Howard Brandston Senate Testimony and Follow-Up

 
Updated May 3 with direct link to video clip of his testimony

Well known New York lighting designer Howard Brandston has been covered before in the excellent work he is doing to try to save the availability of regular incandescent light bulbs in the USA and indeed elsewhere.

A lot of his good defensive argumentation has arisen from participating in the Senate hearing
hearing in March 2011, of the B.U.L.B. (Better Use of Light Bulbs!) bill s395 seeking to repeal the federal ban on regular incandescent light bulbs.


Click to go to the Committee Video of the Hearing:



Alternative links to the video, on Committee site or on C-Span

Link clip of Howard's speech,
and the support shown to him by one of the committee members:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/S39&start=6050&end=6500

The full hearing record can be seen here (pdf document).
Howard's testimony begins on page 53 of the testimony (page 57 in the pdf document).

As seen, it includes both the version as spoken, and the fuller submitted written version
The written version is also handily available on Kevan Shaw's Save the Bulb site, here, posted march 13 2011, copied below, with my highlighting.

Howard Brandston’s testimony to the US Senate
Howard presented the following very eloquent testimony to the US Senate Energy Committee on 10 March 2011, It states the case beautifully:

Chairman Bingaman and ranking member Murkowski, thank you for inviting me to testify today in support of S395, The Better Use of Light Bulbs Act.
My name is Howard Brandston – I am a lighting designer with over 50 years experience and have completed nearly 3000 projects in approximately 60 countries. I am particularly proud of the work I did for my country, the United States of America. A short list that of that work you might recognize includes: The US Pavilion, Expo 70, Japan; Women’s Rights National Historic Park, Seneca Falls, NY; Memorial for Women in Military Service, Arlington National Cemetery, Washington DC and the relighting of the Statue of Liberty, New York City, NY.

I am here today to ask that you revisit a portion of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that provides for a de facto ban on the traditional incandescent light bulbs. I firmly believe that the restrictions put on incandescent lamps will have a significant negative impact on almost every residence in our country. I believe how one lives in their home is a decision that rests with the occupant and is not the purview of the government. I believe this violates the very principles upon which this nation was founded and I, as a devoted citizen, am most proud of, our freedom of choice in our personal lives.

What disturbs me even more is that the restrictions placed on incandescent lamps will not save enough energy to be worth the expense and the risks that every person in America will be subjected to. Some of the most knowledgeable people I know have begun to stockpile a lifetime supply of incandescent lamps to protect themselves from the need to use Compact Fluorescent Lamps. The public at large does not understand the problems as these professionals do. And further, the misleading claims made about the benefits of the lamp technologies that are touted as beneficial replacements seduce people to purchase these products. We have over 100 years experience using incandescent lamps. By comparison we have very little experience using the new light sources – especially in residences.

You will hear a wide range of statistical data of energy saved in comparative terms that give the illusion of saving energy and the environment- the plain truth is – according to the Energy Information Administration – only 3.6% of total energy is consumed by incandescent lamps. So you will save some portion of that miniscule number. But I ask, when you enter everyone’s home, and subject them and their families to the list of potential consequences I will list, is that worth it? I do not believe it is.

Consider the following:

• Lighting is not a product – it is a system designed for a purpose.
This act separates one component of that system, the light source, and that destroys the success of the final design.

• Although lamp manufacturers are developing new sources to compete with the incandescent lamp, if they are so superior they should be able to compete in the open marketplace where price will be a factor. Alternative lighting to the incandescent lamp will have to be worth price differential.

• The Compact Fluorescent Lamp contains mercury. This 2007 light bulb standard brings a deadly poison into every residence in our nation.

• The plastic lamp jacket warning is totally insufficient to protect the user. It is a cop-out to protect the manufacturer.

• We do not have enough knowledge of the potential consequences of being continuously exposed to the electromagnetic fields Compact Fluorescent Lamps emit. There are millions of people with Lupus, an auto-immune disease. Exposure to low doses of light from these lamps causes a severe rash. There are over one hundred auto immune diseases.

• Currently you come home and your old fashioned incandescent lamps provide a safe, flattering comfortable scene. You can easily dim these old lamps and the light they emit becomes even more inviting.

• The compact fluorescent lamp does not dim well and the color of the light it emits deteriorates as you continue to dim it.

• If you do not install these lamps in appropriate fixtures they might cause a fire. Save energy by incinerating part of your home.

• The cost to retrofit your lighting to use the new light sources may be beyond the financial and technical capacity of most home owners.

• This Standard sends lamp-manufacturing jobs to China.


I have a particular passion for saving energy – I was a member of the committee that wrote the first energy code for the USA in 1975. My contribution was the mathematical formula that set the upper power limit for lighting in that code. It was a performance based equation – not a product restricting simplistic solution. The Energy Information Administration noted that by the year 2000 it cut the energy used for lighting to pre-1970 levels. It cut in less than half the energy used for lighting by 1990.
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 ignores the fundamentals of good lighting practice and intrudes on our ability to choose how we live. Please respect the privacy of our homes, allow people their indispensible right to choose how they live and light their homes and eliminate the restrictions on the incandescent lamp.

Thank You. I look forward to answering any questions you may have

Since then, Howard has followed up with a good lengthier rundown of issues arising from the Hearing - including answering questions put to him by Senators.

Copy below from his website commentary section,
direct link to the document, alt link.






Comment

I started going through a lengthy comment - so many good points there - but it is probably easier to see how most of them find echo in the The Deception: The Arguments behind the Light Bulb Ban page (regular readers might notice I renamed it... calling it "The Deception behind Banning Light Bulbs" led to too many assuming it was yet another "Hey this is not really a ban" type of statement!).

Indeed the "this is not a ban, you can still buy replacement incandescents like halogens, for regular use" type of argument predictably resurfaces.

It should be noted that those touted replacements will in fact be banned too
in phase 2 of EISA that kicks in after 2014, that politicians fail or conveniently forget to take account of http://ceolas.net/#li01inx

Besides, the Halogen and other replacement type incandescents have already existed for some time, and are not popular with either consumers or politicians, as they cost much more for marginal energy savings, so politicians have not pushed their use with subsidies etc as with "energy saving" fluorescent bulbs (CFLs).

The replacement incandescents also have differences in light quality, in running hotter, and so on, compared to traditional simple incandescent bulbs, and in the EU are hardly available anyway, CFL usage being pushed also in the in-store display of supermarkets and general stores.

Finally, one has to be aware that the manufacturers supporting the ban would hardly
seek to further improve incandescent technology, given the more profitable alternatives,
as covered in the linked Deception rundown.
In the EU, the promised Philips Halogen Ecosaver improvement was quietly shelved, once the ban was in place.


To take up another point,

Cooper goes on to say, ―Our analysis of the energy efficiency gap identifies a number of market imperfections that cause the market to undersupply energy efficiency… Standards are the ideal way to address these market imperfections

It is odd how the Consumer association representative is so against consumer choice.
His repeated arguments, also in other statements, is of "market failure",
which he then basically clarifies (put more simply) as
"people won't buy expensive bulbs even if they save money by doing so"

Of course, there are other reasons to choose a light bulb than to save money,
and as Howard also goes into, overall savings are much smaller than supposed, for many reasons.

On a more basic market level, people also don't keep buying cheap products that don't satisfy their needs, while expensive alternatives are not avoided either - or no-one would be buying woollen coats, Energizer/Duracell longlasting batteries, certain washing up liquids etc "expensive to buy but cheap in the long run" - and properly marketed as such.

Mr Cooper is even wrong, if he had been right(!):
That is, if it was really necessary to interfere in the market,
then a tax on incandescents could subsidise lower prices on CFLs and LEDs,
equilibrating the market, making money for politicians (for other or additional spending),
and keep choice,
while not "just hitting people with taxes" in that they would have cheaper alternatives than before.

No, I don't expect Mr Cooper understands that either...
and taxation is not justifiable of itself anyway (if a specific light bulb policy really was needed, stimulating competition would be better also to save energy, as in the Deception rundown explanation) - it simply is just another reason the arguments don't hold up...

