Australia to phase out incandescent bulbs by 2010
By Darren Murph 
posted February 20th 2007 1:08PM
posted February 20th 2007 1:08PM
While some US cities like Raleigh are already planning steps to cut back on energy wastes by converting to more efficient lighting systems, it looks like the entire continent of Australia could be following suit. Claiming to be the "world's first" national government to phase out incandescent light bulbs in favor of the more "fuel-efficient, compact fluorescent bulb," environment minister Malcolm Turnbull is hoping to "cut Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by four million metric tonnes a year by 2015." Citing the "climate changes" the world is facing as a "global challenge," Turnbell also urged other nations to follow suit in making a difference, but didn't exactly open up his personal wallet to stock our households with those uber-pricey bulbs. Interestingly, some environmentalists feel that the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions come from government and business-related activities, which should presumably take priority over swapping out a country's light bulbs. Still, we've got no complaints with hooking homes up with LED / fluorescent options to help Mother Earth, but shouldn't Australia (and America, too) ink its name on the Kyoto Protocol before getting all high and mighty about saving the planet?
I have florescent lights throughout my home and work for energy savings.
With that said, I have spoken with autistic individuals such as Temple Grandin, and non-autistic individuals such as my own brother who can see the flicker. In my brother it is only a severe distraction. In an autistic individual, it can destroy their ability to function. I wonder what it subliminally does to the rest of us.
My point is that while florescent lights are the future, they are not the end-all that others seem to believe. There is a lot of work to be done on these technologies before they should be accepted as the standard for a country.
The Energy Star Efficiency Myth
For years the Federal Energy Star program has perpetuated the myth that if you buy appliances (or any electrical device) for the home that uses less energy, you'll see proportional savings in your monthly power bill. This is rarely the case.
Other eco-writers do similar simplistic math to calculate savings in money, energy and carbon. A recent example is Charles Fishman's September 2006 article in Fast Company magazine about WalMart's CFL project, "How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World?".
The claim is made that if a single light bulb using 45 watts less is placed in 100 million homes, 6.57 billion Kilo-Watt-Hours will be saved. The fact is, unless you are cooling your house, there is ZERO savings. Charles focused on the bulb, but forgot about the home. His entire premise is based on a false assumption. The savings are grossly exaggerated for most homes.
"Wasted" energy takes the form of heat. And this heat helps keep you warm, if only just a small amount. For most of America, for much of the year, that 45 watts will be automatically added back in by the home heating system to maintain the same level of comfort. If the home is heated with electricity, the savings in dollars, energy and carbon production is literally ZERO.
The only time energy is actually saved is when the air conditioning is running or you have the windows open to cool the house. With the air conditioning on, the savings can even be a little greater than 45 watts, but for most of America that's a small part of the year. What are the savings for the rest of the year?
ZERO!
If you are not cooling your home, EVERY light bulb and appliance is 100% efficient.
Here's why...
The second law of thermodynamics demonstrates that "wasted" energy tends to disperse evenly. And if this "wasted" energy is in your house, it simply keeps you warm. More importantly, it keeps your normal heat source from turning on. Let's see how it plays out in a real home and why saving energy by turning off the lights is mostly an illusion (pardon the pun).
If you have a home in the northern latitudes which is electrically heated much of the year, you are a net consumer of heat. And the nice thing about heat is that It doesn't matter where it comes from. And that's the key.
Take a light bulb that's only 10% efficient. That means 90% of it's energy is converted directly to heat. So what happens to that heat? It spreads out through your house and slightly delays your normal heating system from clicking on.
And what about the 10% of the energy in the form of visible light? Virtually all of it strikes objects in the house. It too is converted to heat. The ONLY ineffectiveness of a light bulb in a northern home in the winter is the light that escapes through the windows, which is a VERY small amount. Even THAT can be stopped with curtains making ANY light bulb 100% effective at producing heat. Here's how Wiki explains it... Efficiency versus Effectiveness.
Why do I qualify this with northern homes and winter? Because if you have to open the windows to be comfortable, you lose the advantage. And if you have to turn on the air conditioning, this "effectiveness" actually becomes a small liability. So those of you in Florida and south Texas... nevermind.
It's all about heat, where it moves and how we store it. But for most of America, much of the year, energy efficiency is very much an illusion. Effectiveness rules the day because we actually USE that "inefficient" heat.
And if your windows are closed but your heat is NOT turned on? Or not turned on until later at night? Those appliances are still 100% effective. That's because they are helping keep the house warm. They are one reasons your electric heat hasn't come on yet. If that heat doesn't come from one source, it has to come from another.
