Turn off the lights
 

Since September 1st, the first step in the EU's prohibition program for conventional light bulbs is in effect. Light bulbs of 100W and more and all lightbulbs with frosted glass are prohibited to be produced in the EU, or to be imported. Until 2012, almost all other types of lightbulbs will follow, with the exception of bulbs for special uses. In 2016, even halogen lamps not qualifying for an energy efficiency class of C or even B - currently even energy-saving halogen lights are far from that - will follow and get banned as well.

Halleluja oh my brothers and sisters! the future has been saved. What we get is the pale, colourless moonlight of compact flouroscent tubes (that's what energy saving bulb technically are). Cold, colourless, emotionally unsatisfying, with many frequencies of the lightspectrum missing that characterise sunlight or the light of fire that we got so fond of since millenias. The spectrum featuring the colours of red are totally underrepresented, almost nonexistent in these lamp's light. Seen that way it perfectly matches a boring life in a bureaucratic, cold world. And it gives moral activist the good feeling of saving planet Earth. Halleluja, brothers and sister, enlightenment is near!

Who cares that calculations showed that in germany, 80% of families of 3 and 4 persons usually use only 1,5 - 2% of their overall energy costs for light, when counting together heating, warm water, gas, cooking, electric devices in the household etc. Changes in that tiny part of the budget really make the difference. On the other hand, plasma and huge LCD displays, especially if brightness and contrast settings pushed up, consume much more power than CRTs. These diabolic displays also become warm, sometimes VERY warm!

Well, I surely defend that claim that there is man-made global warming taking place. But I also insist on saying that hysteric and symbolic actions like banning light bulbs are not featuring the effectiveness that is needed in order to influence things in any subnstantial way. If we desire to make a climatic difference without massacring 90% of the planets human population, then the ordinary household will need to give up much, incredibly much more than just a relative bagatell-detail like light bulbs.

Who cares that Germany's biggest ecologic consumer test institute as well as several other examinations found that the advertisement promises made for compact flourescent tubes are lies. Cheap imports from Asia could last only half as long as classic light bulbs (!), and even high quality energy-saving bulbs from western production usually last only half of the hours the producer claims for his product. Energy-consummation of the energy-saving bulbs almost never matches the values given for them, they consume significantly more energy. their light power is lower than said (they are darker than is printed on the box), and briughtness declines further over it's lifetime. the light quality is inferior, and also additionally declines over time. and especially bulbs being switched on and off a lot can see their longevity being reduced to just a fraction of what the producer claims, even when he labels them as robust to often switching them on and off. It is claimed that this has been improved - but the test did not find results that back that claim.

These lamps contain mercury. Imported lamps sometimes can have 50-100 times more mercury than lamps produced in the EU. You really want to bet your money on people giving all such light bulbs back in the shops? I bet my money that the intoxication of household trash with mercury will skyrocket. And everytime you break such a light bulb at home, you risk serious health damage due to the mercury vapors, which will form immediately especially if the lamp was shining (=warm) when it broke. By EU legislations on environmental protection, an expert said on the radio, by law you are obliged to call the environmetal police every time you break such a lamp. Hahaha, I could laugh myself to death.

Who cares about electromagnetic radiation, 30-500 times higher than in halogen lamps, it is still advised not to run these lamps near your head and body for longer time, and keep a distance that for exmaple prohibit to use them as a working light on your desk. Using them as reading lamps or at your bed are a no-no, too.

Most obvious still is the bad light quality. You can print on the package "warm-white" as often as you want, these bulbs's light-spectrum is anything than that. You can see them as warm-white only if you close your eyes and have an ideology to defend. I have a 20W energy saver in my cellar, by Osram, one of the globes premium suppliers, and it was expensive. We have yellow garbage sacks in Germany, for recycling waste. In the light of this lamp, it is not yellow, but poisenous green. I tried another energy-saver my parents brought for testing. The sacks still shine green. In my kitchen, I had energy bulbs for a short time, by Phillips, the world's largest lamp manufacturer. The colour red turned into brown. Pink became light-brown-grey. faces looked like those of zombies. Meat looked rotten. Vegetables looked - strange.

Thanks, but no thanks at all.

revealing it is how the way was paved for energy saving bulbs. they had been developed during times when nobody cared for energy balances and environmental protection. Already several years ago most western manufacturers had stopped to produce ordinary light bulbs and left that to Asian contractors or rivals - long before the prohibition in australia was even discussed. Producers were hoping for the big profitable business with selling energy-saving light bulbs costing ten times as much as regular light bulbs. to their dissapointment, people did not buy them. What to do? Yes, you guessed right - start lobbying in Brussel that citizens in Europe must be forced to give the producers the profits they demanded. Let's prohibit classic light bulbs, leabving them no choice anymore - and sell it to the crowds as an environmental protection story in order to sielnce any criticism for this lobbying! Et voila - there we are, and everything speaking against flourescent tubes gets ignored and denied - although the criticism is quite plenty, and substantial. The EU in the main is an ELU: an European Lobby Union.

