EU ban of halogen lamps - tomorrow - first I've heard of it!

[timgiles]

Hi all,

So I just read that the EU is banning almost all other halogen light bulbs as of tomorrow! Nice of our newspapers, news organisations and governments to have given us some warning. First I heard about this was today...

I also found a website that seems to suggest that some cap styles are going to be phased out:

https://www.intelligentabodes.co.uk/are-you-ready-for-the-halogen-ban.html

GU10, E27, B22

I take it they mean halogen bulbs for these cap types will be phased out and not the actual cap types?

[JS]

Poor Thomas, RIP...

JS

[Zero999]

I have no idea.

I can see the need for reducing the use of incandescent lamps, so save energy, but I wish they'd stop banning things. I think it would be better if they could impose a huge tax on them instead, making them more expensive than the alternatives such as LED and CFL.

[newbrain]

From:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/new-lightbulb-rules-will-enable-household-energy-savings-and-help-reduce-ghg-emissions-2018-aug-31_en

The changes to the EU rules entering into force relate to standard* halogen bulbs (mainly the pear-shaped ones) with non-directional light, but do not cover special types like those used in desk lamps and floodlights.

* mains voltage non-directional halogen bulbs

I think this is the relevant regulation, we are now entering "Stage 6".

Poor Thomas, RIP...

JS

Possibly a genius, quite certainly an a**hole.

[Tepe]

I think this is the relevant regulation, we are now entering "Stage 6".

In other words, ample warning.

[precaud]

They also banned sale of so-called "energy drinks" to minors. A sensible move, really.

[TheWelly888]

I got rid of the halogen spotlights in my kitchen years ago in favour of LED alternatives - they work quite well if you avoid the Wun Hung Lo brand!

[Bud]

They also banned sale of so-called "energy drinks" to minors. A sensible move, really.

And i heard France banned smartphones in schools.

[edy]

Did they ban regular incandescent filament bulbs? Is it time to start stockpiling them before prices go up? And has anyone else noticed the life of regular bulbs seem to be shorter than advertised (could the old light-bulb collusion scheme be back?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel).



I found these jokes while looking for the above photo...

Q: How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. "We'll fix it in software."

Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. It's a hardware problem.

[Tepe]

Did they ban regular incandescent filament bulbs?

Of course.

[Mr. Scram]

Regular incandescent bulbs are banned for sale in places the public at large is likely to encounter them, but they can still be bought for specific applications and appliances. This safeguards both the adoption of more frugal types of lighting and allows people who can't migrate to continue using their equipment. Some vendors are selling regular light bulbs as ruggedised or heavy duty versions, which is a bit of a loophole but still serves the general purpose of the regulations.

There's a good chance newer bulbs aren't lasting as long because thinner filament bulbs are more energy efficient and thicker more longlasting ones are less efficient. The regulations ban inefficient lights and not incandescent lights in general, so it may be an attempt to make regulatory bulbs.

People get so emotional over these things and seem to love it as a crutch for general feelings against regulations or the EU. "They took mah bulbs!" It's not as bad as it sounds.

[rdl]

Regular incandescent bulbs are still for sale in the US, though probably not for much longer. At one time they were going to be "banned" by requiring efficiencies (lumens per watt) to high to be practical. I don't know why anyone would want to use them though. I guess there are still niche applications. I've used nothing but LED for years, except for in a couple of appliances.

[Ian.M]

Unfortunately its probably exactly as bad as it sounds (though I haven't trawled through the source legislation to confirm).

AFAIK there is no substitute for Halogen-A style bulbs  (105W replaces 150W ordinary incandescent, and 75W replaces 100W), in the traditional bulb form factor or even tnat will retrofit in the same fitting, with comparable light output, even radiation pattern and similar colour temperature, so if the average Joe still has legacy fittings their choices are gloom, or an electrician.   If Joe is low-paid, without the savings for a lighting refit, or in leased accomodation, "They took mah bulbs!" is a likely cry of protest.

Stuff like this is why the UK BREXIT referendum got a 51.9% 'Leave' vote.

[nctnico]

Hi all,

So I just read that the EU is banning almost all other halogen light bulbs as of tomorrow!

What a great day it is then! I absolutely hate the light from halogen lamps.

[Mr. Scram]

Unfortunately its probably exactly as bad as it sounds (though I haven't trawled through the source legislation to confirm).

AFAIK there is no substitute for Halogen-A style bulbs  (105W replaces 150W ordinary incandescent, and 75W replaces 100W), in the traditional bulb form factor or even tnat will retrofit in the same fitting, with comparable light output, even radiation pattern and similar colour temperature, so if the average Joe still has legacy fittings their choices are gloom, or an electrician.   If Joe is low-paid, without the savings for a lighting refit, or in leased accomodation, "They took mah bulbs!" is a likely cry of protest.

Stuff like this is why the UK BREXIT referendum got a 51.9% 'Leave' vote.

That all sounds a bit preposterous. You're unlikely to find an exact 1 to 1 replacement, but that's unrealistic to expect anyway. Different things will be different. Technology has advanced enough for replacements to be suitable without any "gloom" or people being forced into the poor house. And again, if you absolutely must have your traditional or halogen bulbs you easily can within the bounds of the regulations. The population at large is simply encouraged towards modern options.

I suspect people had the same complaints about leaded petrol being banned. It seems the only winning move is not to play, in all other cases people will make a huge fuss.

Anyone who voted "leave" for the sake of a light bulb deserves what's coming.

[Ian.M]

Much of the UK housing stock is ageing, and in the lower income  rental sector, poorly maintained.  The show homes with all modern Eco lighting are being bought by yuppies.  The DINKys are buying up classic (but not listed) properties, gutting them and fully modernising them.   This *will* hit low income families and working and middle class pensioners hard.  They'll probably take the 'gloom' option and fit the best LED substitute or CFL equivalent bulb they can find/afford and suffer the resulting eyestrain from patchy or inadequate illumination.

Your analogy fails: Of course you could update your classic car to do away with its need for leaded (or equivalent) petrol, machining the head for a hardened valve seat insert and replace the valve guide with modern ones, then fit replacement valves with hardened seating surfaces and stem, costing you a *LOT* of mechanic and machine shop time, but its not in any way comparable with the light bulbs because Lead substitute additives for petrol are still commonly available, retail, in the UK.  e.g. on just about any retail park you'll find a Halfords: https://www.halfords.com/motoring/engine-oils-fluids/fuel-oil-additives/wynns-lead-substitute-fuel-stabiliser

A 'boil the frog slowly' winning move would have been a 26% levy compounded annually on the sale of incandescent bulbs, possibly with a lower levy for more efficient, or rugged service ones, and with the option to steepen it if cheap inports are floodoing in. Over the 10 years the EU and UK have been playing the phase-out game that would have led  to an order of magnitude increase in their cost, allowing alternative lighting technologies to compete on a level playing field.  The funds raised would have paid for enforcement and could have subsidised rebated bulb exchange for those on benefits.

[Mr. Scram]

Much of the UK housing stock is ageing, and in the lower income  rental sector, poorly maintained.  The show homes with all modern Eco lighting are being bought by yuppies.  The DINKys are buying up classic (but not listed) properties, gutting them and fully modernising them.   This *will* hit low income families and working and middle class pensioners hard.  They'll probably take the 'gloom' option and fit the best LED substitute or CFL equivalent bulb they can find/afford and suffer the resulting eyestrain from patchy or inadequate illumination.

Your analogy fails: Of course you could update your classic car to do away with its need for leaded (or equivalent) petrol, machining the head for a hardened valve seat insert and replace the valve guide with modern ones, then fit replacement valves with hardened seating surfaces and stem, costing you a *LOT* of mechanic and machine shop time, but its not in any way comparable with the light bulbs because Lead substitute additives for petrol are still commonly available, retail, in the UK.  e.g. on just about any retail park you'll find a Halfords: https://www.halfords.com/motoring/engine-oils-fluids/fuel-oil-additives/wynns-lead-substitute-fuel-stabiliser

A 'boil the frog slowly' winning move would have been a 26% levy compounded annually on the sale of incandescent bulbs, possibly with a lower levy for more efficient, or rugged service ones, and with the option to steepen it if cheap inports are floodoing in. Over the 10 years the EU and UK have been playing the phase-out game that would have led  to an order of magnitude increase in their cost, allowing alternative lighting technologies to compete on a level playing field.  The funds raised would have paid for enforcement and could have subsidised rebated bulb exchange for those on benefits.

That all sounds quite far fetched, to be honest. It seems unlikely any supposed cost increase will hit anyone in any significant manner. The groups mentioned not only being hit, but being hit hard sounds outright propagandistic. However, if you can show us what the actual yearly financial impact will be after also taking the reduced electric bill and replacement cycle into account we could discuss how much that amount would impact anyone. If I look at the link below decent LED lighting is cheaply available at prices equal or even below what decent incandescent bulbs cost. And again, people still have access to the now banned types of bulbs. They're just made less ubiquitous. Modern lighting technology is a lot better than it used to be an offers large amounts of light delivered even at low voltages, so eyestrain doesn't appear to be a problem. More efficient lights mean more lumen in the same sockets.

The comparison with leaded fuels is apt. People were driving cars that required leaded fuel and were now forced to either upgrade their motor vehicle or were faced with the much more significant added yearly expense of using a lead substitute. That's a lot like supposedly having to hire an electrician or spending more on bulbs, although either notion seems questionable. People upgrading their electrical installation because it's not adequate for LED lighting doesn't seem to really be a thing.

It seems this subject is as much surrounded with fearmongering as the leave or remain discussion was, with claims being made that don't seem to be backed by facts or are outright lies.

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/lighting/light-bulbs-accessories/

[JS]

Possibly a genius, quite certainly an a**hole.

I just love the light they give. Dishes started to be dirtier when I started using LEDs, back to halogen and they got cleaner again. That and every day use. I haven't found better LEDs than Ra>80 here, CRI>90 exists and are most likely better than what I've seen but not available here.

JS

[nfmax]

More efficient lights mean more lumen in the same sockets.

Well, almost...

The problem I have with LED bulbs in particular, though some CFLs were nearly as bad, is that although they fit the same socket as incandescents, the light does not come from the same point - it's generally significantly further away from the base. In many of the light fittings I have here that is a major pain, as the fitting itself blocks off the light and/or casts sharp shadows. As this is an old house, some of the ceilings are very low, so I use 'surface' luminaires which hold the axis of the bulb parallel to the ceiling. These are just about usable with the right CFLs, but every LED bulb I have tried looks laughable. These will probably have to be replaced. Ideally, I would like an integrated luminaire - why bother with replaceable LED bulbs when socket compatibility is not an issue? - but these are difficult to find and still expensive (I want to actually see the thing in action before buying it).

I have a couple of wall lights that use G9 base 240V Halogens, and the same problem arises, only worse. The G9 LEDs I have tried are too big, too dim, and failed after less than 1 year, due I think to inadequate heatsinking (i.e. none). I also have four 12V Halogen reading lamps. All these are going to have to be replaced as well.

[Mr. Scram]

Well, almost...

The problem I have with LED bulbs in particular, though some CFLs were nearly as bad, is that although they fit the same socket as incandescents, the light does not come from the same point - it's generally significantly further away from the base. In many of the light fittings I have here that is a major pain, as the fitting itself blocks off the light and/or casts sharp shadows. As this is an old house, some of the ceilings are very low, so I use 'surface' luminaires which hold the axis of the bulb parallel to the ceiling. These are just about usable with the right CFLs, but every LED bulb I have tried looks laughable. These will probably have to be replaced. Ideally, I would like an integrated luminaire - why bother with replaceable LED bulbs when socket compatibility is not an issue? - but these are difficult to find and still expensive (I want to actually see the thing in action before buying it).

