The incandescent light bulb, in use for more than a century, will be officially banned across the European Union on September 1. Over the past three years, the EU has been phasing out 60-watt and 100-watt incandescent bulbs, and on Saturday retailers will no longer be allowed to sell 40-watt and 25-watt bulbs.
Incandescent bulbs will be replaced with compact fluorescent lights, halogen bulbs, and LED, or light-emitting diode, lights. The move is expected to save 39 terawatt-hours of electricity across the EU annually by 2020.
Some consumers have complained about the quality and expense of the new light bulbs, but lighting industry executives say that prices are coming down steadily and the quality of light from the new bulbs is good. “The phase-out has been very smooth,” said Peter Hunt, joint chief executive of the UK’s Lighting Industry association. “Concerns about poor performance of replacement bulbs have been proved wrong.”
Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.
2 comments
For me it is stupid idea to not allow people using light bulbs. I prefer using it and light bulbs are most beautiful than another things which give us light.
Re “The move is expected to save 39 terawatt-hours of electricity across the EU annually by 2020.”
Funny how these kind of announcemants are always accompanied by some huge, unsubstantiated figure covering a multitude of years…
Energy saving is not the only reason to choose a light bulb you want to use!
Besides, whatever the Household savings- it is Society savings that might be relevant to legislators, not “what light bulb Johnny uses in his bedroom”!
As it happens, the society savings are next-to-nothing,:
http://tonn.ie/p/deception-behind-banning-light-bulbs.html#energy
Small Society Savings
Cambridge university Network, Scientific Alliance:
” The total reduction in EU energy use 0.54 x 0.8 x 0.76% = 0.33%
This figure is almost certainly an overestimate…
Which begs the question: is it really worth it?
The problem is that legislators are unable to tackle the big issues of
energy use effectively, so go for the soft target of a high profile
domestic use of energy …this is gesture politics.”
Cambridge University Network under Sir Alec Broers, Chairman of the
House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, the Scientific
Alliance newsletter, involving Physics dept professors etc
Similar figures from other EU sources, and for that matter the US Dept
of Energy, grid electricity data breakdown (they use 4 categories),
again as linked.above.
Also, the fact that surplus electricity production at night (eg from coal) means that it does not matter much what bulb you use at such times of low demand,
also the fact of major manufacturers with new patents seeking and welcoming a ban on patent expired “generic” cheap bulbs etc – as referenced and linked via the same site…
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