FEB 01

You can get LED Based lights that will work fine with a dimmer... still less energy and last longer than a incandecent...

Also They do make Dimmer compatable CF lights...

The shade that clamps onto the bulb is not a reason either as they also make CF bumbs that have a round cover on them and the same size as Incandecents...

CF use less energy ... last longer... save money for the purchaser ... help the environment...

The Law would be a good thing... and not severe at all as anyone still buying incandecent bulbs for thier house is being foolish and wasteful ... special applications like dimmers / 3-way / round / instant on / non flicker / full spectrum / etc... are all availible in CF and always end up costing the consumer less over the life of the bulb.... even with the initial premium cost for the CF bulb.

My 2 Bits.

What the last pserson said 8)

I applaud what this assemblyman is trying to do here, which is I assume to institutionalize energy conservation. However by making a generalized outlaw of a particular techonology is not the smartest approach in my opinion.

For one thing, how lightbulbs render color to the human eye is a big consideration for many companies, and incandescent bulbs simply do it better than flourescent bulbs. So this lighting niche would become vacant, if incandescent were outlawed.

Also, How is incandescent defined... would incandescent include any lighting technology that heats a filament to create light, because that would then include halogen and possibly high intensity arctube lamp-types (bulbs used in stadiums, streetlamps, etc.) To ban these technologies would be a shame, because contrary to some opinion, there is considerable reserach and develoment going into this technology to improve its efficiency.

I would argue that enforcing a particular lumens-per-watt criteria for lighting technology would be a better approach for this legislation to take. This would impart no problem to the already efficient flourescent bulbs and would weed out the most inefficient incandescent bulbs, while allowing the more efficient incandescent bulbs to continue to compete in the market.

...btw, I wouldn't put much stake in LEDs gaining much market share in common lighting uses in the next 15-20 years. They have some major cost issues to work out.

Congrats if you made it thru the entire post, Just my thoughts on the subject.

p.s. I am employed by G.E.'s lighting technology division, (this might give me some credibility ) ;)

This is Janis Mara, a Californian and happy about the ban on incandescent lights. For one thing, I confess to you all that I have not yet purchased flourescents for my home, and it will make things much easier if I only have flourescents to choose from in the store.

jinks, since you are a professional in the lighting area, could you perhaps give us a bit of a clue as to why LEDs are so expensive? I believe they cost up to 100 times more than halogen lamps?

>:(
There are simply not enough types of CFLs available to replace incandescents.

I have many lamps in my house (including refrigerator, freezer, microwave, oven hood, inside oven, built-in 25watt desk halogens, small 60watt bedside lamps, etc) that do not have a CFL replacement available for.

I also have several motion lights inside and out that won't work with CFLs (they flicker in the "off" position and kill the bulb in a couple hours), not to mention that the warm-up time of many CFLs being 2+ minutes doesn't lend itself to outdoor security lighting (dim lights that gradually come on aren't a great deterrent to nefarious persons).

Another major item: I have an LCD projector that uses a HID lamp (read: NOT FLOURESCENT) - 99% of DLP and LCD front and rear projection units require incandescents! (there is currently only 1 Samsung rear projection DLP that uses LEDs).

On the other hand, if they had CFLs that could replace all of these and not have functional deficiencies (like the warm up time and incompatibility with motion sensor switches), I would be happy to replace them.

A ban is simply irresponsible. A better way is to give more incentive to buy CFLs (tax their incandescent equivalents and use the money to lower the cost of CFLs or LED lamps).

The best reason for the law is becuase too many people say I would love to save the planet but only this and only that ... they make excuses that are in my opinion 90% of the time 90% fiction and not true... The truth is they don't care and are lazy.

LEDs are instant on and they make CF that are Instant on too... so remove all areguements about the warm up time as they make them now not 20 years from now... but today, and as such all instant on arfuements are fictional or uninformed.

The flicker while on does not happen with any good CF and never happens with LED... so remove that fictional arguement...

The flicker while off... is a faulty switching mechanism creating a phantom load... no light of any kind flickers when no power goes to it... So remove that Fictional / ininformed arguement.

The same mind set that causes people to drive SUVs cuases them to use incandecents... they dont' care...

the vast majority of the population will never use any of the space , seating , or cargo abilities of the SUV they drive and will constantly try to justify the SUV purchase with fictional reasons... Since you can Rent a Truck or Uhual for less than $50 per day even those people that can use it once in a while are still being incredibly wasteful... and they still do not need the vehicle... the truth is they don't care... same is true for 99% of the people who buy Incandecent Light Bulbs.