But what if you're a bit on the warm side in late afternoon but you haven't opened the windows? Again, it doesn't matter. This thermal intertia will delay heating later on. As long as you don't have to cool your house, everything is 100% effective. Let's take a couple more examples.
Electric blanket - 100% effective. If you turn it off, the electric wallboard heating will kick up 100 watts to compensate: net cost of blanket electricty for the same comfort level - zero.
TV, DVD & computer - Left on all the time? No problem, as long as the air conditioning doesn't kick on.
Hair dryer - 100% effective (and only used for short periods anyway), so get every hair in place.
Electric touthbrush - Yep. Even the charger is a perfect machine.
Refrigiator - 100% effective. This is one of my favorites. What does a refrigiator do? That's right. It compresses gas to pump heat from the inside to the outside of the ice box. Where does that heat go? It heats the kitchen! Even the compressor is 100% effective! Once again, it saves energy that might come from electric heat.
Why do I keep referring to electric heat instead of oil or gas? That's because in the past gas has been far cheaper than electricity per BTU. This made electrical devices a little less "effective" (and a little more expensive) in producing that "wasted" heat. Unfortunately, cheap gas is history. The price of oil and gas now approachs that of electricity (at least during the price spikes which are likely to be more common in the future). So for many, there's no big difference. Leaving your TV on is almost as cost effective as buying natural gas.
This "effectiveness" creates the strange situation where you could turn EVERYTHING in the house off (except for the electric heat) and set in the dark for a winter month with no entertainment or hot food - and your power bill would be EXACTLY same. Try it sometime. You'll see.
This also means you could go out and buy the most efficient light bulbs you could find and all new Energy Star appliances; STILL the power bill would be EXACTLY same. So enjoy your gadgets and think twice before spending extra for "efficiency". Spend your money were it counts.
And where might that be? If there's little advantage to "efficient" appliances, how can we save energy and money? That's another blog post, but start by taking a look at the heat leaving your home through the walls or down the drain as hot water. Those two are your biggest loses.
Heat and air conditioning use 50% of home energy. Better insulation and sealing can save up to 25% of your energy cost for the typical home. But make sure the house still has reasonable ventilation - especially in radon areas. And hot water is about 13% of your energy use, so again, use it carefully. It's not effective to heat up the sewer drains.
Which brings up one important exception to this "effectiveness" rule - the clothes dryer. It blows it's heat outside and also brings in cold air - you lose. It's a good reason to get a clothes line. Or use the dryer sparingly.
And if you still want to buy some of those CFL blubs, put them outside. That's one place where ALL the savings count.
There you have it. Now you can sleep better (and warmer) knowing your heat isn't as "wasted" as you thought.
OK. If you still want to know how much of that 65.7 KWH you would save by buying that bulb, multiply it by the ratio of cooling days over days in a year (365.25). The extra air conditioning load will be offset by less probable need for light in the summer. For me in Reno, Nevada that extra efficiency can be used about a quarter of the time (in the summer) which is probably about average for America. This makes WalMart's claim overstated by four times - you decide if that bulb still makes sense.
But why would Fast Company, WalMart and Energy Star not point this out? Simple. It would make the story less exciting, WalMart would sell fewer light bulbs and... and... and I don't know WHAT'S wrong with the Federal government.
So from now on, don't let some slick magazine make you think a new light bulb will solve all your problems; don't expect WalMart to always save you money. And finally, don't expect the government to set them both straight. When you hear about efficiency, think also about effectiveness.
And quit worrying about your household appliances.
They are almost perfect machines much of the year..
No matter what their efficiency rating.
Sudden Disruption
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Sudden View...
the radical option for editing text
http://www.sudden.net/
http://suddendisruption.blogspot.com
Yeah, don't let the government decide for you, make a logical choice. Is it worth 50 cents to climb a ladder and change a light in your home office every year? Not to me. At a $1 a piece a CF will easily do the job for 5-6-7-8 years.
Suddendisruption
For every watt that is used to re-heat a house, wouldn't there be an additional watt of electricity that would need to be used to cool a house using incandescent lighting, somewhere else in the country where it's hotter.
Your hypothesis is only correct if everyone is constantly trying to warm our homes, approx 50% of the time people throughout the world are trying to cool down their homes, live in hotter climates or its summer. So the net effect of the "warmth" given off by incandescents is nil, add in teh fact that heat rises and bulbs are on/in the ceiling and your stupidly long post makes even less sense.