(I will likely edit and brush up on this post in coming days)
 

See F L: Stripping the Light Fantastic, part 2

 
Having looked inside a LED bulb,
there are naturally enough a lot more examples of CFL dissections out there,
having been around longer as replacements for regular incandescent bulbs...



From the EE Times article
"How compact fluorescent lamps work--and how to dim them"
A good, very technical description of CFL function.

From Australian engineer Rod Elliott's article
"Should There be a Ban on Incandescent Lamps?"
A good lengthy account also for the layman, which despite the title actually mainly deals with CFL issues in all aspects, in usage, safety issues and more.

From Save the Bulb "CFL Autopsy" article

This is an Osram CFL from a few years ago that has stopped working. I cut the base in half with an angle grinder as a hacksaw would not cut the black insulating material in the bayonet connector. This rather brutal approach destroyed quite a few components on the board. This is basically a pretty crude electronic fluorescent gear that is not nearly as efficient as it could be as evidenced by the rather large choke, the thing that looks like a transformer with an iron core and copper windings at the back. This lamp (when it was working!) started with a brief flicker. One of the broken bits was a neon lamp as are found in old fashioned starters so I suspect this was part of a crude and inefficient capacitor start, these are also likely to fail before other parts of the lamp.

The weight of this lamp was 82 grammes, 20 grammes was the circuit board that may well have been working and certainly is in many lamps that are thrown away. The glass tube is 40 grammes, the metal lamp cap 6 grammes therefore 16 grammes of plastics derived from fossil fuels makes the remainder. The mercury content will be anything between 2mg and 5mg depending on the age and manufacturer of the lamp.

The construction of this lamp allows the electronics module to be easily separated from the tube however the plastic base is fixed to the tube with expanded foam so it would be difficult to separate the plastic and glass for recycling.

A typical equivalent Incandescent lamp weighs 34 grammes approximately 27 grammes of this being the glass envelope, cap approximately 6 grammes and approximately 1 gramme of metals including the filament.

Since writing this page some further information has come to my attention. As part of the EuP work done by VITO, spreadsheets were used to analyse the environmental impact of different lamp types. The spreadsheets were originally written for the assessment of the impact of general domestic electrical equipment so there may be errors due to the relative size of lamps. The outputs of the spreadsheet included the following numbers:

• Energy used in manufacture:
GLS 1 MJ = 0.28KwH
CFLi 12MJ = 3.33 KwH
[ed- as from similar Osram and Philips CFL manufacture data, such energy usage quoted is from the assembly of already made components. Including the energy needed to make the components themselves, raises CFL energy use to 40 times or more that of incandescents, as from Dr Stanjek's study (commissioned by Greenpeace, so hardly research biased): Referenced, with more on the issue: ceolas.net/#li16x]

• Pollutants created in manufacture and winning the materials required:
GLS 5 grammes, non hazardous
CFLi 128 grammes, 78 grammes being hazardous waste

So basically each CFLi manufactured causes one and a half times its weight in waste and a weight equal to itself in hazardous waste. As I said above these figures are subject to question but are alarming as they stand.

On a lighter, nay, dimmer note...
a reminder from a previous post






Imagine calling a fluorescent bulb Tru Dim ;-)
(it's dimmable, apparently, and full of fun components)

 

Ausgebrannt - Vom Ende der Glühbirne Burned Out - The End of the Incandescent

 
German critical TV documentary about the light bulb ban
45 minutes to be broadcast on Thursday 19 April
(in German - but the visuals make much of the criticism of the ban clear enough, including of the replacement lighting like the main ones offered and pushed, the fluorescent bulbs or CFLs)

Link to video here
or click on image





German and Austrian criticism has been dominant in the otherwise acquiescent European Union,
as also covered in
The Politics behind Banning Light Bulbs and the EU Light Bulb Ban Story on the Ceolas.net site.


Thank you to Rudolf Hannot and Siegfried Rotthäuser of Heatball (heatball.de) for the information:
The Heatball concept has been covered several times on this blog, the last and most comprehensive post at time of writing being here.
 

More Fun and Games in the European Union

Updated March 30, first posted March 29

While people like me simply comment on light bulb issues,
we should acknowledge our heoroes on the coal face (pun intended), like Howard Brandston in the USA and Kevan Shaw in bonnie Scotland, who actually have to deal with the intransigient legislators!

As covered previously,
Howard was involved in the hearings preceding the US 2007 legislation, and has
commented about it in a worthy e-book read (co-authored with Michael P Leahy, as reviewed).
He has continued to be a lone voice among invited speakers at Congress hearings, such as the one by the Senate Energy Committee last year, and is currently getting a Facebook campaign together, for the general public as well as those with special interest in the issue.

Meanwhile Kevan has do battle with a never ending stream of EU regulation proposals (who knew there were so many lamp types ;-)), moreover written in incomprehensible English, as some of us have seen.
And, similarly to Howard, he is not just as a lighting designer "stakeholder", but also more broadly defending the needs on the public, including those with light sensitivity issues.


Before getting into this, to those not familiar with the EU:
The basic workings of the EU is covered in the introductory section to the Ceolas.net coverage of how the EU Light Bulb Ban came about, "Fun and Games in the European Union", http://ceolas.net/#euban.

So day-to-day it is run by something called the European Commission,
headed up by an unelected body of political cronies called Commissioners, with immense legislative and executive power - they have sole right to initiate legislation concerning all EU members, and also to see that the legislation is carried out.
[The mis-named "European Parliament" is basically a glorified talking shop, and like the nominally overseeing Council of Ministers, usually rubber stamp Commission decisions, with some comment or other addendum, to justify their existence.
Also, because Council decisions are more and more taken by qualified majority, any objecting party has to win over others, which becomes even less likely in the scenario where ministers jet in at regular intervals to sign off on reams of legislation that their COREPER bureaucrat armies stick under their noses]

It should be said that the Commission system had a certain logic when it was known as the High Authority, overseeing coal and steel production for 6 member states, but hardly nowadays.
A particular problem is that money keeps going missing - literally.
The Commission's own accountants have refused to sign off on the accounts for nearly 2 decades now! 2011 report, BBC report in 2007 here.
Insider critical accounts by those directly involved in EU accounting include Marta Andreasen, "Brussels Laid Bare", Paul van Buitenen, "Blowing the Whistle: Fraud in the European Commission", Bernard Connolly, "The Rotten Heart of Europe".
Needless to say they were bumped off rather than praised, while their corrupt masters either stayed in their jobs or got fat pay-offs for their Great Service.

So why do national governments play ball?
Because they also gain in the way the financing works.
The EU Budget was set up as a Gross rather than Net payment system, meaning that net gain countries like Greece make nominal initial contributions, basically to make them feel equal to others.
So countries pay in gross amounts, which they then do everything they can to claw back in all sorts of ways, in agricultural and local spending.
Needless to say the less clearly the money is sloshed around, the better for all concerned.
It is made worse still in that the EU, to win hearts and minds with minimal financial input, often requires "matching local funds" for local projects that they then stick their flag on and brag about - a funding mishmash that again makes auditing difficult.

So it is a Big Circle Game, and a pointless and enormously wasteful one, because the Budget system could of course be run on a Net Pay system: So for example Country X does not pay in 1 billion and desperately claws back 300 million, but simply pays in 700 million for pure EU cross-border project spending - and is responsible for its own local spending, therefore with less waste.
Put another way, it means that all EU Projects are directly financed and monitored instead.

The Commission has lots of Commissioners to satisfy 27 countries, giving obscure "matchstick-making" type responsibilities (look up ec.europa.eu) so everyone has a hook to hang their hat on (with lots of side-hooks for "directorates", departments, committees, and hangaround friends and cronies).

One eager committee is the Committee concerned with Eco-Design in the EU (suitably Orwellian sounding), setting energy efficiency standards on all kinds of products, including lighting.
It should be said that in a free market economy it is perfectly right and understandable to set standards so that products may be graded and more easily traded and sold, with everyone knowing what they are getting.
However, that of course does not necessitate banning products, that are otherwise safe to use.
The lack of logic in all other respects in which the Eco-design committee operates is seen in the Deception arguments 13-point rundown, as seen below or on separate page.

