Might California ban the old bulb?

[rs]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070131/ap_on_re_us/california_light_bulb_1

By LAURA KURTZMAN, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 30 minutes ago

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - How many people does it take to change a light bulb? In California, the answer could be a majority of the Legislature.

The electricity-wasting incandescent bulb would be banned — replaced by energy efficient compact fluorescents — under a bill that Assemblyman Lloyd Levine plans to introduce.

He says the spiral light sources are so efficient that consumers should be forced to use them. The compact bulbs use one-fourth the electricity spent in an equivalent incandescent.

"Incandescent light bulbs were first developed almost 125 years ago, and since that time they have undergone no major modifications," said Levine, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said in a news release Tuesday. "It's time to take a step forward."

The bulb bill was not yet on the legislative calendar. Last year, the Legislature passed a Levine bill that requires large supermarkets to recycle plastic bags. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed that bill but has not taken a position on the light bulb proposal.

Assemblyman Jared Huffman, who represents San Rafael, is working on a similar bill.

Critics say people should be allowed to make their own choices about which bulbs they buy, but Levine, who heads the Assembly's Utilities and Commerce Committee, points out that electric utilities give them away.

While on the surface this seems like it would be a good idea, fluorescent bulbs contain mercury. The last thing we need is Yet Another Toxin being spread around. If Cal-e-for-neah decides to do this and leads the rest of the US (like what happened with the air pollution and CAFE standards), that they also take into account a recycling mechanism to keep the mercury dispersal down to a "dull roar".

 

[Charles]

While on the surface this seems like it would be a good idea, fluorescent bulbs contain mercury. The last thing we need is Yet Another Toxin being spread around. If Cal-e-for-neah decides to do this and leads the rest of the US (like what happened with the air pollution and CAFE standards), that they also take into account a recycling mechanism to keep the mercury dispersal down to a "dull roar".

Good point.

And sadly, I also came to some parallel insight, as to how classic light bulbs will very likely become banned in the country I live in. And it is not California. You guessed it right. It is th combination of global warming and "energy" that is used as an argument, the only argument actually.

And this, few months after I finally decided that I truly don’t like any other bulbs that give off seemingly "warm" light while it is actually a combination of different monochromatics. I just don’t like them. They feel very unnatural.

Probably more than a year ago, every single family received an "economic" bulb for free in Belgium (and I am rather convinced that a combination of "monochromatics" is used in those bulbs). For FREE? Yes!

So I was having something like Duh !?? My partner placed the one we received, and later bought one herself which she placed at a different spot. Again, I just don’t like the light that comes off of it. She too decided not to buy them any more.

What, after all, is wrong with the classic light bulb or the few Watt’s they lose for producing light into something that is called heat?, or warmth even that can be felt at a distance, because of the Infra Red radiation? This too is something that classic light bulbs produce. Many houses are that well isolated these days that more people even have switched to electric heating anyway. What would those extra Watts, say 200 Watt for a standard house matter ? If the electric heater is taking already one thousand? It will than merely use 800 Watt. There simply IS NO loss of "energy" in such case.
So I thought that this entire campaign, coming from the government of Belgium, was a bit awkward to say the least.

For sure, the mercury that you had in mind will be spread. Those things do break easy; even in those cases where you, as a consumer, were carefully turning it back to the authorities after it stopped functioning.

Is it possible that there is an international, global tendency to ban classic light bulbs? Something similar as what we see with the demonisation and subsequent banning of smoking?

 

[Mark]

We regular people have to curb our energy use so that the big behemoth companies can keep up their wastefulness and polluting habits. After all, something's gotta give and it sure isn't gonna be anything that changes industry in a way that taps into profits of the Ferengi corporate leaders. Plus global warming is all our fault. It has nothing to do with cycles, comets, a twin sun, methane outgasing, volcanos, energy interaction, nothing like that. It's all because of cigarette smokers, people who leave the lights on, and people who buy gas from companies that do business with t'rrist countries.

 

[Lucy]

If Cal-e-for-neah decides to do this and leads the rest of the US (like what happened with the air pollution and CAFE standards),

And we can see with the anti-smoking regs taking over the world -- now it's France! -- just how quickly these things spread. The unthinkable becomes reality very quickly nowadays.