A New Yorker cartoon from several years ago shows a
vast, cubicle-filled office, with a manager explaining that the
“dim fluorescent lighting is meant to emphasize the general absence
of hope.”
Fluorescents aren’t all that bad. In fact, they’ve steadily
gained market share in recent years. But from now on their
popularity will rest not on consumer preferences, but on the force
of law. If there’s anything about fluorescents that involves the
general absence of hope, it’s that Congress has been able to
mandate them with so little opposition.
The new energy bill, signed by President Bush this past
Wednesday, is noted for its huge hike in auto fuel economy
standards and in ethanol mandates and subsidies. The former will
kill people, by causing cars to be downsized and less crashworthy;
the latter will waste huge sums of money.
Less well known is the bill’s boosting of appliance efficiency
standards, despite the fact that items like top-loading washing
machines have already been ruined by the stringent standards
currently in effect. (That’s Consumer Reports’ assessment,
not mine.)
But for those bugged by nitpicking flexings of government
muscle, the most irritating provision may well be the bill’s
banning of incandescent bulbs.
The bulbs aren’t banned outright. Rather, beginning in 2012 a
set of increasingly stringent lumen-per-watt standards will
eliminate conventional incandescents. 100-watters will be the first
to go. In their place we’ll have to use compact fluorescent lights
(CFLs) or other new-fangled lights.
The reasoning, apparently, is that the public on its own is too
dumb to realize what a great thing CFLs are, given that their
energy savings far outweigh their higher prices.
The fact that growing numbers of people, on their own, have
turned to CFLs doesn’t count for much; for our esteemed
congressional representatives, the burning question is: Why hasn’t
everyone? Why is the CFL market share only 6 percent here, compared
to 80 percent in Japan?
Well, there are some good reasons:
1. Some people hate the light that CFLs give off. Lots of
people, in fact; not just the ones in that New Yorker
cartoon.
2. Unlike incandescents, CFLs take time to reach full brightness
after they’re turned on — from 30 seconds to three minutes. The
first time I used one, it was so dim I thought I’d bought a dud.
Only when I walked back into the room later did I realize the need
for patience. (And only then could I make out the small print on
the back of the CFL package mentioning this.) If you’re used to
full brightness at the flick of a switch, forget it.
3. CFLs can’t be used with most dimmers or timers, and they
don’t fit in many fixtures. I’ve got several of those Y-shaped
ceiling sockets that hold three 60-watt bulbs, but if I replace all
three bulbs in a socket with CFLs, I can’t fit the glass cover back
on. (According to one customer service rep at Westinghouse, you
shouldn’t mix CFLs with incandescents in the same socket, so forget
about inter-bulb harmony.)
4. Some CFLs can’t be used in totally enclosed fixtures or in
base-up recessed downlights. They can also interfere with radios
and televisions.
And here’s another lovely reason for hating CFLs, if you
typically clean up the mess when a bulb breaks rather than call in
your servants:
5. CFLs contain tiny amounts of mercury, and so EPA has a
four-step program on how to clean up a broken CFL! First step:
“Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.” I
suspect EPA is overdoing it, but who am I to argue?
Finally, there’s the question of whether CFLs really do reduce
the use of electricity. Back in 1987, the small town of Traer,
Iowa, handed out 18,000 fluorescents to its residents, in a free
giveaway aimed at cutting power consumption. How did that work
out?
Despite the fact that over half of the town’s households
participated, electricity use actually rose by 8 percent. Once
people realized they could keep their lights on at lower cost, they
kept them on longer.
With this sort of history as a guide, what business does
Congress have leading us into a questionably-illuminated
future?
Sam Kazman is general counsel at the Competitive Enterprise
Institute, a free-market advocacy
organization.
