The New Republic

I guess now the GOP will be taking over the aviation safety sub-committee of the Transporation Committee, all all those silly FAA regs on regular aircraft maintenance (if that isn't nanny-statism, I don't know what is!) and the like will be tossed out the window.

- ironyroad

November 19, 2010 at 3:54pm

Typical GE. They invent a great idea but never capitalize on it. NiCd batteries come to mind. On the subject of LED lighting, that is one area where there's huge growth potential. I have a former co-worker that left my design team to work in LED lighting system development. Talk about some technology (and growth!) I never imagined when I had lunch with him a while back. Looks like they have a (groan) bright future and will eventually supplant CFLs.

- tnmats

November 19, 2010 at 4:07pm

tnmats, led lights are even better. They last forever. These people are simply the enemy of humanity. Incandescent bulbs are a tremendous waste for nearly everyone involved, a waste of resources, electricity, you name it. The only people who can benefit are incandescent bulb manufacturers. I f-ing hate these Republicans.

- blackton

November 19, 2010 at 6:19pm

Blackie, I'm in the power management IC business. I know a thing or two about P-N junctions. :-) My master's work was in semiconductor materials and circuit design and have been doing IC design for 25 years. The issue with this new generation of high-intensity LEDs is heat, namely, getting the heat out. I've read many an engineering article on the subject and the thermal management design is a big issue that kills many LED lighting installations way before their time. My former co-worker, a DC-DC power systems design expert, left for Cree Semi to work in their new lighting division a few months ago. I've had lunch with him a few times and it's been enlightening listening to the engineering challenges involved, that many of them are mechanical (and often poorly done). His area of expertise is the power electronics and even that is more challenging than I ever thought. Even the color balance design is a fascinating challenge of with these new lights. LEDs are not forever, believe me. They can last a long time but you're used to low power ones for indicators. The ones for illumination are completely different ballgame and you'll see some failures in the industry before they really take off. Even CFLs have had their issues and are still not completely all that is promised if not used properly.

- tnmats

November 19, 2010 at 8:44pm

My objection to the bulb business isn't because it's socialist. I like socialism. My objection is that the CFL's give off cool, shitty light -- even the later warmer versions -- and can't be dimmed. I rely on dimmed, warm, incandescent glow to entertain and recover my sanity on daily basis. If I'm going to have to spend not just half my life but my entire life living in shitty light, I want someone to explain to me just what the *realistic* plan is to save the planet from climate change, because I'm increasingly convinced that it's doomed anyway, and we should be stimulating the economy by hiring giant-seaboard-wall builders.

- JakeH

November 20, 2010 at 4:00am

With all due respect to planet - and, believe you me, I love it to bits, it's the only thing I've got, really - I'm with Jake on this one. Tried LED spot-light for the mantlepiece - the Inuit sculpture looked spooky in the white light and the crystal stuff were just off. Tried LEDs and CFLs in the bedroom - can't read in the light. And FUGGEDABOUT mood lighting in the living room, or just simply lighting for the dining room - have you ever seen what white light does to raw silk?

- icarusr

November 20, 2010 at 11:19am

JakeH/Ica - when was the last time you tried CFLs? And what brand? If you stick with the majors, Osram (aka Sylvania), Philips or GE you'll be pleasantly surprised. The phosphors have been well tuned and I don't see any difference between a CFL or incandescent except the longevity and dramatically lower power consumption. We recently had our neighbors over as they wanted to see our remodeled kitchen. The subject of lighting came up and the wife said she couldn't stand CFLs for the same reasons you both said. I asked her what she thought of the light right over her, the 5 bulb fixture over our kitchen table. She thought it was standard incandescent. Bzzzzt, it was CFLs I told her. She didn't believe it since the lights were "bulbs" and looked too warm, so took it out to show her. She was quite surprised, said the light was like any incandescent. And can't be dimmed? When was the last time you guys went down the isle of a local hardware store or LowesDepot? Dimmable fluorescents have been around for a while now. I even have 3 CFL torch lamps in the house, all are over 8 years old, with dimming capability. I replaced the lamps in them 3 months ago for the first time. Now LED lighting is still new and the designs are in their infant stage. The next generation fully integrated fixtures use multiple LEDs that have a mixture of the pure white LED lighting and red LEDs. Those look more "incandescent". Engineers are still working at it (as my former co-worker explained) but the technology is progressing faster than anyone imagined. No one expected screw-in LEDs until 2015 at the earliest and they're here already. Me, I can't wait to see Edison's invention retired for good.

- tnmats

November 20, 2010 at 6:42pm

It's a symbolic issue. No surprise that this would go completely over Plumer's head.

- AlSmith80

November 20, 2010 at 8:35pm

tnmats: thanks - I am a regular visitor to the local hardware store - mostly because, being an awful handyman, for each little repair I have to make twelve trips to Home Depot, five miles away, and of course I get lost in the store ... I have not seen the CFL bulbs. It is possible they are late arriving up here in Iglooland, but it is also possible that they are not doing a good enough job of advertising the improvements. Thanks for the info.

- icarusr

November 20, 2010 at 11:38pm

If incandescent lightbulbs were good enough for Jesus and the Founding Fathers, they're good enough for me.

