If energy needs to be saved, there are good ways to do it.
                                                               Government product regulation is not one of them

Monday, June 25, 2012

USA Light Bulb Law "Wattages not Legalized"

 
An obscure and seemingly unknown link to video legal research into the actual light bulb regulation adjustments to US law.


Claims that they forgot to actually enter the wattage equivalents into the relevant legal text! (the standards are of course lumen based but still have wattage references...) True or not, the lumen based regulations already, as previously explained, raises their own absurdity  >> US Regulation Absurdity: Dim 100W bulbs allowed, Bright 100W bulbs banned!  >> The Good, the Bright, and the Dim ...such that dim 100 or 75 W bulbs are legal for the time being (restrictions will apply with time), and bright ones illegal. This is made use of by "rough service" and "high voltage" incandescents currently marketed in the USA as "saving consumers money because they have longer lifespans". As per above links, this is a fallacy, since 1 dim - currently legal- bulb lasting say 5000 hours drawing 100W uses a lot more energy and costs more than 5 equivalently bright regular - banned! - 75 Watt bulbs lasting 1000 hours each.... USA, EU, Canada, Australia light bulb regulations   http://ceolas.net/#li01inx US state exemption bills (legalized Texas June 2011)   http://ceolas.net/#bills  

3 comments:

Jim, Seattle said...

There is also a lifespan minimum requirement 1000 hours like with the old bulbs.
If the new bulbs really lasted longer
and they wanted to think environmentally they could have raised the lifespan standard!

Lighthouse said...

Yes good point, as far as legislation goes.
Though overall, I would also be against government lifespan standards, as with any government product regulation unrelated to product usage safety.

As always, they compromise product characteristics and product choice: At least with incandescents, lifespan and brightness tend to be trade-offs.
For products generally, shorter lifespans might be cheaper, leading to a debate on sustainability etc as covered on earlier posts here you can look up.

Short lifespans are not of themselves bad - people might not use a product much, or only stay a short while where a product needs to be used eg light bulbs.

If there is a problem - deal with the problem:
Instead, say impose recycling mandates, deposit-return requirements and so on, as applicable, to lessen waste impact on nature.

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