Congress is debating whether to repeal a 2007 law that requires light bulbs to become more energy efficient. So people have asked me where Thomas Alva Edison would come down on the issue, since he invented the incandescent light bulb 132 years ago.
My great-grandfather would be all for keeping intact the Energy Independence and Security Act. The law requires light bulbs of all types to be at least 25 percent more energy efficient by 2012. To Edison, that would have been no big deal.
He would have immediately embraced the challenge of reducing the power usage of the incandescent light bulb -- and regarded it as a great opportunity to offer consumers a better and more ecologically sound product. Edison understood that incandescent lights burned up a lot of power. The present bulb, more or less unimproved for more than a century, still uses up to 90 percent of the incoming electricity as heat wasted in making the filament incandescent, not in making ''light'' as such.
As an inventor, Edison would have no interest in turning back the legislative clock. The wizard of Menlo Park dedicated himself to advancing human comfort, not freeze life as we knew it in 1879.
I know where he'd be this morning if he were still with us: in his West Orange, N.J., lab working furiously on a better bulb. And when he was done, it would be cheaper and more energy efficient. Repealing EISA won't improve anybody's life. He would have scorned the cynics who are trying to turn a technical challenge into a political football.
Moreover, my great-grandfather would be annoyed by the misleading and sometimes downright false statistics being thrown around in this controversy.
One red-herring is that an over-reaching Big Government is taking away our beloved incandescent bulb. Not true. Consumers can continue choosing from an array of more modern, energy efficient bulbs, including halogen incandescents, compact fluorescents (CFLs) and light-emitting diodes (LEDs.) By the way, are you telling me that we can send a man to the moon but the entire population hasn't got one electrical engineer who can improve the heat-loss-to-incandescent ratio?
Another argument that turns out to smell fishy is the red herring that CFLs are dangerous because they contain about 3 milligrams of mercury. Before I did the math, I thought so, too.
No one should minimize mercury as a pollutant, but intelligent disposal and recycling of everyday mercury-bearing products is the best way to keep it out of the environment. Among other household products that contain more mercury include thermostats, your watch battery and, oh yes, the fillings in your teeth (unless you have switched to plastic.)
A far greater human health threat comes from the mercury spewed by electricity-generating power plants. Once the new standards take full effect in 2020, mercury emissions associated with common household lighting would be reduced by 60%. That will also eliminate about 100 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution from the atmosphere each year -- the equivalent of taking 17 million cars off the road.
The light bulb furor highlights another crucial Edison conviction. Long ago he wanted the United States to abandon oil as a primary energy source.
In fact, near the end of his life, he told Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone that he wanted America to end its reliance on oil and other polluting fossil fuels and, instead, embrace clean, renewable sources of energy, especially solar power. Edison would be deeply disappointed by our inability to make more progress toward solar, wind and nuclear power that is safe and cost effective.
So Edison would strongly favor the most efficient light source that we can invent. He personally would be forging ahead to create and then market such a better product. And if that meant incandescents come in second, or third, so be it. No matter what, my great-grandfather would have welcomed with relish a brighter future for all.
Lastly, forgive my partiality to the elegant shape of my great-grandfather's bulbs. The spiral CFLs are plain ugly. But to each his own. There are plenty of alternatives on the market to choose from. Isn't that the American way?
I wonder if the misguided drive to reverse progress on light bulbs isn't part of a broader assault on our environment; if so, Edison would be appalled by it. Instead, he'd be pushing America to do more, much more, to clean up our air, water and land -- rather than trying to prevent such agencies as the Environmental Protection Agency from updating public health safeguards under the Clean Air Act, as some of the congressional fish-mongers are doing.
My great-grandfather would be calling us to put politics aside and get back to doing what Americans do best -- create better mousetraps... and better light-bulbs.
Dr. David Edward Edison Sloane is a professor of English at the University of New Haven.
As far as who invented what, and who got credit for it, try comparing that to today. Giant corporations own all the patents, no one gets credit for their inventions.
Now that IS a red herring that keeps doing the rounds...
Clearly, power plant mercury needs to be dealt with too
- but that is already being done under EPA admin Lisa Jackson, with new technology -notice the EPA regulations just the other day, with "scrubbers" that also reduce mercury emissions.
The reason why CFL mercury is a greater problem,
is extensivelÂy covered here, including the USA EPA data etc
http://ceoÂlas.net/#lÂi198x
For example, the fact that electricity does not just come from coal,
or that mercury release INSIDE a room is rather different from outside,
or that the supposed amount of energy usage advantage of CFLs have recently been found not to hold up...
