There has been so much store set by the quality of the L prize lamp that I was very keen to get one as it seems unlikely we will get them in the UK anytime soon. The first thing that surprised me was the extent of packaging for what is supposed to be an environmentally friendly product.

L prize packaging

When first switched on I have to concede that the appearance of the light was OK in comparison to the GE Reveal lamp that it was replacing. The reveal is an incandescent with a slight blue tint.

L prize full on

GE Reveal full on

The difference to the eye was not as marked as the images appear.

As expected when dimmed things changed dramatically:

L Prize dimmed

GE Reveal Dimmed

The L prize got cooler in appearance and the perceived colour rendering became much worse casting a gloomy grey in the space. the lamp also suddenly went out about half way through the travel of the dimmer’s slider, the GE lamp dimmed right down to the minimum setting. What was really alarming was that the L prize lamp would not switch on at dimmer settings below about 70%. This was a serious problem in this location where three way switching was installed.

Really I am somewhat disappointed in a product that cost me $19.75 and does not work reliably at less than full power even when it claims to be dimable. Solutions such as this must be made fully compatible with existing wiring infrastructure.

Another point about the massive cost for these lamps is whether or not the claimed savings are realistic in domestic use. How many people will be using the same lighting after 22 years? How many will still be living in the same house or apartment? At 58 years old I have to question whether I will still be alive to realise these claimed savings! It really is not good enough that the best of these lamp replacement products should be priced so high and fail to meet reasonable performance expectations that at least they do not risk leaving people in darkness! I do feel that the general lamp buying public are being conned into overspending for overcomplicated and ineffective products.

This page from EarthLed shows a dissection of the L prize lamp. It really does question the holistic sustainability of replacing such an elegantly simple device as the traditional incandescent lamp with something that requires computing power that would shame the flight computers of the Mercury and Gemini space programmes and has more electronic components than a transistor radio! All in all the resources used to make this thing are truly excessive for the required functionality.

Kevan Shaw May 12, 2012

What has , for now, killed the implementation of the ban is an omnibus bill on financing that has specifically excluded any finance for the implementation of the ban for at least 9 months. The ban is still effectively in force in law however it cannot be enforced. In the end even the Democrats did not try and defend the ban being much more concerned about many other funding requirements wrapped up in the same bill.

So what happens now? It is certain that this breathing space will be used to promote further bills to permanently strike down the ban. Meanwhile several other states are in the process of producing legislation that parallels what has been passed in Texas now that this has separately been confirmed as lawful. On the other side of the fence California’s state legislation for a ban has already been in force for a year and there is no sign, yet, that it will be struck down. The lamp manufacturers have effectively ended incandescent lamp production in the USA in the past few months with only a few specialist lamp lines remaining to produce rough service lamps and, probably, the decorative “Edison” lamps that have gained popularity in the last 5 years or so among some householders and many up market interior designers.

So watch this space. We should see action in Pennsylvania, Michigan, South Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota and Arizona, all states where anti ban legislation is already happening. Senator Perry in Texas is wooing lamp manufacturers to set up a factory to manufacture incandescent lamps in the state. I Canada the lamp ban has been delayed until at least 2014 except in British Columbia which like California has state legislation that enforced the ban in 2011. In Europe the first stage of the ban implemented over the last 3 years comes up for assessment and discussion to see what should happen in the next stage however they still have not finlised legislation on the reflector lamps part of the first stage!

Happy New Year to all who believe the incandescent lamp ban is fatuous!

Kevan Shaw 17-12-11

Sweden has been held up as the shining example of a country where recycling is taken responsibly. Unfortunately, as far as the compact fluorescent “energy saving” lamps are concerned things are going very wrong. Svensk Dagblat a major daily newspaper has initiated investigations into recycling that has uncovered some alarming statistics. It appears that around 200,000 CFLs are being incorrectly dumped in glass recycling containers each year. As this glass is expected to be non hazardous, workers who deal with collecting and sorting this are not provided with personal protective equipment that is required when dealing with mercury containing lamps. The result is that these workers have been exposed to potentially harmful quantities of mercury. The glass recyclers are now initiating tests for their employees to see if any are affected by mercury poisoning.

Last March the glass recycling and electrical industries met and agreed the seriousness of the problem however nothing has been achieved in resolving the situation. Frank Tholfsson, CEO of Swedish Glass Recycling (SGA) is quoted as saying of the lighting industry that “They have not taken the necessary steps, we still get this hazardous waste in our glass. Today there are no suitable collection.” SGA have been raising concerns on this issue since the beginning of the incandescent lamps phase out.

There is no way of determining how many CFLs are going into general waste and landfill. There is general concern that efforts made to remove mercury from other sources are now being undone by the massive increase of mercury entering the environment from CFLs.