IF they want to be wasteful it is thier money... But I am fully in suport of a law that forces them to be less wasteful and takes away the option ...

But then Again I am also in favor of requireing all Large Truck and SUV purchases to require proof that you need such an indredibly wasteful Vehicle on a regular basis so much so that renting such a vehicle for a few times a year would cost you more...

I have to disagree with Jinks on the time frame for LEDs to market. However, quality LEDs will still be costly but not a hundred times more expensive than flourescents. In fact, a new product will be available by summer that will change the way we light our homes. As a rep for the product I am chomping at the bit. It will be launched at the International Builders Association Conference in Orlando. The lights will require an increase in upfront cost, however the life expectancy and efficacy will generate a very impressive return in a reasonable time frame. If anyone would care to see a preview go to:

http://www.ledlightingfixtures.com

I know this sounds like a plug, but I am a regional rep. Chances are I will not make one sale from this post. I am more concerned with making the public aware of the choices available. We cannot continue to use standard tungsten light bulbs. They are inefficient and wasteful. Very little of the energy consumed is utilized in light output. I do agree that halogen, xenon, metal halide, mercury vapor and high pressure sodium lamps are more efficient than standard lamps and therefore should not be banned. They still have their place in usefulness. However, much of their energy is lost in heat. For the time being, we will still be dependent on certain types of lighting. But we can make wiser choices with CFL and LEDs for general illumination and accent lighting. Studies are underway in Ann Arbor to change street lighting to LED. The cost savings in energy and maintenance are unbelievable. There will be white papers released soon. So don't discount LEDs, Jinks. They will be here sooner than you think. At a reasonable cost. As far as the reason for cost, I could go into that but I've already rambled on for too long in a post. thanks for your time.

Janis Mara-

I do not work directly on LED systems, so I cannot give you the detail that perhaps you are looking for, but what I do know is that the cost of residential LED's stems alot from the difficulties in making them which include:

1.) Heat Management- LED's use a tiny semiconductor chip to produce light, and just like with computer chips these generate heat. The problem is complicated because the chip is so small it has little surface area to dissipate heat from. Furthermore, as the lumens per watt (efficacy) increases the heat that is generated increases.

2.) Color- To get white light from LED's you either have to mix multiple color LED's (one product actually uses a UV LED to excite a flourescent material which then gives off white-ish light). Most of the "White" LED's you see now are actually blue LEDs which have been tweaked to reduce the blue hue. (Also, blue LED's are the most expensive to make, because of the combination of semicondutor materials they require)

3.)Light Quality- LED's produce a coherent beam of light (in a straight line), although not to the degree of a laser. As a result, in order to fill a whole room with light from LED's you need alot of them on one fixture. So you end up with large arrays of many LED's packed together (this makes the heat management problem even trickier).

There are surely a few other things that I am not aware of.

Some things I wanted to mention but forgot:

- the heat problem is bad because the higher the operating temp of the LED the shorter the operating lifetime and it can also affect the color of the light emmitted. See this file for detailed data:(http://www.netl.doe.gov/ssl/PD...t24-06.pdf)

-Careful about changing all lighting to flourescent. They may use less energy, but they contain mercury, lead (and i believe cadmium too, not 100% sure) and even if they last 10,000 hours, people are still probably going to throw them into a landfill when they die.



-and to HiEf
I visited that link, and there was no information that I could find about the LED product you mentioned. I am curious now as to how the cost of your product compares to current products. The reason I quoted 15-20 years for LED's to market was because some experts (optimistically, IMHO) predict that LED's will follow a trend similar to Moore's Law and they projected viable consumer products in 10 years. I doubled that because every project runs into unforeseen problems and then theres time need for the product to penetrate the market anyways...

I like Jinks "lumens-per-watt" idea... that sounds like a reasonable way for gov't to start regulating efficiency standards.

Flourescent ballasts typically contain PCBs, as well. I don't think long term we're looking at CFLs being very sustainable. Disposal is already an issue under Title 22.

Ian, I agree that public policy can move us along faster, but you're comments about CFL problems being fictional are laughable.

I bought BRAND NEW CFLs at Home Depot last week. When I turn them on in my kitchen or stairwell, they run at about 1/10th brightness until they finally warm up after about 2-3 minutes... it makes me feel like I'm going blind. This is not fiction.