For some kind of legitimacy, this Committee, like other EU institutional organs, pretends - pretends seems to be the operative word - to take into account the wishes of "stakeholders", those with an interest in the legislation at hand (which, interestingly, is never assumed to be the ordinary consumer - the way that EU institutions deal with EU citizens is also dealt with in the account of how the EU ban on light bulbs came about, on the Ceolas.net site).

As a topical point, now on 1 April 2012 with big fanfare the EU will open its "Citizen's Initiative", a 1 million citizen petition system which was also cited as a means for those against the light bulb ban to voice their protest. More about this, and the initiative itself on the Ceolas.net site, http://ceolas.net/#citizenInit. The official EU site about it is here.
As seen the rigorous conditions and all the data required (name, address, place and date of birth, passport number etc for signatures) makes it next to impossible - and then the Commission can reject and alter any proposal anyway!

It is called "European Democracy", folks.




Enter Stakeholder Kevan.

From his blog, the following interesting posts,
edited extracts.

From March 27 post:

Bye bye T12 Fluorescent Lamps

While there has been much concern over the majority of the EcoDesign legislation on lighting emanating from Europe, there has been little attention paid to the impacts of the “Tertiary Lamps” rules.

April 1 2012 sees the banning in Europe of the manufacture and sale of T12 fluorescent tubes.
There are many millions of these older lamps and fitting still in daily use so this legislation will impact on many small businesses who are faced with having to change not just lamps but all their fittings. These lamps are also still in widespread use in the transport sector and can still be seen in London Tube trains of the 1960s and railway carriages in many countries dating from similar periods. So should we welcome this necessity to change at this time?

Kevan seems willing to concede an energy saving justification to their ban compared to other lighting, but the same principles clearly apply to them, in that energy saving mandates change product characteristics, that overall energy savings are limited, and that any "low price giving market failure" argument does not hold up and can be dealt with by several other policies if it did, as per the argumentation rundown on this blog.

T12 types are also being banned in the USA from July 14 2012: more.
I will likely follow this up in another post.


Earlier, more obvious hassle with the European Union...
(amazing news: those who run the EU don't like criticism - let alone any open debate)

Tuesday, February 28, 2012
They knoweth not what they do!

I have upset the EU by blogging the impact of the draft legislation on reflector lamps!

I received a call on Friday from Andras Toth, policy officer at the Directorate General for Energy [and overseeing the Eco-Design Committee] in response to articles in the Daily Mail and Daily Express last week.
He believed that my previous blog on this issue had been the source of these, as usual inflammatory, articles.
It was clear from the conversation that there was no intention to ban MR16, AR111 and other lamps and he felt that the provision for continuing IRC and Xenon filled versions, at least to 2016, answered that. Basically this provision does mean that some of these lamps will still be available, albeit at inflated prices, it does not, however, do anything to ensure that the current huge range of light outputs, beam angles and reflector options will still be available after September 2013.

Press statements from ELC and the Commission have tried to smooth out the situation however the lack of understanding is highlighted by the headline picture in the Commission’s article being a mains voltage rather than a low voltage lamp!

The bottom line remains that we do not know what products will be available after the September 2013 cut off. Requests for information that would enable me to actually work out the “Maximum Energy Efficiency Index” (MEEI) to both lamp manufacturers and the ELC remain unanswered at this date. Until we have this information for ALL currently available lamps no one can claim that lamps are not being banned by this legislation!




Monday, February 06, 2012
New Year New Ban!

MR16 and AR111 Low Voltage Tungsten Halogen Lamps to be banned in September 2013 with more efficient Infra-Red coated types not guaranteed beyond 2016.

This is the proposal in the Draft Legislation on reflector lamps that landed on my desk on January 24. Since then I have been trying to make sense of the implications. To be frank the actual proposal has come as quite a shock after being involved in both consultative and technical sessions on this over the past 3 years. During the most recent technical session in September we thought that the message had got across that there is no reasonable replacement for these LVTH lamps in the market now or in the foreseeable future that will meet the requirements for the professional applications . We also thought that the efficiency requirements would be set to deal with the older and less efficient classes of lamps such as the R40 , PAR38, PAR 30 and the like and permit the LVTH lamps to continue in use to replace the more critical applications for these technologies producing energy savings of 50% or more!

The delay in posting of this blog is that I have been trying to work out exactly what lamps are critically affected.
The problem here is that the energy performance criteria have been set around an arbitrary value of Lumens in a 90 degree cone from the centre of the lamp. This value is just not something that is published by lamp manufacturers. It has no sense or use in the consideration of reflector lamps and can only be properly measured using a goniphotometer, a seriously expensive and relatively rare piece of kit! Again this was pointed out to the technical meeting particularly by the individual countries representatives who will need to use these to undertake market surveillance in order to enforce these regulations.

So I am at this point unable to determine what lamps fall foul of this newly invented and complex metric, the “Maximum Energy Efficiency Index” (MEEI) all I can rely on are the statements in the guidance notes:

Stage 1 (2013)
Poor conventional low voltage halogen lamps (D class) are phased out even at low lumen outputs already in Stage 1.

Phases out quality conventional low voltage halogens starting with high lumen outputs (12V 50W MR16 lamp). Leaves only B-class enhanced lamps (infrared coated or xenon filled)

Stage 2 (2014)
Completes the phase-out started in Stage 1, now applying to low lumen output lamps.

The legislation will be reviewed in 2015.
Meanwhile the lamp industry has no guarantee that TH IRC lamps will be permitted beyond 2016 therefore have no guaranteed return on investment to buy the necessary machinery for the IR coating process. At any event the technical meeting was advised that both the machinery and coating materials have become a monopoly supply in Europe so prices are very likely to increase significantly in the short and medium term.

The legislation also limits efficiencies of LED solutions to points that just cannot be achieved by high quality colour rendering devices and really fails to address the problems in achieving colour consistency and clean narrow beam angles. The meeting in September was also told that in particular MR16 LED lamp replacements could not have their lives guaranteed as components in the integral power supplies are running beyond their design limits.

So we are now in a position where we cannot determine the MEEI of currently available lamps so we just do not know how to correctly advise our clients for whom we have specified LVTH solutions over the past 25 years. As and when the lamp manufacturers provide responses to this I will update this information.

Kevan Shaw 6 February 2012

Regarding the ELC manufacturer association comments

As an industry we are confident that in the future there will remain an adequate choice of high quality, low voltage lamps to satisfy different consumer budgets and needs.

Hardly surprising, for more about the ELC see http://ceolas.net/#ELC.

The mentioned EU press release predictably denies there is a problem, re “press rumors” that low voltage halogens are going to be banned.

As usual they give the impression that they are doing everyone a “favour” by enforcing lower energy usage, ignoring that people can choose it themselves if they want, since of course it also changes lamp characteristics as well as lamp cost.


I am clearly biased against both the EU (as currently run) and its regulations.
However, one can also base such criticism on references and official data, and in the case here, on other ways to achieve any energy saving objectives, even if such objectives themselves are questionable.
 

The Brandston Research Team’s Fluorescent Light Bulb Study

 
From Send Your Light Bulbs To Washington, March 27 post, extracts.

Howard Brandston is a well known New York lighting designer, and is the Congress consultant of choice when they holding hearings into light bulb matters.

The following information is from his website commentary.
As mentioned in a previous post, he is shortly launching a campaign against the light bulb regulations on a Facebook page, details which will appear on the above website link.
Given his status, it will hopefully get a good following.

Research into the Effects and Implications of Increased CFL Use

In September 2009, I assembled a first-class team of doctors and researchers to study the implications of the wide-spread use of CFLs. Supported in part with a grant from the IES, the primary intention was to determine if further investigation and research is warranted to re-examine the direction of current and proposed lighting related legislation. Our study included:

• A literature search of the health hazards post by Electro-magnetic Fields
• Measurements of the fields generated by CFLs
• Measurements of EMF's at installations
• Creation of a detailed list of potential problems stemming from installed CFL usage
• An analysis of actual installation system efficiencies – CFL vs. Incandescent
• An illustration of dimmer induced SPD shifts with CFLs. Illustrated with SPDs.

