Australia set to ban incandescent bulb
UDPATE: Here’s my take on the new ban and response from Canadian officials.
When a California lawmaker moved to ban the incandescent bulb, I loudly applauded but didn’t think the bill had a hope in hell. So it was with great surprise that I read stories this morning — click here and here — about Australia’s determination to actually do it. “The Australian federal environment minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said Tuesday that he would work with the states to get rid of incandescent bulbs by 2009 or 2010,” according to the International Herald Tribune. The ban is expected to be fully implemented by 2015.
Obviously, there’s a growing movement here that shows the days of the old-fashioned light bulb are numbered. Let’s hope Canada soon sees the light.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
February 20th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Although I agree that incandescent lamps are most often an irresponsible choice, I am not holding my breath, waiting for the legislation to pass. Why? Well, in my experience, some interior designers will let me use fluorescents only “over their dead body”. This is because when fluorescent lamps burn out and are replaced, you usually end up with a mish-mash of colors, not what the designer intended for their high-end client! Also, incancescent lamps can be dimmed cheaply, and become warmer when dimmed – this seems to fill some deep psychological need in humans, that interior designers cater to.
Since big business, eg. the hotel and restaurant industry, use interior design to attract business, there will be heavy-handed opposition to an outright ban. The best we can hope for, and what I would advocate, is legislation prohibiting incandescents with few, and well-defined exceptions.
February 20th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Very good points, thanks!
I wonder if LED’s suffer the same characteristics?
I believe that standard compact flourescents could be dimmed if we used dimmers that were more musical than the typical dimmers we are using for incandescents. I haven’t tried one yet, but I have small variable transformers for 70 volt audio systems, which dim the audio level from full On down to Off, usually in ten steps. Because they are used for music, they don’t chop up the waveform as is done in standard incandescent dimmers, they choose from secondary transformer windings instead, therefore c-f bulbs sensitive electronic power supply’s might survive dimming with these. Though they are only rated for 70 volts, I assume they would operate fine at 117, given the light load of a c-f bulb. Some day I’ll try one and see if it works.
February 21st, 2007 at 6:35 am
Bottom line is, there are good and bad designers. The good ones can and have adjusted to a CF reality. There are a variety of ways (many of which are now standard) of overcoming the light-quality problems. They usually mean a slight reduction in efficiency, but of course that’s nothing compared to incandescent.
The other thing is: this is just a ban on incandescent, not necessarily an endorsement of CFLs. It seems it will spur improvements in not just CFL but other forms of lighting as well, like LED. There’s even a next-generation LED (though I can’t think of the details right now). There seems to be a lot of buzz around lighting technology right now–we’re seeing innovations daily. Measures like this one can only help.
March 20th, 2007 at 9:45 am
The California bill does enumerate several exemptions, but it’s well nigh impossible to anticipate and fairly adjudicate all possible reasonable exemptions.
Banning a technology is myopic, as if innovation in incandescent technology cannot happen. GE just proved that wrong. If there must be restrictions, simply setting a lumen/watt standard and surtaxing bulbs that don’t meet it makes more sense to me than a ban targeted at a specific technology.
Look at the text of the California bill.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_0701-0750/ab_722_bill_20070222_introduced.html
If enacted, there will be unintended consequences. Possible examples:
Only 25-150 watt bulbs are banned, so we’ll be seeing new 24 and 151 watt bulbs on the shelves. And manufacturers will tweak their bulbs slightly so that they can label them “plant bulbs” and “enhanced spectrum bulbs”, which are exempt. Bulbs will come in slightly different shapes, because the bill enumerates existing standard bulb shapes as being banned. Incandescent bulb sockets will change, because only the standard medium-screw bulbs are subject to the ban. Etc.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Thanks for your excellent points, you have me conpletely convinced. Seeing the California bill, I am forced to reverse my earlier support of the idea of such legislation. Your proposal to legislate objectives, rather than technologies, and using the tax policy to take care of exemptions is much more sensible.
The California bill, if it stays in its current form, is a good example of a well-meaning measure guaranteed to lead to couter-productive results. Almost makes me wonder, if the enumeration of the standard bulb shapes and sockets wasn’t added in by someone who wanted to sabotage the intent of the bill? Its inanity is enough to make me into a conspiracy theorist!