're dimmable and even flashable, they're marketed as low-power replacements for flashing signs!), but I have one in a table lamp and it's working great at 5W. They're also supposed to be much more cold-tolerant, for folks up north...

We tried CFL at our house, and my wife banned them due to the "icky" light they give off. And I agree. We'd love to help the environment, but not at the cost of seeing our world through a sickly fluorescent glow.

If the goverment is so worried about light and lighting fixures, why are they not so conserned about Electric Stoves. I'm not tring to get off the subject, but there is an even higher energy problem in its self. Like use a 110 outlet insted of a 220. They (the goverment) wants us to take a cut on performace and depandabilty, just to satisfy their budget. Why don't they just raise taxes like they do every year to satisify their needs... Oh wait look "who" I'm talking about...

I find this act of congress stupid like most of their acts. the standard old fashioned light bulb has many practical uses and every situation will not be practical for CFL bulbs and CFL bulbs do not last as long as they claim to. Now phasing out all incad. bulbs may save some energy but if the gov't. wants to save energy, how about banning all these SUV's that soccer moms are driving around cities that get 10 MPG.
I have a 1964 Oldsmobile that gets about 18 or so MPG. It is a crime that in 2008, 44 years later from when my Oldsmobile rolled off the showroom floor, that our gas milage is remained the same or gone down. If they want to do something to save energy, make SUV's illegal now and leave the damn simple things in life like a basic light bulb alone.

OK Does not anyone realize what mercury poisoning is like. I know someone who had it. Mind you, they did not have even a 1/2 of the mercury in a light bulb in their system. It was a horrible. They almost died.
Also what happens if you break one? You will have a very hard time getting it cleaned up, and you'll most likely get poisoned.
If everyone gets these mercury filled bulbs, we are going to need some way to dispose of them safely. Other wise they will end up in our water system, or food and our air. Personally, I would rather have a little extra carbon in the air and a little warmer weather than die of MERCURY POISON ! :'(

This reminds me of when General Motors invented the city bus. They bought all the electric mass transit in the country, then scrapped them to force cities to by the new buses. Does someone somewhere with enough clout have a vested interest in seeing the old bulb go away?

Yes, the government is into conservation these days. The legislation coming from both the Left and Right sides of the isle (as if there were some difference)are being specifically drafted with conservation in mind. Conservation of the governments overwhelming ability to become ever bigger, ever more controlling, and ever more oppressive. All of this being evermore perpetuated and driven by a global dis-information propaganda machine we know as the mainstream media, whom have been totally owned by these maniacle supporters of social and idiological containment for decades.
The only types of technologies that are supported are technologies that will eventually lead to having some new "savior", type of legislation needing to be enacted to save us from some bad business practice, product, or health and safety issue, hence the CFL supported switch.
There will not be very much support out there for LED technology on the mainstream media front because they haven't found a way to diminish the technology to a more time consuming endevour ie; having to replace burnt out bulbs, which leads to more money, which leads to more debt, which leads to more stress, which in all leads to less time to relax, and lessens the time spent thinking for yourself in a crative and self supportive way. Time is the only resource that cannot be manufactured,recycled,or stored and is the only resource that is inalienable to all other resources. In other words there doesn't seem to be a residual benifit in health or safety issues that would be supportive of constraining legislation having to be passeed at some later date. I call this the "incrementalism clause", and it seems to be a quite effective way to determine the trends in technology that we see being pushed into further development.
LED technology has been around for decades and has a proven track record in almost any application where common light is needed. Therefore we will not see the widespread support of this technology and as proof I simply submit the fact that LED technology has already been around for decades and has gone virtually no-where.
There is the exception of the possibilty of the "dumb factor", in which the global media and its supported mega-corperate conglomerates could convince the populous to pay insainly high prices for an old technology like LED by touting it as a newly developed technology, as in the case of LCD screen and HDTVs which have also been around for decades or BIO-fuel Diesel engines when Rudolf Diesel the creator of the engine originally developed and designed the engine to burn peanut oil in the first place.

There are several facts about the various light technologies that need to be "brought to light" here:

- The lifetimes printed on fluorescent lamp cartons are totally bogus attempts to meet a consumer law that doesn't correctly cover the technology. A fluorescent lamp lasts for between 6000 and 7000 starts (number of times the lamp is turned on). Hours of operation are irrelevant.

- This is what causes CFLs to burn out quick in motion-detector lamps. Cold weather makes it worse by reducing the number of starts the lamp is good for. CFLs are not suited for low-temperature use. Often they fail after only a month in security light duty.