I have a couple of wall lights that use G9 base 240V Halogens, and the same problem arises, only worse. The G9 LEDs I have tried are too big, too dim, and failed after less than 1 year, due I think to inadequate heatsinking (i.e. none). I also have four 12V Halogen reading lamps. All these are going to have to be replaced as well.

I have to admit I used to be sceptical of it all, but after finding LED lighting with a pleasant temperature, adequate amount of light and using barely any power at all I'm a convert to the point of not minding replacing other technologies with LED as the old ones break. As time progresses technology will inevitably get better, but it can already be as good as the older solutions.

Of course, newer designs tend to take advantage of the fact that LEDs can be placed nearly anywhere. Stuff that I couldn't quite light to a satisfactory degree before can now be lit quite well. I had a bunch of lights in the kitchen that never lit the counter where I needed them and tended to break about every second month, probably due to oil or grease getting onto them somehow. I now placed some LED strips underneath the cabinets and I have nice, warm and even light all over my countertop. They've been there for many times longer than any bulb ever lasted in the hood and it costs three gnat farts a year to run them. Especially confined spaces can benefit from the added flexibility.

[nctnico]

The problem I have with LED bulbs in particular, though some CFLs were nearly as bad, is that although they fit the same socket as incandescents, the light does not come from the same point - it's generally significantly further away from the base. In many of the light fittings I have here that is a major pain, as the fitting itself

I have to admit I used to be sceptical of it all, but after finding LED lighting with a pleasant temperature, adequate amount of light and using barely any power at all I'm a convert to the point of not minding replacing other technologies with LED as the old ones break. As time progresses technology will inevitably get better, but it can already be as good as the older solutions.

Of course, newer designs tend to take advantage of the fact that LEDs can be placed nearly anywhere. Stuff that I couldn't quite light to a satisfactory degree before can now be lit quite well.

I agree. I have replaced all of the socketed CFL lamps with LED not so long ago. Currently I'm re-doing the bathroom and I've bought square flat LED downlights to put into the ceiling. Because the ceiling height is already very low at 235cm (no, I'm not kidding!) every cm counts.

[nfmax]

The problem I have with LED bulbs in particular, though some CFLs were nearly as bad, is that although they fit the same socket as incandescents, the light does not come from the same point - it's generally significantly further away from the base. In many of the light fittings I have here that is a major pain, as the fitting itself

I have to admit I used to be sceptical of it all, but after finding LED lighting with a pleasant temperature, adequate amount of light and using barely any power at all I'm a convert to the point of not minding replacing other technologies with LED as the old ones break. As time progresses technology will inevitably get better, but it can already be as good as the older solutions.

Of course, newer designs tend to take advantage of the fact that LEDs can be placed nearly anywhere. Stuff that I couldn't quite light to a satisfactory degree before can now be lit quite well.

I agree. I have replaced all of the socketed CFL lamps with LED not so long ago. Currently I'm re-doing the bathroom and I've bought square flat LED downlights to put into the ceiling. Because the ceiling height is already very low at 235cm (no, I'm not kidding!) every cm counts.

235cm? Luxury! (we used to dream of 235cm high ceilings) My kitchen ceiling is 214cm at the lowest point

[dzseki]

I've read that phosphor based lights like LEDs, emitting far too much blue light, that may cause eye damage on the long run, and if (when) this gets serious, it will be already too late...
It's like reducing the CO2 emission of cars, when the world's 15 biggest freight ship emitts more CO2 than all the car in the world...

[charliedelta]

They also need to tighten up the EMC regulations regarding the LED drivers that emit so much interference. There  is widespread abuse of the EMC laws especially in the LED lighting market. Again this is typical of the European regulators. They quick to ban things and dont have the laws in place to deal with their bans and thats before they even begin to enforce their existing EMC laws.

[StillTrying]

Knowing the UK gov. once one of them realizes the chemicals involved in producing billions of LEDs, they'll ban them as well, and we'll end up back using candles.

[mzzj]

I've read that phosphor based lights like LEDs, emitting far too much blue light, that may cause eye damage on the long run, and if (when) this gets serious, it will be already too late...
It's like reducing the CO2 emission of cars, when the world's 15 biggest freight ship emitts more CO2 than all the car in the world...

Your statement about CO2 emissions can't be right. Could be closer to truth if you meant NOx and SOx (nitrous oxides and sulfur oxides)

[dzseki]

I've read that phosphor based lights like LEDs, emitting far too much blue light, that may cause eye damage on the long run, and if (when) this gets serious, it will be already too late...
It's like reducing the CO2 emission of cars, when the world's 15 biggest freight ship emitts more CO2 than all the car in the world...

Your statement about CO2 emissions can't be right. Could be closer to truth if you meant NOx and SOx (nitrous oxides and sulfur oxides)

Some say outright CO2, like this one:
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping-carbon-pollution/

Others a more vague:
http://www.industrytap.com/worlds-15-biggest-ships-create-more-pollution-than-all-the-cars-in-the-world/8182

[mzzj]

Some say outright CO2, like this one:
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping-carbon-pollution/

Example of what you get after enough many news agencies copy-paste the news from each other without understanding difference between carbon(soot) and carbon dioxide 


50 million cars if used average 1 hour per day with 10 liters per hour are going to burn 500 million liters of gasoline per day.
Cargo ship Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C "109 000 horsepower" engine indirectly mentioned in one of the articles burns 250 tons of fuel per day = 0.312 million liters

CO2 emissions from one large cargo ship are only approx 1/1500th of the CO2 emissions from 50 million cars!

NOx and SOx are different case.

[nctnico]

Some say outright CO2, like this one:
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/cargo-container-shipping-carbon-pollution/

Example of what you get after enough many news agencies copy-paste the news from each other without understanding difference between carbon(soot) and carbon dioxide 

50 million cars if used average 1 hour per day with 10 liters per hour are going to burn 500 million liters of gasoline per day.
Cargo ship Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C "109 000 horsepower" engine indirectly mentioned in one of the articles burns 250 tons of fuel per day = 0.312 million liters

CO2 emissions from one large cargo ship are only approx 1/1500th of the CO2 emissions from 50 million cars!

NOx and SOx are different case.

Good explaination. Way too little people pull out their calculators when they are spoon fed with wrong information. Journalists just record. They don't think.

[NiHaoMike]

I've read that phosphor based lights like LEDs, emitting far too much blue light, that may cause eye damage on the long run, and if (when) this gets serious, it will be already too late...

Warm white LEDs are very common now which don't have the problem of too much blue light.

[bloguetronica]

Well, IMHO, it is another idiotic decision made by the EU politicians that never saw a serious day of work in their lives. They don't have any life experience to make such decisions for the rest of us. Yet, they make them.

I'm yet to find a LED bulb that approaches the CRI of any incandescent bulb. Plus, LED bulbs show flicker, especially lower quality ones. Also, filament bulbs give decent current limiters to test old gear. Now how I'm going to test if a given equipment is shorted? It is a safety hazard, especially for the mains plug and the mating socket.

Kind regards, Samuel Lourenço

[NiHaoMike]

Also, filament bulbs give decent current limiters to test old gear. Now how I'm going to test if a given equipment is shorted? It is a safety hazard, especially for the mains plug and the mating socket.

An induction motor with a centrifugal switch but without capacitors. Approximates a short circuit when not spinning but apply a substantial fraction of the mains voltage and it will start, then draw little current to continue spinning.

[Cyberdragon]

Knowing the UK gov. once one of them realizes the chemicals involved in producing billions of LEDs, they'll ban them as well, and we'll end up back using candles.

Nah, we'll be fine...long as we have potato peelers.

[John B]

People who object to banning things need to be banned!

But seriously, the reasoning is spurious. It's not like the energy dissipated in a bulb is all wasted energy. Even here, inside the house is cold much of the year. Much of Europe is much colder, for longer in the year. Some heat dissipation and infra-red radiation wouldn't go astray.

Especially when the deficit in heat would be made up by gas or wood burning.

I personally do not like LED retrofits. Not only is their lifespan overestimated in my experience, but I don't like the idea of disposable electronics that end up in the landfill. Not that incadescent bulbs are some pinnacle of technology, but they are comparatively easy to recycle.

[mzzj]

  Good explaination. Way too little people pull out their calculators when they are spoon fed with wrong information. Journalists just record. They don't think.

Another eye opener was when someone suggested that all cargo ships would operate on battery power in near future:
Large cargo/tanker ship that has around 80 MW of propulsion power takes  ~about 11 days at 20 knots between China and US. --> 11*24*80= 21.1 GWh battery capacity needed.
Tesla's battery production for 2018 is supposed to be about 20 GWh total, enough for one ship..Worldwide TOTAL production of Li-ion batteries in 2017 was around 100 GWh, enough to equip five cargo ships.
Ships battery would also weight around 100 000 tons, large portion of total tonnage.

[stj]

we should just ban politicans,

anybody caught using, trading with, or hording politicians would be arrested and fined,
and the politicians would be taken to a secure location for safe destruction. 

[stj]

They also banned sale of so-called "energy drinks" to minors. A sensible move, really.

your ahead of yourself, they said they may do.
it would be better if these demons banned aspartic acid under it's various labels from being put in drinks any more.

[Jeroen3]

With light bulbs they are no longer allowed to be sold for regular domesting lighting purposes. You can still buy incandescent lamps, but they are marketed differently.
Anyone have the actual directives?

[mzzj]

With light bulbs they are no longer allowed to be sold for regular domesting lighting purposes. You can still buy incandescent lamps, but they are marketed differently.
Anyone have the actual directives?

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/node/82
should get you close

[madires]

I switched to LED lighting several years ago and can't complain that I'm missing anything. Actually I like that I can choose the color temperature to get the best light for a specific environment. If you want to go to bed you shouldn't turn on the 6000K light And you aren't limited to specific standard bulbs, You can go quite creative without spending much money. LED strips, aluminum from the hardware store, US$2 remote controlled dimmer and you have a nice illumination.

[StillTrying]

I've had at least some LED lighting for at least 10 years, and of course they're much better now. But anywhere I need to see or find anything such as the junk room I use a 100W incandescent. (I hope the light bulb police don't come around)

If LED bulbs where so much better, there'd be no need to ban incandescents.

[Cyberdragon]

I saw packs of 100W at the dollar store recently (don't know if they're still there). Ironically, they also have LEDs for 50c (destroying Ebay prices). HOWEVER, which one is more likely to burn your house down...

[RoGeorge]

I've had at least some LED lighting for at least 10 years, and of course they're much better now. But anywhere I need to see or find anything such as the junk room I use a 100W incandescent. (I hope the light bulb police don't come around)

If LED bulbs where so much better, there'd be no need to ban incandescents.

That's so true it almost hurts. 

[malagas_on_fire]

Hi

Here you can buy one of the E27 18W candle shapped halogen lamp for just a price of a coffee . It can be used with dimmers or testing triac's

[nctnico]

If LED bulbs where so much better, there'd be no need to ban incandescents.

The ban just pushes prices down to affordable levels. The Philips LED lamps I bought where around 6 euro each. That is more than an incandescent lamp but the LED lamps ought to last longer. At least the Philips long-life CFL lamps I had before did. As I wrote before the CFL lamps where already a big improvement when it came to generating excessive heat. At the current price levels I'd buy LED lamps anyway because they have some advantages compared to CFL (slow start).

[rdl]

I started switching to LED nearly six years ago. I haven't had one fail yet. The first one I bought went in a fixture where the regular incandescent would burn out in just 2 or 3 months, probably because of heat. Savings due to that one Philips bulb lasting over five years has paid for itself many times over.

[bloguetronica]

Just a though: Heaters and radiators can be considered highly inefficient filament bulbs. They only give off IR. Why aren't they banned?