The issue with motion sensors is real as well. I could NOT use them, I TRIED! They work fine when the switch is ON, but when the switch is OFF the CFL will not go off (it flickers for a couple hours and then the lamp is completely dead). This is not fiction, these were not crappy CFL lamps, they were $12 lamps bought at Home Depot that said "dimmer compatible" on the packaging!

The issue of not having CFLs or LEDs to go in appliances is not fiction either, it is a real issue yet to be addressed.

The only way I could see a law like this working is to have a deadline in the future... and as with most laws of this type, the interested parties (i.e. those who's revenue stream is most effected) will lobby the government and they'll push back the deadline a dozen times... and by then market forces will probably push us toward new lighting options despite the law.

To everyone involved, I am in total agreement that CFLs are a bandaid on the issue of consumption and have a number of problems associated. However, many people have voiced to me the problems of LED cost. I agree that the comparison of cost is steep compared to the $1-$10 you can pay for incandescent replacement. However, one factor everyone seems to miss is what is called Life Cycle Assessment. LEDs are engineered for a minimum life expectancy of 50,000 hours. Now, one factor everyone must consider is poor engineering. As Jinks pointed out thermal management is critical, but I must also warn of purchasing substandard LED replacements. With white LEDs, the key is in the blue dye. There is one company that manufactures the "white" dye to the standard that will maintain the correct color temperature and adequate lumens per watt ratio required to produce a workable light level for homes and business. Their work has been overseen by the DOE and is currently under review by Energy Star for Solid State Lighting Standards. The last thing we need is poor quality lights inundating the market and creating a stigma against a very sustainable method of lighting.
Back to the issue of life cycle assessment, the standard incandescent has a life expectancy of 750-1000 hours. Halogens last around 7000. CFLs - approx. 10,000
The higher quality LEDs will primarily cost around $85-100 apiece. However, given the lifespan and energy consumption of 10-13W producing around 650-700 lumens over a modest expectancy of 50,000 hours I would say the life cycle creates a positive return within a reasonable time frame. Many of Americans will balk at cost, but there are many resources for homeowners to change to more efficient products in their home. I am adding a link showing the options available to help homeowners. Many of you will also find that your own power companies will provide low or no interest loans to reduce consumption. The url is through the now infamous Pueblo CO information clearinghouse.

http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/housing/fin-energy-eff/eff.html

I hope that this information was helpful.

One final note. If you are looking at LEDs, ensure the company has engineered them to be dimmable. Most quality companies have done this. But just be aware they can be non dimmable to cut cost.

In California we already have an energy code, it’s called Title 24. It cuts back on where we can use incandescent lamps. To outlaw incandescent completely is going too far.

kballs:

I bought BRAND NEW CFLs at Home Depot last week. When I turn them on in my kitchen or stairwell, they run at about 1/10th brightness until they finally warm up after about 2-3 minutes... it makes me feel like I'm going blind. This is not fiction.

I have CFLs like that as well. I use them in the bathrooms. When I get up to go in the middle of the night, they slowly gain brightness and let my tired eyes adjust. Not all are like that, and those I got from Costco. They're fine for what I use them for.

On other things like reading lamps, laundry area, and closets I use a fluorescent bulbs that give out a "cool white" light that makes things more clear for me to. For places like outdoor lighting, den/livingroom and general lighting I use the "warm white" CFLs that aren't as striking a light, and give the area a warm homely light like a wasteful incandescent bulb would. They all have instant start up times with no 60hz flickering like they used to in the old days.

The issue with motion sensors is real as well. I could NOT use them, I TRIED! They work fine when the switch is ON, but when the switch is OFF the CFL will not go off (it flickers for a couple hours and then the lamp is completely dead). This is not fiction, these were not crappy CFL lamps, they were $12 lamps bought at Home Depot that said "dimmer compatible" on the packaging!

Again, this is not a problem with the CFLs. It is a bad design with the motion sensors themselves. Electronics should be designed so that "off" is off. Your motion sensors, as well as ceiling fan controllers I've seen, do not completely stop the electricity from going to the electronics/CFLs. This is called a "phantom load" - when something is supposed to be turned off, but is still using power. Bad design in the electronics, not the CFL.

The issue of not having CFLs or LEDs to go in appliances is not fiction either, it is a real issue yet to be addressed.

I don't need a CFL in my fridge/freezer/microwave/oven because I'm not using those lights on a constant basis. I do use them for everything. If a lamp socket doesn't accept the standard fluorescent bulb base, it gets replaced with one that does.