Our findings fully support that further research must be done. The full research report [originally published March 2010] is available here. The document is large — 3MB (.pdf).
http://www.concerninglight.com/2010-03_Final-Report_comprehensive.pdf

RE " further research must be done", it may be noted that Canada has indeed delayed a ban for (at least) 2 years, in part because of CFL concerns, more:
http://freedomlightbulb.blogspot.com/2011/11/canada-delay-to-2014-its-official.html


Introduction and Conclusion excerpts from the Brandston team study:

The main purpose of the study is to determine if more research is required before the ban on ordinary incandescent lamps takes effect. If it is determined that it would be in the best interest of the country to conduct further studies, then the ban and the restrictions placed on the incandescent lamp should be withdrawn and held in abeyance, until a solid basis can be determined as to what the best course of action be taken to meet the spirit of the act.
All funding by the several government entities promoting the use of CFLs should also cease until there is careful evaluation of relevant CFLs characteristics and comparison with incandescent lamps.

We assembled an experienced interdisciplinary team, fully capable of delivering proposed investigation and research.

Report prepared by:
Howard M. Brandston, FIES, Hon. FCIBSE, FIALD, PLDA, SLL, LC
Philip Brickner, MD St. Vincent’s Hospital
Sasa Djokic, PhD Univ. of Edinburgh
Richard Vincent St. Vincent’s Hospital
Scott Bucher St. Vincent’s Hospital
Heather Auto St. Vincent’s Hospital
Kate Sweater Hickcox Lighting Research Center, RPI


CFLs are not the superior replacement for incandescent lamps, neither in conservation or aesthetics.
Nor is the CFL an equivalent light source technology.
As an indicator of lamp efficiency, lumens-per-watt has been extensively used as a comparative metric to promote the energy advantages of light sources. However, this is flawed because no meaningful conclusions can come from measuring and quantifying an individual type of light source on its own. Lumens-per-watt does not capture any qualitative characteristics, nor does it express the actual performance level of any light source used in practical applications. Most importantly, it does not represent the actual illuminating and spectral properties of a given light source. Lumens-per-watt is simply an idealized quantifier obtained in laboratory measurement, which is often used isolated from other light source characteristics and out of context with the lighting applications under which people live and work. What is really needed is an incandescent lamp with today’s lumen output but with longer life.

Generally, there are no bad light sources, only bad applications.
There are some very laudable characteristics of the CFL, yet the selection of any light source remains inseparable from the luminaire that houses it, along with the space in which both are installed and lighting requirements that need to be satisfied. In the pursuit of more useful lumens-per-watt metric, one must match the luminaire to the space being illuminated.
The lamp, the fixture and the room: all three must work in concert and for the true benefits of end-users. If the CFL should be used for lighting a particular space, or an object within that space, the fixture must be designed to work with that lamp, and that fixture with the room. It is a symbiotic relationship.
A CFL cannot be simply installed in an incandescent fixture and then expected to produce a visual appearance that is more than washed out, foggy and dingy. The whole fixture must be replaced -- light source and luminaire -- and this is never an inexpensive proposition.


Conclusion
“It is wrong to assume that banning the incandescent lamp is an energy- and ecologically conscious action. We have not solved all our lighting problems by finding a highly efficient source. There is presently no lighting technology that can replace certain types and uses of incandescent lamps.”
[ref, IALD]

This study challenges current political consensus and decision to phase out incandescent lamps and switch to CFLs on the assumption that significant energy savings will be achieved without seriously compromising any of the relevant functional and illuminating requirements in target applications. Moreover, and more importantly, the study points out that there is a need to carefully investigate and elucidate some of the important safety concerns that may arise from a prolonged exposure and widespread use of CFLs, of which levels of electromagnetic fields measured around these appliances are illustrated in more detail. (N.B. an initial measurement of approximately 50 DB from a 13W CFL)


We propose the following simple test that may actually provide an effective method for determining whether the legislation will actually serve people:

- Initiate a field study aimed at satisfying the proposed power limits in all public buildings, from museums and hospitals to the White House, and the homes of all elected officials.
- As this will include replacing all incandescent lamps with CFLs, it would be easy to directly ascertain the effects of the proposed legislation/ban.
- Assure that all of these measures to comply with specified power limits in residential units are done and paid for solely by the occupants, i.e. that occupants may freely decide on the use of specific equipment and devices
- At the end of sufficiently long period (e.g. 18 months) check whether the incandescent lighting had not been reinstalled, and perform a detailed survey with all users to determine their overall satisfaction with the initial, intermediate and resulting lighting.
- This will help to identify specific target applications for different light sources, as they will be selected by end-users, based on their needs and requirements.
- In parallel with this field study, initiate and perform detailed research related to determining quantitative and qualitative characteristics of CFLs and other alternative light sources (e.g. LED light sources), as well as the comparative analysis of their relevant aspects and most important effects of use.

Based on the data collected from the above field/labs studies, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and current lighting related energy legislation still in Congress may be amended, if necessary, to conform to the results of the studies. We expect that the current and proposed legislation would be rewritten in favor of a new act, which will be based on the result of a thoughtful process that could yield a set of proven recommendations that will better serve our nation’s needs by maximizing both human health, environmental satisfaction and energy efficiency. In the end, the most energy effective solution for residences may be achieved using incandescent lamps with a combination of occupancy sensors and dimmers.

As the post also makes clear, regarding the obvious retort of
"incandescents are not banned, energy efficient halogen types allowed",
or
"better LEDs are coming",
and other arguments used to justify bans,
see the 13 point referenced rundown of why the arguments don't hold up below this post,
or on the dedicated page
 

US sales of CFLs have fallen since 2007

 
Thank you to Howard Brandston for this information, via his Facebook page (the "wall" page can be read by anybody logged in).
Incidentally, keep a watch on Howard's website commentary - he is shortly launching a campaign on a new Facebook page. Given his status as renowned lighting designer and congressional consultant on lighting matters, it will hopefully get a good following.

Last week NEMA, the electrical equipment association to which light bulb manufacturers belong and which (as not least seen from Howard's e-book) was heavily involved in pushing for and welcoming the "phase out" of simple incandescent bulbs, published a US sales lighting report.
It not only covers the last quarter of 2011, but also all previous years as useful chart data.

Shipments of Incandescent Lamps Illuminate at the Close of 2011

NEMA’s indexes for incandescent and compact fluorescent (CFL) lamp shipments increased by 29.4 and 3.6 percent, respectively, during Q4 2011 compared to Q3 2011. Incandescent lamp shipments posted a year-over-year gain of 41 percent while CFLs declined by 6.6 percent. The calendar year comparison also showed divergent paths. Shipments of CFLs decreased by 6.6 percent compared to 2010. Conversely, incandescent lamp shipments rose 16.4 percent during 2011. A preponderance–62.1 percent–of the increase over last year occurred during Q4.

Incandescent lamps increased its share of the combined incandescent-CFL market registering a reading of 82.8 percent. Meanwhile, the share of CFLs decreased to 17.2 percent –a ratio of slightly less than one in six lamps sold. The increase in the foothold by incandescent lamps is likely to continue while the new efficiency regulations established by EISA 2007 are phased-in over the next few years. CFLs and other substitute lamp types such as halogen A-Line and LED lamps are then expected to carve out increasing shares of the traditional A-Line market.

Comment

Since NEMA is for the ban, this is hardly biased in favor of incandescents
(besides, either big or small incandescent sales speak against a ban,
big sales = why ban what people prefer,
small sales = why ban when people are voluntarily switching anyway, little savings from a ban).

The relative incandescent sales rise during 2011 is indeed probably related to the growing awareness of the light bulb ban, as NEMA say.

However, what is of greater interest is the stagnation and even relative fall of CFL sales since the 2007 boost, a boost from the extensive subsidy and rebate introduced at the time of the 2007 EISA regulations (the extensive USA CFL promotion campaigns are documented on http://ceolas.net/#li12ax onwards).

In other words, despite the continuation and increase of all the CFL promotion campaigns, subsidies, rebates, handouts etc they are still no more popular.
The sales and market shares of both incandescents and CFLs have held remarkably steady, a slight fall in each perhaps being due to LED sales.