- frippo

November 21, 2010 at 10:56am

Here's a green lighting solution fer ya, one that'll make that Inuit sculpture look great, icarus: oil lamps fueled by bio-diesel. And with Chanukah coming up, you should be able to get eight days of light on just a breath of fresh air.

- AaronW

November 21, 2010 at 1:10pm

Aaron: during the Revolution and the War in Ze Olde Countrie, I did most of my high school studies in the warm glow of kerosene lamps and lanterns. Those fumes alone could explain my mental defects, but that is a different issue. Too many stories of overturned lamps and charred bodies - and we had an earthquake recently around here recently that knocked a few things off the mantlepiece and such ... Let me tell ya, the only open fire in the house will be in the fireplace ;) ... but thanks for the tip!

- icarusr

November 21, 2010 at 2:29pm

It's interesting/ironic how the same thing can have such different associations for different people. For you, kerosene lamps come weighted with memories of privation and death while for me they are a real madeleine that calls up all sorts of pleasant childhood memories. Back innthe thirties my grandparents built a holiday cottage on an island off the north shore of Massachusetts Bay. Rather unusually in this day and age, though in a clear day you can make out the Boston skyline from the house's front porch, none of the sixty odd houses on the rock are supplied with electrical power, so after dark we would live by the light of kerosene flames. Knowing how to use and maintain the lamps, especially the ash-mantled Alladins with the cylindrical wicks was a mark of having come of age. To this day the smell of kerosene instant conjures up memories of summers at the island. Your mention of house fires brings up another, far less pleasant recollection. My cousin, who spent whole summers by herself at the island cottage and for whom the place functioned as a kind of refuge, died along with her children in a house fire. But it wasn't kerosene lamps that did it; it was diapers stacked too close to an electric heating unit. When I was nineteen I spent a week on the island alone with my cousin, both of us reading late into the night by lamplight. Even though she was my first cousin and several years older than me, I developed something of a crush on her that week. She knew it, I think, and thankfully treated it neither as shameful or ridiculous, just something to be quietly left alone. So now the next time I go back there, I'll light an oil lamp and spare a thought for J.

- AaronW

November 21, 2010 at 5:06pm

Aaron: Sorry to hear about your cousin - at least, you have good memories of her. I confess, I don't think of life in those days as weighed down by privation. True, for months, gasoline and natural gas were rationed or non-existent. We just relearned to walk, or take the bus; and I remember my mother (she - the professional, fashionable, educated product of the Shah's reforms) discovering public baths (during a period when even water was available intermittently - after the second time, it became part of daily life. For me, even back then, it was a bit of an adventure. I mean, you don't know hide-and-seek until you have played it in the total darkness of a general blackout :).

- icarusr

November 21, 2010 at 5:26pm

Icky: the "bulbs" I speak of are CFLs with a plastic shroud to make them look just like an incandescent. Same CFL inside but with a ovular plastic covering. They're a bit longer than an incandescent due to the electronic ballast assembly. If your application has a deep enough recess it's not an issue though. Once they're installed I'll bet you can't tell the difference. Just avoid using them in short-cycle applications like hall lights.

- tnmats

November 21, 2010 at 8:11pm

Tnmats - We have been looking at LEDs' for a long time in Automotive. They are great for low power, but lack when used for heavy lighting. Heat and not white enough. Wha't promising is the development curve. These things are getting better faster than anything else. Your buddy at Cree is pretty lucky. If he is getting stock options, he's really lucky. I almost bought 2 years ago at $ 15 you tripled your money. Looks to go higher. But a few points here from the conservative side. Making incadescents illegal will obsolete a lot of good lamps. The CFL I tried to install on my work light would not fit, the collar was just to big to allow the bulb into the socket. So throw away good lamps beacuase we can't get bulbs? That's not saving anything. Changes like this take years to incoroprate and some people like to wait until things shake out. Why go CFL for a few years when LED's are coming? And if CFL's are so great, won't people adapt anyway? And it feeds into peoples paranois when the government gets down to telling us which lightbulbs to use. I could understand when they took away the free bulbs, that was anti-competitive. But telling us we can't buy the bulbs we've bougth for 50 years now is bordering on Socialism.

- CRS9TNR

November 21, 2010 at 8:37pm

CRS9TNR Banning incandescents, the road to socialism! There's a book title there! Except of course that it isn't a ban on incandescents, but an increase in efficiency requirements. And most incandescents (but not all) do not meet these new criteria. The government has been telling us what sorts of cars to buy (in terms of efficiency) and how to insulate our houses etc. for a long time. And while the standards we adopt are pretty meager compared to overseas they have improved our lives, mostly through reductions in coal fired power plant emissions. And of course, we can look at what happens when the wild socialist paradises such as Australia and Brazil adopt these policies ahead of the US. And indeed their economies have tanked in recent years due to their socialist nanny state tendencies! (hang on)... This just happens to be a great example of where the market does not work as well without government intervention. Incandescent lightbulb manufacturers have no incentive to increase their costs to make more efficient bulbs, as their competitors can easily do the same thing and then you've just sunk a whole lot of capital that you don't expect to recoup as the pricing status quo returns. However I would put it to you that something else is feeding people's paranoia, rather than phasing out light bulbs that people have been buying for about 110 years. And that is the absurd claim by a certain major party, and their faithful followers, that everything they don't currently support (even if they did, say a year ago) is socialism. If socialism is gently nudging existing markets towards efficiency which will save us all money, increase our security and make us healthier in the short and long terms, who is really against that? People who hate the republic?

