Europe Bans Incandescent Bulbs

Europe has officially begun its ban on incandescent light bulbs, a ban that promises to save some $7 billion a year in energy costs. Stores are allowed to continue selling their current stock, but they can no longer buy any more bulbs to sell. And while the EcoGeeks rejoice, others have flung up their arms in despair and cannot imagine a world where we don't light our world with tiny little space heaters. So, with a ban looming in 2012 for the U.S., it's worth taking a look at how Europe is handing the switch.

Among the reasons that people are upset include:

It will be very expensive to change the lighting system on fair rides, so expensive that those beautiful spectacles may never again light up the night sky.

Lighting systems for galleries are very precisely tuned and artists and curators alike have very specific needs that (apparently) sometimes require incandescent lights.

People who suffer from "anxiety" believe that the bulbs harm them or their children.

None of these issues seem particularly difficult to deal with. If you're really worried about your bulbs, I'm sure there will be ways to get them in a somewhat legally-gray way. But for those people who just want to replace a light bulb and head to the nearest store (99% of people) the gains in efficiency will likely not be affected measurably by this.

I say, let the market provide incandescents for those who are angry enough to go to Russian websites and order the bulbs with a $10 shipping charge on top. And sure, folks will stockpile, but the change is being made and the energy will be saved. That's what matters, and I'm excited to see what the boom in the markets for LED and CFL bulbs will do for the technologies

LED Lighting Gaining Acceptance (Sort Of)

April 30, 2009, 8:30 am
LED Lighting Gaining Acceptance (Sort Of)
By Eric A. Taub
The recent replacement of the incandescent lamps in Grand Central Terminal in New York with compact fluorescent bulbs notwithstanding, the lighting industry continues to believe that LEDs, not C.F.L.s, will eventually be the technology of choice for many lighting applications.

As I note in an article about the commercial use of LED lighting in today’s Business of Green special section, lighting designers who just one year ago were wary of recommending LED products now are much more confident in doing so.

That’s partly due to the move, spearheaded by the Department of Energy, to set Energy Star guidelines for the next generation of lighting to convince consumers and businesses that LED products will perform as claimed.

But it’s also due to the improvement of the lighting itself. LED lamps are becoming more efficient, producing warmer, more inviting colors at higher brightness levels.

On Tuesday, I was shown a new reflector lamp from Nexxus Lighting, similar to the type installed in many kitchen and office ceilings, that produced a warm, pleasing light. It weighs about one-third of a competing lamp and uses 8 watts to produce the light of a 50-watt bulb.

But how many homes and businesses are satisfied with 50-watt lamps? When the industry starts producing 75- and 100-watt equivalents, LEDs will begin to gain traction. (Cree, a lighting company, has announced a reflector lamp that it says produces a similar look to a halogen lamp, uses 12 watts, and can replace up to a 90-watt incandescent lamp.)

Are LED lamps ready for the consumer? Hardly. Most of the strange-looking LED products sold in home improvement stores remain below par. Many manufacturers make unsubstantiated claims about lamp life and brightness.

But for the well-heeled set, there are plenty of highly regarded products that use a fraction of the power of an incandescent bulb. But they come at a high initial price. I recently visited a home in the tony Brentwood section of Los Angeles that was entirely lit with LED “downlights” made by Cree, and I couldn’t tell the difference between the light from those fixtures and standard bulbs. And Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway scooter, has lighted the home he owns on a small island only with Color Kinetics LED products.

The Department of Energy is conducting a seminar in a few weeks to discuss the state of LED lamps that can replace standard incandescents. And more commercial buildings, including a wing of the Pentagon and even a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant, have switched over to the new technology.

But despite these successes, many engineers remain resistant to using LEDs. A major real estate developer in Los Angeles recently showed me correspondence from his engineering team questioning why anyone in his right mind would use LED lamps in a commercial project, citing high cost as a reason to eschew their use. For now, the lighting industry and the building industry often seem to be speaking different languages.

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11 Comments
1. April 30, 2009
10:14 am

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It is just a matter of time. Taiwanese companies are spending significant sums to manufacture better and less expensive LED lighting. (By the way, I cannot believe that your copy editor let you write LED instead of L.E.D.)

All lighting should be evaluated on a TCO basis. And, for lighting, the equation is:
TCO = Initial cost + electricity costs over the lifetime of the “bulb” + labor to replace the bulb

That is why the first mass application for LED lighting was for traffic lights. The labor cost for replacement is HUGE (specialized truck, crew, length of time on site).

The problem for home use is twofold:
1. Labor cost is usually measured as $zero. The homeowner values his time at $zero and the lights are physically easy to replace.
2. Homeowners are very poor at calculating energy costs over a decade and therefore tend to cost them at near zero.

Once LEDs are 3x and not 7x the cost of halogens, we will see a much larger uptake by homeowners.