- On the other hand, I had a tubular fluorescent lamp that was continuously lit (illuminating a stairwell) that lasted for over 100000 hours. Power failures were the only reason the lamp was ever off.

- Because most CFLs have emission-line spectra, they don't render color very well. They are useless for work involving matching colors, color rendering, and and spectral analysis. White-light holograms don't work right under CFLs.

- We need a fluorescent lamp with a flat spectral response.

- White LEDs also have a deficient spectral response. They have gaps in the deep red, cyan, and violet areas.

- Even if a CFL that can be dimmed can be made, it won't have the characteristics needed for stage and television productions. Existing equipment often needs a minimum current draw to work. And there is no way to focus a spotlight beam from a diffuse source such as a CFL.

- LED lamps do work with dimmers, provided a low-wattage incandescent lamp (e.g. 25 W) is also fed by the dimmer. Without that load, they come on at almost full brightness at a low dimmer setting.

- None of the current LED lamps produces a good primary green for light mixing. They are either too far to the yellow, or too far to the blue. The red and blue lamps are OK.

- Why are most CFLs in that awful soft white color? I can't get the high wattage I want for one location in Daylight. And I would think that Cool White would be a better color than either for most home uses.

- In order for someone to be poisoned by the tiny amount of mercury in a CFL, they would have to eat the entire bulb. Most of the mercury is on the inside glass surface, instead of being loose as a liquid.

Too many people use the NFPA charts for toxicity, not realizing that they are produced by layman firemen, not scientists. The oxides and salts of mercury are much more poisonous than metallic mercury, yet the charts treat all mercury compounds equally. Lead and chromium are wrongly treated in the same way. They do this to make a quick reaction chart readable at a glance, as opposed to a detailed toxicity tome that takes hours to read.

In addition to EZ-Bake Ovens, there are other devices that contain incandescent lamps for uses other than illumination:

- My electrostatic air cleaner in my furnace contains two 100 watt light bulbs. They do not light unless the grid is shorted by a foreign object, where they then protect the transformer from burnout.

- An audio amplifier I used to have uses incandescent lamps as variable impedance loads to protect transistors.

- Several model railroad power supplies use incandescent bulbs to protect the power supply from a shorted track due to a train wreck.

- Daylight-saving time actually uses MORE energy when air conditioning and gasoline are used by someone with an 8 to 5 job. The car air conditioner and the home air conditioner is used more days out of the year, and the defroster is used more too with the extended DST dates.

Incandescent bulbs are all that I can find that are not made in Communist China. There are no other options for those of us that care what the proceeds of our spending support.

cfl's suck ass. their light is harsh and never quite right.and LED's? they're bright, but don't project nearly enough. nothing can match incandesents for the QUALITY of light. the need is not to ban them or even "conserve" energy, but to find a cheap, reliable,plentiful source of energy, like, say....FUSION power.

Replacing my Incandescent bulbs with CFLs sounds great in theory, but there are lots of obstacles: First, most of my bulbs are in track-lighting on a dimmer, and dimmable CFLs work very poorly. Second, CFLs are bigger, and don't fit into my track fixtures unless I choose ones that don't put out enough light. I need somebody to start selling track fixtures designed for CFLs.

It doesn't help that a CFL package might say that it's the equivalent of a 100 watt bulb, but when I compare the lumens (the actual brightness), it's only comparable to a 60 watt bulb. Frankly, I find CFLs disappointing, although I do use them in places. I hope LEDs won't have these problems.

CFLs convert electricity into light more efficiently than incandescent bulbs. As far as I understand the vast majority of energy for the incandescent bulb is converted into heat. Now, heat has benefits at certain times in certain situations. We heat our houses and using incandescent bulbs in the house during the heating periods of the year seems to be less problematic than using them in the summer if you use A/C to cool down your house. Obviously, heating the outside with anything does not make sense. The CFL I have in the unheated mudroom works (but needs more time to get going well) even below zero Fahrenheit. For someone who heats their house, switching away from incandescents does not make sense since they have to turn up the heat a bit more in turn. And for someone who uses air-conditioning it makes a lot of sense to switch to CFLs. Although NOT USING A/C makes MUCH more sense.

CFLs use less energy for creating light. The loss of heat needs to be compensated somehow. CFLs will not result in the closing of any power plant; the energy available will be used for something different. CFLs are a popular solution for those who like to believe that just a few small, easy to do steps (and switching to CFLs is one of them) will save humanity. Not so, but it shows you that democratic government regulations result in changes too little too late. Saving electricity for light makes little sense: Even is ALL Americans stop using incandescents, our overall energy consumption will continue to be decadently high. Nice start, but not enough. If that is all you do, you might as well do nothing.

