Turn off the lights

Skybird · 09-01-09, 09:31 AM

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.

09-01-09, 09:31 AM	#1
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,602 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	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. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.