Buried deep in 2012 budget legislation was a paragraph or two that prevents the federal government from spending any funds enforcing the 2007 light bulb efficiency standards/ traditional light bulb “ban” through the end of September 2012. While this isn’t a technical repeal of the ban/efficiency standards, it will allow traditional 100 watt incandescent bulbs to continue to be sold through most of 2012 by those companies who aren’t put off by the negative public relations (green groups may well go on the offensive if national retailers continue to sell them) or potential legal liabilities. It isn’t clear yet the extent to which 100 watt traditional incandescent bulbs will be available for consumer purchase in 2012.
The delay/temporary repeal of the ban has some on the left angry, as Tim Carney notes, though I suspect they’d be angrier if this budget rider had been swapped for delaying implementation of some of the more expensive 2011-2012 EPA regulations, which certainly seemed like a possibility.
An actual argument over the pros/cons of this legislation has been had numerous times and neither side has budged (nor have sides budged over whether or not its okay to label this legislation a ban), so any continuation of that seems sort of pointless. However, I’d like to look at the Politico article that attempted to ding Republicans because “big business” is really upset about this recent turn of events: [click to continue…]
Via JunkScience.
China has tightened its grip on rare earth metals which has sent the price of compact fluorescent light bulbs through the roof, up 37% this year:
But with light bulbs, especially, the timing of the latest price increases is politically awkward for the lighting industry and for environmentalists who backed a shift to energy-efficient lighting.
In January, legislation that President George W. Bush signed into law in 2007 will begin phasing out traditional incandescent bulbs in favor of spiral compact fluorescent bulbs and other technologies. The European Union has also mandated a switch from incandescent bulbs to energy-efficient lighting.
Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is running for the Republican presidential nomination on a platform that includes strong opposition to the new lighting rules in the United States and has been a leader of efforts by House Republicans to repeal it.
The prices are not likely to go down anytime soon, as efforts to diversify the global supply of rare earth metals will not be completed overnight. In the meantime, can we revisit the cost-savings calculations (predicting net savings for non-incandescent bulbs) that were predicated upon lower prices for compact florescent bulbs (as well as optimistic projections of how long the bulbs last)? It will be interesting to see what happens to the price of CFLs when incandescent bulbs are no longer for sale.
This issue has fallen out of the news, but it seems that even some on the left are questioning this move by the government, even daring to suggest that Michele Bachmann might have been right.
From Bobby McCormick at PERC:
Starting in January, the common incandescent light bulb becomes illegal, well maybe, in most of the United States. (Some recalcitrant states, SC and TX to name two, seem hell bent on reminding the federal government of the long forgotten 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but wasn’t that fight settled a long time ago?) Advocates of this law say that it encourages the use of more energy efficient lighting sources such as CFL and LED lights. It has been noted that a large fraction of the energy consumed by an incandescent light bulb goes to create heat and not light, and that the newer, high tech devices produce an equal amount of light using less energy.
[click to continue…]
Farhad Manjoo of Slate is convinced that a new L.E.D light bulb being produced will look similar to incandescent lighting and still save consumers money over the life of the bulb, according to their predictions and his calculations:
[…] On average, an incandescent bulb lasts about 1,000 hours—that’s about a year, if you keep it on for about three hours a day. Electricity in America also costs about 11 cents per kilowatt hour (that’s the average; it varies widely by region). In other words, a 50-cent, 60-watt incandescent bulb will use about $6.60 in electricity every year. Switch’s 60-watt-equivalent LED, meanwhile, uses only 13 watts of power, so it will cost only $1.43 per year. The Switch bulb also has an average lifespan of 20,000 hours—20 years. If you count the price of replacing the incandescent bulb every year, the Switch bulb will have saved you money by its fourth year. Over 20 years, you’ll have spent a total of about $142 for the incandescent bulbs (for electricity and replacement bulbs) and less than $50 for Switch’s 60-watt bulb. (I made a spreadsheet showing my calculations.) [click to continue…]
This week Philips Co. showcases its newest success at capturing rents produced by government mandates: it has produced a 17-watt LED bulb that functions as equivalent to a 75-watt incandescent bulb. The catch: they will initially cost around $50.
The announcement contains the usual boilerplate about how in just a few more years these light bulbs will be the cat’s pajamas, and everyone will be buying them. Go get in line. Lynne Kiesling comments:
This week Philips is releasing a mass-market LED light bulb with a physical and lumens-delivering profile to mimic incandescents at a fraction of the energy use. But they’ll still be priced at $40-45, which is a bit steep for customers who are accustomed to cheap, short-lived bulbs, so their market success will require some education and adaptation of expectations. They will also have to overcome the hurdles of the failed expectations of compact fluorescent bulbs, which have not demonstrated the required longevity/price tradeoff to make them economical (in addition to their other shortcomings). I may buy one to test, but I don’t plan on fitting out my whole house in these LEDs any time soon, based on my CFL experience.
[click to continue…]
Today the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee marked up and approved S. 398, a bill that establishes new efficiency standards for a variety of consumer products: air conditioners, refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers, outdoor drinking water dispensers, dishwashers, and a number of other appliances. You can certainly trust Congress to micromanage the optimal amount of energy used by hundred’s of complex small appliances across different industries.
This bill saw national media coverage earlier this year when Senator Rand Paul ranted about efficiency standards that have effected toilets and will soon effect light bulbs. It’s infuriating that energy bureaucrats can claim that they are in favor of allowing consumers to choose whichever bulb they want, when they are setting bulb efficiency standards that will ban the traditional incandescent bulb. At least be honest about your desire to restrict the choices of consumer and our freedoms.
Politico covered today’s hearing and Paul was unsurprisingly one of the few dissenters. This time Senator Paul offered an amendment that would make the energy efficiency standards voluntary, which failed 16-6 in committee. Here is a short video from Paul’s office covering the hearing.
Consumers should be wary when business gets together and supports these types of standards, though the environmentalists often use this as evidence that only ‘crazies’ oppose such bipartisan, “sensible” legislation. These regulations will increase the cost of these appliances (and the profitability of them), create new competition-crushing barriers to entry, and often bring unexpected consequences (and here). Recall that a number of oil and energy companies supported the Waxman-Markey bill after it went through the Congressional pork factory.
[click to continue…]
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
CEI.org