In a sense: both.
1. Argument: His talk is rather content-free, isn't it? His main point "We have to set priorities" is a triviality. It would be interesting if he presented some real calculations justifying his claims. It gets especially ridiculous when he mention that "youth forum" thing.
2. Ad hominem: Look at the guy. Would you expect someone like that to actually give a presentation that HAS content? Of course not. He is rather the "show biz" type.
that is the style of the ted conference
Exactly, and he agreed to speak there.
[@Engadget: Something with your comment system is not working correctly. It happens all the time that I do not get the confirmation email. No, it's NOT because of a spam filter.]
Suddendisruption:
One point I would like to put forward is that many lamps are located at or near the ceiling of rooms. So any heat they generate will stay near the ceiling or even (in the case of downlighters which are mounted through the ceiling) actually go to heat the void between the floors. This is particularly the case for dichroic lamps which are specifically designed so that the heat goes out through the back of the reflector rather than forwards.
Also you say that the only time the heat energy is wasted is when the air conditioning is on. Surely that is not correct - when the AC is actually on having heat energy from lights is actually ADDING to the load on the AC.
If neither the AC nor the heating is on (the case in many parts of the world for a lot of the time) then the energy is pretty much just wasted. You suggest that it can delay the time when the heating has to come on, but that assumes perfect insulation, which in the vast proportion of cases at the present time is not an assumption you can make.
I take the drift of your argument, but I think in practice it is highly flawed. I have switched pretty much all our lamps to CFL and seen a significant drop in electricity consumption. At the same time I have also achieved a 20% drop in gas consumption as well - both measured in kWh. The CFLs have contributed as part of an overall strategy of reducing the wastage of energy in our house, and hence reduction in carbon emissions.
To summarise, I think two key points in this question are the undesirable location the heat is emitted from lighting in most cases and the effectiveness of the insulation of the properties concerned. In my view these are factors you have not considered and they significantly weaken your argument which I find somewhat simplistic.
Wow, what a great set of comments. It seems like people are really (mostly) reading and paying attention!
So here are my thoughts, based on what I've read:
1) In the past, governments made things illegal because (supposedly) they were harmful to individuals and society. But in the U.S., marijuana is illegal, and there is a debate over whether it should be or not. It seems to me the logic of making a type of technology illegal is similar. I still say rather than making illegal, the government could insist that its own bulbs be CFL and offer incentives to manufacturers to develop energy saving bulbs of every type. Making a technology illegal just seems like overkill to me. We don't like something? Let's make it illegal. Okay, so now smelling bad is illegal. Throwing away a half eaten doughnut - illegal. Wasting time watching TV - illegal. I hope you get my point.
2) I like Suddendisruption's ideas, although I agree with some of Nick's criticisms. It seems, therefore, that home engineering would be a greater source of savings than changing bulbs. Building codes are intended to address some of these issues. Insulation is certainly important (unfortunately my condo was not built with good insulation - I will hopefully get to address that this year). But what gets me is places like Arizona - it is at the same time one of the best and worst places for energy efficiency. There are some communities whose houses barely need air conditioners because they are so well designed, then there is where my dad lives - Surprise AZ. He has to have his air conditioner on all the time, and the buildings don't even have wide eaves outside for shade! The designs are probably okay for New England, but have no place in AZ. And he had it built two years ago. It's rediculous, because there are so many known techniques to make new buildings efficient!
3) Australia is both a continent and not a continent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent
The bottom line to me is this - in the U.S. and apparently in Australia, too, we try and solve problems with vast sweeping simplistic gestures instead of getting down to the nitty gritty and doing what's hard. The likelihood is that CFLs will make some difference, but make us complacement about what should really be done. Governments should focus on what governments can do - change power sources from wasteful to efficient, dirty to clean, fossil to renewable. Governments can also research and educate. When it comes to individual choices, that should be up to individuals.
eh
Is it just me or did the review seem to be slightly against Australia's decision to cut greenhouse gases?
Of course he is not following the news, PM John Howard has said he is interested in protecting 100,000's of jobs rather then sign. However, he is pledging over $300 million to reduce greenhouse gases. Considering Australia only produces $674 billion GDP, that's a hefty sum for something that isn't universally approved as factual yet.
Wonderful ending talking about signing the Kyoto thing, it might be worthless, but at least it stands as a better declaration of intentions than just the incandescent ban. You've got it, man!
Too much hypocrisy about the earth we are leaving to our grandsons
Shame on us