Fluorescent Fanatics Turn Me Off
As a loyal American, I find myself ever more worried about the fate of electrical lighting. By electrical lighting, I mean incandescent. There are other kinds of lamps that run on electricity, but they count as lighting only in the same sense that brown rice counts as food—only if someone morbidly insists on it, and no one else has the heart to argue.
The latest person to insist is Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. In a speech in Houston this month, the Mayor bragged about phasing out incandescent light bulbs at City Hall and in his own home. He then said that the United States ought to follow the lead of Canada and Australia, which earlier this year, in separate spasms of First World environmental guilt, announced that they would outlaw incandescent bulbs by 2012 and 2010, respectively.
“I think it won’t be very long before you won’t be able to buy an incandescent light bulb,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
This sort of thing is easy to mock as nanny-state socialism, especially coming from the Mayor who banned smoking in bars. But I am fond of the smoking ban. At the moment, I’m in China, where the restaurants and bars stink of cigarette smoke. This is a Communist country, a real one, where they turn off the people’s heat in mid-March and don’t turn it on again till mid-November. For weeks, the chill sinks into your bones.
The heat does work when it comes on, though.
The anti-light-bulb campaign isn’t creeping socialism—it’s nanny-state capitalism: a cross-ideological alliance to force-market lousy products to the public. The left gets to see environmental virtue written into law; the right gets to see the negative consequences of that law fall on individual consumers, rather than, say, the power industry.
And the people get to squint to see anything. Yes, eliminating incandescent bulbs cuts down on X amount of electrical use and Y amount of power-plant fuel and Z amount of greenhouse-gas emissions—four million “tonnes” per year for Australia, the Australians say.
It also eliminates 100 percent of incandescent light.
The anti-light-bulb crusaders like to point out that incandescent-lighting technology is more than a century old, as if that helps settle things. So is basketball, if you’re counting, and the Constitution is more than two centuries old. Incandescent light is not the most durable or efficient artificial light (though the Canadians might want to remember that it can help heat your home). It’s just the best at lighting things up. As it happens, the light bulb’s century—or century and a quarter—is the era that brought antibiotics, radio, motion pictures, airplanes and digital video recorders. The light bulb is the metonym for it all, the symbol of dynamic inspiration, dispelling darkness and ignorance: Genesis 1:3, by way of Menlo Park, N.J.
So before we clap Thomas Edison in the stocks alongside Columbus, let’s stop by the bathroom. This was where the mandatory-conservation movement scored its defining victory: the low-flow toilet.
The campaign for the low-flow toilet seemed noble—who doesn’t want to save water?—but it was smug and dishonest. It was smug because it presumed that the people who designed normal toilets had been too benighted to use the right amount of water. It was dishonest because … well, because there are certain kinds of equality that can’t be faked. A toilet that can’t handle an above-average job is no toilet at all. Next Page >
You didn't mention LED lighting. This technology will in the future eclipse fluorescent lighting because it will be much more versatile. It will offer warmer lighting. And it doesn't give of heat like fluorescent lighting does. However, the fact that it doesn't give off heat is good because buildings will not use so much electricity in cooling. And that's good because it costs much more to cool a building than warm it. Another thing, LEDs will last longer.
I don't think that the argument about the usefulness of incandescent bulbs giving off heat and helping warm our cold house is a very good one. That's an inefficient means of heating. It's a warm, fuzzy argument though.
Shorter Tom Scocca: I'm used to incandescents so flourescents suck I should know because I tried an early version once and because some low flow toilets suck.
If you compare the spectral output of incandescents to the daylight spectrum our eyes are designed to prefer, you'll see that it is no better match than the match between fluorescents and daylight: http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=7713&rendTypeId=4
Did you really list the heat output of incandescents as one of the positives? You think it is a good thing that you are turning on a heater everytime you want some light?
Did you really say that phasing out incandescent lights was just a way of burdening consumers rather than power producers? Fluorescents use 1/4 the energy of incandescents. In what way did you expect power producers to emulate those energy savings? By quadrupling the efficiency of electricity generation from 35% to 140%?
I don't love fluorescents, but I find them adequate for most lighting uses and superior for some uses. I'd like affordable dimming fluorescents, and expect progress onthat front. I've found that most complaints about the spectrum of fluorescents are resolved by increasing the wattage - using a 28W fluorescent instead of a 23W fluorescent to replace a 100W incandescent, for example. As with the mpg of a hybrid car, you have to adjust the stated benefits to match real life gains.
When even more efficient LED lights are affordable, I won't be writing a column complaining that LED's suck because I'm used to fluorescents and all my fixtures are designed to fit fluorescents.
New York State just can't wait to drive more people out of the state can they? Flourescent light bulbs suck. The only thing they are good for is the profit margin of the manufacterers who charge prices that imply they actually provide lighting as good as incandescent in the home. I tried them in my home and I couldn't see worth squat. Are these people crazy or has somebody in the flourescent industry lined somebody's pocket. I bet that butthead Bloomberg doesn't have them in his house. You won't find flourescents jammed into his crystal chandeliers. NY lawmakers have stuck their noses in so many places they don't have time to do anything really helpful to anyone, like find out why health insurance costs so much more than everywhere else, or why power companies are ripping us off. As it stands the only things New York is Number One in are taxes, regulations and driving businesses and residents away. The day they tell me I have to squint to see in my own home is the day I join the exodus out of this stupid senseless state.