New Remy Video Takes On Light Bulbs

Burger

One of Congress’s least bright decisions ever. If there was a definition/picture of crony capitalism in the dictionary – it would have the picture of the lightbuld and the decision the government made.

Chris M.

I just love how GE, Edison’s own company, was one of the folks leading the charge for this legislation. Crony capitalism at it’s best!
V Dizzle

So it doesn’t potentially reduce demand for electricity as advertised? In five years when LED (or similar) lights are cheap, I think you’ll see some results (and no issues with the ~mL of Hg in each CFL).
- novasteve
  
  The utility companies will raise rates due the decreased demand. That happens with utilities, they defy the rules of economics becaues they won’t want to lose money due to more efficient devices people use. They are monopolies. You wont wind up saving any money, and LED and CFL will never be as cheap as incandescent, and CFL will always have the mercury poisoning risk.
  - brif
    
    Dominion virginia power can’t raise its rates without state approval. Dominion makes money on energy efficiency because it doesn’t have to bring its least efficient and profitable power plants online during peak load times nor does it have to invest additional billions in new power plants. Consumers will save money over the life of a CFL/LED bulb compared to incandescents.
    - novasteve
      
      No they won’t, becuas they will get the permission to raise rates. So the raise in electricity costs, plus the greater cost of the bulb (which is all made in china now, all US production of bulbs is now gone) will mean you pay more, plus take into consideration the costs of disposal. You can’t just throw away a CFL.
    - brif
      
      If CFLs really are bad for profits, why is Dominion subsidizing their purchase?
      
      http://dom.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=815
  - V Dizzle
    
    Thanks, I’ve worked in the utility business. I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about energy consumption and the technologies becoming affordable to consumers. I agree that the laws won’t necessarily save people money directly on electricity prices.

V Dizzle

Not to nitpick, and haven’t watched yet, but I’m assuming he’s doing it a la Puff Daddy “I’ll be Missing You”?

Tre

correct
- VA^2
  
  Yea, the article needs to be updated to reflect Puff Daddy and not the Police. Can ya make the update, ARLNOW?

Swag

Remember back in the day when Remy videos were worth watching?

Grognak

No
Remy

I do, in fact!
- V Dizzle
  
  Online posts are rarely nice. Here’s one. Remy rocks.
  
  Now I get to write 49 horrible or inflamatory things about people that can’t argue back, and not feel bad.

burn baby burn

so the govt should take no action to conserve energy thru standards for light bulbs? Just keep building oil pipelines, burning coal, and fighting wars in the middle east?

novasteve

So it’s okay to tell people what kind of lightbulb they can can use in their bedroom? I thought you people are the types to say “keep your laws out of my bedroom!”..
- Josh S
  
  “you people”
  
  You’re effing pathetic, steve. What does “you people” mean?

JamesE

I will never get rid of my fancy halogen light fixtures.

T

The Police song is actually named “Every Breath You Take”. But he is copying the video from “Wrapped Around Your Finger” with the candles.

I agree CFLs are horrible, but hopefully this law that Bush signed will bring on some innovation in the form of cheap and bright LED bulbs.

http://www.arlnow.com ARLnow.com

Good point on the song name, we’ll change.

KalashniKEV

Good thing I started a special section of my cache years ago devoted to incandescent lightbulbs. I have a stockpile that should last me until 2020, minimum. The rest of you can kneel before this 0bamunist tyranny and beg for an his 0wn approved form of illumination.

KalashniKEV

Oh… wait, that was Bush?

Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

LOL
- novasteve
  
  It was a small part of a big law. There is no line item veto.
  - OX4
    
    So it wasn’t Bush’s fault.
  - CourthouseChris
    
    Yeah, I tried that argument with my apartment lease… didn’t work there either.
pikershorts

Dude go back to trolling FoxNews and pasting bumper stickers onto your tailgate. Using neat little Obama slurs makes you look silly.

Andy

CFLs and LEDs create more light pollution than traditional tungsten lamps. Bad for astronomy.

V Dizzle

Is it the intensity or the frequency of the light? Both can be manipulated cheaply since electromagnetic radiation is electromagnetic radiation.

ArlingtonChick

I hate how long it takes for those CFLs to light up. And, believe it or not, even if you get the LEDs straight from China they’re still pretty expensive. Despite the horrible factory conditions (I would think cheap labor + bad conditions would = cheap bulbs).

