New US Government CFL Sales Campaign

 

Steve Milloy is good at finding and reporting on the many ways people are being misled, on this and many other science issues.

Here's his latest article at Canada Free Press:

Can you really buy a flat screen TV with the money you supposedly save with CFL light bulbs?

The Department of Energy is sponsoring Ad Council ads to promote CFL light bulbs. Coming on the heels of House Republican efforts to repeal the looming incandescent bulb ban, one of the ads features a couple throwing over a cliff stuff (like a flat screen TV) that they allegedly could have bought with the money saved by CFLs.

But as pointed out by Energy and Environment News, DOE says upgrading 15 traditional incandescent bulbs to efficient options could save households about $50 a year in energy costs.

I don’t know whether President Obama or Nobel Prize-winning Energy Secretary Steven Chu have been to a store recently but $50 won’t buy too many TVs — or much else of significance.

Moreover, the energy savings of CFLs have been significantly exaggerated as California utility PG&E recently learned.

Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and GreenHellBlog.com, and is the author of Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.



Comment

The Campaign in turn links to Energysavers.Gov at the Department of Energy (DOE):
Certainly it can obviously be good for both country and individual to save energy, as the Ceolas.net website with this blog makes a point of covering.
However, as the motto here says, light bulb regulation is not a good way to do it...
and the campaigns in that regard do not tell the whole truth - and that is as seen using the DOE's own data, and the information in the 2007 Energy Act itself




Frying a Chicken using Incandescents!

[So incandescents are really great when it's cold, as it often is when it's dark?! Regarding conflicting information, consider Departmental different statements that in winter "incandescent heat effect is negligible" while in summer "incandescent heat effect is considerable" (to affect air conditioning) http://ceolas.net/#li6x Ah yes...]

From the Referred Website...

[Note the caption, and website linked, that the bulbs meet the 2012-2014 standard... like...let's Keep Very Quiet about them not meeting the standard that follows!]

Nice of the US Government to finance sales campaigns that manufacturers should be taking care of themselves.... (Do Energizer battery sales people - given their famous commercials regarding "expensive to buy but cheap in the long run" - say "Please Energy Dept, can you Finance our Bunny as well, on behalf of US taxpayers"?! which might, say, reduce the number of dumped batteries, and if that logic is refuted, the same applies to any electrical product or car manufacturer etc, and energy saving is of course not the only positive quality a product can have anyway)

RE "upgrading 15 traditional incandescent bulbs to efficient options could save households about $50 a year in energy costs."

There's a lot of "could" and "about" and "typically" in Departmental statements (see above picture caption and its website), sometimes necessary, sometimes not, no doubt they have their legal people looking over what they say. On the language side, we not only have the beauty of calling fluorescent bulbs energy saving light bulbs - true or not, when did you last buy an incandescent bulb saying "Can you give me that Energy Wasting Light Bulb please?" - but also, as here, the use of efficiency as always meaning energy efficiency - a performant efficient fast car might not be energy efficient, a constructionally simple incandescent light bulb (which is much easier to make to give bright 100W+ equivalent light) might not be energy efficient, and so on.

Add to that in a wider sense that emission of the naturally occuring CO2 gas is called pollution (remembering that "too much" love and "too much" peace is bad for the planet too, by definition), necessitating clean energy that might have other environmental problems, or that global warming is handily renamed climate change, despite the heat effect still being considered the predominant problem, and so on, such terms being happily swallowed by the reporting media.

And those savings?

1. There are many reasons, too many to cite here, why the savings don't hold either for society or for consumers, also using DOE's own statistics. Summary http://ceolas.net/#li171x

2. They always take the most commonly used lights and multiply accordingly. American 45-bulb household has many other lights Less usage, less savings, apart from breakage, losses etc (http://ceolas.net/#li13x onwards)

3. Not only have to pay more for the light bulbs as an initial cost but also being being forced to pay for them, via taxpayer CFL programs

4. Little Money savings for consumers as a whole, regardless of energy savings: Because electricity companies are being subsidised (again by consumers as taxpayers) or allowed to directly raise Bill rates, to compensate for any reduced electricity use, as already seen both federally and in California, Ohio etc, and before them in the UK and other European countries (as referenced, http://ceolas.net/#californiacfl)

Saving money isn't the only reason to choose anything anyway, there are of course all the light quality and other issues too.
 