Now seriously, I think that filament bulbs are a non issue if you need to heat your house. The money you spend with them, the less you spend in heating, although that might be a bit negligible.

Kind regards, Samuel Lourenço

[amyk]

^ Incidentally, that is also why LED adoption has been far higher in countries closer to the equator, like Southeast Asia --- there, the warmer climate means incandescent heat is truly inefficient waste much of the year as they already spend plenty on air conditioning.

But in a cold climate like the far North and South, the heat given off by "inefficient" incandescents is not wasted.

This is an interesting book on the subject of incandescent lamps in general:
https://archive.org/details/historyofincande00howe

Apparently you can still buy new(!) carbon-filament lamps, which are of course exempt from the ban because they are "specialty". No doubt the ban has caused a resurgence in opposors who are going the full other extreme with 1890s replica lamps.

[nctnico]

Just a though: Heaters and radiators can be considered highly inefficient filament bulbs. They only give off IR. Why aren't they banned?

Now seriously, I think that filament bulbs are a non issue if you need to heat your house. The money you spend with them, the less you spend in heating, although that might be a bit negligible.

It is a bad idea because using electricity to heat a home (without a heat pump) is very inefficient. Better burn (natural) gas at home directly.

[glarsson]

It is a bad idea because using electricity to heat a home (without a heat pump) is very inefficient. Better burn (natural) gas at home directly.

En electric heater is 100% efficient. A gas burner is very inefficient as it only turns a very small fraction of the inherent energy of the gas into heat.

[dzseki]

It is a bad idea because using electricity to heat a home (without a heat pump) is very inefficient. Better burn (natural) gas at home directly.

En electric heater is 100% efficient. A gas burner is very inefficient as it only turns a very small fraction of the inherent energy of the gas into heat.

It could be efficient in terms of usage of kWh, but is also considerably more expensive than gas... So if efficiency is defined as your bills to pay then probably no.

[nctnico]

It is a bad idea because using electricity to heat a home (without a heat pump) is very inefficient. Better burn (natural) gas at home directly.

En electric heater is 100% efficient. A gas burner is very inefficient as it only turns a very small fraction of the inherent energy of the gas into heat.

You should ask the money back from the schools you went to! 

[glarsson]

Why?

[tom66]

It is a bad idea because using electricity to heat a home (without a heat pump) is very inefficient. Better burn (natural) gas at home directly.

En electric heater is 100% efficient. A gas burner is very inefficient as it only turns a very small fraction of the inherent energy of the gas into heat.

A gas boiler is typically over 90% efficient. Where are you getting the idea that it is inefficient from?

Gas is also about a third the price of electricity, at least in Europe.  I'd much rather burn gas to heat my home than use electricity.  I also only have a 63A supply, around 15kW, which is not enough to warm a home in very cold weather. (Boiler is 28kW.)

[ebastler]

A gas burner is very inefficient as it only turns a very small fraction of the inherent energy of the gas into heat.

Sure. To properly release all the inherent energy of the gas, look into nuclear fusion instead of stupid combustion of the molecules. 

[Jeroen3]

Your boiler is 28kW to supply your rainshower with plenty of hot water. If you need 28kW to heat your house, you either have a villa, or you might want to hear of this invention called: "insulation".

[glarsson]

Sure. To properly release all the inherent energy of the gas, look into nuclear fusion instead of stupid combustion of the molecules. 

At last someone that understands.
Rearranging the bonds using combustion is old tech.

[dzseki]

Sure. To properly release all the inherent energy of the gas, look into nuclear fusion instead of stupid combustion of the molecules. 

At last someone that understands.
Rearranging the bonds using combustion is old tech.

Sure, but if "new tech" would work then there would be non need to ban halogen lamps either, as energy cost would be nonexistent, right? 

[NiHaoMike]

A gas boiler is typically over 90% efficient. Where are you getting the idea that it is inefficient from?

Only the fancy ones that require PVC venting, which are common in cold climates. The ones that can use regular vents are only 80%.

Gas is also about a third the price of electricity, at least in Europe.

Basically about on par with using a heat pump. Which one ends up winning depends on location, natural gas service fees, and if there's on site power generation.

[madires]

Using the dissipated heat of incandescent bulbs to heat your home would make only sense in the winter. During summer time it's simply wasted energy. And if you got an air conditioning to keep your home cool the additional heat from the bulbs would increase its power consumption, i.e. even more wasted power.

Remember the EU regulation for vacuum cleaners? Before that we had vacuum cleaners with 2kW motors. Now we have models with the same cleaning performance running at just a few hundred Watts. In Japan they had that technology for years already. Sometimes it's necessary to nudge the industry in the right direction for the benefit of the people.

BTW, in Germany incandescent bulbs are e-waste and have to be collected and recycled as any other electronics. Another interesting tidbit about incandescent bulbs is that despite the shut-down of the Phoebus cartel modern bulbs still last about just 1000h. Halogen bulbs are often rated for more hours, and there are also special bulbs, like for traffic lights, rated for much larger life spans. So incandescent bulbs for household usage are/were still a rip-off

EDIT: I stand corrected about incandescent bulbs being e-waste. They go into the normal bin.

[malagas_on_fire]

You could use dimmer to lower the power of the tungsten filament lamp in the summer to reduce it's heat. Also it could be done with the halogen lamps.

Now it may not make sense since LED is widely used but a bit pricey if thinking of branded names. but they last longer , heat less, for the purpose of ilumination.

I'm planning to buy some of the lowest powered (18W) to make some triac test.

[mzzj]

Another interesting tidbit about incandescent bulbs is that despite the shut-down of the Phoebus cartel modern bulbs still last about just 1000h.

You get your interesting tidbit if you calculate optimum lifetime for incandescent bulb, ie: most lumens per euro including used electricity 

Widely published "sensational news" about incandescent bulb lifetime conspiracy are just 10% of the story.

[mzzj]

You could use dimmer to lower the power of the tungsten filament lamp in the summer to reduce it's heat. Also it could be done with the halogen lamps.

That's the silliest way to use incandescent bulbs. When you dim them the efficiency drops to ridiculously low number.

[ebastler]

BTW, in Germany incandescent bulbs are e-waste and have to be collected and recycled as any other electronics.

  Would you have a source for that statement?

German waste disposal guidelines a crafted with loving detail, but that's the first time I have heard this claim about incandescent bulbs. You are not supposed to put them in the glass recycling container, but they do belong into general household waste.

[Zero999]

Remember the EU regulation for vacuum cleaners? Before that we had vacuum cleaners with 2kW motors.

I have one of those fan heaters and will not use it in hot weather. This summer my house got very dirty, as this part of the world got baked in weeks of hot sunshine, which is very usual here. I was glad about the cool end to August because I could finally vacuum my house in comfort.

[NiHaoMike]

You could use dimmer to lower the power of the tungsten filament lamp in the summer to reduce it's heat. Also it could be done with the halogen lamps.

That's the silliest way to use incandescent bulbs. When you dim them the efficiency drops to ridiculously low number.

Halogen bulbs also do not like being dimmed very much.

[madires]

BTW, in Germany incandescent bulbs are e-waste and have to be collected and recycled as any other electronics.

  Would you have a source for that statement?

https://entsorgen.org/gluehbirnen/ (German text)

[glarsson]

Using the dissipated heat of incandescent bulbs to heat your home would make only sense in the winter. During summer time it's simply wasted energy.

When you live in northern Europe it makes sense. With more or less 24 hours of light there is no need to turn on the incandescent lights. You use them during the cold winter when there is almost no light outside at all.

This is one of the problems with the European union; not realizing Scandinavia and the Mediterranean are quite different.

[ebastler]

https://entsorgen.org/gluehbirnen/ (German text)

Sorry, you came across an unreliable source there. That's just some web marketing company, who apparently can't be trusted with all the details. (I wonder how they intend to make money from that website though?)

Incandescent bulbs are explicitly outside the scope of the WEEE directive, and hence the German Elektrogeräte-Gesetz:

• ElektroG §2 section (2) number 3, https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/elektrog_2015/__2.html (German).
• WEEE Directive, Article 2, number 3(c), https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32012L0019 (English).

[james_s]

Why?

Electric heat is 100% efficient at turning electricity into heat, but that is only part of the equation, you have to look at the whole picture from end to end and consider where the electricity comes from.

So let's say for simplicity that we are going to generate electricity by burning natural gas, a common method is to use a gas turbine engine which IIRC can be around 40% efficient typically at turning the heat from burning natural gas into mechanical energy, then that will be turning a generator which might be something like 90% efficient at turning mechanical energy into electricity. Then you have to send the electricity from the plant to your home, seems like I read somewhere that the grid is about 80% efficient.

Even if you completely ignore everything beyond the gas turbine it's still quite obvious that burning the gas in your home where you need the heat even in an old 80% efficient furnace or boiler is going to be more efficient than burning the gas at the power plant in a 40% efficient turbine to get electricity, even if you can later turn that electricity back into heat with a 100% efficiency.

Now if your electricity comes from other sources then the picture changes, but a very large percentage of the electricity generated around the world comes from burning fossil fuels.

[filssavi]

Claiming halogen bulbs can be used for heating is disingenuous at best, first of all in most of the eu (basically all of it apart from Scandinavia, Greenland and maybe to a lesser extent northern Scotland) you will have lights on only half the day at most (much less if you actually sleep at night) so a heating system will still be needed and will be kept on through the winter.

In the extreme north, you will have more time with the lights on at winter but unless you have a few kW of lights installed in your house it will not be enough

In the south of Europe where you might need mild heating only at the coldest of the year a heat pump is more than 100% efficient (meaningful it can move more thermal kW from outside in than it’s power consumption)

[malagas_on_fire]

You could use dimmer to lower the power of the tungsten filament lamp in the summer to reduce it's heat. Also it could be done with the halogen lamps.

That's the silliest way to use incandescent bulbs. When you dim them the efficiency drops to ridiculously low number.

Halogen bulbs also do not like being dimmed very much.

Yeah it is not efficient by any means but back then was the means to achieve less power and more lifespan from that bulbs. The halogen bulbs doesn't trip too much as expected with home made triac dimming but is not so crisp as the incandescent filament indeed
.

[Zero999]

Claiming halogen bulbs can be used for heating is disingenuous at best, first of all in most of the eu (basically all of it apart from Scandinavia, Greenland and maybe to a lesser extent northern Scotland) you will have lights on only half the day at most (much less if you actually sleep at night) so a heating system will still be needed and will be kept on through the winter.

In the extreme north, you will have more time with the lights on at winter but unless you have a few kW of lights installed in your house it will not be enough

In the south of Europe where you might need mild heating only at the coldest of the year a heat pump is more than 100% efficient (meaningful it can move more thermal kW from outside in than it’s power consumption)

Greenland is in North America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland

Other than that, you're right, it's silly to use incandescent lamps for heating, rather than moving to more efficient alternatives.

[Mr. Scram]

Claiming halogen bulbs can be used for heating is disingenuous at best, first of all in most of the eu (basically all of it apart from Scandinavia, Greenland and maybe to a lesser extent northern Scotland) you will have lights on only half the day at most (much less if you actually sleep at night) so a heating system will still be needed and will be kept on through the winter.

In the extreme north, you will have more time with the lights on at winter but unless you have a few kW of lights installed in your house it will not be enough

In the south of Europe where you might need mild heating only at the coldest of the year a heat pump is more than 100% efficient (meaningful it can move more thermal kW from outside in than it’s power consumption)

Not to mention that lights will effectively more than double the energy they use when airconditioning has to remove the heat. This seems to be true in moderate to warm climates.