Germans are born sceptics. In the past months, sales of regular light bulbs have increased by 35-70%. They bought to hoard them, it was PANIC!!! What it means is that the EU will need to wait much longer than expected until the classic light bulb dies out. I myself plan to hoard the new energy-saving halogen- bulbs I almost exclusively use, for not too bright halogen light is perfect for me and right of the colour that I am looking for in order to feel comfortable at home. Oover the coming 5 years, I will make sure to stockpile enough to feed all my current lamp types for the coming 20-30 years, even when 2016 the lights go out for halogen as well. I have tested energy saving bulbs, and found their light terrible. I see them in many places and shops, and immediately and reliably can differ the fluorescent light tubes from classic light bulbs, it is an obvious difference, always, like between a red and a green traffic light, as long as you do not defend a politic agenda over it and thus rate ideology over realistic visual perception.

you are forbidden to import prohibited classic light bulbs for business purposes, but you can still bring them in from outside the EU for personal use, in according lower quantities. Be careful when thinking of bringing US light bulbs with you, they use 110 V over there, while we have 230V in Europe. US light bulbs do not work in our lamps, they say.

the future is LED anyway, but currently LED only work very well in torchlights and for special pruproses, but not in regular-shaped light bulbs, they are still too dark and too expensive, and the light quality for these purposes is still very bad (too white). the ideal would be LED bulbs copying the colpour of corrent light bulbs, but so far I have not seen a single LED type that comes even close to that. However, LEDs save even more energy-saving bulbs, they are not poisenous, they have a really longer longevity, so if they get the colours right these will be a good thing indeed. I love my LED bike lights and my LED pocket light, pumping out 225 lumens from a lamp the size of a writing pencil. But as a replacement for light bulbs inside the house they still are not good enough in colour and brightness. I hope they get there, but on the colour I am sceptic. Pefectcly totally white light is exactly not what you want in your living room, but the typical orange glow of fire, and sunlight.

Until then, what comes next? Banning open fireplaces, and candles over concerns for dust, smoke particles, CO2 and and christmas trees going ablaze? Well, when it comes to the EU's reasonable acting, I rule out nothing anymore and consider everything possible that could rather be imagined.

So... there going to play soccer in the dark then?

Stadium lights typically 1,000 watt metal halide each light on a standard of typcially 8 to 12 lights.

Oh and you know what those energy efficent lamps use? Vaporized mercury. What happens when it comes time to dispose of all those? Isnt that a bit of a hazard?

Great advances have been made recently in LED lighting however they just dont have the output compriable to other sources. In fact the Illumination Engineering Society or IES are scrambling to re-write the rules on how to measure lighting levels. A thing called "percieved brightness".


What a crock.

Please Skybird is it necessary to post such a long comment? I have to disagree with you. We have them all over my house and see no difference and have had not one problem with headaches etc...

I still think it is daft with how they have gone about it, basically undermining free choice.

Yeah, this sucks hard.
I bet those guys in Brussels have their pockets full of money from the lobbyists.:nope:

@Xabba

Then you are lucky we have some of those energy saving things too and their light does either suck or it takes 3-4 minutes until they reach their normal brightness.

That's why I never read half the crap he posts. :haha:

I start getting a headache at about the third paragraph. :damn: :haha:

Nobody forces oyu to read it. comments by people, short and long, brief debates and long one, so fgar have not been a problem in this forum. Only if there are ten threads on one and the same issue.

Well, I can show you the differences, always, no matter whether or not the bulbs are covered or not, no matter other lights being close or the testing object standing isolated, no matter the bulb being covered by coloured glass shields or not. And no, I do not have Superman eyes. If you do not see the differences in light quality, then you claim to see things that simply are not there: you claim to see plenty of missing frequencies in the emitted light that would be necessary to make the light comparable in colour to a classic light bulb. You could as well say you see no differenc ebetween moonlight and sunlight. But both have different spectrums when hitting the surface of planet earth. And you see it.

In other words: you claim to see a phantom then. the colours you claim to see are not there, and every technician can prove you that with a simple spectrum analysis. the miss is so huge that it is not just a minor diference of academic interest only, but cannot be avoided to be taken note of, inevitably. I can reliably see it very easily in EVERY comparison you could set up. and the difference is so huge that it seriously irritates me.