Electricity savings in areas where coal is burned (which releases mercury) to create electricity reduces mercury emissions. And I am still waiting for the appropriately sized stickers or warning labels that inform you that CFLs contain mercury and how they need to be disposed off. Pretty smart by the Chinese. They send us their hazardous waste (=mercury). Not like we do not have enough.

Karsten
--
http://www.polluteless.com
Practical (but often inconvenient) Advice to Pollute Less

Hurray, CFL's for everyone, even if they don't want them. Damn the complicated manufacturing process. Who cares about the factory emissions (that all happens in China anyhow). Never mind the crappy light spectrum. Forget the massive mercury cleanups of the future.

Al Gore told us to do it, so we had better do it! He knows everything about global warming, or at least raising awareness about it. (What was that, Al, you refuse to cut your own emissions? Oh, i see, us poor folks have to buy shitty CFL's while you buy carbon offsets.)

I'm beginning to think that there's more geek than eco around here. And the worst part is everyone running around like their ass is on fire trying to solve the symptom (global warming) rather than cure the disease. But Al never talks about the disease, so his minions don't even know that it exists.

The mercury lightbulbs and its light is discusting and not good for your eyes in long term use.Not to mention what you do on harm with that mercury !

Saving my a$$!

The night is about to get unsafe in America again. We need to save energy. No need to light up the night. America will be a 3rd rate power and with nio need to have anu pride. That's what the Democrats have plannned for our future. They sold us down the river in the 1960s and are still looking to blame Iraqi War and any number of nostrums that they always use. They tend to run 9n circles scream and shout about the sky falling. Only this time the sky fell andit's in their laps and their scared to death a media might turn on them. CFLs are just slightly ahead of their Jimmy Carter days. Trust me. I lost a nice 9 room house by solar heating it. What a piece of cow dung.

Even though CFL's and LED's save electricity you can be sure many neanderthals out there will still want tungsten filament incandescents. To that end I have purchased over 500 each of the cheapie Dollar Store type lamps and they are presently in my attic waiting for the day I can make big bucks on them on E-Bay. If you doubt me remember the old R-12 refrigerant in cans from Year's back? I stocked up on several cases of them also and I am still selling my last remaining 40 or so cans of R-12 (out of 400 cans) to old car enthusiasts for $25 per can. Not bad for an initial outlay of 79 cents each a year before the ban on R-12 went into effect!

After reading all the "real" technical data on CFL's and switching some lights to them I have to agree that they are far from the saving grace people have made them out to be. First is the issue of light quality, I had to switch from a 60 watt incan. to a 100 watt eqiv. cfl to get close to the same light output not to mention color issues. Secondly, the slow warm-up of the bulb is annoying to say the least, plus I can no longer dim any of the cfl's. Thirdly, there are NO recycling locations even near where I live, so when they die they WILL end up in a landfill. Forthly, like so many things today in the U.S. the "real" data of cfl's has been glazed over by the manufacturers, media and government and unfortunately people believe 15 second sound bites over hard data and are too lazy to look for it.

I recycle plastics, glass and metals and drive a fuel efficient car, but the "true" numbers of what cfl's will save us in electrical & pollution costs are insignificant compared to manufacturing pollution and automotive pollution like that shown with large inefficient SUV's, not to mention the cfl's own issues with mercury (production and disposal) and the electronic components (disposal). This legislation like so many things our Republican AND Democratic congress does with a knee jerk reaction and a layman's understanding of the technical issues will cause undue issues for consumers and businesses alike while doing little to change the reality of the problems facing us with the environment and energy concerns.

yeah, well the good news is that LED lights are going to be able to replace most cfl's by 2012. They're already more energy efficient, and look at how much the price is coming down...
The main seller of LED light bulbs these days is ccrane, which sells their most popular LED bulb for 44.95$...http://www.ccrane.com/lights/l...-bulb.aspx , but some of the small internet based companies are now starting to sell the same thing for as little as 19.95 http://weloveleds.com/. I can't wait to see the next generation, and I can't wait to replace all of my mercury filled cfl's!!!

It's a very good idea because we really need to do something about waisting energy. But this is a very small step. We should do something about our cars, make them consume less or pollute less. Why don't we build an electric car that can be affordable for most of us?

I'm already using low voltage CFLs at home and recently the lawfirm where I work did the same thing. Think green, that's what I always say.

