Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act. I'm serious.

[RedImperator]

Not only do they make soft white CFLs, they make a CFL within a frosted globe, so you can't even tell it's a CFL.

[Ender]

Fun fact - after her rant this week on how people who aren't republicans are anti-american, donations in the MN race surged. In one day over $100,000 were raised... for her opponent.

[tim31]

Sadly, America is not alone in this brand of rampant idiocy. While incandescents have their uses (try using a fluorescent lamp in minus ten weather outside for your drive etc.), the idea of not making as many so people switch to energy efficient bulbs - like moi - is one with merit. Unfortunately, people here and in other colonies, like Oz, have found a staunch bulb conservative following, much like with metric vs. imperial.

Expect similar sentiments when electric cars start getting brought in.

Uh we're banning all Incandescents by 2010.

EDIT.

At least according to wiki, its been accelerated to 2009.

I haven't seen an incandescent on a shelf for six months. I've had to start replacing light fixtures to accomodate for the new bulbs, but that's fine by me.

[Stark]

Yeah, the only places you'll see bulbs is crappy rentals. Usually after I move out because NOBODY GETS MY PRECIOUS CFLs lol. I've never had one even start to fail yet, and even shoddy flat wiring can't destroy them, so people are pretty receptive to the switch.

[Covenant]

To keep this thread on track, this is a really dumb idea. Tungstens give off most of their energy as heat, not visible light. Which means that a majority of the power going into a tungsten lamp is wasted doing nothing other than heat up the light's housing and the surrounding air.

It makes perfect sense here in Canada, the incandescent bulbs help keep our homes warm while lighting up the room.

I actually noticed this. In the winter I would use the lightbulbs as a heat source to make my freezing room less freezing, since my heat basically doesn't work at all and space heaters are woefully inefficent as well as being generally poorly regarded due to safety concerns. When I switched to the new lightbulbs last year I noticed it being very obviously colder in my room. It was alarming to realize how much heat they were putting off per hour to keep a room warm.

[Stark]

Yeah, which is why ~20w flouros are near-equivalent to 100w incans (except for better light quality and longer lifespan I mean). They're pretty hopeless, really.

[Drooling Iguana]

It makes perfect sense here in Canada, the incandescent bulbs help keep our homes warm while lighting up the room.

The problem with that is that lightbulbs are typically mounted on the ceiling and hot air rises, which means that most of the head generated by the bulbs would be trapped up where it can't do any real good. You'd be better off overclocking your PC, since they typically sit on the floor.

[Uraniun235]

Overclocking only really helps if he runs his computer at full utilization a lot - otherwise it's just going to sit idle and not consume a huge amount of power.

[Mr Bean]

Overclocking only really helps if he runs his computer at full utilization a lot - otherwise it's just going to sit idle and not consume a huge amount of power.

There's are so many programs he can run, the various Folding@home projects, cure cancer? Find intelligent life? Your computer could help doing that.

And FYI I myself use my computer to heat my room. Because I'm a cheap baster and currently on oil heat. 62 *F' is as high as it damn well goes and that's for the pipes only

[Crayz9000]

I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but one thing I know is that incandescents will still be needed for specialty fixtures, such as chandeliers and very small night light-type stuff. You can't do a clear fluorescent since that kind of negates the whole point of a fluorescent...

[Broomstick]

I except "very small night light-type stuff" will be taken care of by LEDs, which can be made small and consume even smaller amounts of energy than CFLs.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Uh we're banning all Incandescents by 2010.

EDIT.

At least according to wiki, its been accelerated to 2009.

Never said you, or anyone, weren't banning them. My point was there is resistance, just as there is to metric standards which are the legal ones now.

[Lancer]

To keep this thread on track, this is a really dumb idea. Tungstens give off most of their energy as heat, not visible light. Which means that a majority of the power going into a tungsten lamp is wasted doing nothing other than heat up the light's housing and the surrounding air.

It makes perfect sense here in Canada, the incandescent bulbs help keep our homes warm while lighting up the room.

Wouldn't it be more effective to have fluorescent bulbs which light your house well, and have the energy saved go to central AC, rather than half-assing both?

I can't think of any applications for incandescent light bulbs now where fluroescents, HIDs or LEDs wouldn't be more effective. Regardless, the manufacturers themselves are phasing out incandescents in favor of flouroescents (from the article in the OP).

[Broomstick]

Incandescent technology is simply becoming outmoded, like many other technologies. I expected there will continue to be SOME made and used, just as you can still obtain buggy whips, but those uses will be limited and niche.

[RedImperator]

I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but one thing I know is that incandescents will still be needed for specialty fixtures, such as chandeliers and very small night light-type stuff. You can't do a clear fluorescent since that kind of negates the whole point of a fluorescent...

I've seen CFL chandelier blubs. They're a small CFL coil inside a frosted glass bulb. The only size CFL I haven't seen are C-7 and C-9 (Christmas light and night light sized), and as Broomstick said, LEDs will replace them. There already are strings of LED Christmas lights (the miniature bulbs), and I have to say, they're a tremendous improvement over incandescents--brighter, cooler, and they never burn out. Oh, and you can string seventy or eighty sets of lights back to back, which puts me one step closer to my goal of creating an outdoor Christmas display which can be used for intergalactic navigation.

[Uraniun235]

Red, is your last name Griswold by any chance?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Red, is your last name Griswold by any chance?

Which reminds me, a lot of displays here are either going to be trimmed down or not put up altogether simply because of the amount of juice they need to run the things 24/7. Even with LEDs, I can expect these people would cover every square centimetre with light and require their own Sellafield to run, especially with the mecha Santas, reindeers and anti-chav beam cannons.