[Mr. Scram]

Greenland is in North America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland

Other than that, you're right, it's silly to use incandescent lamps for heating, rather than moving to more efficient alternatives.

"Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and Denmark, the colonial powers, as well as the nearby island of Iceland) for more than a millennium.[9]"

Greenland is also tied to the EU in different ways, although not fully a part of it.

[james_s]

Yeah it is not efficient by any means but back then was the means to achieve less power and more lifespan from that bulbs. The halogen bulbs doesn't trip too much as expected with home made triac dimming but is not so crisp as the incandescent filament indeed
.

If you dim halogen bulbs too far down you get *less* lifespan because the bulb doesn't achieve sufficient temperature for the halogen cycle to work. It was a common problem with those halogen torchier lamps that used to be very popular, and also laser printer fuser rollers. I would often see tubular halogen lamps that had turned almost completely black/silver from being used in this sort of application. Normally they stay almost transparent until end of life.

[Cyberdragon]

If LED bulbs where so much better, there'd be no need to ban incandescents.

The ban just pushes prices down to affordable levels. The Philips LED lamps I bought where around 6 euro each. That is more than an incandescent lamp but the LED lamps ought to last longer. At least the Philips long-life CFL lamps I had before did. As I wrote before the CFL lamps where already a big improvement when it came to generating excessive heat. At the current price levels I'd buy LED lamps anyway because they have some advantages compared to CFL (slow start).

Really? That's an expensive fancy bulb they want you to get then. As I said, in the states LEDs are 50c to a few bucks each, yet the same stores still sell 100W incandescants...

I smell political crap...

[james_s]

The really, really cheap LED bulbs suck, but there are a lot of good ones in the $5-$8 range. I started buying LED bulbs back around 2010 when they were $40 a pop and even that was well worth it. Every one of those early Philips lamps I bought are still in service, the ones in my outside lights have many thousands of hours on them and even at $40 they have paid for themselves in savings some time ago.

I didn't think incandescent lamps should be banned, but rather tax them to subsidize more efficient lamps. The reason a purely free market doesn't work here is that a substantial number of people are either too ignorant or too stupid to understand the relation between lumens per Watt and the amount they pay each month for the electric bill. I remember hearing countless people moaning about how incandescent lamps were "only 50 cents" completely oblivious to the fact that the biggest expense by far is the energy required to run them. Beats me why but a lot of people really just can't seem to grasp the fact that a $10 bulb that consumes 8 Watts is cheaper than a 50 cent bulb that consumes 60 Watts once you pay for the power to run it. Nevermind the fact that even the lower cost LED bulbs last 10-15 times as long as a standard incandescent.

[stj]

what pisses me off, is who the hell are they to tell me how i spend my money,
if i want to use "ineficient" lights then it's my money paying for the power.

damned communists need to be rounded up and put in a camp somewhere - auswitz maybe, as they spent so much keeping it open.
because if not, they will eventually have us naked and living in caves again! - with a barcode tatoo'd on our head.

[malagas_on_fire]

Yeah it is not efficient by any means but back then was the means to achieve less power and more lifespan from that bulbs. The halogen bulbs doesn't trip too much as expected with home made triac dimming but is not so crisp as the incandescent filament indeed
.

If you dim halogen bulbs too far down you get *less* lifespan because the bulb doesn't achieve sufficient temperature for the halogen cycle to work. It was a common problem with those halogen torchier lamps that used to be very popular, and also laser printer fuser rollers. I would often see tubular halogen lamps that had turned almost completely black/silver from being used in this sort of application. Normally they stay almost transparent until end of life.

Well thanks for the advice. I have some 18W spare ones to test / learn stuff on triacs . From a test on a homemade circuit i can't dim as low as the incandescent lamp, since it vanishes imedialty.

[Mr. Scram]

what pisses me off, is who the hell are they to tell me how i spend my money,
if i want to use "ineficient" lights then it's my money paying for the power.

damned communists need to be rounded up and put in a camp somewhere - auswitz maybe, as they spent so much keeping it open.
because if not, they will eventually have us naked and living in caves again! - with a barcode tatoo'd on our head.

I guess you'll be wanting to buy leaded fuel and asbestos roof cladding too?

[Cyberdragon]

what pisses me off, is who the hell are they to tell me how i spend my money,
if i want to use "ineficient" lights then it's my money paying for the power.

damned communists need to be rounded up and put in a camp somewhere - auswitz maybe, as they spent so much keeping it open.
because if not, they will eventually have us naked and living in caves again! - with a barcode tatoo'd on our head.

I guess you'll be wanting to buy leaded fuel and asbestos roof cladding too?

But incandescant bulbs arn't toxic...they're harmless. (Yet LED bulbs are certainly E-waste)
http://www.electronicstakeback.com/2013/01/16/new-research-shows-cfls-and-led-lightbulbs-have-higher-toxicity-and-resource-depletion-than-incandescent/
https://allgreenrecycling.com/need-know-recycling-leds/amp/

Progress for the sake of progress is bad...soon everyone will be using shitty class D guitar amps just because "progress".



And the EU is also where they want to ban free analog radio..."progress"....

[james_s]

LED bulbs are not e-waste, they can be disposed of in the ordinary trash, at least in the US.

You're missing the point though, it's about the energy consumption. Incandescent lamps waste a huge amount of energy compared to more efficient sources. That affects all of us in the form of increased pollution, increased consumption of limited resources, increased need to expand the grid which costs everyone. Your attitude is a perfect example of *why* incandescent bulbs were banned, it's because of stubborn people who seem to hold an almost religious belief that anything "green" is some kind of crazy liberal conspiracy.

Now like I said, I don't like to see anything banned myself, there are a few applications where incandescent still has advantages, and for that reason they should still be available, albeit at a considerably higher price since the initial purchase price is the only thing that sways most people's purchasing decisions.

[stj]

the west has had it's manufacturing industries gutted,
there is no need to BS about power usage when the networks where built for much higher capacity than they will ever see again.

power stations are idled or even pulled down because useage has dropped so much.
as for resources, there is no shortage of oil or gas and probably never will be.
although the industry will lie about that forever to keep the prices high.

[Cyberdragon]

Maybe they should focus their efforts on clean energy rather then trying to force control on people's daily lives. Light bulbs aren't the biggest concern of energy waste. This isn't about "green conspiricy", it's about consumer forcing. Just like here in the states where we had that stupid healthcare mandate.

Putting restrictions on municipalities energy usage might not be a bad idea, but consumer control is ludicrous. What next, are they gonna restrict the amount of energy you're allowed to use? Do the whole smartmeter lights out if you exceed your quota? Ban experiments with electricity (or make it impracticle)?

Also, just because it can be thrown in the trash doesn't mean it should be (like batteries). But then again, we aren't forced to use them (LED bulbs), so the quantities we are (or will be) disposing of are minimal.

[ebastler]

what pisses me off, is who the hell are they to tell me how i spend my money,
if i want to use "ineficient" lights then it's my money paying for the power.

damned communists need to be rounded up and put in a camp somewhere - auswitz maybe, as they spent so much keeping it open.
because if not, they will eventually have us naked and living in caves again! - with a barcode tatoo'd on our head.

there is no need to BS about power usage when the networks where built for much higher capacity than they will ever see again.

there is no shortage of oil or gas and probably never will be.
although the industry will lie about that forever to keep the prices high.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trolling

[malagas_on_fire]

Yeah it is not efficient by any means but back then was the means to achieve less power and more lifespan from that bulbs. The halogen bulbs doesn't trip too much as expected with home made triac dimming but is not so crisp as the incandescent filament indeed
.

If you dim halogen bulbs too far down you get *less* lifespan because the bulb doesn't achieve sufficient temperature for the halogen cycle to work. It was a common problem with those halogen torchier lamps that used to be very popular, and also laser printer fuser rollers. I would often see tubular halogen lamps that had turned almost completely black/silver from being used in this sort of application. Normally they stay almost transparent until end of life.

Well thanks for the advice. I have some 18W spare ones to test / learn stuff on triacs . From a test on a homemade circuit i can't dim as low as the incandescent lamp, since it vanishes imedialty.

The Warm glow dimmable also works good with triacs, but be carefull with snubber network,

[tszaboo]

what pisses me off, is who the hell are they to tell me how i spend my money,
if i want to use "ineficient" lights then it's my money paying for the power.

Because you and I and everyone else lives from the same resource pool, and it is quite good that the politicians do this, forcing you to change. And forcing landlords, commercial projects and everywhere else to do this. In many places the person buying the light and paying for electricity is a different person. First thing that I did after moving in my new apartment was replacing all the lights installed. I placed it in a nice box, put it in the garage, now there is LEDs everywhere. I have IKEA smart LED panels in the living room, from 2x34W I can turn the living room into the same as summer light, or dim it as much as I want, change color temperature, and so on. Without glare.

The really, really cheap LED bulbs suck, but there are a lot of good ones in the $5-$8 range. I started buying LED bulbs back around 2010 when they were $40 a pop and even that was well worth it. Every one of those early Philips lamps I bought are still in service, the ones in my outside lights have many thousands of hours on them and even at $40 they have paid for themselves in savings some time ago.

Now for 7 EUR you get 400 lumen smart lights, or 2 pieces of 1000 lumen quality LEDs. But in reality, lamps with built in LED, without the bulb, are really the way to go. With 4 hours a day, you get 20 years of lifetime. Heat dissipation is easier to solve, and the light they give is nicer.

People also forget that LED is still just getting better and better. Next technology to hit mainstream is the nano particles, the same what is used on Samsung and LG TVs. They solved the heating problem, so goodbye phosphor, and welcome CRI better than 95.

[Mr. Scram]

Progress for the sake of progress is bad...soon everyone will be using shitty class D guitar amps just because "progress".



And the EU is also where they want to ban free analog radio..."progress"....

Except that it is progress. The difference in power consumption is quite remarkable. If you have proper waste processing that isn't an issue either.

It really does seem to be a case of people who love to hate change, whatever that change is. Or not wanting to be told what to do, even for their own sake. They're basic and primal emotions, but those don't always serve us well.

[Cyberdragon]

You don't see us go rounding up amish and whatnot now do you?

This isn't about eventual phase out. We get it, most lighting will be LED (or other forms of high efficiency light, solid state or otherwise) in the future. But with digital TV, at least they gave us converter boxes so we can keep our old TVs. Let us keep our bloody old lightbulbs! You don't see people banning vacuum tubes for audio stuff!

REDUCE. reuse. recycle. The "reduce" is all environmental impact. Making people throw away all their lightbulbs isn't reducing waste now is it.

[Mr. Scram]

You don't see us go rounding up amish and whatnot now do you?

This isn't about eventual phase out. We get it, most lighting will be LED (or other forms of high efficiency light, solid state or otherwise) in the future. But with digital TV, at least they gave us converter boxes so we can keep our old TVs. Let us keep our bloody old lightbulbs! You don't see people banning vacuum tubes for audio stuff!

REDUCE. reuse. recycle. The "reduce" is all environmental impact. Making people throw away all their lightbulbs isn't reducing waste now is it.

You know you get to keep your lights, right? It's just that incandescent replacements have been made harder but not impossible to purchase. If an incandescent bulb dies it gets replaced by a LED bulb. The sale of new incandescent bulbs has been limited, but the use hasn't.

Throwing away lightbulbs would be silly. That's what the use of propagandist terms gets you. People get very strange ideas about what's going on.

[NiHaoMike]

But with digital TV, at least they gave us converter boxes so we can keep our old TVs.

Cheap but overpriced converter boxes that are barely good enough to use as toys. They should have just made it usable on anything capable of receiving digital TV. Costs the government the same but the consumers would have the option of actually getting something decent if they decide to pay more.

[Cyberdragon]

But with digital TV, at least they gave us converter boxes so we can keep our old TVs.

