A while back I heard about California thinking about a bill baning incandescent bulbs, and just recently I heard about a bill like this being tossed around in Australia. When I heard about these bills I thought to myself about how horrible an idea it is. I am all for reducing greenhouse gases, but banning light bulbs? During the day my house is lit by natural daylight, and at night the bulk of the lights in my house have CFL bulbs in them.
CFL are great little energy savers, but they aren't the be all and end all of lighting. For one thing you can't use them everywhere. Some of the lights in this house I wish I could throw a CFL into but they just don't fit, the fixtures were designed for a standard bulb. They don't do well in areas with a lot of moisture (bathrooms), and they really don't have as pleasing light as an incandescent bulb does. Not to mention that a CFL will never have the throw (CFL are a softer, more diffused light) that an incandescent light will have. While they are getting better about this, CFLs still have the potential to give you a headache since they aren't consistently emitting light like an incandescent (most CFL have ballasts on them that step up the electricity to 120 or more Hz so they are less likely to cause headaches). Also CFL can't dim (useful in film making).
I am a film and video guy, so I use a sorts of different kinds of lights in my job. When I first heard of this proposed ban on incandescents I thought that it could have to potential to screw over a lot of low budget and even big budget filmmakers who use normal everyday, 98 cent incandescent light bulbs everyday for lights on set and as extra fill lights (a household light bulb in a chinesee lantern makes a great soft fill light). Also if it wasn't worded carefully it could cut off the supply of bulbs for the big film lights as well, not to mention all the lights in projectors.
So here is the good news, GE has devolved a new high efficiency incandescent lamp. The new bulbs will emerge as about twice as efficient standard incandescents bulbs and ultimately they will be four times as efficient and will make them comparable to CFLs. This is a much better solution that trying to regulate light bulbs. These lights are expected to hit the market by 2010.
By the way, I am no way trying to say don't use CFLs, just that these were silly bills. Bills like these were really only ment to give the impression that they are trying to do something for the environment without really doing anything. Why not try to regulate the way electricity is made instead?
GE's press release about the new bulb:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/?epi_menuItemID=989a6827590d7dda9cdf6023a0908a0c&epi_menuID=c791260db682611740b28e347a808a0c&epi_baseMenuID=384979e8cc48c441ef0130f5c6908a0c&ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&div=946895406&newsId=20070223005120
CFL are great little energy savers, but they aren't the be all and end all of lighting. For one thing you can't use them everywhere. Some of the lights in this house I wish I could throw a CFL into but they just don't fit, the fixtures were designed for a standard bulb. They don't do well in areas with a lot of moisture (bathrooms), and they really don't have as pleasing light as an incandescent bulb does. Not to mention that a CFL will never have the throw (CFL are a softer, more diffused light) that an incandescent light will have. While they are getting better about this, CFLs still have the potential to give you a headache since they aren't consistently emitting light like an incandescent (most CFL have ballasts on them that step up the electricity to 120 or more Hz so they are less likely to cause headaches). Also CFL can't dim (useful in film making).
I am a film and video guy, so I use a sorts of different kinds of lights in my job. When I first heard of this proposed ban on incandescents I thought that it could have to potential to screw over a lot of low budget and even big budget filmmakers who use normal everyday, 98 cent incandescent light bulbs everyday for lights on set and as extra fill lights (a household light bulb in a chinesee lantern makes a great soft fill light). Also if it wasn't worded carefully it could cut off the supply of bulbs for the big film lights as well, not to mention all the lights in projectors.
So here is the good news, GE has devolved a new high efficiency incandescent lamp. The new bulbs will emerge as about twice as efficient standard incandescents bulbs and ultimately they will be four times as efficient and will make them comparable to CFLs. This is a much better solution that trying to regulate light bulbs. These lights are expected to hit the market by 2010.
By the way, I am no way trying to say don't use CFLs, just that these were silly bills. Bills like these were really only ment to give the impression that they are trying to do something for the environment without really doing anything. Why not try to regulate the way electricity is made instead?
GE's press release about the new bulb:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/?epi_menuItemID=989a6827590d7dda9cdf6023a0908a0c&epi_menuID=c791260db682611740b28e347a808a0c&epi_baseMenuID=384979e8cc48c441ef0130f5c6908a0c&ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&div=946895406&newsId=20070223005120
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