As for the video, I give it a D+. It’s pretty bad. Definitely a waste of 2.5 minutes.

Glebe Roader

Not going to debate the light bulb issue, but the Remy video blew.

OMG OMG OMG

Another reason this isn’t funny is there is no ban at all. The law only requires lighting to be more efficient. So you can still get incandescents, they’ll just cost less to operate.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/07/08/263535/light-bulb-efficiency-standard-will-lower-energy-bills%e2%80%9d/

novasteve

That’s like saying there’s no internal combustion engine ban if you require all cars to get 200 mpg. I’m sure they might figure out how to have one, really expensive gasoline engine that can get 200 mpg, while everyone else will be driving electric cars.

it is a ban, and it’s nanny state dogooderism at its almost worse. If you want to use CFLs, great, go out and use them. Don’t force your crap on everyone else though.

Garden City

Incandescent light bulbs give off much more heat than light. CFLs and LEDs are many times more efficient, plus an LED has a life of more than 20,000 hours. It was a good decision by Congress to phase in an incandescent bulb ban. Lowering per-person energy consumption is an important goal. Yes, we can keep digging coal, building power plants, stringing high tension wires, but remember the outcry the last time the utilities talked about new transmission lines from the Midwest to the Northeast?

Edjey

I wonder if any of the efficincy studies take into account the heat. Obviously a negative in summer, but a positive in winter.
- DarkHeart
  
  Someone hasn’t heard about snuggies.
- V Dizzle
  
  I don’t think that seasonal temperature variations and the affect on efficiency is on the same order of magnitude of energy lost through heat due to resistance.
- Josh S
  
  It’s never a positive when it means you are wasting energy that should be used to provide light since that’s the purpose of the device.

KARLington

I will absolutely start using CFLs all the time when:
1) the light does not make me look awful
2) they work on dimmers (which makes incandescents more efficient anyway)

Until then, we’ve inventoried our house and are stockpiling incandescents…that we’ll use on dimmers.

Garden City

There are dimmable CFLs. Start at http://www.dimmablecfls.com. As to the color, finding a CFL with a Kelvin temp of around 2700 degrees (may be labeled ‘neutral’) will keep you from looking like the undead.

CourthouseChris

One hit wonder. Internet-famous doesn’t parlay nearly as well…

doug

The video is kinda funny. “I’ll get salmonella from my easy bake.” Nice line.

But all the fuss over the light bulbs is also funny.

Not funny is the way Brian Williams brings it up every two weeks, harping against innovations in light technology. “These lights were good enough for my granpappay and by gum…” Big Business driving the news. I think if corporate interests need to bend the news to their cause it may be evidence that the cause is questionable.

The light quality might be different, but to me it’s not different enough to worry about. As far as them taking extra time to turn on…that is not something I have noticed. The latest versions just go on and the near constant mention of this just seems weird.

I have installed them throughout the house. Have experienced a noticeable decrease in electricity usage. None have broken and few need replacing. When they do go out, I just take them to the grocery store for recycling. No big deal.

And the “Big Brother” complaint – feds telling me what to do yadda yadda…sure, we are being told what we can and can’t do…just like they have laws about driving, murder, seat belts, etc etc. The world is changing and the population:resource ratio ain’t getting any better so get ready for even more things like this.

novasteve

So do you have no limit on what the government can tell you what to do before you say enough is enough? Or will you continually do as you’re told, being told by people who think they are so right and arrogant that it’s their way or the highway?

When you stop being a lamb and start being a person? You describe sheeple, not humans.
novasteve

So use CFLs on your own. Why do you people have to force the things you want on others? I fyou want to use CFLs, use them. Why do you need to force others to do what you want? WHen I start to get to force people to do the things I want, or do I have to be as arrogant as the nanny staters to think I know what’s best for everyone else and becuse I”m so right, that there can only be one valid view, and my view must be forced upon everyone else? Then I pat myself on the back for being so tolerant and progressive?
- Josh S
  
  So steve, you share nothing with the rest of humanity? You have no shared standards of behavior at all with the other Americans around you? Nothing that might be enshrined in law or custom?
  
  Spare me your lame arguments proclaiming to be some sort of Free Man. Bastion of individuality! Standard bearer of independence! Spare us.
  
  It’s a reasonable policy based on the reality of increasing population growth, depletion of energy resources, pollution associated with generating electricity, etc.
  
