Australia to phase out traditional light bulbs

And what exactly are we to use in our easy bake ovens?!

CF’s are great, I use them most places. The difficulties I’ve found – there’s no way they could do skinny little fluorescent tubes to fit the fixtures of any halogens, and halogens make wonderful bathroom lighting. Also specialty lamps with the tiny bases often can’t hold a bulb longer than one inch. And don’t forget garage-door-opener lights (too much vibration, I imagine).

CFs come in capacities up to 200 watts – about 800 watts of incandescent equivalent. So at least light output isn’t a problem.

1,

Admittedly, the technology is not yet mature. However, don’t forget tht incandescent tech was not as mature as it is now when it was deployed. The stuff I’ve seen shows me we’ll be where we want to be with solid-state lighting and CFLs by the end of the decade.

2,

Graphics processing chips, of course.

I wouldn’t consider upgrading a computer program to a new version with less functionality, so why would I treat electronic hardware of any stripe the same way?

8. James, you probably wouldnt get off the Titanic if you had had an oppurtunity either, we wouldnt want you to be inconvenienced in any way. See you at the bottom.

Why is it some people always look to the government to pass laws? I swear, nanny state is becoming more and more of a reality.

I think CF bulbs are great. I’ve put them in all but a few fixtures in my home (there are a few places they’re not suitable). But you know what? We don’t need yet another stupid law on the books. CF bulbs are taking over all by themselves. Unlike when I first started buying them, they are now quite inexpensive. That plus their reduced energy and long life is convincing people to buy them. There is no need for the govt to involve themselves.

13, Incandescents are durable?

Actually they can be. There is a lightbulb in a Livemore Firestation which has been on continuously for over 70 years!

While I use some CF lightbulbs at home I have found that they certainly do not live up to their billing, nor do they work well in all applications. For example

1) I have yet to have a CF bulb last for more than a year (even the ones claiming 7 years), and I have kept track.

2) There are certain light sockets (I am not sure of the material) which react to the bottoms of the CF bulbs in a way such that “pitting” occurs on the bottom of the “bulbs” connector and it will no longer make good contact in the socket resulting in the bulb going out. I can rotate this particular “CF” bulb through several other light fixture until it will no lnoger work in any of them. I do not have this kind of problem with incandescents in these fixtures. (I am very interested in understanding what is causing this pitting if anybody knows).

3) CF’s do not work very well for outdoor porchlights as on cold nights they take a while in starting up (taking a lot of energy) as well as achieving their final brightness level.

4) CF’s seem to have more problems in unstable fixtures (like a hanging lamp). I think this is due to vibrations, but it could also be related to problem #2, since several (but not all) of my fixtures with problem #2 are also hanging.

5) CF’s need to be on for a while to start “saving” power. Flouresecent lights (including CF’s) take a lot of power to start up and need to stay on for at least 20 minutes (year 2000 number) before they start saving energy compared to comperable lumen output Incandescent light. This means that these could burn more power than an incandescent if used in say closets or bathrooms (unless you have kids that never turn off the lights or spend forever in the bathroom) since they will be turned “on” and “off” before they can start “saving” energy.

I should point out that power companies (like PG&E) love CF’s, not because they can save power, but because they can be turned off by the power company (without your control). This is because most CF’s use an electronic ballast which by federal law is required to turn off when the line voltage drops beneath a certain voltage (I forget the actual level). In a low voltage situation incandescents will continue to give off light, though much dimmer, hence the term “brown out”. With CF’s there are no “brown outs” (since the ballast is actually PWM circuit), just blackouts.

Using legislative means to force social compliance on any issue is often ill advised because it often ignores the other problems that it creates. This is just like the MBTE fiasco which occured in California (which is also thinking of mandating CF’s), where people using bad science come up with a politically correct idea, which when implemented is both self defeating and destructive.

I also don’t see the advantages of the CF. Similar to mike-in-newark’s experience, the CFs I’ve used do not have the lifespan of an incandescent bulb. I bought a new home 2 years ago, and it had a full complement of incandescent bulbs. I replace approximately 1/2 of the bulbs (mixing CFs with incandescents on the same circuit). Guess what? I’ve had maybe 3 incandescent bulbs burn out. All of the “bulb shaped” CFs died in a year. All but 2 (6 of recessed 14w CF flood lights died within 2 years, and about 3/4 of the corkscrew lights have burned out. I can’t see how I saved any money on these devices given the high initial cost.

I’m sold on saving energy, but CFs don’t work well enough. I’m going to try out some LED bulbs next. As mythbusters found, they are the only bulb technology that can stand up to repeated on-off cycles.

How I’m saving money on lighting? I found some value packs of 8 incandescents at Target on clearance for 34 cents. I bought 5 packs. I turn the lights on as I need them and off when I don’t. At less than a nickel a bulb, it doesn’t matter if I stress them and burn them out sooner.

This is dumb beyond all means of measure. The nanny statists are at it again. There is no rational reason for this based on rights, therefore the law is unethical.

Why are they mandating anything?
What if in two years someone develops a light bulb that uses 10% of the energy of these new bulbs. This won’t get adopted because every has spent money on these 10-year bulbs.
This looks to me like the equivalent of JDs calls for government broadband for everyone. If we had heeded his advice, right now there’d be 802.11a across the country, rival networks would be banned, and you would still be paying money for access.

Here in Venezuela our government is replacing free of charge incandescents for CFs (incidentally giving our hills a nice yellow and blue sparkle at night).
Problem is, the government insists to install the bulbs themselves, instead of simply distributing them; which rises suspicions when one takes into account the proposed laws intended to expropiate houses deemed “too big” for its owners.

23,

I do believe there will be a long transition period.