Cheap but overpriced converter boxes that are barely good enough to use as toys. They should have just made it usable on anything capable of receiving digital TV. Costs the government the same but the consumers would have the option of actually getting something decent if they decide to pay more.

Yeah, they're cheap chinese crap, but at least it's something. They dare not touch analog radio though.

[Mr. Scram]

Yeah, they're cheap chinese crap, but at least it's something. They dare not touch analog radio though.

Analog radio is on its way out too. The demand for more radio channels and an ever more crowded ether means a push towards digital radio. That's not something governments pull out of their hindparts. Few of these things are. Almost all legislation is reactive.

[james_s]

the west has had it's manufacturing industries gutted,
there is no need to BS about power usage when the networks where built for much higher capacity than they will ever see again.

power stations are idled or even pulled down because useage has dropped so much.
as for resources, there is no shortage of oil or gas and probably never will be.
although the industry will lie about that forever to keep the prices high.

Cite your source please?

Because that most certainly isn't the case in the USA. Despite reduced manufacturing, our overall electrical consumption is higher than ever and steadily increasing, the question of what to do to improve our electrical grid to meet future demand is a serious issue. Our (private, for-profit) utility has for years been providing subsidies to encourage people to upgrade their lighting, heating, windows and insulation to reduce demand in an attempt to stave off expensive upgrades to the grid construction of new power plants.


Frankly you sound like one of those conspiracy nuts with an argument backed by nothing but emotion and what you wish to be reality rather than the reality the rest of us live in.

[Cyberdragon]

Yeah, they're cheap chinese crap, but at least it's something. They dare not touch analog radio though.

Analog radio is on its way out too. The demand for more radio channels and an ever more crowded ether means a push towards digital radio. That's not something governments pull out of their hindparts. Few of these things are. Almost all legislation is reactive.

Not here, digital radio is just a fad thing over here (for broadcast anyway, it's just called HD radio). In fact, most of the digital signal here is just the music data or simulcast, not sure how many all digital stations we even have.

The FCC has not indicated any intent to force off analog radio broadcasts as it has with analog television broadcasts,[1] as it would not result in the recovery of any radio spectrum rights which could be sold. Thus, there is no deadline by which consumers must buy an HD Radio receiver. In addition, there are many more analog AM/FM radio receivers than there were analog televisions, and many of these are car stereos or portable units that cannot be upgraded.

 

You all over there can have your super complicated cheap (but overpriced) chinese crap just to hear a news broadcast while we can sit back with a pencil and some wire around a can and get whetever we want.

P.S. Since when don't governments make horrible decisions by pulling crap out their ass? The healthcare bill is nasty but minor. This country thought it was a brilliant idea to amend our constitution just to ban alcohol to try and and stop crime. Well look what happened...

[james_s]

The reason digital radio largely failed here is that for some reason we adopted a closed proprietary system that requires expensive licensed chipsets to decode. Personally I'm glad it has failed, analog radio works just fine and there are many millions of analog radios out there. The head unit in my car can receive "HD" radio and while it sounds marginally better than FM under ideal circumstances, any time it's less than ideal the signal drops out intermittently which is far more annoying than a little static.

[ebastler]

This isn't about eventual phase out. We get it, most lighting will be LED (or other forms of high efficiency light, solid state or otherwise) in the future. But with digital TV, at least they gave us converter boxes so we can keep our old TVs. Let us keep our bloody old lightbulbs!
[...]
Making people throw away all their lightbulbs isn't reducing waste now is it.

Are you joking?? Of course you get to keep your bloody lightbulbs, and can happily continue using them until they die.

And -- surprise, surprise -- they won't even start sending a different type of current down the line to power those newfangled LED bulbs. Your lighbulbs will stay fully compatible; you don't even need a converter box! Amazing, isn't it? 

[Simon]

what pisses me off, is who the hell are they to tell me how i spend my money,
if i want to use "ineficient" lights then it's my money paying for the power.

damned communists need to be rounded up and put in a camp somewhere - auswitz maybe, as they spent so much keeping it open.
because if not, they will eventually have us naked and living in caves again! - with a barcode tatoo'd on our head.

You obviously miss the basic points about living in a society. Freedom is one thing, but we all have the same freedoms which means that unlimited freedom is not practical and as you make clear self destructive. Why does YOUR "freedom" to run inefficient lights trump my freedom to breath clean air and live on a planet that has not bee wrecked by global warming? Power usage has continued to rise with an increasing population, but it's usage has not risen nearly as much as it would have had we not adopted more efficient technologies. Don't like it? go find yourself another planet!

[dzseki]

Power usage has continued to rise with an increasing population, but it's usage has not risen nearly as much as it would have had we not adopted more efficient technologies.

While this is true, this population growth is happening outside of the EU, and unfortunately as it seems where the most pollution is generated there are the least regulations in action...

[rdl]

The "inefficient lights" have no control over how the power they use is generated.

[Simon]

Europe's population has grown too, and Europeans use more energy than third world dwellers. China has overtaken America in renewable's. But Europe is full of people who do nothing but bleat about their right to infringe on other peoples rights!

[StillTrying]

When expensive colour TV arrived in the UK about 1970, they didn't have to ban BW TVs to force people buy the new expensive colour TVs. When expensive LCD TVs arrived about 15 years ago, they didn't have to ban CRT TVs to force people to buy the flat screens.

The bad LED bulb manufacturers must be happy, "We know our LED bulbs are rubbish, - but they'll have to buy them anyway!" 

[razberik]

Why does YOUR "freedom" to run inefficient lights trump my freedom to breath clean air and live on a planet that has not bee wrecked by global warming? Power usage has continued to rise with an increasing population, but it's usage has not risen nearly as much as it would have had we not adopted more efficient technologies.

Why not introduce personal quota for sum of energy use?
It would be my business if I burn my kilowatt quota in inefficient wolfram bulb or I just start burning energy in dummy load and then I release this heat through my window just only to make YOU angry ?

And what else ? I just burned somewhat kilowatts this summer in my air-conditioner because there are too many kilowatts outside which make me rather uncomfortable. 

[madires]

Complaining about the ban of incandescent bulbs and cheap LED bulbs is ignoring the fact that the life span of a typical household incandescent bulb is still artificially limited to about 1000h. Is this rip-off any better because of the warm glow?

[NiHaoMike]

Because that most certainly isn't the case in the USA. Despite reduced manufacturing, our overall electrical consumption is higher than ever and steadily increasing, the question of what to do to improve our electrical grid to meet future demand is a serious issue. Our (private, for-profit) utility has for years been providing subsidies to encourage people to upgrade their lighting, heating, windows and insulation to reduce demand in an attempt to stave off expensive upgrades to the grid construction of new power plants.

There are programs like Ohmconnect that pay participants to cut usage during peaks, thereby providing incentive to directly attack the actual problem. Having participated when I was in an area that had it, I actually want that to be available to anyone who's on the grid.

[dzseki]

Complaining about the ban of incandescent bulbs and cheap LED bulbs is ignoring the fact that the life span of a typical household incandescent bulb is still artificially limited to about 1000h. Is this rip-off any better because of the warm glow?

I'm quite sure the very same will happen with the LED lamps too...
When Recordable CDs came to market they claimed 100+ years of life, then in the end I had several CD-Rs that I could not read only after a few years...
Also, in my parent's house there is an old OSRAM CFL lamp that have an iron core ballast (despite being compact), now that lamp is over 20 years old and still going strong and is in regular use... but unfortunately I have failed to find any modern (switching ballast type) CFL lamps coming close to that longevity.

[Simon]

Because that most certainly isn't the case in the USA. Despite reduced manufacturing, our overall electrical consumption is higher than ever and steadily increasing, the question of what to do to improve our electrical grid to meet future demand is a serious issue. Our (private, for-profit) utility has for years been providing subsidies to encourage people to upgrade their lighting, heating, windows and insulation to reduce demand in an attempt to stave off expensive upgrades to the grid construction of new power plants.

There are programs like Ohmconnect that pay participants to cut usage during peaks, thereby providing incentive to directly attack the actual problem. Having participated when I was in an area that had it, I actually want that to be available to anyone who's on the grid.

Yes these programs exist, it's called making it dammed expensive at peak times to try and control consumption. I am having solar fitted with 5.5KW of battery capacity and a 3.7KW output so I'd welcome more aggressive pricing one day they may even buy my battery power at peak times

[mzzj]

Complaining about the ban of incandescent bulbs and cheap LED bulbs is ignoring the fact that the life span of a typical household incandescent bulb is still artificially limited to about 1000h. Is this rip-off any better because of the warm glow?

Limited? How?
What would be the efficiency if you increase the lifetime to 10000h?

[Zero999]

Complaining about the ban of incandescent bulbs and cheap LED bulbs is ignoring the fact that the life span of a typical household incandescent bulb is still artificially limited to about 1000h. Is this rip-off any better because of the warm glow?

As mentioned previously in the thread, incandescent lamp life time is at an optimum. Any longer would mean a cooler filament, using more power which would cost more power over the life time of the lamp, than just replacing it more often. Any shorter and replacing the lamp too often becomes more expensive.

I'm quite sure the very same will happen with the LED lamps too...
When Recordable CDs came to market they claimed 100+ years of life, then in the end I had several CD-Rs that I could not read only after a few years...
Also, in my parent's house there is an old OSRAM CFL lamp that have an iron core ballast (despite being compact), now that lamp is over 20 years old and still going strong and is in regular use... but unfortunately I have failed to find any modern (switching ballast type) CFL lamps coming close to that longevity.

It's probably more to do with modern CFLs having to have less mercury, than the older ones. Also note that could could probably save money by replacing the old one with a magnetic ballast, with a newer one, because the energy saving will make up for having to replace it more often. I also suspect that this is a fluke. I remember the first CFL my parent's got which used a magnetic ballast and that didn't seem to last for that long, certainly better than an incandescent but not as good as some of the modern solid state ballast CFLs. It also flickered more, was bigger, more bulky and used more power, than its modern counterpart.

[james_s]

Complaining about the ban of incandescent bulbs and cheap LED bulbs is ignoring the fact that the life span of a typical household incandescent bulb is still artificially limited to about 1000h. Is this rip-off any better because of the warm glow?

It's not artificially limited, there is a compromise between long life and high efficiency. Making an incandescent lamp last 100,000 hours is trivial, IF you don't mind one with an efficiency of only a few lumens per Watt. Conversely, efficiency can approach that of some discharge sources if you're willing to settle for a lamp that lasts only a few minutes. Light output per unit of energy consumed falls sharply as you run the filament cooler to reduce the rate of tungsten evaporation to increase life. 1,000 hours was selected as a compromise offering acceptable life while still being reasonably efficient.

This is a shining example of why it was necessary for the government to intervene and phase out incandescent lamps. Large numbers of people for some reason simply cannot seem to grasp the fact that the vast majority of the total cost of ownership of an incandescent lamp is the electricity needed to light it. An incandescent bult that lasts twice as long will have a total cost much more than twice that of the shorter lived bulb. There are people right here in this thread who clearly don't understand this.

[Cyberdragon]

Complaining about the ban of incandescent bulbs and cheap LED bulbs is ignoring the fact that the life span of a typical household incandescent bulb is still artificially limited to about 1000h. Is this rip-off any better because of the warm glow?

I'm quite sure the very same will happen with the LED lamps too...
When Recordable CDs came to market they claimed 100+ years of life, then in the end I had several CD-Rs that I could not read only after a few years...
Also, in my parent's house there is an old OSRAM CFL lamp that have an iron core ballast (despite being compact), now that lamp is over 20 years old and still going strong and is in regular use... but unfortunately I have failed to find any modern (switching ballast type) CFL lamps coming close to that longevity.