  It’s also, in the scheme of things, a very very small deal. Stockpile your incandescents and shut up already.

novasteve

One of the consequences to switching to LED lighting ins more traffic fatalities in the winter becaues the LED lights don’t melt the snow/ice from the traffic lights like regular bulbs do. Is saving electricity/money worth the cost in lives? Sure you could respond by saying “well they should have treated it like a 4 way stop sign” but the problem is they don’t all the time and people get killed as sa result. Is saving money worth the lives it costs?

Josh S

HILARIOUS!!!!!

Where do you find this crap?

You’re a closet science fiction writer, aren’t you?

Rob

I don’t like being told what kinds of bulbs (or how efficient my bulbs need to be), but I made the switch to all CFL about 7 years ago because I was tired of changing light bulbs all the time. They are annoying in some ways, but I really like not having bulbs burn out all the time.

Alexander

The idea behind the law is to push the lighting industry to produce more efficient products. Sure, incandescent lamps have a pleasing color temperature (2700-3200K), but they only convert about 7% of the energy that flows through them into light – the rest is heat and a waste of resources! CFLs turn ~15% of the energy that flows through them into light, although it is omni-directional light, meaning it goes everywhere and is hard to control/focus. On top of that, turning CFL lamps on and off in short durations causes them to burn out faster (but they never mention that on the packaging). A 10,000 hr rated lamp will only last a few thousand hours when used in a setting where the lights are turned on and off frequently (like a bathroom or an occupancy sensor-controlled room).

LEDs, on the other hand, will last at least 25,000 hours (tested) and the most reputable brands will last 50,000 hours or longer at a fraction of the energy used to light an incandescent lamp or even a CFL lamp. They are directional (meaning you can control where the light goes), can be omni-directional and operate much cooler than both CFL or incandescent, meaning you’ll spend less on conditioning your space using HVAC.

Those of you saying you’ll stockpile incandescent lamps sound so ridiculously clueless it’s almost comical. That’s like saying “I don’t care how quick and efficient (read free) email is, I’ll continue to stockpile stationary and mail my letters to friends…” Seriously, if you changed 20 60W incandescent lamps in your home with the same number of LED lamps that produce an equivalent amount of light and distribute it omni-directionally like the 60W lamp, in energy costs alone you would save ~80%. If you could save $60/month on your power bill due to replacing old technology with new, why wouldn’t you? Oh, that’s right – because you’re too proud to let the government tell you what lamps to put in your house.

atBRAGG

Being “too proud to let the govt TELL you what lamps to put in your house. What an indoctrinated Sheeple you are.

Look up Dr.Magda Havas from Canada. to learn the amount of mercury in 1 CFL is over 500 times the amount our gov’t TELLS us is ok in 1 liter of water. Necessary HAZMAT cleanup is an understatement. This stuff WILL, not “may” kill alot of people (mostly small children w/very small lungs) – No worries, we’ve been TOLD it’s for the environment.

Hey, why is the USA the only country forcing citizens to ingest poison Fluoride, oh yeah, so we don’t get cavities. RIGHT! Baaaaa Baaaaa. How gullible,stupid those lazy, spoiled, “busy” Americans are!!

It won’t matter soon, anyway.

R. Griffon

My biggest gripes are the stark blue-ish colors and the lack of dimmable options. I’ve bought “dimmable” CFLs and LEDs, and neither of them work right. None of the dimmable CFLs I’ve bought have ever worked at anything besides full strength, and my dimmable LEDs are only moderately so – offering only full-bright and something around 1/3-1/2 power. Setting it anywhere in between yields no change at all, or even worse a horrible flickering that makes you feel like having an epileptic seizure.

Yech.

Alexander

are you using an LED/CFL compatible dimmer? If not it’s like putting diesel in your Camry and wondering why it won’t start.

ProTip: if you don’t know the answer to the question then you aren’t.
Tre

Agreed, I hate the “cool” lighting emitted from these CFL/LED lights.

novasteve

If they can force people to use certain lightsbulbs because they save energy then what’s the stop the government from making sure you finish your meals and don’t waste any food becaues it’s wasting energy. All the energy, pollution, etc to get the food to you, and you eat half of it then throw it away? Maybe the government needs cameras in our homes to make sure we aren’t wasteful?

Do you see the doors you guys are opening up by just doing as you are told by a nanny state?

Agent Michael Scarn

You really have a lot to say about the light bulb-government relationship, Steve.

