Posted on 01/17/2008 5:16:01 AM PST by fweingart
Had Thomas Edison employed the same business strategy as his 21st-Century heirs at General Electric, he would have lobbied Congress to outlaw the candle in 1879 when he perfected and patented the light bulb.
He surely could have masked his self-interested lobbying in some public interest claim, such as fire prevention or the need for wax conservation. Today, the mask is environmentalism.
Earlier this month, Thomas Edison’s GE, together with Sylvania and Philips won a legislative victory when Congress passed an energy bill that would outlaw sale of the standard light bulb by 2012.
Sylvania is the leading light bulb maker worldwide, and GE is tops in America. These two companies, together with Dutch-based Royal Phillips Electronics, concede they basically wrote the new light bulb law. It goes without saying that they stand to profit from it — at consumer expense.
As reported previously in this column, the energy bill was loaded up with all sorts of favors for energy companies, manufacturers and other corporate bigwigs. The light bulb law follows the same pattern: A regulation touted as an environmental boon that will have dubious benefits to the planet, real costs to consumers and guaranteed profits for a handful of well-connected corporations.
The provision would make it illegal for American retailers in most cases to sell light bulbs that do not meet certain standards of efficiency — that is, a bulb in 2012 as bright as today’s 60 watt incandescent must get by with 42 watts of electricity.
Today, the clear successor to Thomas Edison’s incandescent bulb is the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). CFLs are more expensive, but they last longer and use less electricity. They have real downsides, however.
First, the light is not as attractive to many consumers — a problem with which the industry has struggled for years. Second, they take a little time after you flip the switch to reach full brightness.
Third, most CFLs can’t be used with dimmer switches or three-way fixtures. Fourth, the bulbs contain mercury, creating a potential health hazard in case of breakage and an environmental hazard for disposal.
This is where Philips Electronics enters the picture. Earlier this year, the company released its Halogena — an incandescent bulb (thus giving off more pleasing light and not having mercury) that meets the efficiency standards (by transforming some of the bulb’s heat into light using technology the firm calls “EcoBoost”).
These EcoBoosting Halogena bulbs are expensive (about $4.50 a pop compared to today’s incandescents, which can run as cheap as 31 cents each), but currently they’re the only incandescent bulb that meets Congress’ standards. If Philips didn’t readily concede they wrote the law, you could guess as much.
GE is only a couple of steps behind, announcing earlier this year that in 2010 it will release an incandescent bulb that’s even more efficient than Philips’ Halogena. On Dec. 18, the day the bill cleared its biggest hurdle and passed the Senate, GE’s stock jumped 8.8 percent, and Philips jumped 2.1 percent.
These companies will get rich thanks to energy bill, but it’s not clear the public or the environment will share the windfall GE and Philips will experience. GE makes its CFLs and other fancy light bulbs in China, while it makes its incandescents in the United States.
The light bulb law will ship more American jobs offshore, shift manufacturing to China’s dirtier and less efficient factories, and increase shipping distances. Add in the mercury, and it’s not clear how good this law is for the environment. Its clearest benefit is to the companies who lobbied for it.
Democrats came to Washington promising to end the influence of big business lobbyists. The energy bill — with its gifts to aluminum giants such as Alcoa, ethanol moguls such as Goldman Sachs and Archer Daniels Midland, and now GE, Sylvania and Phillips — shows that the doors of power are as wide open to corporate lobbyists as they have ever been, as long as the lobbyists are dressed in green.
Not true regarding dimmer switches and especially three-ways. Dimmable CFLs are available, but they are expensive. Three-way CFLs are readily available. The design of a three way bulb (two, separately powered filaments) allows three-way CFLs to be built.
"ALL of the government-edicted bulbs are manufactured in Communist China....our esteemed ally and trading 'partner.'"
And where do you think the 31 cent incandescent bulbs are built?
For my home, the jury’s still out on their lives...and of course their prices continue to drop.
The bulbs I used in my lamps have been in for 3 years now. The floods and globes I have are new, so we’ll see but I have read the same thing you posted from other people.
