Old light bulbs fading, but what will replace them?

ELGIN — There’s one trend we usually can count on in electrical equipment, from TV sets and radios to music players and telephones: As the years pass, it will become cheaper and cheaper, and more and more disposable.
But as a five-year-old federal law takes effect this month, Americans may have to get used to just the opposite when it comes to the light bulb.
The bulbs of the future will cost much more than the cheap, disposable incandescent bulbs we have been using since Thomas Edison figured out how to make one way back in 1879. But they also will last much longer — maybe even to the point of becoming built-in pieces of each lamp that last as long as the lamp does. And they will reduce our electric bills.
On New Year’s Day, the light-bulb business felt the first impact of the Energy Independence and Security Act, which had been passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007. The law was backed by an alliance of congressmen who wanted to reduce foreign energy imports and cut greenhouse gas emissions from making electricity.
The act aims to force consumers to switch over three years from their cherished, good-looking, cheap old incandescent bulbs and start using newfangled bulbs that consume less energy.
Beginning this past Jan. 1, the act forbids manufacturing or importing 100-watt and higher bulbs unless they put out at least 25 percent more light than the current incandescents. That rule expands to cover 75-watt bulbs in 2013, then 60- and 40-watt bulbs in 2014. Similar rules about specialized types of bulbs also go into effect in 2013 and 2014.
“Big changes are coming in lighting,” said Dave Stokes, a manager at the Ziegler’s Ace Hardware store in Huntley. “People have to start thinking in terms of lumens, the amount of light given off by a bulb, instead of just watts, the amount of power used by the bulb. People will start thinking in terms of lumens per watt the way they think now about miles per gallon. And just like the government used miles-per-gallon rules to force carmakers to make energy-efficient products, the lumens-per-watt rules are forcing manufacturers to make more efficient light bulbs.”
Political remorse
In mid-December Congress, stirred by complaints from consumers and rage against government controls, attacked the new bulb rules. When they passed a new omnibus spending bill, they didn’t include any money for the U.S. Department of Energy to enforce the new light-bulb rules.
“Let there be incandescent light and freedom. That’s the American way,” declared conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh.
But spokespersons for the lighting industry said the enforcement defunding will make no difference in their plans to phase out the old incandescents.
General Electric spokesman David A. Schuellerman told the Washington Post that the industry has already spent millions gearing up to build only new kinds of bulbs and that the December vote does not repeal the 2007 law.
“We still are required to abide by the (new) standards, and of course we intend to comply with our legal obligation,” he said.
“There is a lot of misinformation,” said Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy. “Retailers don’t have to take inventories of old bulbs off the shelves. The government is not going to come into homes to check. ... You’re still going to be able to buy incandescent bulbs. They’re just going to be 28 to 30 percent more efficient.”
Choose carefully
Well, that’s not quite the only difference between the old bulbs and their replacements, notes Steve Walker, manager of the Batteries Plus store in Elgin. The store’s owner decided a few weeks ago that this would be an opportune time to start selling a large selection of light bulbs in addition to its line of batteries.
Yes, the new styles will use less electricity and save big on your ComEd bill, Walker notes. But they also will cost more up front. They don’t all provide the same kind of warm-feeling, all-around colors we have gotten used to. And some types have enough mercury to require them to be recycled as semi-hazardous waste rather than just being tossed into the trash.
Walker said there are three types of bulbs competing to replace your old incandescents:
Halogen incandescent bulbs, which also use a material that glows hot and bright when an electric current passes through it but use a different kind of material than the tungsten filaments typically used in old-style bulbs. These use less power than the old bulbs but more than the other alternatives. For example, one halogen bulb offered for sale at Batteries Plus gives the same amount of light as an old-style 75-watter but draws only 53 watts.
Compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs, which are similar to the long tubes used for decades in office and store lighting and use hot gases to generate their light. The compact ones typically have a small tube wrapped into a spiral shape. If you think that’s ugly, or you have a lampshade designed to snap onto the old-style incandescent, CFLs now also come in a rounded shape that looks much like the old-style bulbs on the outside.
