8 Nov
2014
8 Nov
'14
2:57 p.m.
On Sat, 8 Nov 2014, Mouse wrote:
Same in the US, illegal to manufacture or import (still legal to own, use,
or sell remaining inventory). Part of the "Energy Independence and
Security Act of 2007". That bill was backed heavily by lightbulb
manufacturers such as GE, Osram Sylvania, and Philips, likely to help them
push their sales of compact fluorescents, which at that point weren't
selling well and have a much higher profit margin than incandescents. What
most people don't realize, is that bill didn't just ban 100W
incandescents, but the whole range of 40W, 60W, 75W, and 100W
incandescents (as well as many PAR reflector types), PLUS all T12
fluorescent tubes, magnetic ballasts, and quite possibly a lot of T8
fluorescent tubes too.
IMO the incandescent and T12 fluorescent lightbulb ban is the result of a
modern day incarnation of the Phoebus cartel
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel], except that this time they
have unlimited amounts of money to throw at politicians and very little in
the way of election spending laws to limit them.
My own way of punishing these companies is to buy LED replacements from
independent companies such as Cree who is not owned by GE, Osram Sylvania,
or Philips.
Over the past
couple of years, I've replaced the dark-activated 7W
"night lights" in my home with modern white LED ones. Big
mistake--after about 2 years, they're much dimmer than they started out
to be.
Yeah, "white LED"s are pretty close to white, but only sort-of LEDs.
They're fluorescent lights driven by (IIRC) ultraviolet LEDs, and they
have the dimming-with-age issues most fluorescent lights do.
I didn't replace the EL or neon night-lights
and they're all still
fine.
Yeah. Up here (Ontario), some misguided fool[%] has managed to get 100W
incandescents banned. (Well, not entirely. Just manufacture or import
of them. Possession and use are still permitted. Also, there are some
exceptions, such as rough-service bulbs.) I don't
get it. Or maybe I do.
Yeah, as near as I can figure it's a planned-obsolescence play, dressed
up in "green" rhetoric, by the makers of the various short-life bulbs. I
wrote about this a little on my blah; see
http://ftp.rodents-montreal.org/mouse/blah/2011-11-13-1.html, the two
footnotes in particular.
[%] Assuming you don't push the causality back far enough to reach
someone with a vested interest in this campaign....