Sherley

I *heart* Remy

LPS4DL

I bought my first CFL bulb 9 years ago. It still burns brightly. I should have counted all the incandescent bulbs I replaced over the past 9 years while the CFLs keep on burning brightly. Unlike some people, I haven’t broken a bulb of any type after 32 years of home ownership. So I’m not concerned about mercury in the bulbs. I recycle everything I can so it’s no big deal to recycle CFLs. I had one defective bulb so that’s one bulb recycled in 9 years, not a big deal for a reasonable person. One year I tried a CFL flood light outside. It was better than the incandescent halogen bulb I was using. Incandescent flood lights were lasting less than 2 years each. As each of the incandescent bulbs died out I replaced them with a CFL flood light. That first CFL flood light still burns brightly after 4 years. CFLs come in more varieties now with more features and they are getting better each year. And LEDs are just starting to blossom. New features will be arriving and prices wil be dropping.
Only the 100 watt incandescent bulbs are going away this year. I only use 3 of those in the whole house and 2 were replaced by CFLs. I’m waiting for a CFL or LED to replace a small halogen 100 watt lamp bulb. It will be 2 years before the 60 watt incandescent goes away and 3 for the 40 watt incandescent. So the people who were caught unaware have time to plan. There will still be incandescent bulbs available but they will be more efficient than the current incandescent bulbs. Still the best choice will eventually be LED followed by CFL followed by the new efficient incandescents. Your best choice is based on how much money you can save and how much electric production you can reduce. My personal electric bill has dropped over the past 9 years and I have not changed the way I use electricity. My lights are on when I want them to be on but my bill has dropped due to CFL usage. Reasonable people want to save money on their electric bill and reasonable people want to reduce pollution by using less electricity. And reasonable people payed attention to the news when this law to phase out incandescents was passed. Reasonable people understand the reason for the law and reasonable people are getting the benefits from switching to CFLs and LEDs.
Unreasonable people complain. Unreasonable people spread discord to increase unreasonableness. Unreasonable people try to co-opt the word reason. And unreasonable people are libertarians. Remy, it’s time to find a new line of work for yourself and get back to being a reasonable, funny guy.

D Street

His worst vid yet.

Not that good. Turgid? Is that the word? Just didn’t go anywhere. Boring. Dull.

Steve O

The mercury issue is actually backwards. In places where coal is a primary energy fuel for electricity generation (like in N VA), the mercury released into our environment from burning the incandescent bulbs is greater than the mercury that is in the CFL. Since most of the time the CFL will not get broken, that mercury is controlled. 100% of the mercury released from the power plant is uncontrolled.

For years it has been advisable to limit intake of certain kinds of fish–particularly pregnant women, because of the mercury that has accumulated in them due to power plant emissions. And those power plants continue to emit mercury by the tons. A typical CFL contains less mercury than a watch battery.

So if we are trying to reduce our emissions of mercury, the best way is to reduce our use of energy. While we wait for LEDs to become less expensive, cutting waste by 2/3rds with CFLs is a good strategy for reducing mercury and other pollutants associated with coal combustion.

Those of you complaining about CFLs have probably purchased cheap ones. CFLs come in different color renderings, 3-ways and dimmable. It’s just like buying a car. If you buy the cheapest car, then it might not run well or last too long–and you’ll complain. That doesn’t make the whole automobile industry crappy, though. Likewise if the CFL you purchased didn’t last or perform well, that doesn’t mean they are all like that.

I started buying CFLs almost 20 years ago. I have a couple of 3-ways that have lasted more than 10 years. By purchasing higher quality bulbs, I rarely have them fail and they produce quality light. Many people have commented on the excellent lighting in my basement without knowing that it is 100% CFL fixtures I had installed when we remodeled in 2004 (I have replaced just 1 of 22 lights in those rooms since installation).

Incandescent technology is 150 years old. Where else do we use 150 year-old technology? Undoubtedly, as companies strive to meet the demands of consumers, they will find solutions to the issues that arise. That’s how capitalism works. So even if right now you can’t find a bulb that you are happy with, some company will come up with a solution, so they can capture you and other customers like you. I’m often baffled by commenters who forget that that is how capitalism works and somehow think that whatever product or service that exists right now is what will always exist.

John Fontain

So I hear that the old fashioned incandescents just got spared the death sentence with the passing of the new government funding measure.

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