I note it every time I am in a department store and pass the light corner where they have dozens if not hundreds of bulbs of different brightness and type burning simultaneously. even the scattering light radiation does not make me failing in identifying what lamp has what bulb.

The difference is less, of course, if you compare energy saving lights to regular (huge) fluorescent tubes that we already have since decades. In principle, energy saving bulbs are like these, just smaller in size. But what sane mind uses these, big or small, in his living rooms...? I can only imagine a person not caring a bit for his living place at all, and being imune to perception of a place's looks and atmosphere and comfort.

It's light that is is okay for the stairs, the cellar, the garage - places that have a function only, but need no living quality.

Just as a side note LED's have the 'purest' light output as far as color, strobing, and lumen depreciation. The problem is they just dont spit out the lumens that other sources. Most LED fixtures are a cluster of LED's a dozen or so per lamp. Yep there more energy efficent yes they have longer life (except for early failure which is quite common). But the up front costs are far far greater than other sources.

Fluorescent lamps have been around for centurys. When they were fist introduced there were lots of these types of claims hedaches, poor color, cause cancer yadda yadda none of them (except color) have any basis in fact.

Even with what is known as CRI or color rendering index great advances have been made through the use of exotic metals :o in the suspended gas to get closer to 'white light'.

Incandescent light also has very poor CRI tending towards the red 'warm' end of the spectrum. They give your skin that 'glow' this is why they are preferred for bathrooms and make up studios.

Go ahead and argue with me on this topic but it is my area of expertiese.

If you want to use compact fluroescent to light your home go ahead. You will save money on your utility bills. They wont kill your pets or give you headaches. They do contain very hazordous chemicals. But you will save money.

No this type of legislation is really nothing more than an effort to gain control over you a tiney piece at a time.

Perfectly white light is exactly what most people DO NOT want in their living places! The...

...that...

... is what most people prefer to have in the light for their living areas! That it reminds of the setting sun corresponds with the changing physiological conditions of your body at the end of the day when the organism is coming to rest and prepares to sleep, it also gives us psychological satisfaction to have a light that compares a bit to the light of fire. that'S why candle light for most people has a very intimate, emotional meaning that perfectly white light simply does not acchieve.

I want to just hint at mecial research showing that the human physiology and the hormone homeostasis even reacts to/is effected by light even with the eyes being shielded and not percieving the light. Correspondingly, lack of light and lack of certain light waves/frequencies have physiologixal consequences too. It can make us serious ill, it can affect both our physis or our psyche - or both.

Some people claim to get headaches from energy saving bulbs, and it is believable that people are sensible in varying degrees here. I for example get burning eyes if needing to stay in rooms with classic flourescent tubes' light for longer time. I know that medical examinations have shown light quality to influence the physiological arousement level of people, and as an (ex-)psychologist I am not surprised that light plays a role in how easily or difficult people can come to sleep. In the medical field, we are talking about individual threshholds here, and that means some people may be sensitive to a variable, while others are not. Treshholds even change for every individual eventuelly, over the course of the day.

So what are they gonna do... have the light bulb patrol. lol

I have nothing more to add than what has already been said, yes just to support XabbaRus, I have them in my study and I must say, I am more satisfied with energy saving bulbs than with ordinary ones. Since they are on during the dark months at least 8 hours a day if not more, they do the job perfectly. The last time I checked, I wasn't a fathom either, so I guess it does come down to each individual if he likes the new bulbs or not.

I agree about the ELU though and I'm getting more pissed off by the day.

I've never used an energy saving bulb yet and the only reason is because of the initial outlay.

Time to start saving for a few I suppose.

Meh.

Save money, last longer.

I will content myself with not caring about how the light makes me feel.

Sigh looks like its time to crack out the candles its going to be like living in a permanant power cut :(

Another pointless EU ruling forced on us.
Small incandescent lightbulbs can no longer be produced. Once the stocks in the shops have gone, they are gone.

Great I have a total of 14 fitting in my house that can accept nothing but the small incandescent bulbs due to there physical size!

So I'm forced to buy up as many of the planet killers as I can.
What happens when they've gone?

*********g Euro ****s!

I think the EU wants to ruin the UK we need to get out of it fast its already done alot of damage, in my industry nearly 18,000 have left due to the new CPC ruling most being younger drivers handing back licences and older drivers just retiring early so theres a massive void there of new recruites and seasoned vetrans all because some bureacrat needs to prove he has something to do.

Burocratic bo***ks