A reasonable reply is that CFLs might be liked, at least if subsidised and handed out, but are simply not suitable for all locations:
Hot or cold ambience, vibration, dampness, enclosed spaces, recesses, existing dimming circuits, timers, movement sensor switching, use in chandeliers and small and unusual lamps, aesthetical use if clear bulbs are preferred, rare usage when cheaper bulbs are preferred - and so on - apart from light quality differences,
particularly noticeable when dimming.

Yes, expensive halogen incandescent alternatives may be offered - but they still have differences to simple cheap incandescents (running hotter and whiter for example), and will as seen from the regulations (http://ceolas.net/#li01inx) also come to be banned for ordinary usage
in the second phase of the 2007 EISA regulations following on after 2014, a phase out which as seen also applies to the European Union.
While the above data does not differentiate simple incandescents from halogen type alternatives, previous data has shown the ongoing popularity of the simpler cheaper incandescents, and NEMA imply the same in their commentary here (the sales rise from 2012 regulations on simple incandescents, the expected increased future sales of halogen type replacements).

Another reply is that LEDs offer an alternative choice - certainly, but again,
with light quality differences in their spiky emission spectra, and with even more light output problems than CFLs to achieve bright (over 60W) light equivalent omnidirectional lighting, and at reasonable cost.


The simple truth is that all lighting has advantages for different uses:
and markets, whether you like them or not, always send a message.
In this case the message is clear - people still like to buy simple incandescent light bulbs.
"Great savings" from banning them is therefore to ban what people would have bought if they could, and as referenced on the Deception page, the overall all-things-considered savings whether of energy or emissions or money, are marginal and irrelevant.
Banning chauffeur driven political limousines might bring "great savings", but that again does not mean that those affected would necessarily be happy with such savings!
 

Incandescents still going strong here!

 
Engineer and farmer Paul Wheaton and his team behind the Permaculture suite of sites and forums is one of the resource links here.
Among much else they investigate light bulb issues, interestingly being against the light bulb ban from environmental as well as other reasons (unlike many of their green colleagues).

Of the podcasts, one from a few days ago covers his ongoing lifespan comparisons and can be listened to here (mp3 download)

Paul Wheaton talks with Jocelyn Campbell about the CFL experiment he is working on. All the incandescents are still going, one CFL out of 3 is still going, and the LED is still going. He talks a bit about LEDs, and some concerns people have about them.

A good recent summary of Paul's position on the light bulb issue, in particular criticising how CFLs are promoted, can be seen here.
An earlier longer article on the topic: CFL Fluorescent Light Bulbs: More Hype Than Value
 

Always Look on the Bright Side

 






Imagine calling a fluorescent bulb Tru Dim ;-)
(it's dimmable, apparently, and full of fun components)



Following on from the post about renowned lighting designer Howard Brandston's Mondo article, he has also updated his website commentary, with a letter to Consumer Reports (that they did not publish)

Excerpts, my highlights:

The design of lighting is the creation of a system to light a space.
When you take the total energy used to light many typical spaces, including the lighting controls, the total connected load and energy consumed when using incandescent light sources the result is, in many cases, equal to or more efficient than the new sources you are touting.

Then you make a serious technical error when you state that lumens measures brightness.
Lumens are a measure of radiant energy in the visible spectrum – not brightness.
More lumens do not mean more brightness or visibility – nor that you will prefer the light illuminating the scene or object it is falling upon. What is critical in this case is the Spectral Power Distribution of the light source.
In this case, when evaluated by most viewers, the incandescent light bulb wins – most of the time. That does not mean there are not several applications where alternative light sources perform perfectly well and are preferred. But to ban the incandescent light bulb is a serious detriment to the design of good lighting for many applications. People will sort that out
by themselves without the help of legislation....

Sincerely,
Howard M. Brandston, FIES, Hon. FCIBSE & SLL, FIALD, LC.

Comment

As covered previously here, Lumens are replacing Watts as the new standard for buying light bulbs by (supposedly) brightness...

CFLs and LEDs have spiky emission spectra, so strong brightness in single pure light colors might confuse the measurements, compares to the smoother, broader, light color emissions as with incandescents.

There are a lot of reasons why CFLs and LEDs seem dimmer than their lab rated values...
more on CFL brightness here (http://ceolas.net/#li15rbx),
and some additional notes on LED brightness (http://ceolas.net/#li15ledax).
 

Howard Brandston's Mondo Article

 
A while back I had a resource news update, looking at the latest from the sites in the resource link list - it seems better just to highlight different ones, when I notice them.

I mentioned that Howard Brandston had an upcoming article in Mondo magazine.
This is now published:

MERCURY? Thermometers NO! Light bulbs YES!
A plea to the lighting design community from Howard Brandston.


On December 16th 2011, just days before a national ban on the incandescent was to take effect, the United States congress postponed the onset of a law that threatens to alter the very contours of our lives. Starting with a phase-out of the 100-watt bulb in 2012, the Energy Independence and Security Act, signed by George W. Bush in 2007, finishes off the 40-watt lamp by 2014. How do the legislators behind the Act intend to replace Thomas Edison’s time-tested invention? With the squiggly compact fluorescent, which has been touted as a panacea for an ailing planet, even as questions about its energy efficiency and environmental viability abound. The outcry in the U.S. against this proposed ban, however, has been vociferous—loud enough, it seems, to have put at least a momentary halt to legislation that is not dissimilar to bans that are in the process of being enacted all over the world.

In the years leading up to the planned implementation of the Act, American lighting manufacturing giants raced to replace the incandescent light bulb with the compact fluorescent to the tune of 400 million lamps sold each year, sacrificing quality and, ironically, the environment in exchange for what was widely heralded as affordability and energy efficiency—CFLs are said to use up to 75 percent less energy than conventional tungsten bulbs (the figures vary). Meanwhile, compact fluorescents have been flooding landfills around the world, frequently breaking along the way, releasing about 5 milligrams of mercury into the soil, water, and air with every shattered bulb.

A naturally occurring heavy metal, mercury is a potent neurotoxin that causes damage to the central nervous system, the endocrine system, the kidneys and other organs. Mercury poisoning can be fatal; exposure to mercury is especially dangerous for fetuses and children. Yet despite the imminent phase out of the incandescent bulb, the lion’s share of municipalities in the United States have failed to implement safe, accessible recycling solutions for the toxic compact fluorescent. Five years after the signing of the Act, cities and towns with curbside recycling services still do not have the facilities to deal with such bulbs, which must be taken to hazardous waste centers, many of which are open to the public a total of one day a month.

And what happens when one of these fragile glass corkscrews breaks within the safety of the home? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends evacuation of the site for the first 15 minutes after the breakage in order to avoid exposure to harmful mercury vapors. After an elaborate initial cleanup (instructions available on the internet are confounding in their contradictions), the room should be aired out, the EPA advises, with all HVAC systems turned off, for several hours. Theories as to the health risks posed by any remaining traces of mercury vary wildly depending on who is doing the talking. Consumers can, for the moment, breathe a huge sigh of relief. They have not yet lost the freedom to decide for themselves what kind of bulbs they are willing to risk bringing into their homes.

Now, at the 11th hour, Congress has postponed the bill—which was planned to go into effect on January 1—until September 2012, giving those in support of the incandescent nine more months to harness the momentum necessary to make their voices heard. Vigilance is key. This small victory must not be seen as a mere momentary roadblock to the boondoggle that has been looming over the U.S. lighting industry and how it is that we illuminate the commercial workplace, as well as the sanctity of our homes, for the past five years. Constituents around the world need to make their opposition to the ban known, in the face of the considerable lobbying power of lamp manufacturers, who, no doubt, will continue to put pressure on Congress, fervently politicking for their interests to be served.

The devastating paradox of the supposedly green solution to the global energy crisis proffered by the compact fluorescent is that the mercury contained within these bulbs is poised to invade our homes even as we are promised a reduction in mercury-laced carbon emissions—a reduction that is negligible at best. It is an energy saving that can easily be accomplished by legislation on any number of measures, including wind and solar power and alternative fuels, higher building standards, and HVAC and water heating systems, to name a few.

