Constitutionality of light bulb ban questioned - Environmental Protection Agency must be called for a broken bulb

Strawman. Not all electricity comes from not need come from coal.

Exactly the point.

--=20 Keith

Well in all fairness...

Yes, plenty of enclosed CFLs work outside in the winter. If you live in an area of extreme cold, there's always HID. A 39W metal halide lamp produces much more light than a 150W incandescent, and lasts 6-10 times as long. I use exclusively CFLs in all my outdoor fixtures, it only gets down to about 15F at the lowest here, so the plain exposed spiral type work fine. Since these are on from dusk till dawn, the savings are substantial and I get 2+ years out of a bulb. Even the vilified mercury vapor lamp so common in yard lights and street lighting of the past is more than twice as efficient as incandescent.

Yes, I do, but what's wrong with LEDs? They're perfect for flashlights. You can pick up a 3W white LED Maglight for $22 at Home Depot, they've really come down in price, work better, and the batteries last longer. I do have a fluorescent flashlight, it uses a small cold cathode tube, as well as I have a camping lantern with a conventional 9W CFL tube in it powered by 4 D batteries.

Not very many anymore. LEDs and HID are making rapid headway into automotive applications as prices drop and technology improves. I'd bet that within a decade there will be virtually no incandescent lamps anywhere in new cars. No more taking out a zillion screws and clips to dig into the dash and replace lamps, no more burned out taillights, or melted lenses from someone installing the wrong bulbs. There's no delay as the lamp filaments heat either, so response of the brake lights is quicker, not by much, but at 70 mph every millisecond is valuable.

They're probably those crappy 34W energy saver tubes with magnetic ballasts that usually don't drive them harder than about 25W. Those were a hack from the 70s energy crisis and hardly work in a drafty room indoors. Try some electronic ballasts driving T8 tubes, they work fine in the near freezing temperatures in my unheated garage in the dead of winter. As an added bonus they're 32W and brighter than most of the old

40W tubes and the high frequency operation pretty well eliminates strobing with rotating machinery.

Can someone please explain what T8, T12, etc. are and what are the differences? I have plenty of old T12 40W tubes, fixtures, ballasts, etc. I've had several people recommend updating the ballasts and tubes but are the keystones the same? Length of tubes?

nate

T = Tubular

The number is the diameter in 8ths of inches. Another number in the full designation is usually the nominal wattage, but sometimes the length in inches.

Examples: F40T12/CW Fluorescent, 40 Watts, 1.5" diameter, Cool White halophosphate phosphor

F32T8/850 Fluorescent, 32 Watts, 1" diameter, 80+ CRI 5000K trichromatic phosphor

F96T12/D/HO Fluorescent, 96" length, 1.5" diameter, Daylight halophosphate phosphor, High Output (800mA)

and a really rare bird... F48PG17/D Fluorescent, 48" length, 2-1/8" diameter Power Groove dimpled tube, Daylight halophosphate phosphor, VHO (1500mA)

T8 and T12 use the same sockets and have the same lengths. High Output (HO) and Very High Output (VHO) are also available, those use RDC rather than bipin end caps and are slightly shorter to accommodate the larger sockets. Fixture lengths are the same for all those.

Not all ballasts are created equally. The wattage stamped on the tube is the nominal rating. The actual power is determined by the ballast, which is a constant-current source. The low energy retrofit tubes such as the

34W T12 accomplish this by changing the gas fill to have a lower voltage drop, so with the same current, the wattage is lower.

I accidentally bought 34W T12 and they were slightly long and wouldn't fit my old T12 fixtures :-(

...Jim Thompson

That some incandescents available at Home Depot already meet.

Also, only certain incandescents are affected - there are many exceptions (colored, flood, spot, appliance, decorative, ones of brightness of "usual

25 watt ones and dimmer, ones brighter than the brighter 150 watt 750 hour ones, other exceptions).

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Roughly half of all electricity generated and about 60 per cent of what is generated by electrical utilities.

Source:

Cheers, Paul

Plenty of A19 lightbulbs 40-100 watts are USA-made. So are plenty of

4-foot fluorescents.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Low voltage incandescents are not affected by the energy legislation.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Sounds like you have HO or VHO fixtures with RDC sockets. Look at the ballast to make sure you get the right tubes, HO and VHO are physically but not electrically interchangeable.

Hi David:

These ones are rated to work down to -10F/-23C:

As I've indicated here several times before, the provisions related to incandescent lamps within the "Energy Independence and Security Act of

2007 (HR6)" are limited to "general service" only -- in other words, your standard A19 household lamp. The Act defines "general service" as: 1) having a medium (E27) screw-base; 2) a light output of between 310 and 2600 lumens; 3) an operating voltage of between 110 and130V; and 4) a standard or "modified" light spectrum (e.g.., GE's "Reveal").

Within this group, incandescent lamps that are specifically

**EXCLUDED** include the following:

appliance black light bug coloured infrared left-hand thread (used where lamps may be stolen) marine/marine signal mine service plant light reflector rough service / shatter-resistant / vibration service sign silver bowl showcase 3-way traffic signal G & T shape AB, BA, CA, F, G16-1/2, G-25, G30, S and M-14

Cheers, Paul

How do I tell? The fixtures are 15 years old.

...Jim Thompson

Hi Jim:

If it's an inexpensive shop light from a big box retailer (the ones with the notoriously crappy magnetic ballasts), replace it with a good quality T8 fixture.

Lithonia offers inexpensive T8 channel and wrap fixtures that operate down to 0F. You should be able to pick one up for about $20.00.

See:

For cold weather applications, stick with a standard 32-watt T8, as opposed to the 25, 28 or 30-watt energy savers -- GE, Osram Sylvania or Philips.

Cheers, Paul

When was the last one built? When will the next be built? IOW, another asinine argument from a leftist weenie.

Since you asked so nicely, according to the latest DOE report (February 18, 2008), as of September 20, 2007, there were 28 coal-fired power plants under construction (14,885 MW), 6 more nearing construction (1,859 MW) and 13 more that had received construction permits (6,422 MW). There were a further 67 plants (42,394 MW) that had been announced, but had not as of that time been issued permits.

Cheers, Paul

Paul M. Eldridge wrote: ...

And to round out the picture, last I looked about a month ago, there were 28 iirc formal filings for licensing docketing by the NRC thru next fiscal year and some 20 others projected for the next couple of years beyond...

--

Not only is it not a ban, but this also is not a matter of constitutional law.

The people who are saying it's a ban, and/or crying infringement of constitutional rights are either just plain idiots, have reading comprehension problems, have an agenda, or some combination of the above.

When you eventually buy a new car, new yard lights, or flashlights, they'll use LEDs. Manufacturers are already starting to switch over. You're stating a non-issue. Additionally, you'll still be able to get incandescents for those kind of utility needs. The efficiency law doesn't affect those types of bulbs. Go to the source and read for yourself.