— Dave Barnes

2. April 30, 2009
1:27 pm

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the developers will always use the technology with low initial cost and higher lifecycle cost. This is simple economics.

But our society does not allow developers to build physically unsafe buildings and we should not allow them to build environmentally unsafe buildings either.

Mandate LEDs and the costs will fall as volume ramps up

CFLs are a health hazard - mercury, a safety hazard due to low initial lumens and should be banned from residential use

— dave

3. April 30, 2009
1:31 pm

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l. e. d.’s were installed in Portland Oregon traffic lights in furtherance of Portland’s maniacal plunge into assumed energy savings at any cost
During the first substantial snow fall, MOST OF THE TRAFFIC LIGHTS WENT OUT!
Our finest minds ultimately determined that the l. e. d.’s gave out insufficient heat to melt the snow and ice from the lenses.

But we will be alright until next winter..

— donovan Jacobs

4. April 30, 2009
2:32 pm

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I think people need to start buying them now. The initial price is well worth it for many reasons, including, the fact that no mercury is inside them (unlike compact fluorescents). The low wattage and long life is another reason (less power consumed, less in landfills). Also, the fact you are contributing (in a small way admittedly) to the price coming down for everyone by increasing demand. The same logic goes for buying organic cotton products.

— Ken

5. April 30, 2009
3:01 pm

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Luddites Against LED Lights!

— Bill Mahiger

6. April 30, 2009
3:36 pm

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By “warmer” light, do you mean that ugly yellow tinge that comes from incandescent bulbs? The color that made be go out and by compact fluorescents in the first place so that I could have white light? I don’t know why you would want that hideous effect.

— Adam

7. April 30, 2009
3:39 pm

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As an aside, L.E.D. lights are making huge headway in professional film and video applications. They are increasingly brighter, cheaper, and heat free.
I just returned from the NAB conference and was struck by the changes over last year.
Two vendors stand out:
Litepanels
http://www.s131567196.onlinehome.us/
and
Zylights
http://www.zylight.com/servlet/StoreFront
I would suspect the same technology to make inroads in
commercial locations.

— Elliot porter

8. April 30, 2009
5:36 pm

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Please , please , stop bleating about mercury in Compact Fluorescent bulbs. It is a minute amount.
For God”s sake find something worth worrying about.

Swine flu is a candidate.

— Bruce

9. April 30, 2009
5:37 pm

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donovan jacobs, then all Portland has to do is put hoods back on the lights (they shouldn’t have been taken off to begin with) as the older-style traffic lights had. And I’m in no way a ‘green hardliner.’

— Larry

10. April 30, 2009
6:36 pm

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Mandate LEDs? Whilst I sympathise with the intent, it is almost always a bad idea to manadate a particular solution. Instead, require a certain*performance*and allow any solution that meets that goal.
In this case, require a suitable lumens/watt and perhaps include some time-to-full-light and light spectrum benchmarks. If some clever company can produce the same light as a 100W incandescant with 0.1W by using rotating polarisation casimir phased doohickey quantulates why would we want to have a law demanding only LEDs?

— tim Rowledge

11. April 30, 2009
6:46 pm

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LED bulbs are better than CFL spiral fluorescents because:
1) they last 10 times as long before “burning out” (dimming to half brightness)
2) they don’t release mercury and don’t break
3) they take a little bit less energy than CFL and a lot less than regular incandescent.

On the other hand, LED bulbs cost as much as 50x the price of a CFL - literally $50 vs. $1. At that price the only justification is a savings in costly or dangerous labor such as having a union employee climb a tall ladder to replace the bulb.

For normal home lighting, switching from incandescent to fluorescent pays for itself in a month and can save literally hundreds of dollars a year. Switching to LEDs instead essentially takes all that savings and gives it to the LED bulb makers. LED bulbs do pay for themselves over a long enough time frame, but if your goal is saving money the right choice today is CFL.

a look into the energy future

5 Future Technologies That Will Slash Home Energy Use
Exotic gear will turn homes into energy producers instead of mere consumers
By David LaGesse
Posted March 18, 2009

What the Stimulus Package Does for Renewable Energy 22745378
Frozen smoke. Nothing is weirder than the aerogel that might one day keep our homes comfy. One of the lightest solids known to man, the translucent and wispy material looks like a slice of solid smoke. It's about 99 percent gas trapped in nano-size bubbles within a lacelike material, and there is no better insulation for a given thickness. "The problem is that for now it's expensive as heck," says Andre Desjarlais at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

But breaking into the construction industry, which uses nearly two thirds of all insulation produced, is a priority for the few small companies commercially producing the ethereal stuff. "We're focused on those areas where space is at a premium," says Aspen Aerogels CEO Don Young. That means retrofitting existing structures, particularly older masonry walls with no hollows for stuffing conventional insulation. Public partners are helping to pay to install aerogel insulation in more than 250 New York City housing units as an early test. For now, though, aerogel will largely remain a tool for space agencies, the Pentagon, and oil companies that can pay the steep premium.