In a nutshell
1. We know where the ever decreasing local coal power plant chimneys
are and we can treat their emissions with ever increasing efficiency at lower costs.
2. Compare that with a broken CFL at home, with mercury release on the spot.
3. Also compare that with future billions of scattered broken CFLs
elsewhere, when we do not know where all the broken lights will be,
and so it is much harder and often impossible to do anything about them.
4. Also compare that with any recycling process of CFLs, with its own mercury release,
and the mercury release of the CFL shipping transport from China (the ships use bunker oil),
and back again for new CFL manufacturing.
so make the bulbs here! transport reduced/ jobs!
use LEDs instead if you are that worried about mercury
if recycling is a problem--fix the recycling!
No red herring - a rose by any other name is still a rose (to really mix metaphors!)
It is a BAN:
1. Setting a standard that does not allow certain products is of course the SAME as banning them.
2. Setting efficiency standards that (by 2020) any of today's known incandesceÂnts - Halogen or otherwise - cannot meet is the SAME as banning them too.
Regulation explanatioÂn and official links http://ceoÂlas.net/#lÂi01inx
It is surely a great PITY not to allow simple safe types of lighting - like grandpa Edison invented.
Light bulbs don't burn coal or give out CO2 gas, other energy savings in Electricity Generation, Distribution and Consumption are much more relevant, and significant, as described and referenced on the above linked ceolas website.
3. To say that if I climb Mount Everest I can smoke a cigarette, does not mean that I will smoke a cigarette.
This "not a ban" run-around argument is typical of the pro-regulaÂtion deception arguments
4. The further issue is that energy standards change product characteriÂstics
- a fuel efficient car may be lighter, flimsier, less safe, or slower and more poorly acceleratiÂng then the equivalent without fuel efficiency standard
- similarly, replacemenÂt-type Halogen bulbs are still different from ordinary incandesceÂnts,
in light quality etc, apart from costing much more for marginal savings, which is why they are not popular either with politicianÂs or consumers
Choosing would be the American way. Banning a popular product is certainly not.
If people make lighting products that are preferable to customers over traditional incandescent bulbs, can be sold at an attractive price, and are ecologically sound/energy efficient Congress won't need to lift a finger. Forcing people to buy an inferior or much more expensive product is distinctly un-American.
Carry your arguement to it's logical conclusion--- gov. should never do anything you diaspprove of--even if it benefits all of us!
Also, the author made the absurd claim that the law doesn't take away peoples' ability to get incandesent bulbs. "One red-herring is that an over-reaching Big Government is taking away our beloved incandescent bulb. Not true. Consumers can continue choosing from an array of more modern, energy efficient bulbs, including halogen incandescents, compact fluorescents (CFLs) and light-emitting diodes (LEDs.) " All of those are not incandescent bulbs. Taking away incandescent bulbs is EXACTLY what the act does.
Also, if the CF bulb fell on carpeting, it's unlikely it would break, so it sounds like a scare story it is.
And when the child playing in the toxic carpeting gets a cavity, what do you think it gets filled with?
I hope you don't give your kids mercury fillings. I also hope you don't actually think that playing on a carpet can cause cavities.
As for costs of CFLs vs incandescent, when you include operational costs and replacement costs, CFLs are cheaper than incandescent despite their greater upfront costs.
See:
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/cfl-vs-incandescent-battle-of-the-bulb
http://www.easywebcalculators.com/cf.htm
At such time as new efficient bulbs cost the same as incandescent and can be trashed without special handling the government is welcome to mandate their use. Until then it is just another federal overreach.
Then you have to convert the wattage on the bulb to killowatt hours and try to determine where the bulb might be used and for how long each day. Then you look up the average lifespan per each bulb.
Or, if you are a normal human, you buy the cheapest thing that will work.
I have replaced every single bulb in my house with CFL as they burned out and kept track of the cost of our lightbulbs over the last three years. My cost in 2010 was almost 6 times my cost in 2006 and I have noticed almost no difference in the numbers of killowatt hours I use. Not to mention my electric company has raised its rates every year and I am paying considerably more than I did in 2006.
Frankly, I would prefer to just go back to the old bulbs. Since I live in SC and our state legislature has OKed production of incandescent bulbs for manufacutre and sale within the state I will get to do this for the forseeable future.
No matter how you want to argue it, the facts show that switching to more energy-efficient bulbs (such as CFLs) makes economic and environmental sense.
Giving away my age again, huh?
Bah...my grandparents hate CDs because they don't have that extra noise like the records do.