Swedish Environment Minister Lena Ek has expressed concern and disappointment that the recycling of CFLs has not been properly addressed ” That we would replace the old energy-inefficient bulbs have been known for years, so I am disappointed that the recycling responsibility is not working. I will call the industry for informal discussions on these issues, we will get clear how they will handle these lamps. The meeting will take place before Christmas. This should not be delayed.” She is considering reviewing legislation “If necessary we will also look at producer responsibility for electrical waste, I am fully prepared to strengthen the legislation. We will review the issue with the environment ministry experts.”

if this is the situation in the European country that has the best record and infrastructure what is happening elsewhere in Europe? It seems even Eurocrats are beginning to recognise that the Incandescent lamp ban is not delivering genuine environmental benefits. The former adviser to Margot Wallström during her time as the EU’s environment commissioner, Minna Gillberg is quoted as saying of the ban ” The environmental benefit we are talking about here is really a political advantage. From this perspective the environmental benefits we speak of become an expression of a symbolic climate policy that benefits neither the environment or human health,”

Kevan Shaw 2-12-11

Thanks to Peter from http://freedomlightbulb.blogspot.com for alerting me to this story

The move has been forced from outside China. The Global Environment Facility fund, which has invested millions of dollars in China to encourage the phase-out, says that moving to efficient lighting is one of the simplest ways for countries to cut carbon emissions.

Christophe Bahuet, the deputy country director of the United Nations Development Programme, said: “I think what’s important for us is that China is joining an international trend. It also sends a signal that will inspire others.”

Lighting professionals in China are less enthusiastic for the ban. Liu Shengping, the secretary general of the China Association of Lighting Industry, said that it was “unrealistic” to require energy efficient lights were used everywhere. “As long as the demand exists, Chinese manufacturers can hardly pull the plug on the production line.”Wang Jinsui, the president of the China Illuminating Engineering Society, told the China Daily newspaper that the government should consider subsidies because many families would not be able to afford the more expensive energy-efficient bulbs.

Given the massive and typically very poor population in China the personal burden on families of having to pay for expensive compact fluorescent lamps will be very great. The demand for CFL will also challenge the burgeoning lamp industry in China Currently Europe and the USA are almost entirely dependent on China for CFL energy savers. We have already sen an effective ban on the export from China of rare earths essential for the manufacture of fluorescent material, If this ban happens and the internal Chinese market increases demand there may well be CFL shortages in Europe and the USA with consequent increases in retail prices and potential lack of availability. If China increases lamp production then there will be further increases in Cinnabar mining and Mercury production with consequent increases in pollution.

It is also unlikely that China will be any more effective that Europe in managing the collection and recycling of dead CFLs from consumers thereby increasing mercury in land fill. Yet again the ban appears as a political tool rather than an effective measure towards sustainability!

Kevan Shaw

Sources:
Xinhua News Agency,
Huffington Post
Guardian Eco

While many of us do not like light from “Energy Saving” Compact fluorescent lamps that are being forced on us there are groups of people who suffer real medical issues from the output of these lamps. The Spectrum Alliance is an organisation that is addressing the continued availability of conventional incandescent lamps for people who just cannot live with fluorescent light. They represent a number of charities and support groups that represent the issues of the sufferers of photo reactive diseases in the United Kingdom and we at Savethebulb.org are supporting them in their efforts to maintain a supply of incandescent lamps.

Please check out their new website for further information.

This political chicanery is sadly not to do with the awfulness of the compact fluorescent lamp or even the desirability of light created from incandescent sources. This is about freedom of choice enshrined in the USA constitution. It is therefore unsurprising that the battle is being fought by Texan politicians, fiercely defending rights of self determination.

Kevan Shaw 15 July 20

The politics behind the original act that this bill seeks to amend are indeed strange. The incandescent ban is a small part of The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 brought in by the Republican administration of George W Bush that largely deals with securing energy in the context of the Middle eastern wars that administration prosecuted following 9-11. So we have now republicans challenging a Republican drafted legislation and Democrats defending it!

The effectiveness of the original legislation is still open to question. So far Texas has enacted state legislation to allow the continued manufacture and sale of incandescent lamps within Texas and several other states are in the process of enacting similar legislation, the result could be a great surge in development of relatively small scale incandescent lamp manufacturing in many states and no doubt “bootlegging” with people smuggling lamps across state borders, echos of the prohibition era!

The campaigning against the ban remains much more active in the USA than it has been in Europe however the wording of the USA legislation is very much aimed at getting rid of incandescence as a principle of generating light from electricity by 2020 whereas the European legislation is supposed to be technology neutral and the acknowledgement that efficient TH lamps should remain in the market in the longer term is beginning to be accepted. So may I wish Howard Brandston and the other champions of rational sense all the best in pursuing this issue.

Kevan Shaw July 13, 2011

Kevan Shaw 19 June 2011

During the consultation process the issue of medically significant sensitivity was discussed at length and assurance was given that there was no intention that people who would suffer as the result of using CFLi would be prevented from getting incandescent lamps. It was, however, left to the individual member states to arrange their legislation to allow for this. Needless to say most have not. As you can see from the post elsewhere about ‘Heatballs’ some countries, Germany in this case, are being quite draconian, preventing the import and sale of incandescent lamps.

This motion will hopefully address the issue of availability of incandescent lamps however does nothing to ensure the long term availability as there has to be a sufficient volume of sales to support the manufacture of them.

Readers from the UK are urged to write to or email their MP asking them to sign the early day motion to get some Parliamentary action on this issue. You can find out who your MP is on this website:

http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/

Thanks

Kevan Shaw

There are also a few “correction factors” included in the process that makes a distinctly hilly playing field when comparing different technologies and as one would expect TH has the uphill struggle particularly compared with LED and CFL.

I would suggest contacting whoever you know is a consultee on the process and talk to them about this paper sooner rather than later and even email Andras Toth Andras.TOTH@ec.europa.eu The Policy Officer for this issue and ask him for a copy of the draft regulation to comment on by 24 June.

Kevan Shaw June 7, 2011