It'd almost be worth it for the series of fake fluorescents northern californians would demand s.t. they didn't have worse than the Kosher Lightswitch (random delay!) as far as being able to see what's what without wait.

Also...nonsensical in cold weather!

New designs! Those http://www.ledlightingfixtures.com are boring and (though 11W is better than before) you'd need a silly number of them.

The stuff on the market I see is really kind of jinxed; no temperature warnings if the lamp's not gonna make it 5 years in the fixture at hand, the Daylight ones are in short supply and non-dimmable, the 'warm' ones all kind of say 'wan' to me, I probably need some kind of power conditioning to hedge against power quality in semiannual ice or wind storms, rewire the whole place and finally jigger those PC supplies with built-in-UPS-and-air-filters.

We should stop using anything that's supposed to be a lamp and instead just use the blinkenlights on the Cisco and the cellphone to cook by. I'll take to wearing glow in the dark stuff so I can reuse wasted illumination in shops....

Burning^WFluorescing^WNanodotosis Man
Maybe nix the HPS car lamps in favor of something more mellow. Drivers pay so much attention it may as well be open charcoal censers on the corners of the box.
...would that pass emissions test?

Sorry! LEDs need their own power backends like CF lamps including line fault handling and of course (preferably redundant) DC supplies and isolation for the programmable-color types and for dimming. The cheap backends would keen audibly like 802.11 equipment of course, from supply harmonics conducted into inductive components.

Of course we need UV LEDs that last longer; I'd settle for SHGs on lasers in glass diffuser envelopes and diamond cooling plates with NIR triggers, brought into the $30 range and with a choice of AC or DC rails. That'd help spot fido in the yard....

Moreover, LEDs are too low-wattage in a given formfactor, as has been mentioned...mostly. Surface-mount ones would be fine if only one tolerated the number needed in design and the RF encapsulation didn't kill the cooling surface's efficiency. That is, they're not quite so efficient as to not dissipate 1.4 to 10W out of the 7 to 50W you put into a fixture, and they could really use new fixtures that helped dissipate the heat while still serving fire prevention (isolation, really) functions. LEDs and Opterons crater at 70-80 degrees centigrade, after all.

This is a MSNBC report on the topic. Note Cuba's efforts, quite amusing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17233145/

I'm surprised nobody has commented on the illness part of fluorescents in this blog. I'm aware that my reaction is severe. (vomiting, headache, numbness, confusion) but I'm not entirely alone. Unfortunately the non-flickering CFL's (using electronic ballasts thus preventing flicker) make me sicker quicker than all other fluorescents. And I can't go near a LCD monitors or TVs because of the fluorescent backlighting.
My concern regarding banning incandescents is simply that we need options beyond fluorescents. I'm investigating LED, but know the LED christmas lights make me .. well.. gag.
Check out Irlen.com to learn more about lighting issues that affect children (and adults) with ADD, ADHD, autism, reading disabilities, as well as migraine sufferers. Having spent time with Irlen diagnoticians,(usually school teachers) I am learning that fluorescent lighting is one of the key 'culprits'.
It's not flicker, it's the light colour spectrum that is causing some of us problems.
There has to be options for those of us that suffer and unfortunately for the moment, incandescent lighting, as environmentally unfriendly as it is, is my only option. That, and sunlight, but it tends to go away at night.
Part of the reason I'm writing this post is in the hopes that someone with great wisdom, or even some one with a half formed insight might impart their knowledge and help me, and others, get more answers to our issue, find ways of lighting efficiently without causing pain, and even help me to get this information out further.
THanks for listening!

stumbled onto this blog looking for dimmable low energy bulbs: need to look like standard candle bulbs in both small and standard bayonet fitting sizes.... any web sites / manufacturers / exporters? (i am a Brit) thanx

