Comments on: USA to ban incandescent light bulbs

By: SouthPhilly Rambots

SouthPhilly Rambots — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:54:00 +0000

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By: Simon

Simon — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 14:02:36 +0000

@ bruno: You can find one of the sources here.

By: bruno

bruno — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 01:53:36 +0000

To what energy bill are you referring? While Australia has worked out a ban on incandescents, this is NOT TRUE for the U.S.. A couple of states have bills that propose a ban, but none have passed. Might be good to post source information for a claims like this.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:55:56 +0000

Actually there are dimmable CFLs already. They cost about £10 as opposed to the latest low prices I have seen of 49p each for standard CFLs. I use LED screw-in replacement bulbs in many places in the house. The light is white so in places where it annoys me I spray painted yellow over a few of the LEDs and now have a light similar to incandescent in colour. I understand normal spectrun LEDs are on the horizon so I won’t even have to do that soon. If you go on eBay and look hard you can buy LED bulbs from Hong Kong in bulk at very competitive prices and they should last 100,000 hours at only 2-3 watts each!

By: Jason Chan

Jason Chan — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:30:55 +0000

Actually LEDs are now being made that can retrofit into existing light sockets. You’re right about the older technology being too dim (except for maybe a reading or nightlight) but the newer ones use different dies that have much more powerful diodes. This HP-10 Eternaleds LED Spotlight for example has the same light output as a 100W incandescent. And it only uses 10 watts!

CFLs are only about 1/2 as efficient as LEDs(still much better than incandescents though), but they do have a bunch of drawbacks like you mentioned. In addition to the fact that they’re not supposed to be switched on and off constantly (greatly reduces its life) and contains mercury which is toxic to people and the environment.

By: Allen Evens

Allen Evens — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:02:14 +0000

Moving away from incandescents is the correct course of action, but the replacement technologies need to improve before people are forced to switch over. LEDs are good for traffic lights, but they don’t emit enough usable light to be functional. CFLs are better, but they take too long to get going and I don’t think there is a dimmable one out there that works.