Changes in law makes way for energy-efficient light bulbs
By Dave Gathman and Susan Frick Carlman dgathman@stmedianetwork.com scarlman@stmedianetwork.com January 17, 2012 10:50PM
Steve Kenny of S.C.A.R.C.E gives Heather Baum of Naperville an demonstration on energy efficient light bulbs at the Environmental Summit at Benedictine University in Lisle IL, on Wednesday January 11, 2012. | Terence Guider-Shaw~For Sun-Times Media
Choose wisely
Three main types of light bulbs are vying to replace your old incandescents:
Halogen incandescent bulbs, which also use a material that glows hot and bright when an electric current passes through it but use a different kind of material from those traditional tungsten filaments. These use less power than the old bulbs but more than the other alternatives. One of the halogen bulbs available puts out the same amount of light as an old-style 75-watt, but draws only 53 watts.
Compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs, which are similar to the long tubes used for decades in office and store lighting and use hot gases to generate their light. The compact ones typically have a small tube wrapped into a spiral shape. If you think that’s ugly, or you have a lamp shade designed to snap onto the old-style incandescent, CFLs now also come in a rounded shape that looks much like the old-style bulbs on the outside. Look carefully through the opaque outer shell, and you’ll see the spiral tube concealed inside.
CFLs use less power than halogen incandescents. The one equivalent to an old-style 75 uses just 20 watts, in effect cutting your electric bill for using it by three-fourths. CFLs are the type that contain a small amount of mercury, an environmental hazard, but most hardware and home improvement stores will accept them for recycling.
LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs, which are the most high tech bulbs of all. They are similar to the LEDs used in electronic dials and some brake lights, flashlights and traffic signals. While they’re the most efficient in terms of power use, LED’s are also the least evolved so far.
One final note: If you have fluorescent or CFL bulbs that have burned out, they can be recycled at Naperville’s Hazardous Materials collection site, which operates from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays behind Fire Station 4, 1979 Brookdale Road in Naperville. And incandescent bulbs are accepted by most home improvement and hardware stores.
Updated: February 19, 2012 8:03AM
How many electricity consumers does it take to change a light bulb?
That one’s easy: all of them.
Naperville’s Smart Grid Initiative isn’t the only current event affecting the way electrical power is used in the city. The way we buy, use and even dispose of light bulbs is changing, too.
On New Year’s Day, the light-bulb business felt the first impact of the Energy Independence and Security Act. Passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007, the law was backed by an alliance in Congress that wanted to reduce foreign energy imports and cut greenhouse gas emissions from generating electricity.
The act aims to force consumers to switch over three years from their cherished, cheap old incandescent bulbs to newfangled bulbs that consume less energy and cost more money.
The phase enacted Jan. 1 forbids manufacturing or importing 100-watt and higher bulbs unless they put out at least 25 percent more light than the current incandescents. That rule expands to cover 75-watt bulbs in 2013, then 60- and 40-watt bulbs in 2014. Similar rules about specialized types of bulbs also go into effect in 2013 and 2014.
While Americans have come to expect the price tag on new and exciting electrical gadgets to come down as their novelty fades, and those items to hence become more disposable, it appears just the opposite is in store when it comes to their light bulbs.
But while the bulbs of the future will cost much more than their cheap predecessors, they’ll last much longer — maybe even to the point of becoming built-in pieces of each lamp that last as long as the lamp does. And they will reduce our electric bills.
Kay McKeen, founder and executive director of School and Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education (SCARCE) in Glen Ellyn, thinks the price of light bulbs has remained artificially low for many years. Made with lead and tungsten — a controversial “conflict mineral,” due to the brutal conditions in which it is mined in the Congo — incandescent bulbs often go for far less than $1 apiece.
“If we had to pay the true value of an incandescent bulb — if the people who mine the tungsten earned a fair wage, if there were protections for them working in the mine, if they were given health insurance — it would not be such a good deal,” McKeen said.
Political remorse
The bulb revolution has had its setbacks. Stirred by complaints from consumers and a current elevated backlash against government controls, Congress last month took aim at the new rules. Lawmakers approved an omnibus spending bill that gutted the U.S. Department of Energy’s budget for enforcing the new regulations.
“Let there be incandescent light and freedom. That’s the American way,” declared conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh.
But spokespeople for the lighting industry said the enforcement defunding will make no difference in their plans to phase out the old incandescents.
General Electric spokesman David A. Schuellerman told the Washington Post that the industry has already spent millions gearing up to build only new kinds of bulbs, and that the December vote does not repeal the 2007 law.
“We still are required to abide by the (new) standards, and of course we intend to comply with our legal obligation,” he said.
According to Kateri Callahan, there is confusion, and the anxiety that stems from it, that needs clearing up.
“There is a lot of misinformation,” said Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy. “Retailers don’t have to take inventories of old bulbs off the shelves. The government is not going to come into homes to check ... You’re still going to be able to buy incandescent bulbs. They’re just going to be 28 to 30 percent more efficient.”
New and improved
Although the precursors to compact fluorescent light bulbs have been around since the late 1800s, the technology for all of the modern alternatives continues to evolve. CFL and other eco-friendly bulbs no longer necessarily come with a telltale lag between the switch being flipped and the light coming on.
The typical flicker of the early CFL lights has been eliminated by the replacement of magnetic ballasts (which control the flow of current through the tube) with electronic ones. And their brightness is gaining strength.
To the environmentally minded, the concept has held appeal for a while already.
“I think so many people have already changed because it’s common sense,” McKeen said. “If you can use a bulb that uses 75 percent less energy, and it reduces your electric bill, it’s kind of a no-brainer.”
Making the switch does come with a learning curve, however. Bulbs need to be chosen specifically for their destined purpose; a ceiling fan light has different properties from a fixture that operates on a dimmer, and a utility room doesn’t have the same illumination requirements as a bedside lamp.
“And then you have to know what kind of light you like,” McKeen said. “Bright white is incredibly bright, and not everybody likes it.”
A visit to Buikema’s Ace Hardware on North Washington Street this week shed some light on the price range. Along with a plentiful supply of traditional incandescent options, the store stocks an array of halogen, CFL and LED bulbs.
The basic, general-purpose, house brand CFL bulbs, bearing their distinctive corkscrew shape and using 10 watts (to replace 40-watt incandescent bulbs), can be had on sale this week in a pack of five for $3.49, less than one-third the usual price. Several CFL flood lights are on display, ranging from $8.99 to $18.99. One GE Energy Smart bulb in the coil style comes in a package that boasts it will eventually pare $130 from your energy bill. The LED selection includes a petite but hefty specimen designed to be part of a track light system that runs $42.99 — but lasts 22.8 years. Another purportedly can burn off and on for more than 13 years, and it will set you back $45.99.
It is implicit that the sting of investing in a big-ticket bulb will ease when the electric bill comes, of course. And McKeen noted that in the brave new and ubiquitously green world, change is certainly a constant.
“If we were still using the Model A’s, we would all be in trouble with the pollution,” she said.
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