A recent ad for light bulbs

Cariboocoot
Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
in Energy Use & Conservation #1
I will quote it verbatim:

"In case YOU forgot; ' Incandescent light bulbs wiil NOT be for sale"
in Canada or the usa. after this Year. (2013)

Instead they want us to buy a $40. light bulb, and are telling us we will save hundreds of dollars

Wrong Actually, Once again Big business is reaping the rewards from these
overpriced units, while we scrimp and try and save a buck here and there.and
It will be at least 4 years before you recover the cost of just 1 bulb.

These units must become available for under $20. before they really benefit the consumer.

If this really a Gov. backed program they need to step up and allow us a 50% rebate
applicable on our taxes

On top of that they are talking about eliminating CFL's because of the mercury

UNTIL then I am Stocking my Shelves with incandescent. and cfls."

Whereas I appreciate the sentiment, I see here one of those businesses wanting to do a little "reaping the rewards" by offering over-priced (and by his own admission illegal) incandescents while supplies last. I wonder how much he wants for a bulb you can buy 4/$1?

Besides which, not all incandescents are being outlawed. Up here the over 60 Watt standard bulbs are gone, but the low Watt and specialty bulbs are not. As far as I know there's no plan to drop them either.

On the other hand having been a cynic all my life I fully expect collusion between government and business: forcing people to pay $30 for an LED bulb and banning all others so they have no choice is just the sort of thing that happens up here.

You want people to pick LED over CFL or incandescent? Make it financially feasible.

Otherwise we will be using candles instead, and then where will your tax dollars come from? I know; they'll tax wax. :p

Feel free to comment, but keep it civil and a-political.
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Comments

  • northerner
    northerner Solar Expert Posts: 492 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    #2
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs

    The proper solution I think, is jack up the power rates, then let the consumer decide which bulb to buy.;) In most areas, you will save in the long run, buying an LED bulb, due to the savings in power consumption. In some areas, like BC where power is dirt cheap, the savings are not so substantial. In any case, once the LED bulbs become mainstream, the prices for them will come down.
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  • Timinator
    Timinator Solar Expert Posts: 32 ✭
    #3
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs
    northerner wrote: »
    The proper solution I think, is jack up the power rates, then let the consumer decide which bulb to buy.;) In most areas, you will save in the long run, buying an LED bulb, due to the savings in power consumption. In some areas, like BC where power is dirt cheap, the savings are not so substantial. In any case, once the LED bulbs become mainstream, the prices for them will come down.

    Just "jack up the power rates"??? Who exactly should be "in charge" of that???
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  • northerner
    northerner Solar Expert Posts: 492 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    #4
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs
    Timinator wrote: »
    Just "jack up the power rates"??? Who exactly should be "in charge" of that???

    I was just trying to make a point that low power rates won't do anything to encourage people to conserve power. But if power rates are high, then the consumer will make the changes to reduce the wastage of power. We have one of the highest rates for electric power in the entire world where I live, and I see people here making attempts to reduce unnecessary consumption. If power is cheap, there is little incentive.
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  • waynefromnscanada
    waynefromnscanada Solar Expert Posts: 3,009 ✭✭✭✭
    #5
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs

    Wal*Mart in my area of Nova Scotia are still selling incandescent 100 watters as well as lower wattages. But last week I saw something that made me shake my head. Old fellow at Wal*Mart (yes, he was dressed respectfully :D) was filling his shopping cart with several different sizes and types of incandescent bulbs. He had it filled to the top and was trying to balance still more on top of the load. Seems he had heard they'd very soon be unavailable and he was NOT going to switch to any of the new-fangled types because they cause cancer and blindness. I'm not sure how long he expected to live, but from the load of bulbs he had stacked in that cart - - I would guess at least another hundred years beyond the present roughly 75 he already has under his belt.
    It totally appeared to be a full-blown case of panic buying. It was a sad thing to see, and sad to know that some people out there are so terrified of advances in technology. 75 years old and convinced that new types of light bulbs would lead to his early death.
    An older neighbor of mine, a wonderful, kind, caring lady apparently had a similar reaction to CFLs. When I switched to LEDs a while back, I had a couple of packages of unopened, brand new CFLs which I gave her. Found out later that she had dumped them, terrified of the mercury they contained. BTW she has several of the older style 4 foot florescent fixtures in her house, but apparently those bulbs don't have mercury in them, nor do the ballasts have PCBs. Hahahaha
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  • Rick1
    Rick1 Registered Users Posts: 24 ✭
    #6
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs

    My POCO (Ameren) is offering each customer twenty Philips A19 LED bulbs that use 10 watts with a 2700k output for $15.00 each. I purchased ten. It is a great deal.
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #7
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs

    Home Hardware here had six 13W CFL's for $9 a while back. That is a better bargain than $30 per LED. The payback on those high-priced LED's on our ten cent electric is probably more time than I've got left. :p

    So raise the price of electric vs. lower the price of the bulbs? I'll pick the lowered-price option, but I may never see it happen.

    Really cheap electric here caused the building of a lot of all-electric homes. They are now the first in line for financial failure as the kW hour prices rises. It starts going up April 1st. (Poetic justice?) A 100% increase would still give us cheap electric, but it sure would be a burden on those who have only the one utility (the option of installing gas is not always there, or at least cost-prohibitive).

    I'm not in favour of banning incandescents. They aren't harmful and they are useful in certain applications where the others just won't do. I really dislike that sort of legislation; it says "you are too stupid to make decisions for yourself". It reeks of 1984. It gives rise to the ad at the beginning of this thread and the stories Wayne related.

    Meanwhile the truly stupid story here is the cell phone agent telling customers the reason for their poor reception is interference from the new smart meters BC Hydro is installing. I wish I made that one up. :roll:
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  • northerner
    northerner Solar Expert Posts: 492 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    #8
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs
    Cariboocoot wrote: »
    So raise the price of electric vs. lower the price of the bulbs? I'll pick the lowered-price option, but I may never see it happen.

    What could be done is have the government put in place a revenue neutral power rate increase, where your pay even less for power if you conserve and use less, but pay significantly more if you use more. This could also be accomplished by setting the power rate dependent on usage. This would give power users incentive to conserve power. Even though BC largely uses clean hydro electric power, it is still exported, and used to offset dirty forms of power in other regions.
    Really cheap electric here caused the building of a lot of all-electric homes. They are now the first in line for financial failure as the kW hour prices rises. It starts going up April 1st. (Poetic justice?) A 100% increase would still give us cheap electric, but it sure would be a burden on those who have only the one utility (the option of installing gas is not always there, or at least cost-prohibitive).

    I don't know what access is like for natural gas in the more remote areas of BC, but I do know that gas is available on most, if not all, the remote farms, here in the Peace region. Natural gas is not only cheap here, but is a relatively clean source of energy for heating.
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  • northerner
    northerner Solar Expert Posts: 492 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    #9
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs
    Home Hardware here had six 13W CFL's for $9 a while back. That is a better bargain than $30 per LED. The payback on those high-priced LED's on our ten cent electric is probably more time than I've got left.

    A 60 watt light bulb, used 6 hours per day, at 10 cents per kwh, will cost $130 per year in electric to use. An LED bulb with same usage rated at 12 watts (equivalent light) will use about $25. That's a savings of over $100 per year per light bulb, and at only 10 cents per kwh.

    Savings with LED vs CFL's are negligible, but LED's have no mercury, and much better performance characteristics.
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #10
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs

    Math is fun.
    60 Watts * 6 hours = 360 Watt hours; 0.36 kW hours * 365 days = 131.4 kW hours per year, at ten cents per = $13.14 per year, not $130.
    13 Watts * 6 hours = 78 Watt hours; 0.078 kW hours * 365 days = 28.47 kW hours per year, at ten cents per = $2.85 per year.
    12 Watts * 6 hours = 72 Watt hours; 0.072 kW hours * 365 days = 26.28 kW hours per year, at ten cents per = $2.63 per year.

    Cost of CFL: $1.50 (before tax)
    Cost of LED: $23 (before tax)
    Difference in price: $21.50 Difference in electric saved: $0.22 per year. Time to make up difference in price with savings in electric (assuming no replacement of either and fixed costs): 97 years.
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  • northerner
    northerner Solar Expert Posts: 492 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    #11
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs
    Cariboocoot wrote: »
    Math is fun.
    60 Watts * 6 hours = 360 Watt hours; 0.36 kW hours * 365 days = 131.4 kW hours per year, at ten cents per = $13.14 per year, not $130.
    13 Watts * 6 hours = 78 Watt hours; 0.078 kW hours * 365 days = 28.47 kW hours per year, at ten cents per = $2.85 per year.
    12 Watts * 6 hours = 72 Watt hours; 0.072 kW hours * 365 days = 26.28 kW hours per year, at ten cents per = $2.63 per year.

