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:

Big Business usually loves it when the GOP goes to war over federal rules.

But not when it comes to light bulbs.

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.

However, those of us who aren’t lucky enough to live in AZ, south FL, or San Diego, demand a LOT of heat many months of the year. In Montana, I use natural gas to heat my home about 7-8 months of the year. In South Carolina, I heat my home about 5-6 months of the year using wood and electricity, not every day, but most of them from November to April.

The energy that creates heat, not light, in a regular incandescent bulb is NOT wasted during those months. It is a nearly perfect substitute for the alternative heat in my home. The same electricity that heats the filament in my incandescent bulb in my living room in my South Carolina home in winter will be used by my heat pump to reproduce the heat lost when I convert to CFL or LED lights when my woodstove runs low. There is NO energy savings of any important degree. (It bears noting that my heat pump is a more efficient producer of energy than my incandescent bulbs, but that is not my main point as is explored more below.)

He makes the point that for many areas of America, the heat energy emitted from incandescent light bulbs is not ‘wasted’ as it serves the function of heating your home. Yet another reason why top-down efficiency standards are not the correct way forward, as different consumers have vastly different uses for these products. If companies are truly capable of producing similar lighting products that use less energy, consumers will switch to these as they will save money on electricity.

When you hear light bulb manufacturer’s such as General Electric get anxious about the potential to overturn this law, it makes you wonder, are they worried that no one will purchase the new bulbs without the ban on traditional incandescents in place?

Read Tim Carney on the left’s odd abuse of language employed attacking those who are against the ban. Read about the Department of Energy’s ad campaign to convince you to support their agenda.

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.)

The problem, of course, is that people don’t buy light bulbs that way—a lot can happen in 20 years, and it seems silly to think of light bulbs as a long-term investment vehicle. (Also, neither Switch nor any other light bulb company guarantees that their bulbs will last that long.) Sharenow concedes this line of thinking, and he’s got two answers. First, he argues that as LEDs are mass-produced over time, their prices will plummet—he estimates that a year from now, Switch’s 60-watt-equivalent bulb will sell for under $15, and could hit $10 the year after that. At that price, Switch’s new bulbs will be much harder to resist. The other advantage is that Switch’s bulbs are beautiful—the company has already seen interest from hotels, department stores, and other companies that are happy to pay for high-end decor. These firms will save money on energy and replacement bulbs and look good doing it. And once we see these bulbs showing up in fancy shops and hotels, we may become much more interested in getting them for our homes.

Besides, we won’t have much choice. With traditional bulbs going away, we’re going to need some other source of light, and nobody likes CFLs. LEDs are the light bulbs of the future. And I’m putting my money—well, a little bit of my money—where my mouth is. I’m buying two of the Switch bulbs for the lamps in our living room. Based on the demo I saw, we’ll never notice the difference, at least until we get our utility bills at the end of the month.

The whole thing is worth reading for an overview of the history of how we got to this point and the short coming of the CFLs. I will point out that though the author acknowledges that the CFLs have failed to live up to similar hype, he quickly overcomes any skepticism he claims to have had that this new technology will be widely adopted by consumers, will last as long as they claim it will (though CFLs have not), etc.

To his credit, he acknowledges the large number of uncertainties in his calculation for a mere $70 in estimated savings over 20 years (assuming electricity prices don’t go up or down, none of the bulbs break, that they last the 20 years they are claimed to last, etc.). Yet his conclusion is to throw his hands up in the air, saying roughly ‘the law is the law.’ It would seem that one could as easily conclude that this legislation was a bad idea and the government should back off it.

A lot of recent internet writing concerning light bulb technology has concluded that the regulation ‘worked’ because new technologies are appearing to replace the bulbs. Unfortunately, this analysis ignores opportunity cost. Yes, the U.S. can make laws which causes corporations to research new technologies, but their success does not signal that it was a good idea. What would those resources have been used for absent government regulation? Given the political lobbying that went into the legislation and the historical failure of top-down economic control, I can only imagine that the free-market would have put the lost time and energy to better use.

I checked my apartment to see how many light bulbs I have. It’s well over 20 and I live in Washington D.C. in a pretty small apartment. Replacing each bulb with one of these new, $20 bulbs would cost roughly $400, an amount I’m unwilling to spend on an unproven technology. The amount could be even much higher for other larger households. Does it really make sense to effectively outlaw a wildly popular technology in efforts to save tiny amounts of energy over the future? If it turns out that these bulbs work as advertised, consumers would likely begin to buy them on their own.

In related news, a new report claims that mercury vapor from broken CFLs can easily exceed the established limits deemed safe by the EPA. It is curious that we are being told that its necessary to spend billions on technologies to reduce mercury emissions from coal fired power plants, yet we are supporting policies that encourage the invitation of mercury into our home.

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.

Yep. These might be the better buy, but I won’t be surprised if consumers shun these bulbs until more data is in. LK notes that we went down this road with CFLs and they have yet to demonstrate their superiority. The article suggests it might take 17-25 years for the bulb to burn out, and thus, for the consumer to capture the savings over traditional incandescent bulbs.

Capturing the surplus value here, assuming it exists, requires that I live in the same location for the next 25 years (let’s hope not),  or take all of the bulbs with me when I leave without breaking any of them (and seriously, who steals all the light bulbs on the way out of a rental apartment — goodbye security deposit and dignity), pray that they fit into my future abode, re-sell them on E-Bay, etc.

Cheers to the people who claim that government incentives are required for innovation! Look at what you created — a bulb that might last 25 years if anyone is around to notice (remember, we all die in the long run), and costs roughly 100 times more than a traditional bulb.

I myself am holding out for night vision contact lenses, making lighting obsolete.

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.

Proponents will also make grandiose claims about the amount of energy/jobs/money/small children saved from this legislation. These studies almost never consider the efficiency gains that companies might pursue on their own, assuming that the products will remain stagnant in water or energy usage for the rest of time, despite historical evidence (and common sense) to the contrary.

And who really believes that bureaucrats at the Department of Energy can calculate the appropriate amount of energy efficiency? After all, it’s not like Americans would prefer a refrigerator which adds $100 to their electric bill per year rather than $50, if everything else is equal. There is a natural incentive for companies to produce efficient products while also considering consumer demand.

Here is a previous post from last year on efficiency measures. Here is a CEI press release on today’s decision. Here is a 2003 Cato Institute study on appliance efficiency standards from prior decades. Here is Representative Markey making the hilariously inaccurate claim that the GOP was responsible for ruining America’s domestic auto industry because of their opposition to fuel efficiency standards.