And I don’t mean to infer that I’m for a law requiring people buy them...that’s stupid.
I've known a couple of epileptics who were sent into seizures by the overhead-bar type of fluorescent lights. I wonder if these will do the same?
Might be a manufacturer issue. The ones I use are 100W “equivalent” manufactured by Feit and purchased at Costco (currently about $2 each) I bought a 150 w equivalent (about $11 from Lowes) for an open kitchen light base up (hanging over the kitchen table), but it hasn’t been there long enough to evaluate.
OK. Sorry. I heard traces of McCain’s “they’ll be more efficient then” reply when he was asked about the ban going into effect in 2012.
My daughter thinks LED lighting will be much more energy efficient than CFL. Anyone here have any info? the web sites I checked were either selling them, or seemed to be out of date.
LEDs will truly be the future. They use like 1/30 the energy of a regular bulb and they have no toxic parts to them. Problem is that right now they’re expensive and brightness isn’t up to snuff yet.
But that’ll change quickly over the next couple of years I’m sure.
As soon as everyone has these bulbs in every light socket in every home and business, it will be addressed. Then they can once again outlaw what we have and demand that we buy the next generation what ever they come up with. In the meantime, there's lots of money to be made!
Thanks, I did find a site that had them a little less costly than others... http://www.ledlight.com/default.aspx
I might buy 1-2 and try them out.
Look back at the TV’s and Radios of the 50’s and 60’s. When you were having problems with the TVs you had to open the back reach into the chassis that contained enough voltage to give a fatal shock, and you would pull the glass tubes out one at a time being careful not to break the pins, and then test them until you found the bad one. I learned some colorful language watching my Dad do this, while my Mom was mumbling in the kitchen about “if he would just call the repair man”. Solid State components made the old glass tubes obsolete in our radios and TV’s. There were NO LAWS banning the glass tubes. It took innovation, and that is how it should be with the light bulbs or anything else.
When it makes sense to replace lights with CFLs we will do it on our own. We all love saving money and lower power bills – but the CFL technology has not quite advanced enough to completely replace the old bulbs. In my home there are bulbs that we could and have replaced, but there are others like the decorative bulbs in our entry or dining room, the miniature halogens which light pictures on the walls and such that they just don’t make CFL’s for.
“As soon as everyone has these bulbs in every light socket in every home and business, it will be addressed. Then they can once again outlaw what we have and demand that we buy the next generation what ever they come up with. In the meantime, there’s lots of money to be made!”
Well that’ll be the hypocrisy come to fruition. The greenies will decry the mercury factor and conveniently forget they pushed CFs to begin with.
The way I saved $$$ on my electric...
Moved from CT at 20 cents/kwH
to FL 11 cents/kwH
Then we append the law and mandate a five year warranty.
Phase 1) These big giants got it their way
Phase 2) Let’s balance the deal and make them back up their claims and include their responsibility for mercury recovery. Since they are so legislative happy, write this into federal law as well.
What a wonderful opportunity. Invest $3100 for ten thousand regular light bulbs today. These would be pre-ban bulbs. Store them for 5-10 years. Sell on ebay for $3-$5 each.
Pennsylvania.
At least, that's what the box claims.
“Had Thomas Edison employed the same business strategy as his 21st-Century heirs at General Electric, he would have lobbied Congress to outlaw the candle in 1879 when he perfected and patented the light bulb.”
No he would have spread a lie-based smear campaign against the “dangers” of alternating current since he was a direct current guy. Edison may have been a great inventor but he was pretty much everything and more that this author presumes in his analogy.
Ha ha ha. Good luck with that. Just who is this "we" you're talking about? Do you seriously think that Kongress is going to to anything to cause financial paid to the big corporate lobbys?
Sounds nice (and idealistic), but if you have a means to accomplish this I'd like to see it.
Well said. This environmental fascism has to be beaten NOW, before it gains even more of a foothold.
The article did make me think, however... how is it the Nanny State Hitlers forgot to ban candles, while they were at it?
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