The opening of 2011 has seen the introduction of the first stage of the incandescent ban in California, a year ahead of the general ban in the USA. The requirements are less onerous than we face in Europe requiring in the first year a saving of 22% in energy used by lamps that were 100W. This is well within the capabilities of the halogen incandescent replacements so no loss in light quality.
In the bigger USA political picture there is much more resistance to the legislation that we saw in Europe. The legislation in question is the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), which proposed a rolling ban of “inefficient” light sources starting in January 2012. There has also been another legislative measure proposed that largely reverses a ban, The Better Use of Light Bulbs Act ( BULB!) proposed by Rep.Joe Barton of Texas, Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas and Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennesee has I believe died at the end of 2010 however the pressure for repeal of EISA is growing.
Other interesting things that have come up recently are the revised guidelines for dealing with CFL breakage in the home from the USA Environmental Protection Agency. These are much like what was advised before however they do acknowledge that the vacuum cleaner is a pretty essential tool in the removal of glass and other lamp debris from the living room (or bedroom) carpet! The web page is here or you can download a PDF of the full instructions.
The L prize from the USA DoE has turned into a bit of a damp squib. Despite the vast fortune on offer only the richest lighting company in the world, Philips, returned an entry for the 60W GLS lamp category. This submission, I expect, is now being examined carefully for compliance with the competition rules however no date has been announced for the results. Meanwhile the L prize competition for PAR 38 replacement has been suspended presumably to fix the rules so they will get more than one heftily funded entry. The competition is slated for re-launch in May at Lightfair.
Howard Brandston’s work and campaign on the issue of health challenging radio frequency emissions from CFLs is ongoing, this link to a Makezine article about a Ham Radio transmitter made almost completely from CFL ballast bits kind of proves these things have the potential to emit seriously in the Radio Frequency range.
And finally it is nice to see someone other than the big lamp manufacturers making money out of the incandescent lamp ban. Kerry Nicolaou runs a TV repair shop in Twickenham and is busy doing a roaring trade in incandescent lamps. He is scouring the UK for remainder stock and selling them quite legally from his shop as was reported in the London Evening Standard
Lastly a Call-Out to all those who have provided info through articles, tweets and emails for this New Year Round up:
Howard Brandston
The Light Collective
Kevin Theobold
LEDs Magazine
A guid New year to ane and aw! as we say in Scotland
A brief update on this post , Private Eye 7 January has an entry in the Funny Old World column reporting that a shopkeeper in Hungary is also selling heat globes and is importing these from China!