You just cannot depend on common sense any more. Last year, I remember hearing that California was thinking of banning the incandescent light bulb and mandating more energy efficient fluorescent lamps. I was not too concerned; I just chalked that up to another nutty Californian idea.
But just before the end of 2007, President Bush signed onto the United States Congress' energy bill phasing out most incandescent light bulbs! (Sensenbrenner, by the way voted against this ridiculous piece of legislation, but 314 of his fellow representatives lacked the backbone to oppose it--too afraid of committing heresy against the new religion of global warming.)
What? How did that happen? Did you even know that incandescent ban was in the works? How many people still don't know that C.F. (compact fluorescent) mandate is coming down the pike?
Now I had made my own little attempt at "going green" during the summer of 2006. I installed a 4 lamp exposed bulb light fixture above my kitchen sink. (The proper term for a light bulb is a "lamp".)
I'm not ashamed to say it, I am well over 50 years old and I need more light--the eye, as it ages, does not receive light as well as it once did. Since I seem to spend most of my time in the kitchen, I thought I would live it up and enjoy the equivalent of 240 watts of light for the energy cost of 60 watts by using the decorator type compact fluorescents (round globe style).
My foray into going green, however, has been an abysmal failure. I can barely get 4 months of use out of these decorative type compact fluorescent lamps that are to last 7 years! Instead of saving energy, I am wasting energy when you consider the 14 mile round trip trek to the store to exchange them. How is that helping the environment?
Speaking of the environment, what about disposal? These lamps contain mercury, a very toxic substance. Mandating these lamps makes about as much sense as mandating lead paint. All of that mercury will end up in the landfills and heaven help you if you break one of them.
I am going back to the decorative round incandescent bulbs lamps. It makes me sick that in a few years I will have no choice but to use the horrid compact fluorescents that don't last. I guess that is what happens When Politicians Make Engineering Choices.
Links: Betterbrookfield, Brookfield7, Fairlyconservative
P.S. The price tag for these lamps is about 3X the cost of the incandescent even with the rebate. And by the way, who do you think is paying for that rebate? Yup. It is us.
I do use the squiggly compact fluorescents in the basement, on porches, lamps on timers, and closets. There, the ugly style lamps work fine--hanging upside-down I might add. They do not work for automatic motion sensor applications though.
Another P.S. My decorator globe style CF fluorescent lamp packaging pictures one in a ceiling fixture hanging upside down! That is not the problem. The voltage is not the problem--this is the only place I am having this problem (did not have this problem with incandescents either).