And what about other lighting alternatives? High-performance energy-efficient incandescents that meet proposed energy efficiency guidelines are in the works. Halogen lamps are everywhere. But unfortunately, the high-performance bulbs currently available or in the pipeline are no competition for the conventional tungsten lamp when it comes to cost. Which means that if a ban on the incandescent does go into effect, the only affordable option for the vast majority of homes will be the noxious compact fluorescent.

Action must be taken to ensure that the repeal is not simply a postponement. It is imperative that we succeed in averting the impending environmental crisis we are so very close to legislating into being. For if just one gram of mercury will pollute a 2-acre pond, imagine the havoc millions of compact fluorescents tossed into our garbage dumps threatens to wreak on the world at large, let alone the sanitation workers who come in constant direct contact with high volumes of these troublesome bulbs. Allowing so much mercury to invade our homes and workplaces, not to mention our already endangered forests and plains, our rivers and oceans, would be not just foolhardy but downright destructive.

And mercury is not the only problem when it comes to the compact fluorescent. Myriad questions remain regarding the negative impact of CFLs on our health and well-being. The flicker rate of the bulb has improved over time, but the jury is still out on CFLs as a trigger for migraines and, in some cases, epileptic seizures. The long-term effects of electro-magnetic fields and the gaps in the colour spectrum peculiar to CFLs have not yet been adequately studied. In addition, the ultra-violet radiation emitted by CFLs poses dangers to those with light-sensitive diseases such as lupus.

And the list of downsides continues: many existing light fixtures are incompatible with CFLs and will need to be replaced. The fact that the bulbs require a different kind of dimmer than those installed in most homes poses yet another challenge. CFLs boast a longevity equal to 3 to 25 (or 8 to 15, again, the figures vary) times that of the incandescent; but these claims are substantially undercut by the rapid reduction in lifespan that occurs when the lights are switched on and off with any sort of frequency. And then there is the CFL delay: when a compact fluorescent is switched on, it does not light up immediately, but takes up to three minutes to reach full intensity. Component parts fail frequently, due to compromises in quality in exchange for affordability. CFLs are manufactured in China, where there are little or no environmental controls, and safety in the workplace is all but nonexistent. Energy savings produced by the bulbs themselves are offset by the distance they must be shipped and the energy expended to manufacture their plastic packaging, which of course, is environmentally unsound. And despite the fact that the quality of light given off by CFLs has improved in recent years, it remains spectrally deficient, and vastly diminished in comparison with that of the incandescent. Not to mention the negative impact that the incandescent ban would have on the work of lighting designers and industry professionals in an era that is presently rife with restrictions.

But the implications of the elimination of the affordable incandescent go far beyond the blatant health risks posed by the compact fluorescent and its roll call of hindrances listed above. What’s most ominous about the incandescent ban proposed by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 is not simply its enforced influx of the compact fluorescent into our homes and workplaces, but the fact that if it does indeed take effect, we will have lost our freedom to choose how we light our lives.

Human beings evolved with and in response to light—sunlight, moonlight, the incandescence of fire. Our physical mechanism, the neuroscience that makes us who we are, is exquisitely attuned to light’s qualities and rhythms. The light that envelops us steers our very existence. To impose limitations on how we choose to illuminate our world carries profound biological implications.

How did we get here? How is it that environmental institutions from the EPA to the Energy Federation to Greenpeace continue to advocate the use of the compact fluorescent despite the overwhelming evidence?
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedy.”
—Ernest Benn, British publisher, born in 1875

Our recent predicament is a testament to the hefty lobbying power of a handful of manufacturing giants on Capitol Hill and a barrage of mostly meaningless statistical data. For when one takes a closer look at the bee’s nest of information spun in favour of the ban, one discovers that the “more than 330 million metric tons [of greenhouse gas emissions saved] over the next 30 years” posed in defence of the incandescent ban amounts to .013 percent of energy use over the next three decades. This is a figure that could easily be offset by any one of a number of measures. But the industries behind these measures wield a lobbying muscle that is at least as formidable as that of the lamp manufacturers, if not more so. The community of lighting professionals is only a few thousand strong. The incandescent, then, is an easy target—singled out in the scramble to make our lives more energy efficient, even when the statistics don’t support the argument.

It’s not too late to set the story straight. We have seen that speaking out can make a difference. We have been given a tremendous opportunity, thanks to the postponement of the ban, to spread the word. Now is the time to organise our resources and step up the good fight. We, as a community of lighting professionals, have a voice that can make itself heard: a clear, unified statement issued on behalf of the lighting community will have far-reaching implications. We must do everything we can to invite the general public to get involved, to urge consumers to contact their legislators and make their feelings known regarding this onerous, ill-thought bill—and others like it all over the world. Our freedom to choose the nature and quality of how we illuminate our lives lies in the balance.

Howard Brandston
www.concerninglight.com LightPain@aol.com

Howard Brandston
biography, commentary, business
As seen, a well known lighting designer with numerous projects, also a guest lecturer, visiting professor, and as noted the Congress choice of expert opinion on lighting issues.


Comment

Listen to what the renowned lighting designer says!

The most common political reply, as also happened to him in the Senate Hearings,
is the well-worn "But we are not banning incandescents... energy efficient types like halogens are still allowed".
Howard does point out the cost difference, there are also some light quality and other differences, and significantly they will be "phased out" too on both US and EU legislation specifications (indeed a ban on low-voltage halogens is in the works in the EU too, or should I say "standards that do not allow them to be made" 8-))

The today revised page The Deception behind Banning Light Bulbs,
a copy which follows underneath, complements the above:
I steer away from specific CFL-mercury criticism in that rundown, as that line of argument (however justified) detracts from the purpose there, to highlight how the ban in itself is wrong.

CFLs, like incandescents and other bulbs have their advantages too.
Provided the usage safety conditions are adhered too, there is no need to ban them either(!).

Energy efficiency regulations make no sense for any reason, including to save energy or emissions.
Coal plants were always the main target.
Yet the irony is that - even with supposed energy usage -
the same coal gets burned regardless of whether your light bulb is on or off! (more)

It's a funny world.  

Philips, Osram, the UN, World Bank and EU: How we will en.lighten the World in 2012

Extensively edited August 8


How manufacturers,
who of course themselves could voluntarily choose to stop making the cheap unprofitable incandescents they keep saying are "bad for the planet",
instead seek to invoke international cooperation in replacements and regulations, the real aim being to cut down any competition from local upstarts who might want to make the simple popular and locally more easily made incandescent bulbs

 
The United Nations (via UNEP) cooperation agreement with Philips and Osram, the en.lighten initiative which was agreed in 2009, is now set to "change the world" in 2012, having gradually built up funding to be able to launch a comprehensive worldwide lighting conversion programme.

The following looks at it with edited extracts from the Philips and Osram CEO presentation.



A  Global  Transition  to  Efficient  Lighting

 

by
Rudy Provoost, CEO of Philips Lighting
Martin Goetzeler, CEO of OSRAM
Darth Vader, CEO of Death Star
(there may or may not be an odd one out)

Private sector and the UN in partnership to en.lighten the world.

The UNEP en.lighten initiative was created as a partnership between UNEP, Philips Lighting and OSRAM, with support of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) [more on GEF follows].
The initiative addresses the challenge of accelerating global market transformation to environmentally sustainable lighting technologies by developing a global strategy in support of the gradual phase-out of inefficient lighting.

• the development of a global policy strategy to gradually eliminate inefficient and obsolete lighting products;
• the promotion of high performance and efficient lighting technologies in developing and emerging nations;
• the substitution of traditional fuel-based lighting with efficient alternatives.

The en.lighten initiative has created global taskforces where international experts from developing, emerging and developed countries and sectors are working on a global approach to phase out inefficient incandescent lamps.


Market forces are not sufficient to achieve the rapid transformation needed in the lighting market to respond to the climate change challenge.
Instead, a multi-stakeholder global partnership is required to support countries as they embark upon efficient lighting transformation programmes.

As two of the biggest lighting manufacturers in the world,
we have chosen to focus our efforts on transforming the lighting market in partnership with UNEP through its en.lighten initiative.
With its unparalleled global network, UNEP can provide leadership by inspiring and enabling nations to prioritise efficient lighting and reap the benefits of lowered energy costs.