Desjarlais's lab at Oak Ridge focuses on technology to secure the building "envelope" for energy efficiency. It includes a number of bizarre-sounding technologies, such as paint that's white one minute to reflect sunlight and later darkens to collect it. But nothing can top the weird nature of frozen smoke.

[Read how a geothermal system can cut heating and cooling bills.]

Home hydrogen. Fuel cells have powered space flight for decades, and auto companies hope they'll soon be ready for cars. In a decade or two, they should be commonly available for the basement, says Tom Drennen, an associate professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and coauthor of Pathways to a Hydrogen Future. "There's a lot of efficiency in generating electricity where it is used," he says.

Fuel cells generate electricity through a chemical process that combines hydrogen and oxygen. When the inputs are pure, the only side products are water and heat in a process that's long been perfected. "What's not perfected is getting the fuel, the hydrogen, to them," says Branko Terzic, a Deloitte consultant on energy policy.

A few Japanese companies have installed experimental models in homes that run off natural gas. An added device strips hydrogen from the gas to fuel the cells, which generate electricity and hot water. A smaller slice of American homes have gas service, limiting that approach here. Converting natural gas also produces greenhouse gases. But the process is still less polluting than traditional electrical generation. "And nothing's wasted getting it to the home," Drennen says.

Brighter bulbs. Here's a twist on the old joke: In a few decades, nobody will know what it even means to change a light bulb. "The house will get torn down before a light bulb ever burns out," says Russell Dupuis, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and fan of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.

The 130-year-old Edison bulbs will first get replaced in the home by compact fluorescents, which use about a third the energy and last years longer. Even more miserly LEDs are expected to later replace fluorescents. LEDs use about 12 percent the energy of incandescents and can last 50 years or more.

They've already become popular in some commercial settings, particularly where lights burn 24-7—such as the freezer at an all-night Wal-Mart. Steep initial costs limit their appeal to U.S. homeowners. People just can't embrace spending $120 or $130 on a bulb. While even that steep price can earn a payback in eight or 10 years, it's too long for the typically nomadic U.S. homeowner. Dupuis dreams that people soon will ask whether a prospective home has LED lights and will pay more for one that does. He should—he built a passel of them into his house.

March 3, 2009, 7:01 pm
Lighting Up the Darkness in Rural Africa
By Eric A. Taub
Update | 5:31 p.m. To correct the price of a solar-powered LED lantern from $150 to $50.

As a reporter, I am subject to all manner of hyperbole from corporate executives wishing to put their companies in the best possible light. Which is why I figuratively rolled my eyes when Gerard Kleisterlee, the chairman of the Dutch company, Philips, told me last summer that their work in LED lighting would “change the world.”

Lower power consumption, longer life, yes. But change the world in the grand sense? Please.

Based on a project now being introduced in Ghana, Mr. Kleisterlee may be right.


Philips Electronics
Philips has partnered with KITE, a not-for-profit Ghanaian organization, to bring artificial light to villages that have no electricity.

According to Harriette Amissah-Arthur, KITE’s director, only 19 percent of rural areas have electricity. The rest use foul-smelling kerosene lamps to light their huts, which pollute, provide little light and are major fire hazards. In addition, the low light levels makes it difficult to see scorpions and snakes that make their way into people’s homes at night.

As in any non-electrified society, life is defined by the sun; little is accomplished once it sets around 6 p.m. she said on the telephone from her office in Accra. And with children helping out with chores during daytime, it leaves little chance for them to study.

Philips developed three different products for the villagers: a solar-powered lantern, a reading light and a wind-up flashlight. The products work because they all use LEDs; their low power consumption means that the lantern charged during the day will light for seven hours. The flashlight’s bulb will for all practical purposes never burn out, and the reading light’s lower power consumption dramatically reduces the need to change batteries.

The products are costly — at $50 for the lantern, that represents two months’ salary for many people. But Ms. Amissah-Arthur hopes to get tax relief from the government, which could cut the price by 40 percent.

KITE is not the only organization attempting to bring light to Africa. Lighting Africa, a World Bank initiative, is also working to bring low-cost illumination to the continent.

There is no doubt, according to Ms. Amissah-Arthur that the Philips initiative is changing peoples’ lives. “People can now do things in the evening,” she said. “If you could only see the joy these products bring the villagers. You look at their faces; you have to see it to believe it.”

Green facts

25 percent: The increase in volume of household garbage between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

90 percent: Less energy used by LED bulbs, compared to standard incandescent lights.

25 to 30 million: Number of Christmas trees sold in the United States each year.