Bright Burgess Bulb Coup

 

On the 15th of July, the amendment AO75 (H.Amdt. 678) by Rep. Michael Burgess to Energy Bill H.R.2354 of July 14 2011, was successfully passed in a vote on the floor of the House.

The amendment cuts the funds needed next year to implement and monitor American federal light bulb regulation starting January 2012, which would have seen regular 100 Watt bulbs removed from sale. It is therefore temporary in nature, and does not permanently set back the lighting regulations.

The Energy Bill now passes to the Senate:
Bill content and progress (Govtrack link)



Comment
Following the earlier reported failure to achieve a 2/3 majority in the House,
and rather than seek a simple majority to pass a bill to the Senate unlikely to get sufficient backing (or to be signed by President Obama):
Rep. Michael Burgess, who had earlier introduced his own specific bill regarding mercury-containing lamps and also collaborated with Rep. Burton on the repeal bill, took the interesting step of seeking to amend the H.R.2354 2012 Water and Energy Appropriations Bill instead. This bill finances subsidies wanted also by Democrats, albeit with cuts in these Budget-conscious times, so that such a bill is more likely to pass in the Senate.

Moreover, if the Senate starts tinkering with the small part relating to light bulbs, it lays them open to the same criticism previously levelled at those looking for a repeal of the ban, namely of petty politics in the face of Bigger National Issues
(in context, one might say that it was the original decision to ban some light bulbs which was the petty decision, firstly because of the much more relevant alternative ways to save energy, if required, and secondly in the sense that most people spend at least half of their lives under artificial lighting, and might be allowed a say in the matter)

Taking a wider context,
in light of the current Budget difficulties in the USA, California, and other entities worldwide, their cash-strapped governments that ban Cars, Buildings and Electrical Products based on energy use should seriously consider the taxation alternative:
This would give a large direct Government income that also could help finance cheaper energy saving alternatives, so that consumers both keep choice and are not just hit by taxes.
As seen on the New Electric Politics companion site the need to target products based on energy use can seriously be questioned, and if so should first consider stimulated market competition, but taxation is still preferable to regulations - also for Governments who favor them today.

The issue is covered on that website, and will also be covered here in a following post.
 

Yes it is a Ban!

 

...and it is a ban with the clear intention to favor CFL sales...

Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007/Title III/Subtitle B/Section 321

"The Secretary of Energy shall report to Congress on the time frame for commercialization of lighting to replace incandescent and halogen incandescent lamp technology"

So the intention is clearly stated.

Moreover:

"BACKSTOP REQUIREMENT— if the final rule [not later than January 1, 2017] does not produce savings that are greater than or equal to the savings from a minimum efficacy standard of 45 lumens per watt, effective beginning January 1, 2020, the Secretary shall prohibit the sale of any general service lamp that does not meet a minimum efficacy standard of 45 lumens per watt"

Even the Dept of Energy itself, albeit reluctantly, talks of a second stage ban in this regard: that this
"may qualify as an outright “ban” on certain general service lamps"


The Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy confirms:
"The second tier of efficiency improvements becomes effective by 2020,
essentially requiring general service bulbs to be as efficient as today's CFLs"
(efficiency being a relative word, energy efficiency of course not being the same as performance efficiency, whether with fast cars or bright light bulbs!)



So, contrary to what Americans are being told:
Federal US (like EU) regulations are not just about banning simple regular incandescent light bulbs, they are also about banning incandescent technology itself for ordinary common light bulbs.