An "Efficient Lighting Toolkit" for governments worldwide will be available in early 2012.
It will provide "comprehensive guidance on how to transform their markets to efficient lighting".

They also invite partners to participate - lots of saving consultancy schemes are offered, with an invitation to contact the en.lighten secretariat.

A footer confirms that "The en.lighten initiative is a partnership supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), OSRAM AG, Philips Lighting and the National Lighting Test Centre, China (NLTC)".

The National Lighting Test Centre, China (NLTC),
has over the years "built professional relationships with its wide range of international and domestic clients, providing them with tailor-made solutions for either purchase from or entrance into the Chinese lighting market."

The Global Environment Facility (GEF),
is yet another funding facility bailing out manufacturers who can't sell (or can't be bothered to market and sell) their expensive wares on the open market...
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) unites 182 member governments — in partnership with international institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs), and the private sector — to address global environmental issues.
Established in 1991, the GEF is today the largest funder of projects to improve the global environment.
The author Jeffrey Sachs in his book CommonWealth describes the World Bank association with the GEF in making it the world's largest environmental fund facility.
As seen from the above link it also involves the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and many other financing institutions.

The extensive activities of UNEP and the GEF, in spreading the New Lighting Gospel around the world with Philips and Osram, is further covered on the Ceolas website (http://ceolas.net/#unep and onwards).



Comment

So, a big pay-off to Philips and Osram from the World Bank to offload otherwise unwanted expensive patented fluorescent or LED bulbs on developing countries.

Somewhat (though only somewhat) tongue-in-cheek one might ask, why not ban cheap well known generic penicillin too - allowing the offloading of expensive patented less well known drugs on Africans and others?


Light bulb manufacturers have a long and dark history in seeking to avoid fair competition on open free markets, beginning with the Phoebus Cartel in the 1920's, continuing up to the present day lobbying for bans on patent expired unprofitable generic regular bulbs, and indeed now this subsidised product dumping.

See http://ceolas.net/#li1ax onwards with article references, documentation, and copies of official communications.


Any doubting casual observer can of course just ask themselves:

Why welcome "being able" to stop the manufacture of incandescents?
If it's "so great" to stop making incandescents, and make other light bulbs instead:
Why don't the manufacturers just stop it themselves then?

After all, the major light bulb manufacturers have a history of getting together and setting their own product-limiting manufacturing standards.

The mentioned Phoebus Cartel was all about setting a common 1000 hour lifespan standard, so that the manufacturers could sell more profitable (shorter lasting) bulbs on the world market they carved up between themselves.

1000 hours is still the regular incandescent "benchmark" lifespan standard.

So manufacturers could again cooperate, openly or not, on standards that eliminate the incandescents.
But, of course, they would again want to to make sure that noone else makes those bulbs, that would lose them sales and profits...

With the Phoebus cartel, the times were easier, with more readily controlled markets, and a special "1000 hour life committee" as discovered by recent referenced research, effectively oversaw both membership compliance and the blocking of outside manufacturers to market access.

How wonderful therefore, when naive politicians step into the breach, this time handing the major manufacturers the markets on a plate, by banning anyone else from making the cheap but relatively unprofitable bulbs:
Stopping small local outfits who might not be able to get the bigger profits from the more complex and harder to manufacture bulbs, but can still do good business on simple if less profitable bulb varieties.
Thereby the green rebound irony, of prohibiting simple cheap safe locally made locally transported products!.


The American side in the development of the 2007 US EISA legislation, was not least illustrated in the previously posted review of the 2011 eBook "I, Light Bulb: A Death Row Testimonial" by Leahy and Brandston, the latter directly involved in consultation and hearings:
Notice in particular the described GE and NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) involvement in the 2007 legislation.

As for the European 2009 EU legislation, the EU Ban Story also covers the European Lamp Companies Federation (ELC) and their openly admitted lobbying activities.

ELC Board: Philips Lighting: Mr Jan Denneman (President) Osram GmbH: Mr Wolfgang Gregor (Vice President) GE: Mr Tony Everett (Treasurer).

"What are our objectives?"
[To provide consumers with good lighting they want to buy? No...]
"To promote efficient lighting practice for the benefit of the global environment, human comfort and the health and safety of consumers.
To monitor, advise and co-operate with legislative bodies in developing European Directives and Regulations of relevance to the European lamp industry.
To act as the key discussion partner for the European Union (EU)

Philips is the worlds largest lighting manufacturer.
Osram is the second largest.
Both are headquartered in Europe.

How they have participated not just in cartel market rigging, but have also benefited from a direct involvement in the specifications set by the EU Commission Ecodesign division, is also covered via the above link.
EU specifications, unlike North American or Australian counterparts, also have direct CFL purchase inducements, such as the immediate 2009 ban of all non-clear incandescents (including halogens) on the basis that "people can buy the CFLs instead".

Scottish lighting designer Kevan Shaw is actively involved as a "stakeholder" in EU regulations. As he says, and which subsequently is being covered in the media, the EU is now likely to ban low voltage halogens too.

Philips have just reported falling light bulb profits. So perhaps more "help" for them is on the way.
Further reading: EU: "The Unholy Alliance between Philips and the Greens" by a Dutch scientist and a Dutch research journalist.
USA: Philips lobbying federally and for LED Prize


Other sources on lobbying have come to light in recent years...

Susanne Hammarström of Sweden was head of the Brussels based PR agency Diplomat-PR engaged in the lobbying on behalf of the light bulb manufacturers.
Translated from the largest Swedish business paper, Dagens Industri:

"The ban would never have happened, without the large and extensive lobby campaign, in all member countries, as well as towards The European Commission and the media", Susanne Hammarström says.
She believes that a voluntary switchover to energy saving lamps would have been the preferred policy, without the systematic lobbying work.

See the industry policy section of the 14 point rundown linked below.



How Regulations are Wrongly Justified
14 points, referenced:
Includes why the overall society savings aren't there, and even if they were, why alternative policies are better, including alternative policies that target light bulbs.

The Good, the Bad, and the Squiggly

 

image  SFGate



It is interesting to compare the light bulb debate in Europe and the United States.

Some might say "What light bulb debate in Europe?", and indeed that is part of the problem.
There was never any real debate in European Society (I looked at several countries), and people did not really know about the ban until it occurred.
Then as now, European politicians and journalists just rehash what they themselves have been told, about the great energy savings and great benefit for the planet ("you do want to do something good for the earth, don't you?"), while allaying fears about lighting choice in that "lookalike incandescent halogens will still be allowed".

The fact that readily available documentation - including official EU documentation - shows not only overall energy savings to be marginal, with much better alternative savings from electricity generation through to consumption, but also that all the most popular frosted halogen replacements would be banned immediately, with the others to follow, was somehow ignored by all mainstream political parties and media.

Of course, that echoes much of what the American government and its supporters are saying.
But at least there is some sort of critical opposition.
Opposition both federally and from individual states.

Since the opposition is mainly from Republicans, one could say that the EU is "one Big Democrat alliance" from an American perspective.
However, my point is not just to praise Republican opposition as such, but also to go beyond light bulbs and see the more electric debating climate in the USA.
Sure, there are downsides too - the partisan divide means that no "self-respecting" Democrat will support a light bulb ban repeal even with overall environmental advantages or obvious better alternatives - simply because that would mean having to side with Republicans (and in fairness no doubt the opposite, on other issues).
But overall, better a heated debate, than no debate.

So in the USA special organisations and websites spring up to hit at "misinformation" - but somehow always misinformation from one side, rather than both.
On light bulbs it's often "Hey it's not a ban, just about making light bulbs more energy efficient".
 

I was made aware that Politifact were looking at another statement that's been doing the rounds, namely how "the mercury from one dumped CFL can contaminate 6,000 gallons of drinking water" (or similar).
Seemingly without official reference, it can of course look suspicious. So I checked on it....it comes from Stanford University research. The original research is said not to have "6,000 gallons" - but other figures that mean the same thing.
I did not locate the specific research - there is a lot on Google search of the stanford.edu site even looking for cfl, mercury, water and contaminate, together.
But it is backed by some large news organizations, and credible authors on them. As always, other things turned up too - even old articles are of interest, in showing what was known and what was promised...

