Ontario to ban old Edison bulbs
Well, California made noise about it, Australia got the ball rolling, now Ontario is jumping in with its own ban on inefficient incandescent bulbs. This makes Ontario the first jurisdiction in North America to commit to a ban, though unlike the Australian target of 2010, Ontario’s regulation won’t kick in until 2012. The province has also been careful with its wording. It’s not banning incandescent bulbs. Rather, it plans to ban inefficient lighting technology that would include current incandescent bulbs. It left the door open to innovation with regards to incandescent technology. No doubt, the government wanted to be sensitive to General Electric, which claims it is working on an incandescent bulb that will be just as efficient as compact fluorscent lights and which contain zero mercury. One could argue the Ontario ban should match Australia’s timeline, but I think the fact that the province has drawn a line in the sand will have an enormous impact. It will be interesting to see how many other provinces and states follow.
Tyler Hamilton is 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.
Kawanabe’s statement is annoying though....
April 19th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Awesome!
Love they leave the door open to innovation, in a performance-first approach, instead of prescribing tech.
Hope this is being applied broad-spectrum (RDR!) meaning to all lighting uses including architectural and emergency/construction.
Thanks to everyone who yanked their chain on this!
April 19th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
good for Ontario!
April 20th, 2007 at 10:20 am
What type of bulb will work outdoors when the temp falls to -40? Yes temps do get this cold. Is northwestern ontario going to have street lights or outdoor house lights in the winter? Ottawa needs to think about us in northwestern ontario or let us be part of manitoba where we will be considered and understood.
April 20th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Sodium bulbs, like the type in streetlamps, will work quite fine at low temperatures, and are exceedingly efficient.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Hey Tyler,
I know that you had spoken about the ban before. But how do you feel about this move to ban the bulb? Does it really make sense to ban something like this… why not just tax it to the point that it makes CFL’s look cheap? ie. $*** per bulb based on wattage. Some people will still require them for specialty application. Maybe take that tax and put it into rebates for the most efficient lighting out there. LED’s, CFL’s, CCFL’s and such…
Hmmm…
April 21st, 2007 at 8:55 am
I’ve not heard of temperature being a problem…anyone have some specifics?
However, having grown up in Ottawa I can assure anonymous that it does indeed get down to -40 in the winter; maybe not as much as in Dryden but often enough to create the same problems he alludes to, so I doubt that there’s a problem here.
April 21st, 2007 at 1:14 pm
ode to Edison
January 18th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Hi Tyler, Do you know whether legislation has actually passed yet in Ontario or Australia banning energy inefficient lighting? Which other jurisdictions have passed such legislation?
January 19th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
To the best of my knowledge, and I may be wrong because I haven’t been tracking this closely, what has happened so far is just policy direction. No official legislation has been passed or gone into effect. I think the U.S. is now toying with the idea.