    Cost of CFL: $1.50 (before tax)
    Cost of LED: $23 (before tax)
    Difference in price: $21.50 Difference in electric saved: $0.22 per year. Time to make up difference in price with savings in electric (assuming no replacement of either and fixed costs): 97 years.

    You got it right, was my mistake with the math. I think I must of missed multiplying by the kwh rate. I think I need another coffee.:blush:

    There's not much of a savings of LED over CFL, as I mentioned, but you have the performance advantages, plus no mercury. It's only a matter of time before CFL's are phased out and replaced with LED's. And the price of LED's will continue to fall, as they become more mainstream.

    I use a mix of CFL's and LED's in my home. I use the CFL's that are still working, for enclosed fixtures and my workshop. I will eventually replace them, as they burn out, with LED's. The other advantage with LED's that should be factored in, is there long life. Incandescent bulbs usually only last between 1000 and 5000 hours. Many CFL's don't give their rated life as well. LED's are usually rated for about 20,000 hours, and some even longer.
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,613 admin
    #12
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs

    At least in the US, we will still have "rough service" incandescent bulbs in any standard wattage range under current laws.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • NorthGuy
    NorthGuy Solar Expert Posts: 1,913 ✭✭
    #13
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs

    I bought LED inserts for spot lights in Lowe's for $40 a piece. Single unit to be directly inserted in. No separate bulb. 11W consumption.

    PAR30 CFL bulb of similar size would be $17, but I would need to buy a decent trim for $20. Total would be $37. And wouldn't look as nice.

    I installed 10 of these. My extra cost for LEDs was only $30. In this case, LEDs were more economical. We'll see more of that in the future.
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  • ggunn
    ggunn Solar Expert Posts: 1,973 ✭✭✭
    #14
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs
    Cariboocoot wrote: »
    Math is fun.
    60 Watts * 6 hours = 360 Watt hours; 0.36 kW hours * 365 days = 131.4 kW hours per year, at ten cents per = $13.14 per year, not $130.
    13 Watts * 6 hours = 78 Watt hours; 0.078 kW hours * 365 days = 28.47 kW hours per year, at ten cents per = $2.85 per year.
    12 Watts * 6 hours = 72 Watt hours; 0.072 kW hours * 365 days = 26.28 kW hours per year, at ten cents per = $2.63 per year.

    Cost of CFL: $1.50 (before tax)
    Cost of LED: $23 (before tax)
    Difference in price: $21.50 Difference in electric saved: $0.22 per year. Time to make up difference in price with savings in electric (assuming no replacement of either and fixed costs): 97 years.
    So, all you'd have to do would be to leave it on 24/7. That way it would pay for itself in 24 1/4 years. :D
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  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    #15
    Re: A recent ad for light bulbs

    as was said once, let the price dictate what bulb one wants to use. sure the cfls or leds would save a tad on the electric consumption, but not enough in most cases to make this change appealing to make the high investment cost in the first place. the consumer is still paying a high price due to the initial costs and the saved electrical use doesn't matter to the electric company as you pay one way or another with them. more specifically and said in a better way, you pay for what you use. if government would like to have a preference then passing a law to make it so is not always in the interests of all involved. incentives or giveaways is an option.

    now through all of this, does it not sound familiar? government is not forcing all to have supplemental pv to initiate electrical savings now are they? that's because pv is expensive upfront too and it is wrong to force it upon anybody. as it stands the pv market has dropped its pricing and is surviving for many reasons and one day it may come to pass that all will want pvs on their roofs because of economic sense or particular needs in addition to or over that of the respective electrical utilities. let the market dictate and if you want to sway it some then incentives and giveaways could help that goal rather than forcing all with a law.

    the real reason for canada forcing this is because of the kyoto agreement and if that costs you more $ then that's how it is as it is now more of a carbon numbers game rather than what you want.
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