1. Setting a standard that does not allow certain products is of course the same as banning them.

2. Setting energy efficiency standards that (by 2020) does not allow any of today's known or indeed announced ordinary incandescent bulbs - including the Halogens that are usually around 20 lumen per watt, maxing at around 25-30 lumen per watt - is the same as banning them too.

3. To say that if I climb Mount Everest then I can smoke a cigarette,
does not really mean that I can smoke a cigarette...


As it was in the EU, so now in the USA:
The pro-regulation propaganda machine is being rolled out to reassure American consumers - and their political representatives - that the popular light bulbs (8 out of 10 bought) won't go away, that they will still have "lookalike alternatives".

This has recently taken a new frenzy, following the launch of Congressman Joe Barton's repeal ban bill for a vote next week.

The USA Natural Resources Defense Council blog can do as a typical example:

"Supporters of the repeal falsely claim that lighting efficiency standards will ban incandescent light bulbs. But as Rep. Upton knows well, this is claim is simply untrue. Indeed, it’s a whopper. Advanced incandescent bulbs that meet the new efficiency standards – but look and provide light just the same as old-fashioned light bulbs -- are on the market..."

This is therefore not true, standards will be phased in for regular general service household bulbs that no known incandescent - Halogen or otherwise - can meet, and even if they could, they would hardly be made, as incandescent technology is admitted to be unprofitable for the major manufacturers (the industrial politics is covered here).


The further issue that keeps being forgotten,
is that energy standard requirements change product characteristics.
See http://ceolas.net/#cc21x regarding buildings and cars as well as washing machines, TV sets etc apart from light bulbs.
So, for example, a fuel efficient car may be lighter, flimsier, less safe, or slower and more poorly accelerating then the equivalent without fuel efficiency standard.

Similarly, replacement-type Halogen bulbs are still different from common simple incandescents in light quality etc, apart from costing much more for marginal savings, which is why they are not popular either with politicians or consumers:
If people really take up this "offer" to keep using incandescents that are less energy efficient than CFLs or LEDs the national energy savings would be even less than otherwise.

Post-ban EU shows what happens:
The temporarily allowed Halogen type replacements are only available in certain shops - and then only in in limited ranges - following the same bland promises from politicians there.
CFL and to a lesser extent LED sales are massively pushed in general stores, "to save people money", regardless of whether people like them or not (and liking a product does not mean one still can't appreciate other products, for their advantages).

So, people are denied the use of a cheap, safe, useful lighting technology
(and pushed to use questionably safe alternatives),
- an incandescent technology that easily achieves the brightness that is so difficult and expensive with CFLs and LEDs,
- and that also in transparent bulbs finds attractive uses that frosted CFLs and LEDs find impossible to emulate, among many other incandescent advantages.

Note thereby the particular irony that 100W bulbs are the first to be banned, with their simply and easily constructed bright omnidirectional performance, and indeed a warmth that in most temperate climates is another advantage (a heat effect ridiculed by government spokesmen until they talk about it's "bad effect" on air conditioning cooling - political logic, if you will).

Equally obviously,
energy savings are the main reason for energy usage standards.
The supposed amount of energy savings are in fact not there, and even if they were, there are much better and more relevant energy savings in electricity generation and distribution as well as consumption.
Given that the need to save electricity for paying consumers can be questioned in the first place, there is nothing to defend these federal regulations.


The final irony,
is that consumers as a whole will hardly save money – regardless of what the energy savings are.
That is not just in having to pay more for the light bulbs as an initial cost (or being forced to pay for them, via taxpayer CFL programs), but also because electricity companies are being subsidised or allowed to raise rates to compensate for any reduced electricity use, as already seen both federally and in California, Ohio etc, and before them in the UK and other European countries.

More on how consumers are being duped:
http://freedomlightbulb.blogspot.com/2011/06/big-deception.html
 

Dealing with the Light Bulb Ban...

Thanks to Erika at TownHall.com for this

Since the ban will likely soon arrive,
Here's one man's solution to the problem....

He himself calls it "Redneck lighting",
no aspersions here!