Take MSNBC
(as quoted, MSNBC is owned by lamp manufacturer General Electric - so it is hardly biased against regulations)
A 2008 article by Alex Johnson, has the usual exaggerations about CFL energy savings and lifespan, but interestingly also with a statement by GE (remember this was just after the regulations were announced)....

Shining a light on hazards of fluorescent bulbs

General Electric Corp., the world’s largest maker of traditional bulbs, said that by 2010, it hoped to have on the market a new high-efficiency incandescent bulb that will be four times as efficient as today’s 125-year-old technology. It said that such bulbs would closely rival fluorescent bulbs for efficiency, with no mercury.
(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft Corp. and NBC Universal, which is a division of General Electric.)

.... which of course did not happen (ban achieved, job done, bigger profits from expensive CFLs or LEDs assured).
However, the article had more to say, extracts:

One problem hasn’t gone away:
All CFLs contain mercury, a neurotoxin that can cause kidney and brain damage.
The amount is tiny — about 5 milligrams, or barely enough to cover the tip of a pen — but that is enough to contaminate up to 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels, extrapolated from Stanford University research on mercury.
Even the latest lamps promoted as “low-mercury” can contaminate more than 1,000 gallons of water beyond safe levels.

As long as the mercury is contained in the bulb, CFLs are perfectly safe. But eventually, any bulbs — even CFLs — break or burn out, and most consumers simply throw them out in the trash,
said Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University and editor of the journal Environmental Research.

This is an enormous amount of mercury that’s going to enter the waste stream at present with no preparation for it,” she said.

“I think there’s going to be hundreds of millions of [CFLs] in landfills all over the country,” said Leonard Worth, head of Fluorecycle Inc. of Ingleside, Ill., a certified facility.
Once in a landfill, bulbs are likely to shatter even if they’re packaged properly, said the Solid Waste Association of North America. From there, mercury can leach into soil and groundwater and its vapors can spread through the air, potentially exposing workers to toxic levels of the poison.

If the disposal problem is to be solved, speed would appear to be called for. Consumers bought more than 300 million CFLs last year, according to industry figures, but they may be simply trading one problem (low energy-efficiency) for another (hazardous materials by the millions of pounds going right into the earth).
“One lamp, so what? Ten lamps, so what? A million lamps, well that’s something,” said Worth of Fluorecycle.
“A hundred million lamps? Now, that’s a whole different ballgame.”

.... and not only are there are around 5 billion lighting points in American households (average 45 lights per household on Energy Star and EIA information, census estimate US households in 2010: 114,825,428), but LED lights also apparently have some toxic content and disposal issues (http://ceolas.net/#li20ledax)


The "1 CFL contaminates 6,000 gallons of water" is also corroborated from other sources in 2011.

For example Fox News - well known to usually favor Republican views, but an article by an outside contributor, Deirdre Imus, Founder and President of The Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center at Hackensack University Medical Center would not seem overly biased, and reiterates that and other issues with CFLs.


Again, a Minnesota Examiner article by Erin Haust also puts the issue in a more overall context, edited extracts:

Shedding light on the light bulb debate

Manufacturing CFL bulbs requires exceptional manual labor versus the machine-based production of typical bulbs. The bulbs are made in large part by hand which can be extremely expensive, thus manufacturers are turning to the cheap labor market overseas, namely China.
GE employees in Virginia learned this truth first-hand. More than 200 workers lost their jobs last fall when GE closed its doors...
American made CFLs would have cost about 50% more than those made in China, which currently manufactures more CFLs than any other country.
All 200 jobs once held in Virginia will be replaced by overseas workers.

The amount of mercury in a regular CFL bulb is less than 5 milligrams, about what it would take to cover the tip of a ball point pen. Though minuscule in size, mercury is a highly dangerous substance and just 5 milligrams can contaminate 6,000 gallons of drinking water to unsafe levels. Newer, more expensive, low-level mercury CFL's still have enough mercury in them to contaminate 1,000 gallons of water.

Record players, VCR's, cassette tapes, and countless other household items have come and gone, been invented and improved, without the "help" of regulation and laws mandating use...

Are fluorescent light bulbs so bad then?

All lighting types have advantages.
Fluorescent lighting, while having light quality issues, do have a whiter color temperature than regular incandescents, and fluorescent tubes are seen as advantageous in kitchens for example.
They save energy in their usage, albeit not as much as supposed, as covered in the
"deception behind banning bulbs" section.

However - again, like all lighting - they have their disadvantages.
CFLs (compact fluorescent light bulbs) - and LEDs - have light quality issues due to their spiky emission spectra, which filters can smooth out but not entirely correct, while incandescents have smoother spectra.
But CFL issues, then, go beyond light quality issues and into questions regarding their health and environmental safety:
Not just related to mercury, but also to a fire risk (less predictable than from incandescent heat), radiation and light sensitivity issues, all as covered here.

On the "mercury scare",
there is a lot of counter-argumentation, mainly centered on 2 issues
"Hey, incandescent related coal power mercury emissions are worse!"
"Hey, tuna fish, thermometers, dental fillings (etc) are a lot more dangerous for their mercury content!"

As mentioned before, 2 wrongs obviously don't make a right.
If and where there is a problem - deal with the problem.
CFL mercury is a problem - regardless of the other dangers, and the "coal emission" argument does not hold up given the extent of mercury emission reduction that is taking place under US EPA mandates, and similarly in the EU after recent worldwide reduction agreement under UN auspices (which excepted CFLs, one might note).
The "incandescent related coal emissions are worse" argument never held anyway, for the many reasons linked below.

A complete rundown of the CFL mercury issue on http://ceolas.net/#li19x
[Breakage -- Recycling -- Dumping -- Mining -- Manufacturing -- Transport -- Power Plants]

CFL breakage and disposal guidelines are often enough quoted in media, as with the articles above.
EPA's guidelines regarding CFL breakage and disposal remain onerous, as can also be seen from their special document from last year.


"But we are not forcing anyone to use CFLs!"

This is another usual retort.
Certainly there are some exempted lamp categories (see regulation specifications).
However, the whole point of the regulations is to save energy, and exempted bulbs are all of course unusual bulbs - if certain categories have rising sales, the legislation ensures that they are banned too.
The availability of LEDs, and of incandescent replacements (like halogens), is also highlighted by ban proponents.
However, LEDs are not suitable for omnidirectional bright lighting, quite apart from their light quality and other differences to simple regular bulbs.
Halogens also have light quality differences, and cost much more for marginal savings, so are not popular with either politicians or consumers. Besides, they will also effectively be banned on the ever more stringent standards that apply - and are not usually mentioned - in both the USA and the EU.

One also has to be clear about the industrial politics behind the regulations. Manufacturers want to sell expensive profit-making bulbs (which never last as long as supposed, "planned obsolescence"). That is why they sought and welcomed the ban.
This is no conspiratorial conjecture, it is well documented on the website.
That is also why the idea of "incandescent development" does not wash, why pre-ban promised further incandescent development (as by Philips with eco-savers in Europe, and as seen above, by GE in USA) never materialised post-ban.
That is also why, in post-ban Europe, even existing halogens are hard to get, the big main store push being for people "to buy energy saving bulbs" (note the name: energy saving bulb, not the less nice sounding fluorescent bulb - and as if one would ask for "an energy wasting bulb please" buying a regular simple incandescent).


Sometimes the call goes out that "CFLs should be banned instead", given all their health and environment issues.

However, for all that is said here, the dangers are probably exaggerated, and EPA guidelines surely have an element of being overly cautious also for legal reasons.

All lighting has advantages.
The incandescent ban is not wrong just because there are issues with CFLs.
The incandescent ban is wrong in itself - just like a ban on CFLs would be, unless proven unsafe.

Light bulbs don't burn coal or release CO2 gas.
Power plants might.
Overall energy savings from a switchover are small, a fraction of 1% of overall energy use in the USA as in Europe, on official data, and with much more relevant energy efficiency savings in electricity generation, grid distribution, and alternative consumption, as described.

If there is a problem - deal with the problem.