Electronic CFLs are just crap, no better than cheap LEDs but with added heavy metals. As for LEDs, if they, god forbid, let the market switch over slowly, there'd be a range of bulbs at different ages with the oldest ones going out (or dim) and needing replacement.

https://www.discountlighting.com.au/blog/lighting-tips-and-tricks/factors-affecting-the-led-bulbs-lifespan/

Electronics repair shops (what still exist) will have to start covering light bulbs.

[james_s]

I had pretty good luck with electronic CFLs, there were some that certainly didn't live up to claims but others I had lasted for years and certainly saved me money in the long run. I have not used an incandescent lamp for general illumination in ~20 years so it has always seemed a bit strange to me to see people clinging to them and moaning about the government. If people had any sense about this stuff the market WOULD have moved away from incandescent years and years ago, but it didn't so clearly a nudge was needed. Ironically it's the people complaining loudest about the government involvement who are illustrating precisely why government involvement was necessary.

I started buying LED bulbs when they were quite expensive because I could see the potential in the technology and wanted it to succeed. Ultimately though I think government intervention was necessary to kick start things. The LED bulbs cost a lot to develop so manufactures needed to know they could sell the bulbs. After a few years development reached a state where costs had been engineered down dramatically, while still offering acceptable lifespan relative to the early over-engineered LED bulbs and now the various subsidies are no longer necessary. An LED bulb retailing for less than $5 easily pays for itself in savings and yet some people STILL cling to incandescent lamp tech from 80 years ago.

[Cyberdragon]

This is a shining example of why it was necessary for the government to intervene and phase out incandescent lamps. Large numbers of people for some reason simply cannot seem to grasp the fact that the vast majority of the total cost of ownership of an incandescent lamp is the electricity needed to light it. An incandescent bult that lasts twice as long will have a total cost much more than twice that of the shorter lived bulb. There are people right here in this thread who clearly don't understand this.

The average Joe isn't THAT stupid. They know LED bulbs are more effecient. We don't need to have the gonvernment tell us how to use OUR ELECTRICITY that WE PURCHASED. If I want to waste 10KW blasting terrible music out into the desert with giant tube amps for no reason, I have the right to do so. It's not the consumers fault some countries have trouble switching to renewables.

[Simon]

This is a shining example of why it was necessary for the government to intervene and phase out incandescent lamps. Large numbers of people for some reason simply cannot seem to grasp the fact that the vast majority of the total cost of ownership of an incandescent lamp is the electricity needed to light it. An incandescent bult that lasts twice as long will have a total cost much more than twice that of the shorter lived bulb. There are people right here in this thread who clearly don't understand this.

The average Joe isn't THAT stupid. They know LED bulbs are more effecient. We don't need to have the gonvernment tell us how to use OUR ELECTRICITY that WE PURCHASED. If I want to waste 10KW blasting terrible music out into the desert with giant tube amps for no reason, I have the right to do so. It's not the consumers fault some countries have trouble switching to renewables.

Don't be stupid, the average citizen IS stupid from an engineering point of view and you just demonstrated that. No one likes change hence the stupid attempt to make roof tiles with solar panels in them to keep stupid people happy that won't just buy regular solar panels that cost less. i am having solar panels installed because I am not stupid and don't hold on to the dream of living in a victorian looking house while moaning about the cost of electricity. I got smart and will never see an electric bill again. I sit opposite a stupid engineer every day who is a shit engineer because he lets his prejudices take priority and hates anything electric that means progress. if he had his way this so called engineer that is not that clever so should not be called an engineer (engineer derives from the ingenuity - the application of cleverness) he would run the world on steam engines!!!!!!

[G7PSK]

Every body especially the EU politicians fret about the energy wasted using incandescent bulbs and want to force LED ones on all the populace.

What they are forgetting is is the extra energy costs in manufacture which should include the basic smelting of the raw materials which produces vast amounts of CO2 and this should include the extra transport requirements for manufacturing electronics compared to simple incandescent bulbs.

I am convinced that the real reason politicians want to reduce energy use in homes is so they can reduce imports of energy and or stockpile more oil for for the military.

[mzzj]

Complaining about the ban of incandescent bulbs and cheap LED bulbs is ignoring the fact that the life span of a typical household incandescent bulb is still artificially limited to about 1000h. Is this rip-off any better because of the warm glow?

IIRC "optimum" lifetime for incandescent bulb was about 160! hours if you consider only bulb's purchase price and used electricity. Everyone would be going nuts if they lasted only that short and on industrial scale you also have to consider how much money/work you spend on replacing the bulbs (and that's the reason traffic signal bulbs are rated for 8000 hours)

http://www.lighting.philips.com/main/prof/conventional-lamps-and-tubes/incandescent-lamps/gls-specialties/traffic-signal/925285536103_EU/product

8000h lightbulb 660Lm 69w, cost for 8000h lightning: bulb 0,5usd and 552kWh electricity at 0.15usd/kwh = 0,5+82usd  = 82,5usd total
1000h 60w lightbulb is 800lm, so you would get same amount of light with imaginary 50 watt light bulb = 8*0,5usd for lightbulbs, 400kWh electricity = 4usd +  60usd = 64usd total

Goverment has to force these things because even on Electrical Engineering forum these light bulb conspiracies pop up. 

[madires]

Complaining about the ban of incandescent bulbs and cheap LED bulbs is ignoring the fact that the life span of a typical household incandescent bulb is still artificially limited to about 1000h. Is this rip-off any better because of the warm glow?

Limited? How?
What would be the efficiency if you increase the lifetime to 10000h?

Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel. It also notes that some engineers think that the bulb with a life span of 1000h has the highest efficiency.

[madires]

It's not artificially limited, there is a compromise between long life and high efficiency. Making an incandescent lamp last 100,000 hours is trivial, IF you don't mind one with an efficiency of only a few lumens per Watt. Conversely, efficiency can approach that of some discharge sources if you're willing to settle for a lamp that lasts only a few minutes. Light output per unit of energy consumed falls sharply as you run the filament cooler to reduce the rate of tungsten evaporation to increase life. 1,000 hours was selected as a compromise offering acceptable life while still being reasonably efficient.

In some use cases a longer life span with less efficiency would be totally acceptable. There are such bulbs for traffic lights for example. But they would be also interesting for outside lighting of homes (front door / drive way to garage / garden / etc) and lots of switching cycles (switched by PIR sensor). A too bright light would be irritating and changing bulbs might be cumbersome based on the location of the lamps.

This is a shining example of why it was necessary for the government to intervene and phase out incandescent lamps. Large numbers of people for some reason simply cannot seem to grasp the fact that the vast majority of the total cost of ownership of an incandescent lamp is the electricity needed to light it. An incandescent bult that lasts twice as long will have a total cost much more than twice that of the shorter lived bulb. There are people right here in this thread who clearly don't understand this.

I switched to LED several years ago and the investment has amortized quickly via my power bill.

[madires]

8000h lightbulb 660Lm 69w, cost for 8000h lightning: bulb 0,5usd and 552kWh electricity at 0.15usd/kwh = 0,5+82usd  = 82,5usd total
1000h 60w lightbulb is 800lm, so you would get same amount of light with imaginary 50 watt light bulb = 8*0,5usd for lightbulbs, 400kWh electricity = 4usd +  60usd = 64usd total

As I've written in another post, in some use cases I would trade efficiency for life span or switching cycles. It's not always about the brightest and most efficient light.

[Simon]

Every body especially the EU politicians fret about the energy wasted using incandescent bulbs and want to force LED ones on all the populace.

What they are forgetting is is the extra energy costs in manufacture which should include the basic smelting of the raw materials which produces vast amounts of CO2 and this should include the extra transport requirements for manufacturing electronics compared to simple incandescent bulbs.

I am convinced that the real reason politicians want to reduce energy use in homes is so they can reduce imports of energy and or stockpile more oil for for the military.

Do you have your sources? they used to say that crap about solar panels. Stockpiling oil for the military??? OK, no point trying to argue with that one.

[tom66]

This is a shining example of why it was necessary for the government to intervene and phase out incandescent lamps. Large numbers of people for some reason simply cannot seem to grasp the fact that the vast majority of the total cost of ownership of an incandescent lamp is the electricity needed to light it. An incandescent bult that lasts twice as long will have a total cost much more than twice that of the shorter lived bulb. There are people right here in this thread who clearly don't understand this.

The average Joe isn't THAT stupid. They know LED bulbs are more effecient. We don't need to have the gonvernment tell us how to use OUR ELECTRICITY that WE PURCHASED.

I know many "average Joes", including my girlfriend and an engineering (albeit mechanical) friend of mine that did not know how much an incandescent bulb costs to operate.  I promptly helped both upgrade their residences to full LED, saving approximately £70 per year in electricity costs.  The LED bulbs cost about £60 (in total), so they were net positive by the end of the year.

If I want to waste 10KW blasting terrible music out into the desert with giant tube amps for no reason, I have the right to do so. It's not the consumers fault some countries have trouble switching to renewables.

No.  We all share this planet and the atmosphere so you do not have the right to cause pollution to be emitted if there is no viable alternative.

Unless you are doing colour sensitive work, there's absolutely no reason to use incandescent lighting.  And guess what, you can still buy incandescent bulbs for industrial purposes,  just have to go to a specialist supplier.  But Joe Consumer will now buy an LED lamp because that is the option available, and they don't need to understand the difference.

[NiHaoMike]

I remember there once were incandescent bulbs with built in series diodes to allow the use of shorter but thicker filaments, in order to boost lifespan without compromising efficiency. Those didn't last very long before CFLs took over, but I wonder how much validity there is to the idea.

[Bassman59]

I suspect people had the same complaints about leaded petrol being banned.

Oh, sure, there were endless complaints after leaded gasoline was finally removed from the market. But it had been proven that lead in gasoline was a significant public health problem, and no reasonable person will argue that it was the wrong decision.

[SeanB]

I have a collection of those magnetic ballast units, designed to use a regular PL7,9 or 10w lamp with built in starter ( thus the 2 pin lamp units) and they last almost forever. Buying a good quality lamp ( Phillips, GE or Osram not made in the PRC, the best were made in Poland and Hungary) meant you had a lifetime of around 5 years per lamp in 24/7 operation. Replaced some with Phillips tornado CFL lamps ( brighter light) and those also last well provided you run them correctly, ie base down in open air.

[Mr. Scram]

When expensive colour TV arrived in the UK about 1970, they didn't have to ban BW TVs to force people buy the new expensive colour TVs. When expensive LCD TVs arrived about 15 years ago, they didn't have to ban CRT TVs to force people to buy the flat screens.

The bad LED bulb manufacturers must be happy, "We know our LED bulbs are rubbish, - but they'll have to buy them anyway!" 

Why do so many people in this thread sound like they suffer from persecutory delusions? Somehow people love to convince themselve the EU is trying to trick them against their best interests, it's a military conspiracy or it's a LED cartel bamboozling us. That it might actually be a collection of nations trying to make the world a slightly better place doesn't seem to be considered.

[G7PSK]

Every body especially the EU politicians fret about the energy wasted using incandescent bulbs and want to force LED ones on all the populace.

What they are forgetting is is the extra energy costs in manufacture which should include the basic smelting of the raw materials which produces vast amounts of CO2 and this should include the extra transport requirements for manufacturing electronics compared to simple incandescent bulbs.

I am convinced that the real reason politicians want to reduce energy use in homes is so they can reduce imports of energy and or stockpile more oil for for the military.