I am an avid environmentalist, but I also believe in the strength of free markets. By us allowing our government to tell us what lightbulb we are allowed to put in our homes is a loss of freedom. We have a free energy market, but yet we are forced to use fluorescents. Why? Is it to save energy? Is it to reduce global warming? Is it to artificially keep energy rates low for low income individuals? If it is to save energy, why does the government let us by electric stoves or heat our houses with electricity? If it is to reduce global warming, why don't we target the carbon and not the product that emits it such as a carbon tax or cap and trade program? If it is to artificially keep electricity prices low for low income individuals, why don't we have a small tax added to our electrical bill to creates low income subsidized electrical programs? I design homes for a living and I have talked with city planners, builders, clients, and electricians and I have not had one person say "yes" I want the government to tell me what fixture I am allowed to put in my house. Next they will tell me what car I can drive or what food I can eat. . . . When electricity prices spiked, people bought more fluorescents. That is because the market dictated their actions. Let markets prevail and people decide what they want to buy (not the government). Next, the government or this legislator Lloyd will be telling us to turn off our electricity on Wednesdays to save energy. Maybe someday we should just eliminate electrical fixtures all together and use candles, fires for cooking, and fireplaces for heat. Let's just go backwards in techonology to the stone age and save energy. Forcing people to use a certain product discourages new products, innovations, and creates a new branch of government to enforce these silly laws. Our energy market is deregulated, so then why are we being regulated to use certain fixtures?

Adamantly against forced regulation - For free markets and choice.
Kelly Hamm

Why? Is it to save energy?

Wondering the flickers of CFL bulb when switch is OFF :
May be due to a wrong wire (hot) wire connected to the bulb.
The other wire is going thro' the switch.
Can this be the reason ?

The incandescent lightbulbs do have some use.
While most of my house is illuminated by fluorescent lights, one fluorescent lighbulb in the kitchen had this nasty habbit of killing my WIRED DSL connection every time it was turned on. So I had to replace it with an incandescent one.

The facts used in all the equations are supplied by the people selling the CF bulbs. No scientific facts only sales gimicks. Get the facts, then talk.. It won't do any good to save 20 bucks in electricity and loose 30 bucks in other costs. So far all I see is the light bulb loby buying laws!

Anybody heere ever BREAK a CFL and then read the cleanup procedure?

Don't let the HAZMAT OR EPA folks find out of your get a really big bill!

Did anyone really investigate these CFL's before they decided to ban the old bulbs?

Hi,

Yah, I don t know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but Greenlite USA offers a dimable cfl. They have distribution pretty much throughout the continental US. You can find their website under their name.

Cheers

One argument I keep hearing from environmentalists (never thought I'd be on the other side of that moniker, by the way) is that burning coal releases more mercury into the atmosphere than CFLs contain. That argument is stupid when you consider that the burnt-coal-mercury is released more slowly into a greater space, and it's still barely more than the ammount of mercury vapor that is released into your home all at once when a bulb accidentally breaks.

If you have children or pets in your care, I urge you to seriously consider the facts before switching to CFLs in your home. Just look up the clean up procedure for a broken CFL from the US government's EPA site before you buy one more mercury filled CFL.

For the past couple hundred years, mercury and it's dangerous cummulative effects on human's mental and physical health weren't understood as well as it's use in industrial applications.

Mercury poisoning was so common that there are entire cultural stereotypes for the professions that were often subjected to it, like the Mad Hatter and things like that.

You aren't allowed to paint your baby's nursery in lead paint and tile it in asbestos so why on earth would you be allowed to light it with CFLS?

Also lets note that currently CFLs are not manufactured in the USA because the manufacturing process produces so much toxic waste that the EPA doesn't allow it on US soil. The carbon impact made by freighting the bulbs overseas to market completely balances out the energy savings on the bulb use.

The best way to get around this is to get the nearly-domestic Mexican manufactured CFLs, but the first thing a CFL lover will say to someone who complains about them is, "oh well, you have to get the good ones." Meaning, the main name brands, which are usually shipped all the way from CHINA. Hey at least your lightbulb got to see the world.

The problem is a real one - how to get beautiful light with no mercury/cleanup/whatever issues at better than 5% efficiency? CFLs are NOT the answer. The quality of light is horrible, environmental issues are unresolved and there is very little long term performance and impact data available.

As a professional lighting designer, I stay away from CFLs and any kind of fluorescent bulbs because of the looks. CFLs are NOT continuous spectrum and even though there are dimmable models available, fundamentally, it is IMPOSSIBLE to dim a fluorescent bulb. You can make it blink, but generally speaking, the energy of electrical discharge through gas cannot be varied much at all.

I personally believe that, in 10 years time, properly designed LEDs will start getting near color quality of incandescent bulbs at a reasonable cost. Meanwhile, they can augment other types of lighting in situation like coves, under-cabinet lighting, etc.

CFLs are more of a problem than a solution. Put some money into LED technology rather silly laws. Banning incandescent bulb is like telling you that your car must have no more than 2 gears and can only vary its speed in 10 mph increments. It's really better for the traffic, I promise!