Only another month left of this year and we will be facing the so called light bulb ban which is set to take place in 2012. A bill requiring light bulbs to be more efficient was passed with bipartisan support back in 2007 and was signed into law by President George Bush. Because of these higher standards it became obvious that traditional light bulbs would have to be replaced by more efficient incandescent bulbs.
In July Republicans tried to rally the troops to stop this law from going into effect but fell short of the mark. In my opinion it is again too little too late. Least they forget this ban went into effect under George Bush in the first place. If these new bulbs were so great why haven’t the consumers fallen in line under the free market to make them obsolete? The truth of the matter is that they cost 5 times as much and produce poorer light.
Some say that the new efficiency standards will save enough energy to warrant the higher cost of the new bulbs but my experience with these bulbs hasn’t shown them to be that reliable and so far they have cost me much more than just paying to use the old style.
It appears to me to be just another example of our over-reaching government meddling in our freedoms. Just for once I would like to feel like I held enough common sense to decide for myself if something like using crazy curly light bulbs made sense for me without big brother looking over my shoulder.
Shame on both parties for this mess.
I recall a report a couple of years back on Global TV out of Lethbridge about EMF problems with fluorescents and a study out of Ottawa that says EMF emitted from fluorescents is dangerous. I just went looking for those two reports but found this one: http://emf.mercola.com/sites/emf/emf-dangers.aspx
ReplyDeleteIf you copy that link and put in the address bar you'll find a rather lengthy report, but I assure you that you'll find, near the bottom, that fluorescents make the list of carcinogen. That's what the article is about; that the EPA has labelled EMF as a Class B Carcinogen. While I can't find the date of the article, there is plenty of mention of 1989 and 1990 throughout the article so this is rather old news.
The article gets into the same things that the Ottawa and Lethbridge reports got into about the sensitivity to certain frequencies emitted by different items. The reason the Ottawa University studied EMF in fluorescents was to block the Canadian version of the mandate for more efficient bulbs.
This link seems to be the one from Ottawa:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/prod/cfl-afc-eng.php
But as I recall there is a PDF out there of the research done at the University of Ottawa that lays out the hazards of CFLs.
Good blog. Very important.
They will still make the old style bulbs but China refuses to meet the new standard so our biggest supplier is no longer a source. The old style bulb reworked to the new energy standard is going to cost double and not last as long.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone realize all these feel-good energy laws are costing us jobs the consumers money?