- Nari224

November 22, 2010 at 6:51am

Bradford writes: "Has there been any evidence since 2007 that the new light standards are a bad idea? Not really. " If the light bulb standards saved a lot, then you might have a case that they have been a good thing. But the savings for a house with 25 lights that are converted over to CFL is pretty modest--around 5%. Now, someone might say "Holy cow! 5% is a lot", but then you must remember that every year we use a few % more than the last year. So, whatever savings we get from CFL is all but erased next year when we buy a new computer. A better approach for the government to take on this would have been to somehow encourage white LED suppliers (based in the US) to speed up their investment and ramp more quickly. Fund universities to focus on smarter lighting and LED manufacturing. Overall, we should have mapped out a plan to determine that LED lighting was long term business the US wanted companies to be in, and that we were going to steal the market back from the Japanese. Thus, the mistake here is having the government mandate the back end behavior of consumers, rather than picking a technology investment and subsidizing a direction that we believed to be strategic. CFL are not a long term solution. They are a mess if they break. They are a mess to dispose of. They are a short term stepping stone on the way to something better. I just bought a $20 white phillips LED MR16 replacement as a test. Next to my halogen there is honest to god no difference in color temp or brightness. And just 4W versus the 50W halogen, so no heat. I'll get more of these.

- seattleeng

November 22, 2010 at 12:52pm

What Seattle says makes sense but the wingers would scream it's government picking winners and losers. We can't do that, it's wasteful spending they'd scream. No matter that many of our biggest scientific and engineering breakthroughs throughout world history were funded by government spending. Even those InterTubes were a government project at one time believe it or not (ARPANET). That back-end behavior encouragement was done by a GOP Congress; I never quite understood how they squared that with their basic attitudes. Now Seattle, 5% isn't much to an individual but is a big, big deal when spread over millions of users. And commercial customers kill over fractions of a percent efficiency. I see customers picking power management solutions over a fraction of a percent improvement in efficiency even if it costs a bit more up front (and am fighting how to squeeze that fraction out in one of my designs). CFLs may be a stepping stone but that's true of a lot of technologies. You could argue that hybrid cars are a stepping stone. CRS9TNR: you guys in automotive have the worst of all worlds: high rel, harsh environment, but it has to be low cost. It reminded me of an exchange I saw at a power electronics symposium. A Ford manager griped why Cree wasn't putting more money into power semis for automotive. The Cree engineer said "it's because you don't want to pay for anything". Ouch. I've found too often the case the Cree guy wasn't too far off the truth. I don't blame you, I blame us for wanting luxury car performance and amenities at Walmart prices.

- tnmats

November 22, 2010 at 3:16pm

seattle - 5% is a lot of savings, and in dismissing it with the mention of computer costs, you're comparing apples and, I don't know, razor blades. People are either going to buy that computer next year anyway, or will decide to save that expense for later and make do with the one they have. Not one single person is going to decide to put off that purchase because it would negate the savings they made earlier in the year by switching to CFL bulbs-unless you do it, just out of spite.

- janus

November 22, 2010 at 4:03pm

tnmats: They say they're dimmable. When I tried one, it didn't dim like an incandescent bulb -- with a broad, even range capable of going low. It just dimmed a little bit by commparison -- I coudln't get it to where I wanted it. My lights at home are almost always dimmed significantly for mood. Dimming makes incandescent bulbs warmer. Dim CFL's don't get warmer as you dim them. I make little adjustments to make the mood right. It's a luxury, yes, but one that I wouldn't gladly part with. In addition, my dining room fixture is a gorgeous antique that isn't big enough to hide CFLs, with a bulb around the coil or not. The bulbs would stick out or -- in one place in the fixture -- not fit at all. Likewise, my hall fixture is designed for an under-sized incandescent. Also, they take a minute to turn on all the way. Don't like that, especially for bathroom and kitchen use, which are the places where I don't actually care so much about warmth. When they fix all of the issues, I'll gladly sign up. For my use -- which isn't so very much to start with -- I don't think they measure up. If anything I'm saying here has been superseded by better technology, I'll reconsider.

- JakeH

November 22, 2010 at 4:33pm

First, a comment on the politics. I think much of the grousing is related to the "nanny state". Lots of people have a push-back reflex. Give these folks an incentive rather than a command and many will respond. Second, a technical observation from a dim bulb (pun intended). This Republican apartment dweller installs the new technology in places where dimming, brightening, etc., are not an issue. Bathrooms are our prime example. I cannot afford another wife, so I'll probably buy a lifetime supply of 50-100-150 incandescent bulbs for the living room, den and bedside if technology and/or regulation force me to do so.

- lsernoff

November 22, 2010 at 5:39pm