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As I discussed in The Delectable Light Bulb back in October, I think it is bad policy to force things onto people, or similarly banning a product that is essentially harmless.  Ratcheting up the minimum energy efficiency ratio, perhaps better known as the EER or SEER of air conditioning units is one thing.  The deliverable (cold air) is the same.  Not so with compact fluorescent light bulbs and incandescent bulbs.

The do-gooders of California lead by the Governator are “leading the nation” with the ban on incandescent light bulbs, starting this year.  You can say it isn’t a ban like a hurricane isn’t a tornado – what’s the difference?  They both can flatten whole cities.

California is a great state with unbelievable resources and diversity, but they just keep imposing self-inflicted head shots on themselves.  Talk to just about any business owner and many citizens and you will hear the tax and regulatory burdens are absolutely crushing.

My grandma helped manufacture commercial jetliners at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach into the 1970s at least.  Commercial airliners are no longer manufactured in California.  Other manufacturing has been fleeing as well.  Semiconductors, which replaced aerospace is being chased out of the state but don’t take my word for it.  See what T.J. Rodgers and Paul Otellini, CEOs of Cypress Semiconductor, and Intel, respectively, have to say.   Essentially, California is becoming a place to develop ideas, products, and services into the embryonic or maybe infant stages and then full scale production or manufacturing is exported out of the state or country.

What does this have to do with the banning of the incandescent light bulb?  It’s all tied together with top down in-your-face regulation.  California is also single-handedly saving us from carbon dioxide with its AB32 carbon regulation, which the state had a chance to suspend in November, but it did not.  Over the years, Texas has been more than welcoming California’s businesses (and of course Texas is the first to come under assault by the EPA for CO2).  California has been losing 3,200 residents, net per week while Texas has been gaining 1,200 residents net per week; from residents moving in and out of other states.  This is sure to continue with a retread governor who first took the helm back when my grandma was retiring from McDonnell Douglas.  What an irony.  BTW, it’s been a bipartisan wrecking ball over the years.  These latest I-know-better-than-you graces were championed by the Governator, who just proclaimed on television that he is proud of his accomplishments.  Huh?  What?  The state fisc is a complete disaster.  Your approval rating was just a bit higher than my shoe size.

California: Pot, ok.  Incandescent light bulb, you’re under arrest.  LOL

Meanwhile, UPI,  which I thought was long ago dead, reports that per-capita energy use in California has been flat for the past 32 years.  Ironically once again, this is the period since my grandma was retiring, while the rest of the country has seen an increase of 40%.  Well heeeyah!  Manufacturing stuff takes a lot of energy and it’s been fleeing CA for the past 35 years.  The 40% gain over 32 years by the way is a whopping 1.01% per year.  The incredible irony is as T.J. Rogers from Cypress Semiconductor noted above says, 4,000 of their jobs for manufacturing solar cells have been established in the Philippines, NOT California, where they are based and I’m sure many cells will be imported by mandated CA renewable energy standards.  It would otherwise be impossible to make this stuff up!

Ok, enough lamenting over one of my favorite states and one that I really want to see pull out of its nosedive.  The Mercury News article says the incandescent light bulb and equivalent halogen bulb cost the same, while the CFL is more than double these at about $5.50 apiece, at Lowes.  I haven’t a clue where they got these prices (within Lowes).  At amazon.com where I shop all the time, you can get two dozen 100W Sylvania incandescent bulbs for $18.  A six pack of equivalent CFLs goes for $14.  A dozen equivalent halogen bulbs go for $35.

We have to have incandescent bulbs at this point for instant on/off applications like refrigerators, freezers, closets, pantries, and even bathrooms.  Otherwise it takes a minute for a CFL to come up to brightness and they get left on.  And the colder the environment (outdoors, freezers) the worse they perform.

So the stupidity of these options may include:

  • 75W incandescent for 67 cent purchase cost operating for maybe a dozen hours per year
  • 52W halogen for $3, same hours
  • 23W CFL operating a several hundred hours

I can see it now.  Goodfellas II.  Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta with incandescent bulb smuggling rings into LAX and SFO, interstate highways 5, 8, 10, 15, 40, and 80, Union Pacific, and major ports in San Diego, Long Beach, and San Francisco.  Cases of bulbs will be peddled in back alleys, warehouses and mob-owned Italian restaurants and delis.  The union bosses will be on the dole and threaten government worker strikes if anyone messes with the mob, or they just get pistol whipped, chopped up and composted for the mob’s organic fruit, nut, and vegetable operations in the San Joaquin valley.

Why don’t we need a mandate?  Because CFLs have made tremendous gains in the market in recent years because of massive competition and dropping prices in a maturing market.  As I said in The Delectable Light Bulb, prices of CFLs have dropped from $15 to barely $2 apiece in the past 10-15 years.  Moreover, if you think, “ah who cares – there’s no harm in this”.  Just wait till they come gunning for your vices to save you from yourself: popcorn at the movies, lawnmowers, cars, soda, booze, cheetos, nachos, oreos, big 10 burgers, ice cream, ramen noodles, deep fried candy bars, cheese curds, table salt, plastic in any form, bullets, leaving your pet at home alone, soap, shampoo, razors, deodorant, fluoride, pharmaceuticals, microwave ovens, and watering your lawn.

My family other than me includes typical energy users with little if any passion for conserving energy unless benefits are substantial.  My mother has CFLs in nearly all of her home fixtures that will take them.  She uses LED Christmas lights because she thinks they’re the greatest thing since parallel strings of lights.  Why?  Because she likes how they look.  My brothers, who have never owned anything but gas guzzlers use CFLs almost exclusively in their farming operations – dozens of dozens of CFLs from barns and the shop with those 80W or whatever whompers about the size of a five gallon bucket.  Why?  Because they last forever compared to incandescent.

There is going to be significant rebound with the incandescent ban as well.  Since CFLs take a minute to come to full brightness, they are going to be left on for hours rather than a minute or two for an incandescent in many applications.  CFLs are sure to be burn more hours too because, hey, they use no energy right?  Should I buy a $3 halogen light that turns on/off instantly but uses 3x the energy as a CFL that costs $2 and just leave that burn?  I’ll probably take the halogen because I’m hard wired to turn lights off asap, pun intended.

Jeff Ihnen

Author Jeff Ihnen

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