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

[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.