Do you have your sources? they used to say that crap about solar panels. Stockpiling oil for the military??? OK, no point trying to argue with that one.
Steel production produces 1.9 tons of CO2 per ton of steel and a lot of steel/ iron is used in electronic components even more is used in the transport systems used to move all the components of the components around and then the finished components, Nitrogen triflouride used in the manufacture of silicon chips has 17,000 times the green house effect of CO2 and the production of that doubles each year. Making silicon takes SiO + 2C and you end up with Si +2CO. So whatever silicon valley likes to say electronics is a dirty business. A simple light bulb uses far less resources in manufacture and fewer miles in manufacture from start to finish and almost certainly will have no air miles involved unlike electronic components which tend to get flown from one country to another both during manufacture and as finished product. All these figures are there if you google them. 

[james_s]

I remember there once were incandescent bulbs with built in series diodes to allow the use of shorter but thicker filaments, in order to boost lifespan without compromising efficiency. Those didn't last very long before CFLs took over, but I wonder how much validity there is to the idea.

They had additional problems, annoying flicker, they wouldn't work properly on dimmers amongst other issues. The pinnacle of domestic incandescent lamp technology was the Philips halogen capsule lamps that had a spherical capsule coated with an efficient IR reflective dichroic coating to reflect heat back at the filament. They had a ~800 lumen lamp that consumed only 40W, a pretty significant improvement over standard incandescent without the limitations of CFLs.

Once LED lamps came down in price even those high tech incandescent lamps became obsolete.

[james_s]

The average Joe isn't THAT stupid. They know LED bulbs are more effecient. We don't need to have the gonvernment tell us how to use OUR ELECTRICITY that WE PURCHASED. If I want to waste 10KW blasting terrible music out into the desert with giant tube amps for no reason, I have the right to do so. It's not the consumers fault some countries have trouble switching to renewables.

Yes, the average Joe really *is* that stupid, otherwise incandescent lamps would have all but vanished from general use 20 years ago. The only reason the government got involved is because the general population demonstrated that they are absolutely clueless on these matters.

If we left this sort of thing entirely up to the free market we'd still have people buying cars with carburetors getting 10mpg, houses with little insulation, low efficiency furnaces, boilers and air conditioners, single pane windows, etc because the upfront purchase price is lower and most people are utterly clueless. The much greater energy consumption would mean higher energy prices and more pollution for everyone, not just the stupid people. I've long been baffled as to why this is, but the average consumer looks ONLY at the up front purchase price.

[dzseki]

The average Joe isn't THAT stupid. They know LED bulbs are more effecient. We don't need to have the gonvernment tell us how to use OUR ELECTRICITY that WE PURCHASED. If I want to waste 10KW blasting terrible music out into the desert with giant tube amps for no reason, I have the right to do so. It's not the consumers fault some countries have trouble switching to renewables.

Yes, the average Joe really *is* that stupid, otherwise incandescent lamps would have all but vanished from general use 20 years ago. The only reason the government got involved is because the general population demonstrated that they are absolutely clueless on these matters.

If we left this sort of thing entirely up to the free market we'd still have people buying cars with carburetors getting 10mpg, houses with little insulation, low efficiency furnaces, boilers and air conditioners, single pane windows, etc because the upfront purchase price is lower and most people are utterly clueless. The much greater energy consumption would mean higher energy prices and more pollution for everyone, not just the stupid people. I've long been baffled as to why this is, but the average consumer looks ONLY at the up front purchase price.

IMHO the numbers aren't that clear, at least it very much depends on how you interpret them...
Like this has been shown already:
LED(10W): initial cost 3USD, total consumption: (30000hrs*0.01kW*0.15USD/kWh)+3USD = 48USD
incadescent (60W): initial cost 0.5USD, total consumption: (30000hrs*0.06kW*0.15USD/kWh)+30*0.5USD = 285 USD
Dramatic, yes? But please consider this is over 30000 hours (~3.5 year) non stop operation, that is practically more than a (human) lifetime of usage in an average household... for that period, the gain ain't that much.
Also, most likely the money saved on the electricity will be spent on other activities those are also polluting the air/consuming electrical power (more or less?), so not much gain there either...
Ideally, what you save on using LED bulbs should be spent to help others to replace their incadescent bulbs to LED, if we'd really care about our energy consumption...

[mzzj]

Also, most likely the money saved on the electricity will be spent on other activities those are also polluting the air/consuming electrical power (more or less?), so not much gain there either...

Much true but really another big can of worms.

[AlexResch]

This is a shining example of why it was necessary for the government to intervene and phase out incandescent lamps. Large numbers of people for some reason simply cannot seem to grasp the fact that the vast majority of the total cost of ownership of an incandescent lamp is the electricity needed to light it. An incandescent bult that lasts twice as long will have a total cost much more than twice that of the shorter lived bulb. There are people right here in this thread who clearly don't understand this.

The average Joe isn't THAT stupid. They know LED bulbs are more effecient. We don't need to have the gonvernment tell us how to use OUR ELECTRICITY that WE PURCHASED. If I want to waste 10KW blasting terrible music out into the desert with giant tube amps for no reason, I have the right to do so. It's not the consumers fault some countries have trouble switching to renewables.

Don't be stupid, the average citizen IS stupid from an engineering point of view and you just demonstrated that. No one likes change hence the stupid attempt to make roof tiles with solar panels in them to keep stupid people happy that won't just buy regular solar panels that cost less. i am having solar panels installed because I am not stupid and don't hold on to the dream of living in a victorian looking house while moaning about the cost of electricity. I got smart and will never see an electric bill again. I sit opposite a stupid engineer every day who is a shit engineer because he lets his prejudices take priority and hates anything electric that means progress. if he had his way this so called engineer that is not that clever so should not be called an engineer (engineer derives from the ingenuity - the application of cleverness) he would run the world on steam engines!!!!!!

It is unkind to call other people "stupid" - particularly on a Forum. Even more so, if you are a "moderator".

Family of mine is heavily involved in renewables on more than one Continent . I can confidently inform you that you will see plenty "electric bill again". Also, your solar panel exercise reduces the reliability of my electricity supply and substantially increases my cost. You being an engineer I do not expect you to understand the economical dynamics of renewables and all I would care to say is that the benefits have been blown out of proportions. When proper audits of their impacts are made, they are nothing short of a disaster. Re-directing tax money from safety, housing, education and health towards towards renewables is not "economy" by any stretch.

Myself, living in a massive block of flats, how am I going to duplicate your righteous example and why should I not be able to ?

[AlexResch]

When expensive colour TV arrived in the UK about 1970, they didn't have to ban BW TVs to force people buy the new expensive colour TVs. When expensive LCD TVs arrived about 15 years ago, they didn't have to ban CRT TVs to force people to buy the flat screens.

The bad LED bulb manufacturers must be happy, "We know our LED bulbs are rubbish, - but they'll have to buy them anyway!" 

Why do so many people in this thread sound like they suffer from persecutory delusions? Somehow people love to convince themselve the EU is trying to trick them against their best interests, it's a military conspiracy or it's a LED cartel bamboozling us. That it might actually be a collection of nations trying to make the world a slightly better place doesn't seem to be considered.

Well, it might have something to do with their track record. The "collection of nations" doesn't seem particularly good at increasing the quality of life of their people.

[Zero999]

This is a shining example of why it was necessary for the government to intervene and phase out incandescent lamps. Large numbers of people for some reason simply cannot seem to grasp the fact that the vast majority of the total cost of ownership of an incandescent lamp is the electricity needed to light it. An incandescent bult that lasts twice as long will have a total cost much more than twice that of the shorter lived bulb. There are people right here in this thread who clearly don't understand this.

The average Joe isn't THAT stupid. They know LED bulbs are more effecient. We don't need to have the gonvernment tell us how to use OUR ELECTRICITY that WE PURCHASED. If I want to waste 10KW blasting terrible music out into the desert with giant tube amps for no reason, I have the right to do so. It's not the consumers fault some countries have trouble switching to renewables.

Don't be stupid, the average citizen IS stupid from an engineering point of view and you just demonstrated that. No one likes change hence the stupid attempt to make roof tiles with solar panels in them to keep stupid people happy that won't just buy regular solar panels that cost less. i am having solar panels installed because I am not stupid and don't hold on to the dream of living in a victorian looking house while moaning about the cost of electricity. I got smart and will never see an electric bill again. I sit opposite a stupid engineer every day who is a shit engineer because he lets his prejudices take priority and hates anything electric that means progress. if he had his way this so called engineer that is not that clever so should not be called an engineer (engineer derives from the ingenuity - the application of cleverness) he would run the world on steam engines!!!!!!

It is unkind to call other people "stupid" - particularly on a Forum. Even more so, if you are a "moderator".

When someone says stupid things like "I'm paying the electricity bill, so I can waste as much as I want!" then they're going to get called stupid.

Resources such as electricity are limited and even if someone has limitless cash, it doesn't mean they should waste it, because it messes things up for everyone else. If someone wants to waste their money on something which doesn't create problems for other, but when it does, they should be stopped.

Family of mine is heavily involved in renewables on more than one Continent . I can confidently inform you that you will see plenty "electric bill again". Also, your solar panel exercise reduces the reliability of my electricity supply and substantially increases my cost. You being an engineer I do not expect you to understand the economical dynamics of renewables and all I would care to say is that the benefits have been blown out of proportions. When proper audits of their impacts are made, they are nothing short of a disaster. Re-directing tax money from safety, housing, education and health towards towards renewables is not "economy" by any stretch.

Myself, living in a massive block of flats, how am I going to duplicate your righteous example and why should I not be able to ?

What the heck are you on about?

Renewable energy is just like any other form of energy.

Are you talking more about people having solar cells or wind turbines tied to the grid? If so, I agree, that can be a problem, as the infrastructure will not be designed for it.

And Simon talking about not paying an electricity bill again, yes that could happen, but only if he goes off grid. Otherwise the power still needs to be distributed and there will be a charge for that.

[AlexResch]

This is a shining example of why it was necessary for the government to intervene and phase out incandescent lamps. Large numbers of people for some reason simply cannot seem to grasp the fact that the vast majority of the total cost of ownership of an incandescent lamp is the electricity needed to light it. An incandescent bult that lasts twice as long will have a total cost much more than twice that of the shorter lived bulb. There are people right here in this thread who clearly don't understand this.

The average Joe isn't THAT stupid. They know LED bulbs are more effecient. We don't need to have the gonvernment tell us how to use OUR ELECTRICITY that WE PURCHASED. If I want to waste 10KW blasting terrible music out into the desert with giant tube amps for no reason, I have the right to do so. It's not the consumers fault some countries have trouble switching to renewables.

Don't be stupid, the average citizen IS stupid from an engineering point of view and you just demonstrated that. No one likes change hence the stupid attempt to make roof tiles with solar panels in them to keep stupid people happy that won't just buy regular solar panels that cost less. i am having solar panels installed because I am not stupid and don't hold on to the dream of living in a victorian looking house while moaning about the cost of electricity. I got smart and will never see an electric bill again. I sit opposite a stupid engineer every day who is a shit engineer because he lets his prejudices take priority and hates anything electric that means progress. if he had his way this so called engineer that is not that clever so should not be called an engineer (engineer derives from the ingenuity - the application of cleverness) he would run the world on steam engines!!!!!!

It is unkind to call other people "stupid" - particularly on a Forum. Even more so, if you are a "moderator".

When someone says stupid things like "I'm paying the electricity bill, so I can waste as much as I want!" then they're going to get called stupid.

Resources such as electricity are limited and even if someone has limitless cash, it doesn't mean they should waste it, because it messes things up for everyone else. If someone wants to waste their money on something which doesn't create problems for other, but when it does, they should be stopped.

