Incandescent lightbulbs are now banned in the US : news

[-] discodoubloon@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It’s not super extreme for those that haven’t read the article. Technically it bans everything less efficient than 45 lumens per watt if it’s over 310 lumens. This typically translates to most “60W” bulbs and up.

This means a lot of appliance bulbs, small candelabra fixture bulbs, and things like lava lamp bulbs that need the heat to function are going to stick around for the foreseeable future.

Im glad this is happening now since LED tech at this point looks better than incandescent if you spend enough (like $3 bulb). If this happened 5 years ago like planned it would have been a small disaster.

[-] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 year ago

For some reason LED bulbs in my condo start flickering and die after only a few months of use. No idea why, but I actually switched back to incandescent because throwing away so many LED bulbs is more inefficient than running higher power bulbs.

[-] DarkGamer@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Sounds like your condo may not have properly grounded power, some of mine flicker for that same reason. Have you tried CFLs? Not as nice light but it might solve your issue.

[-] doricub@reddthat.com 0 points 1 year ago

Honestly, this is very annoying for me as I use an incandescent bulb to keep my well pump just above freezing during the winter months. It's going to be a huge pain finding a low power heater as a replacement. Most of what I'm finding are made for submersible use for things like fish tanks and burn up if not used underwater.

[-] DarkGamer@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

Heat lamps are exempt.

The new rule bans the manufacture and sale of inefficient “general service lamps,” which largely refers to the standard kinds of light bulbs you’d use to illuminate your home. Most incandescent and halogen light bulbs fail to meet these new energy efficiency standards, and are therefore banned by the rule.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has carved out exceptions for many different kinds of light bulbs in its ban on the manufacturing and sale of energy inefficient light bulbs.
“It does not ban the sale or manufacture of ALL incandescent bulbs, just those common household incandescent (and other) bulbs that are not energy-efficient,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says of the new ban. “Many bulbs, including specialty bulbs, three-way bulbs, chandelier bulbs, refrigerator bulbs, plant grow lights and others, are exempt from the law's requirements.”

[-] SCmSTR@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If it's supposed to just produce light, but is wildly inefficient and disposable, banned, since we have vastly superior tech for that, and have for a while.

If it's actually got a purpose, like heating things at a specific level, that is not a lightbulb, that is a heater and/or a light.

Get a million hour low power led light, and a super low power radiant heat coil. You're already paying a bunch of money and making a bunch of trash, just buy them once now, all y'all hillbilly mechanics.

I get the usecases, most of them are absolutely valid. But with the need, eventually comes a solution.

To doricub @doricub: if you believe it's a widespread issue, you could be the first to design and sell energy efficient and durable, low-cost solutions to this problem. With problems, come opportunities. Help the commonwealth, make some profit. Just be real and don't inaccurately misjudge the demand and potential and make either really cheap crap or really expensive stuff. Check out copyright law in your region and internationally, and investigate the problem and possible solutions, science is your friend. I hope you make something cool.

After highschool, one of my best friends had a 4runner that he built up in the marine corps on the east coast. He was a mechanic. When he drove back to the west coast, where we live, that thing was stored in his dad's backyard for like two years under a blue tarp. He kept a (incandescent) work light on an extension cord in there, and it effectively kept the thing clean and dry. I later helped him rebuild that 22R motor over a week in the snow and learned a ton. That was such a cool experience that I'm really thankful to have.

My point is, there are needs all over. Yours is, most likely, totally valid. But, technologically, we gotta go forwards, and honestly, you could be a step forwards with that. You've said you can only find things not meant for what you want? That's FANTASTIC. Buy a few incandescent bulbs now, to hold you over, but start researching a solution that fits. I know a lot of this stuff requires some investment, but that's the ACTUAL point to copyright law. Seriously, I hope you do this and make it work. That would be awesome to see. You can absolutely do it, it really isn't hard to design something, and find fabrication plants to make parts and send them to you, then sell your COPYRIGHTED goods (for the love of god, look up basic copyright law) at a profit to people that need them. I hope you AT LEAST make back your time and resource investment.

Also, there are a few main ways to advertise. Because once you get your product made, you'll have to show THE RIGHT PEOPLE THAT IT EXISTS AND THAT THEY NEED IT AND HOW TO GET IT;) (big, overly-obvious wink).

Good luck.

[-] burnedoutfordfiesta@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Why not just subsidize LED bulbs to make them cheaper? Banning Americans' rights to buy things as innocuous as certain kinds of light bulbs is petty government overreach.

[-] SCmSTR@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

@burnedoutfordfiesta

[TL;DR: they already are, if you really can't afford them (and your local government isn't ran by shadow-fearing cavemen).]

Legit question, wrapped in incredibly ignorant, destructive, patriotic, inflammatory brainworms.

That is why you are getting downvoted, fyi.

Stop confusing innovation with government tyranny. Stop being a tool and using false dichotomies and other logical fallacies that always results in loss of innovation, enrichment of unethical companies, and biological and ecological damage and destruction.

The role of government is to enforce the will of the people for the good of the people, and finally forcing everybody to adopt superior lighting that is WAY more energy efficient AND way more durable is ABSOLUTELY the right thing to do.

However, to actually answer your ACTUAL question (why don't they subsidize LED bulbs?), that is a question of what you consider a need. The idea of subsidizing is one usually of need, and sometimes also to assist in adoption to push ideas people are hesitant on.

That being said: we aren't talking about cars, bruh. It's like a 2-3x increase in price, but will last 10000x longer and use 0.01x the electricity compared to an incandescent bulb. And basically everybody can afford them. And when they can't, they already have systems in place for that, such as the affordable care act (federally expanded medicaid) and other social net programs like welfare, set up poor people don't get fucked and have to buy stupid incandescent bulbs for all their lives, living incredibly inefficiently.

All the time, responsible governments implement shit like this to get people off of dummfuck ancient technology that people refuse to give up. And whether or not this is "government overreach" or simply forcing the hands of curmudgeons is a matter of purpose and perspective, and ignorance is often that perspective, and hollow-facetiousness and cynical plausible deniability in place of the "purpose".

"Stop eating lead. That is now illegal." - the government, when huge corporations refused to do the right thing.

"Why would I even need that? I've never needed that before" - the dumb monkey, looking at the the monkey using fire.

[-] some_guy@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If they enacted subsidies for LED bulbs he’d have a conniption about government spending on hippie bullshit

[-] DarkGamer@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Banning Americans’ rights to buy things as innocuous as certain kinds of light bulbs is petty government overreach.

It's not innocuous. We are literally destroying our habitat with emissions and this helps prevent that:

222 million metric tons: Estimated emissions cut as a result of the DOE rules’ implementation over the next 30 years, equivalent to the emissions generated by 28 million homes in one year.

[-] riffy@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago

But my lava lamp!

[-] DarkGamer@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Lava lamp bulbs are typically less than 310 lumens, so you're, like, good, dude. Wow.

[-] riffy@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago

Mine runs a 40w bulb that is around 400-450 lumens, I believe. The thing is bright with the dimmer at 100%.

[-] DarkGamer@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Bummer, you might be out of luck then. I'd stock up if you can. Out of curiosity I looked some of those up on amazon and every page said they won't ship them to my location, so I suspect they might be included in the ban. Either that or it has to do with my state which has a similar restriction.

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