This is the first time that I agree with a law and it is a law that supports the normal fellow. I am so happy with this law and I hope that it will go into action as soon as possible.

I couldn't agree more with this new law and I hope that will go into action as soon as possible and let's all be honest and confess that this will be the next step in the evolution to a better energy era.

There are a lot of misconceptions in the above comments. Think about the following truths:

- You are complaining about the mercury in the CFLs and ignoring the arsenic in the LEDs.

- Producing heat with electric lights is not as efficient as using natural gas, and it costs a lot more. So does resistance electric heat.

- Global warming is mainly a case of bad science by political scientists erroneously using political science methods on physical phenomena.

- We have a bunch of nutty environmentalcases in my area who are trying to stop a new highway, even though the shorter route will save many gallons of gasoline a day.

- Those cold-cathode lamps have shorter lives.

I can get dimmers to work perfectly with LED lamps, as long as I leave one incandescent lamp in the fixture to load the dimmer.

There is a neat little device out there called a Kill A Watt. It measures how much power your devices use. And I learned some interesting lessons with it:

- Air conditioners draw more power when the outside temperature is higher (this is not a function of the thermostat, but freon pressures).

- I tried several methods to slow down electric fans, and discovered that I could run a 40 watt fan on 11 watts at half speed with a lamp dimmer and a 7 watt night light.

- I can mow my yard with an electric mower for 33 cents. The same yard mowed with gasoline is almost two dollars.

- CFLs use more energy when they are dimmer just after being started. The energy then reduces when the light reaches full brilliance. The rated wattage is the starting wattage of the lamps I use. The running wattage is 2 watts less than the rating.

- That bit about the TV using current when it is off is true. But if you unplug it, the energy used by the extra 5 minutes on needed to set up the channels again (before you can watch) is more than the set uses in a day of being plugged in, but off.

There NO BAN on incandescent light bulbs. The bill states that light bulbs need to become more efficient, it DOES NOT say that we can ONLY get CFLs and LEDs. In MY opinion, CFLs should be BANNED due to the mercury content. If the bulb were to break inside your house, you need to evacuate ASAP for at least 15min with all the windows and doors left open for ventilation. To have to dispose of the bulb and whatever it made contact with (table, area of the rug, etc.) at that point your house becomes a hazardous area and according to regulations you must contact the proper authorities. And how many people actually know how to dispose of, or have the means to properly dispose of such a product once they die out? The mercury is still there...

Lots of conflicting opinions here it's difficult to sort the truth from the ignorance. LOW VOLTAGE CFLs? I have never heard of those. It is staggering to find out how many people think LOW VOLTAGE uses less electricity that devices that use 120 VAC. If you are one of those people then you have failed to understand the most basic law of electricity and it is pointless to try to explain it here. Take my advice stick to the cartoon pages as you will never understand anything more complex. Oh!you can also continue listening to Rush limbaugh.
Remember LOW VOLTAGE requires a thing called a transformer to produce the LOW VOLTAGE from 120 VAC. That transformer is not 100% efficient it wastes power in the form of heat. Therefore a 12 Volt 50 Watt bulb is LESS efficient than a 120 Volt 50 Watt bulb, even though they produce the same amount of light.
Air conditioners use more power when it's hot because of Freon pressure, did you hear that in church from the pastor when he was telling you how you are going to live for ever?
Wanna buy a cold fusion power generator that is powered by water and cost $5.00.
look incandescent bulbs waste obscene amounts of power. CFLs are not the ultimate answer just an intermediate step. LEDS are a better solution but again not 100% perfect, remember LEDs require LOW VOLTAGE DC power which will require transformers AND diodes. I am sure that all those stupid scientists who are so mis-guided that they believe in global awrming can be re-directed to solve these problems. After that they can work on the problem of all the morons who believe that god will save us and we will live with him forever.
If you don't know what you are talking about then SHUT UP. Just one more thing, I am not a servant of the devil, I don't believe in god or the devil.

Rejoicing that we are screwing up the world again, are we? I love you guys, you always love to ruin people's lives by pushing through your blind, idiotic worship of the Earth proposals.

There is a clear difference between caring for your planet and making life on Earth for humans a living hell. You may think lightbulbs are no big deal, but trust me, when one breaks and you have to get a hazmat team at your house, don't come bitching to those of us who stocked up on incandescent's to spare you.

You eco loons are trying to save the Earth and yet don't care at all about personal choice or personal responsibility. You'd rather rejoice that the government is forcing people through your blind lunacy. Pathetic.