CFLs use less power than halogen incandescents. The one equivalent to an old-style 75 uses just 20 watts, in effect cutting your electric bill for using it by three-fourths. CFLs are the type that contain a small amount of mercury, an environmental hazard, but hardware stores and Batteries Plus will accept them for recycling.
LED light-emitting diode) bulbs, which are the most high tech bulbs of all. They are similar to the LEDs used in electronic dials and some brake lights, flashlights and traffic signals.
They’re the most efficient type of all from the standpoint of power use, but also are the least well developed at this point. Remember how dim those LED Christmas decorations seem to be? LEDs strain to achieve the same kind of brightness as a living-room lamp, and in fact the brightest LED available at Batteries Plus puts out only one-third as much light as a 75-watt incandescent bulb.
Varying prices
Prices, colors and life expectancies also vary considerably among the four types. At Batteries Plus, 75-watt incandescents can be had for 50 cents apiece if you buy them in a four-pack. The equivalent halogen fluorescent will cost you four times as much, or about $2 a bulb. The CFL equivalent is about $3.99, or twice as expensive as the halogen and eight times as much as the old-style incandescent.
And the LEDs? Don’t ask. At Batteries Plus, that biggest LED that produces only a third as much light as a 75-watt incandescent will set you back a whopping $34.99.
But the new styles may last so long that over the life of a lamp, the purchase price looks more reasonable. According to the website of Phillips Electronics, if an old-style bulb burns out in a given usage in one year, a halogen bulb in the same usage will last two years, a CFL will last seven to 11 years, and an LED bulb will burn on and on and on for at least 15 years.
Walker said some users have complained that CFLs burn out sooner than that, but he thinks that depends on how the bulb is being used.
“You need the right bulb for the right application,” Walker said. “If someone has a closet light that they switch on and off all the time for just a few seconds at a time, that will be hard on a CFL. But for a porch light that turns on once a day and stays on for hours, a CFL will last a long, long time.”
Add in the savings on your electric bill, and ComEd and the Alliance to Save Energy argue that using the newfangled, expensive-to-buy bulbs usually ends up saving money over the long run.
Also, ComEd will help you some with the purchase cost. Just a few years ago, the utility would provide its customers with free replacement bulbs that they could pick up at grocery stores such as Gromer’s in return for paying just a few dollars a year more on their power bills.
Now ComEd will provide a $1.25 rebate on each new bulb that qualifies for the Energy Star rating, up to 10 bulbs per customer. The customer fills out a rebate slip while purchasing the bulbs and the store even handles the chore of sending the forms in after giving the customer the instant rebate at the cash register.
One of the main customer complaints about the new bulbs is that they don’t duplicate the warm, homey colors of the old-style incandescents, which generate about the same color spectrum as a gas fire or a camp fire. Halogens and fluorescent lights often are described as too blue-ish or too green-ish or too glaring. But Walker said developers are rapidly improving the looks of the new light.
For example, CFLs now come in three color spectrums — “soft white,” “bright white” and “daylight.” Walker advises buyers to ask a store employee for advice on what looks best in a given situation.
Super bulb
Despite their current high price and limited intensity, Ziegler’s Stokes is convinced LEDs will be the bulb of the future. A retired Air Force officer, Stokes is familiar with the technology because he is both a hardware store manager and an amateur pilot.
“The first thing we’ll see is most people switching to halogen incandescents,” Stokes said. “Then they will go to compact fluorescents. But eventually everybody will be using LEDs. We just got one in (at ACE) that can replace a 40- or 60-watt incandescent and uses only 2 watts of power.”
Researchers are figuring out how to make LEDs brighter and brighter, Stokes said. “The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) has now approved airplane landing lights made of LEDs. Of course, for my plane a new incandescent bulb costs $10, while to replace it with an LED would cost $280. But that price will go down.”
Walker said the Rockford Airport recently replaced its runway lights with LEDs, too — but then ran into an unexpected problem.
The reason incandescent bulbs use so much power is that they convert most of the electrical energy into heat instead of light.
“They found out the LEDs were so efficient and burn so cool that snow just piled up on the runway lights without melting until you couldn’t see the light anymore,” Walker said.