Family of mine is heavily involved in renewables on more than one Continent . I can confidently inform you that you will see plenty "electric bill again". Also, your solar panel exercise reduces the reliability of my electricity supply and substantially increases my cost. You being an engineer I do not expect you to understand the economical dynamics of renewables and all I would care to say is that the benefits have been blown out of proportions. When proper audits of their impacts are made, they are nothing short of a disaster. Re-directing tax money from safety, housing, education and health towards towards renewables is not "economy" by any stretch.

Myself, living in a massive block of flats, how am I going to duplicate your righteous example and why should I not be able to ?

1. What the heck are you on about?

2. Renewable energy is just like any other form of energy.

3. Are you talking more about people having solar cells or wind turbines tied to the grid? If so, I agree, that can be a problem, as the infrastructure will not be designed for it.

4. And Simon talking about not paying an electricity bill again, yes that could happen, but only if he goes off grid. Otherwise the power still needs to be distributed and there will be a charge for that.

1. It's nice to be polite and sensitive to the PoV of others. Within reason, people live ( and work ) to be happy.
2. No, not AT ALL.
3. Not "more" but "also".
4. No, that will not happen in any situation, death included. Simon's tax money will still be at work somewhere, somehow. And "off the grid" with modern amenities and appliances is not really off the grid. One needs BIG power plants to manufacture all those gadgets the off the grid people desperately need. And then, we might need removing an appendix...

It's not inconceivable that fusion reactors will be up and running within 2-3 decades. Then, the expensive exercise with solar panels and wind farms will suddenly be just a mistake. Money down the drain which could've been better used for schools, hospitals, education, better food etc. At this present technological moment energy is not a problem.

It's good to talk about these things and share ideas. One should however keep in mind at all times that renewables are happening on borrowed money. And probably, that giving a Kenyan woman a small solar panel and a LED light is just patronizing BS. She's got much bigger problems.

[razberik]

When someone says stupid things like "I'm paying the electricity bill, so I can waste as much as I want!" then they're going to get called stupid.
Resources such as electricity are limited and even if someone has limitless cash, it doesn't mean they should waste it, because it messes things up for everyone else. If someone wants to waste their money on something which doesn't create problems for other, but when it does, they should be stopped.

So whats the point with all this money-based system ?
Because money directly means that I can do with my cash whatever I want, whatever pointless I want, no matter how angry you about it.
Introduce personal limits on electricity usage and dont bother with buying it and pricing it !

People use money on so many pointless things which waste resources.
Burning kerosene in aircraft because somebody wants to see Eiffel tower or Venice instead of watching these things on Google Streetview ? (the effect is basically the same).

[Zero999]

When someone says stupid things like "I'm paying the electricity bill, so I can waste as much as I want!" then they're going to get called stupid.
Resources such as electricity are limited and even if someone has limitless cash, it doesn't mean they should waste it, because it messes things up for everyone else. If someone wants to waste their money on something which doesn't create problems for other, but when it does, they should be stopped.

So whats the point with all this money-based system ?
Because money directly means that I can do with my cash whatever I want, whatever pointless I want, no matter how angry you about it.
Introduce personal limits on electricity usage and dont bother with buying it and pricing it !

People use money on so many pointless things which waste resources.
Burning kerosene in aircraft because somebody wants to see Eiffel tower or Venice instead of watching these things on Google Streetview ? (the effect is basically the same).

What's the point in having laws?

When a resource becomes limited, then it will become rationed. This happened  with many things in Europe during the world wars.

It's better to have laws which limit wastage, before more draconian ones involving rationing become necessary.

[Echo88]

@AlexResch: They thought 50 years ago Fusion Power is just a few years away. To say it your way: Its not inconceivable that a cure for lung-cancer is found within 10 years, so why should i stop smoking now?

[james_s]

IMHO the numbers aren't that clear, at least it very much depends on how you interpret them...
Like this has been shown already:
LED(10W): initial cost 3USD, total consumption: (30000hrs*0.01kW*0.15USD/kWh)+3USD = 48USD
incadescent (60W): initial cost 0.5USD, total consumption: (30000hrs*0.06kW*0.15USD/kWh)+30*0.5USD = 285 USD
Dramatic, yes? But please consider this is over 30000 hours (~3.5 year) non stop operation, that is practically more than a (human) lifetime of usage in an average household... for that period, the gain ain't that much.
Also, most likely the money saved on the electricity will be spent on other activities those are also polluting the air/consuming electrical power (more or less?), so not much gain there either...
Ideally, what you save on using LED bulbs should be spent to help others to replace their incadescent bulbs to LED, if we'd really care about our energy consumption...

That's only *one* bulb though, how many light bulbs are in your house? I have several in each room, the energy consumption adds up quickly. My power bill dropped substantially when I went from incandescent to CFL, and noticeably going from CFL to LED. Now consider that there is more out there than just my house, in the USA there are many hundreds of millions of light bulbs in operation, a switch from incandescent to LED represents many megawatts of savings.

For the record, I *have* given LED bulbs to many other people, in some cases I gave away new ones as gifts so they would see how good they really are, and in other cases I have given less financially stable friends some of my older LED bulbs that I have upgraded to newer higher efficiency types that have come out.

[stj]

this comes down to "freedom of choice",
vs
forcing people to follow central planners and eventually throwing people in gulags or "re-education centers" for not complying with some edict.
we have seen this type of slippery slope before, it ended with death camps and mass servailance of everyday life.

[Echo88]

@stj: The only slippery stuff youre talking about is coming out of your ears and contains the last good brain cells you had, that are fleeing in pure terror because of the things you say. 

[dzseki]

That's only *one* bulb though, how many light bulbs are in your house?

We have a small household, about 48 sq.m, we have 7-8 bulbs, half of them are LED (those we most use) and it did not bring anything to our bills that is worth noting.

[stj]

@stj: The only slippery stuff youre talking about is coming out of your ears and contains the last good brain cells you had, that are fleeing in pure terror because of the things you say. 

well you obviously never studied either history, OR what was happening in the eastern sector of your own country for decades.
so i dont need insults from a fool.

[Mr. Scram]

this comes down to "freedom of choice",
vs
forcing people to follow central planners and eventually throwing people in gulags or "re-education centers" for not complying with some edict.
we have seen this type of slippery slope before, it ended with death camps and mass servailance of everyday life.

You still have the freedom of choice. Better yet, regulating some things means we will get to have a choice, rather than having that choice taken from us by the circumstances.

[Zero999]

this comes down to "freedom of choice",
vs
forcing people to follow central planners and eventually throwing people in gulags or "re-education centers" for not complying with some edict.
we have seen this type of slippery slope before, it ended with death camps and mass servailance of everyday life.

How the heck is that relevant here?

Should most laws be abolished in favour of free choice?

No, then perhaps just all laws involving the minimum efficiency of household appliances and building thermal insulation should be scrapped?

Then you'll be complaining when there are power cuts and your energy bills are too high.

[razberik]

No, then perhaps just all laws involving the minimum efficiency of household appliances and building thermal insulation should be scrapped?

Then you'll be complaining when there are power cuts and your energy bills are too high.

Not scrapped, they should have never been introduced. If the high consumption is the problem (I am not saying it is not), then higher energy prices should have been introduced at first !
If prices are high, they should me make me consider to buy more effective devices or consider thermal insulating my house.

People would always waste energy resources on pointless things no matter what.

[Zero999]

No, then perhaps just all laws involving the minimum efficiency of household appliances and building thermal insulation should be scrapped?

Then you'll be complaining when there are power cuts and your energy bills are too high.

Not scrapped, they should have never been introduced. If the high consumption is the problem (I am not saying it is not), then higher energy prices should have been introduced at first !
If prices are high, they should me make me consider to buy more effective devices or consider thermal insulating my house.

People would always waste energy resources on pointless things no matter what.

The trouble is higher prices alone will not make manufacturers and builders improve the efficiency of their products.

People will waste resources but legislation helps minimise this. Something clearly had to be done to help curb electricity usage to prevent blackouts becoming a common occurrence. You may not like this, but it's better than the alternative.

[dzseki]

Something clearly had to be done to help curb electricity usage to prevent blackouts becoming a common occurrence. You may not like this, but it's better than the alternative.

I have a feeling that banning the incadescent lamps will be insufficient to prevent this, as we are at the dawn of electric cars which are pulling 40-50kWh overnight off the grid... (mean well)

[Zero999]

Something clearly had to be done to help curb electricity usage to prevent blackouts becoming a common occurrence. You may not like this, but it's better than the alternative.

I have a feeling that banning the incadescent lamps will be insufficient to prevent this, as we are at the dawn of electric cars which are pulling 40-50kWh overnight off the grid... (mean well)

I agree with you there. All the more reason to restrict electricity usage and charging cars overnight, when people are asleep is an excellent idea.

[malagas_on_fire]

One thing i'm concerned is whether the  mass production of the Halogen lamps had more impact on polution from manufacture than the LED's. I

[NiHaoMike]

I have a feeling that banning the incadescent lamps will be insufficient to prevent this, as we are at the dawn of electric cars which are pulling 40-50kWh overnight off the grid... (mean well)

Reducing use off peak is far less of a concern than reducing the peak. And that's why I like Ohmconnect so much - it gives far more incentive to reduce peak usage than raising prices all the time.

[james_s]

Not scrapped, they should have never been introduced. If the high consumption is the problem (I am not saying it is not), then higher energy prices should have been introduced at first !
If prices are high, they should me make me consider to buy more effective devices or consider thermal insulating my house.

You're right, higher energy prices *should* make people consider doing those things, but the general population has demonstrated time and time again that this doesn't happen, at least not on any significant scale. Most people simply don't "get" the connection between the efficiency of their lighting or appliances, insulation, etc and the amount they spend on their monthly bills. The legislation comes long after people have had a sensible opportunity to make changes, and personally I think it's far preferable to nudge other people into the current century before I have to pay higher prices for the energy I use due to other people's waste.

In a rational world, incandescent lighting would have vanished from all but a few specialized use cases decades ago and we would not even be having this discussion but it didn't. People had higher energy prices, they had superior products available, they had attempts to educate the population, they had all this for many years and yet incandescent lamps remained dominant. Legislation came about long after it became obvious that the general population lacked the sense to make rational decisions on their own. I phased out incandescent lighting in my home nearly 20 years ago, so it's baffling to me that any of this legislation is even needed, but clearly it is.

Also a lot of it is directed at companies manufacturing the goods. Without efficiency mandates there is no incentive to develop more efficient products beyond a point, they don't have to pay for the energy their products consume so it is in their best interest to make everything as cheaply as possible while being only good enough that people don't stop buying it. Without fuel economy regulations on cars for example, we'd still have a market flooded with carbureted pushrod engines getting lousy gas mileage because they're cheap to produce, and the initial purchase price is a much greater influence to most people than the long term cost of ownership. People simply don't look at the long term, that has been demonstrated time and time again.

[Zero999]

Yes initial purchase price is one of the main drivers for sales. The average consumer will see that an incandescent light bulb costs a tiny fraction of an LED one and will buy it instead. They will not stop and think about how much more the incandescent lamp will cost them much more money in the long run in energy costs, than the LED lamp. This is really stupid, but I wouldn't go far as to say people are stupid, just that they make irrational choices when purchasing an item and one of those is lower upfront price, over lower operating costs.

Of course one could say that regulations interfere with free choice, but as I said before, all laws do. Where should the line be drawn? It's much better to force manufacturers to make more efficient products and ban the wasteful ones than the alternatives: blackouts, climate change, higher energy prices etc. People should have bad choices taken away from them, for the greater good.

[Tepe]

One thing i'm concerned is whether the  mass production of the Halogen lamps had more impact on polution from manufacture than the LED's.

What kind of pollution? Unless it involves polluting the atmosphere, especially by raising its content of greenhouse gases, it really comes in far lower on scale of things we need to worry about than human-induced climate change regardless how bad it might be locally.