More misconceptions:

- The low voltage is compensated by higher current. Changing the voltage does NOT save power, unless the same lamp is powered by both (reducing the voltage in that case dims the lamp).

Power = voltage times current

- The only difference between the same wattage electric stove on 120 volts and one on 240 volts is that the wires have to be much larger to power the 120 volt stove at twice the current (and more power is lost heating the wiring). So 240 volt power for large loads saves energy.

- The econuts who are deathly afraid of mercury made that rule on how to clean up a broken CFL. None of that mouse manure is necessary:

1. The amount of mercury in a CFL is not enough to poison anything (except maybe a laboratory white rat forcefed 3000 CFLs for accelerated testing).

2. If the bulb is lit when it breaks, The mercury vapor will scatter too far for you to ever clean it up, but it will condense as individual atoms in less than 2 seconds, so you won't find any if you test.

2. Water will not clean up mercury. Mercury is hydrophobic (repels water). Most likely, it will alloy itself to any metal objects it touches.

3. Mercury will not likely be on the glass, because mercury does not wet nonmetallic surfaces. It will likely be on the electrodes.

4. I do not understand where the lead in the ballast is, unless they are stupidly talking about solder (a lead compound that is NOT poisonous unless swallowed whole). This is the result of the same econuts being deathly afraid of lead. But all new manufacture is done with lead-free solder, even though it is not necessary.

The government has made research into good cheap LED's possible and profitable - a good thing! The next step can be the outlawing of spark-ignition engines by 2014! FACT OF LIFE: Diesels are by design 40% more efficient than others! but we insist on incandescent lights, big V-8 engines, All metal car bodies, McMansions, power boats and copious amounts of clean water, good food, air travel, and pets that eat better than most Asians! The fact of the matter is, Yankee Doodle is broke! he can't pay his Visa bills, and cries for more correct color temperatures for his light bulbs? Just who in Hell do we think we are? And, how long will the Chinese keep supporting us with huge loans to our government? When we are all living in Shanties in Shanty towns, unemployed, in debt over our heads, and burning a single LED light at night only to use the outhouse, will we still worry about the quality of the light? the color temperature? the consumption level vis a vi other brands? the dimmability? When the chips are down we may make choices to survive, we don't necessarily find appealing to our more sensitive side, but appealing enough to our growling stomachs and aching backs! Americans: Shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves, in one generation, here we go!

Here's another conundrum for you: Why are people still buying disposable alkaline batteries when rechargeable NiMH batteries not only save money but even outperform their disposable counterparts in most applications? Why oh why?

How are hippies going to light up their lava lamps with these new cold lights?!

Didn't congress think of the extensive cost of retrofitting every existing lava lamp with heaters?

I see nothing wrong with saving our environment but now the goverment is taking this way too far. I thought the United States was a place where we're free to make our own decisions (as long as we're not breaking the law) I find it very disturbing that congress is making descisions in how we live our lives. Next thing you know, they'l ban meat from super markets because they'l be an increase in heart disease or colon cancer (excuse the spelling) Even if thats the case, its our RIGHT to buy these products.. Going back on the subject, I can guarantee you that MORE people will be against the ban of old light bulbs... on top of that... CFL's and even LED lighting give off very shitty light. its bad enough that i have to see them going into buildings and most business establishments but now we're forced to use them in our own homes?? i can bet you anything that even after 2014, many, many people will still have plenty of old incandacent bulbs in their homes. i heard that manufacturs are currently in the process of making more energy efficent incandecents and still will give off the same color light as we're used to seeing in the old traditional bulb. we're still only in 2009 but Im gona start stocking up on old skool light bulbs. between now and the ban period, i'l probably have enough to last me a life time.

This is all well and good, and horray for the environment, EXCEPT: I get migraines from fluorescents. This makes working in an office almost a living hell some days. Then I go home to more of these horrific bulbs? Hell no.

I'm all about protecting the environment, but not at the expense of my own well being. I WILL NOT use CFLs in any room except a few places I'm not at for any length of time. The entry hall light sits on when we're out for short periods of time, and is a CFL. Living room, dining room, and bedroom lighting, for my own health, is incandescent.

Want to see what it's like? Take nitroglycerin, then sit in a room lit by CFLs. See if you want to keep your CFLs around. :-)

To brit1066:

Air conditioners do draw more current when the outside temperature is higher. This is the result of a controlled scientific study I made, measuring the current and the outside temperature.

We now have scientific data that say the sun is getting hotter. Among those data are the results that show global warming on Venus, Mars, and Titan. So man is not causing global warming.

Some of us need better color rendition from our lights to be able to do our jobs.