Ireland becomes the first country in the world to ban the incandescent lightbulb

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/gormley-lights-the-way-with-ban-on-bulbs-1240074.html

by rms • 19 years ago

6 38 19 years ago

theoneill• 19 years ago

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/world_first_aus.php

rms3• 19 years ago

Australia passed a law first but Ireland is putting it into practice much faster. They're not for sale in Ireland by 2009 and gone in Australia by 2012.

Tichy3• 19 years ago

If the energy saving light bulbs are so much better, why don't people use them voluntarily? Something doesn't add up?

pg2• 19 years ago

They cost more. Also, fluorescent light is unpleasantly cold, and some fluorescent bulbs take a few moments to start up when the power is turned on.

I disagree with these regulations. The kind of lighting you use in your house greatly effects what it feels like. It's a very personal thing for the government to interfere with-- like banning certain styles of clothing because they're wasteful. Why not just tax incandescent bulbs till they cost more than fluorescents?

rms3• 19 years ago

It'll be funny to watch the black market for incandescent light bulbs emerge in Ireland and Australia.

davidw7• 19 years ago

On the right track, but it might be even better to do a carbon tax rather than a tax targeting one product that is wasteful: it's CO2 that is associated with negative externalities, so the most direct approach is to internalize those externalities by levying a tax on carbon, rather than attacking wasteful users of electricity piecemeal through taxes or bans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigou_Club

jsmcgd2• 19 years ago

Agreed. Fortunately I don't think they'll mind too much as the nation wide smoking ban was accepted with a kind of quiet inevitability. For right or wrong if the ends are largely supported, people will put up with the means (given they are not too outrageous).

I am currently being illuminated by an energy saving bulb and although it does take a few seconds get going it is generating a positively warm glow.

ntoshev• 19 years ago

There are energy-saving fluorescent bulbs emitting warm light, but none of them allows dimming the lights.

Personally I like halogen lights best.

Tichy3• 19 years ago

Or just tax the energy?

lg• 19 years ago

just curious--anyone know what LED bulbs are like, vis a vis warm glowing warming glow? If they're similar enough to incandescents, we won't have to turn our homes into cold fluorescent ice palaces to save the whales.

rms3• 19 years ago

Because the incandescent bulbs are cheaper in the store, and most people in the aisles of Wal-Mart don't spontaneously calculate their long term energy costs.

pchristensen2• 19 years ago

Incidentally, Wal-Mart doubled sales of compact fluorescent bulbs in one month by moving them to eye level.

BitGeek9• 19 years ago

Typical, government will stick a gun in people's face just to make them be "politically correct". Nevermind the consequences (or the chicks who will no longer hatch because the heat source that powers the incubators is no longer around... or the farmer who goes out of business because he can't afford to buy thousands of new incubators... etc.)

Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.

jsmcgd2• 19 years ago

I'm sure where incandescent bulbs are necessary allowances will be made.

BitGeek9• 19 years ago

Yeah, cause bureaucracies are so caring. I notice that I've been modded down... I guess anyone not goosestepping along will not be tolerated.

BrandonM2• 19 years ago

Of course, this ignores the mercury that is present in fluorescent bulbs, as well as the use cases for incandescent bulbs e.g. as heat lamps and in areas where lights are frequently turned on for short periods before being turned immediately off again (like in a stairwell). I agree with another comment that taxing is a better solution than outright banning, but I'm just not sure where I stand at all, because banning something that is clearly better in some scenarios just seems stupid.

As for the mercury issue, fluorescent light bulbs are much more difficult to dispose of safely. I was reading an article by the Sierra Club (an environmental group) which was arguing that if fluorescent light bulbs use 1/3 the energy of incandescents, and all of that energy is produced by burning coal, then the amount of mercury in the bulbs is approximately equal to the amount of coal saved over 5 years (I'm estimating here, but this was the general idea). Not exactly the most flattering numbers if you ask me.

BrandonM2• 19 years ago

I just hunted down the link to the article I was talking about:

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200707/mrgreen_mailbag.asp

Note the required cleanup procedures. I think they really need to advertise these types of things a little better. My roommate broke one earlier this year and cleaned it up the same way someone would clean up an incandescent.

tomjen• 19 years ago

I have said it before, I will say it again: You can have my lightbulbs when I can have your cars, trucks, ships and airplanes.

BitGeek9• 19 years ago

The ironic thing is, the entity that causes the most pollution (in every country) is that countries government... and the entity causing the most energy waste is generally the government as well.

It never ceases to amaze me how people are so willing to put guns and violence behind their political ideologies. This is probably because they don't realize that is what they are doing-- but every law is backed up by a guy holding a gun and pointing it at someone who breaks it.

ARe you willing to go to someone's house, and take his incandescent light bulbs and shoot him if he resists? You think that's Moral?

Cause that's what this law does, and it is no more moral if you advocate someone else doing it even if you are unwilling to do it yourself.

pchristensen2• 19 years ago

If anyone wants to learn more about how energy use can be cut drastically in a profitable way, listen to these presentations at Stanford by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Insitute. He is basically the foremost expert in the world on this kind of stuff. Best few hours I've spent in the last while:

http://sic.conversationsnetwork.org/series/si-energy.html

Ireland becomes the first country in the world to ban the incandescent lightbulb

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