It was last November that I first wrote about the Government's desire to scrap Thomas Edison's classic incandescent light bulb on grounds of energy efficiency and saving the planet. Back then they conceded that could not simply ban them because of common market rules but they could lobby within the EU for them to be regulated out of existence instead.According this morning's Telegraph they, that is the EU, have now agreed to do just that. The intention is for the lights to go out on Edison's invention by 2009, and we'll all then be using energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs instead (pictured).
However, whilst CFL's do indeed use less energy, and yes, certainly save on your bills over time, there is a downside. You see, you can't just chuck them in the bin when they're dead. OK, that's a lie, you can do it, but you probably shouldn't. Why? Well they contain quite high levels of mercury so it would be bad for the environment if you did. The phrase "swings and roundabouts" springs to mind doesn't it?
You can bet that DEFRA hasn't considered (a) the impact of millions of non-recyclable mercury laced light bulbs being dumped in the bin, or (b) the monetary and consequential energy costs of disposal facilities either.
27 comments:
You're probably right, Dizzy.
But that is not the most important issue.
The British Parliament will not in any real sense pass this law, and therefore the British people will have no voice in the enactment of this legislation. Democracy, in this area, has been abolished.
That is the real story. See here and here.
If it hadn't been a UK driven initiative you might have a point. And anyway this is not a "law" that's being introduced, it's regulation that will have the effect of getting rid of a type of light bulb out of the market.
The idea that Parliament would've been passing a "Ban incandescent light bulb" law is just silly. as well. They would;ve done exactly the same thing with regulation. I;m afraid that the paradigm of "we've lost our country!!!" simply doesn't apply here.
They have one nice side effect ,they save you money and last a very long time ,but I see another little problem ,the price will drop ,then go up because people will not be buying them on a regular basis ,so Philips etc will close factories ,so it looks good it you don't mention ,factory closure.
The people from the factories could go and work at the Mercury disposal plant.
But the regulations are a form of law. And whether the light bulbs are banned directly or indirectly through "environmental" legislation, the end point is the same. It will be illegal to buy and sell and use them.
And if promulgated by the EU as a Directive or Regulation, then it will be binding on the UK whether or not our 650 MPs and the House of Lords vote for it or not. And failure to enact the Directive/Regulation into domestic law, and to enforce it, will result in compliance proceedings before the ECJ, resulting in the UK being fined.
And even if a majority of MPs in parliament voted against the new regulations, they could not prevent Britain from being fined by virtue of the powers that an earlier Parliament transferred to the ECJ (and in which the current Parliament acquiesces).
None of that was made clear either to Parliament back in 1972, or to the people (who were denied a referendum before entry with all the consequences spelt out).
Blair and co. dare not go directly to the British people and the British parliament and say that this is what they are doing and seek a mandate for it through the normal democratic methods.
Instead, all the power of the Commons and Lords has effectively been concentrated for EU business into the hands of one person - the Prime Minster - and whilst we are in the EU there is next to nothing that Parliament can do to prevent itsekf from being effectively excluded from exercising the power that it was historically there to exercise.
it will not be illegal to use them, that's bollocks. And frankly, I don't give a shit anyway.
Well it's a good job that it's not your livelihood that will be lost as a result of this regulation.
If it were, you might care more.
First they came for the Jews, but because I wasn't a Jew, I didn't care.
....
And finally they came for the internet bloggers and those who sit on the unregulated sofas of 18 Doughty Street free to speak their mind without state interference...but there was no-one left to speak up for me...
cos "I [didn't] give a shit [about them] anyway"
(despite taking the time to blog about it)
It is probably a form of protectionism, third world countries can knock out the common or garden light bulb very cheaply, the plant is there and probably bought and paid for; I imagine only the multinationals are geared up to produce the more complicated plant for the 'energy saving' lamp. The little guys will not have the capital to make the huge investment in new plant and machinery. My smoke alarm ciurcuit makes the bloody things flash at intervals and I understand radio hams are not too chuffed at having all the radio interference they produce. What about the mix of rotating objects and strobe effects from fluorescent lamps that you do not get with incandecant filaments ? It's a quick vote catcher and has been ill thought out. Blair was boasting about EU setting an example.... I think Oz beat them to it.
see http://adelaidegreenporridgecafe.blogspot.com/2007/02/outcandescent-bulbs.html
I think you'll find that what I am saying is that I don't give a shit about the way you are dressing it up.
As to the "we're all dooomed to Nazism!" crap, well it's just that in my opinion.
Why did I blog about it? I blogged about it because it supposedly about environmentalism and yet the new light bulbs are just as problematic.
When the kings and queens of England of old attempted to rule and tax without recourse to parliament, you could say that the laws they passed and the taxes they levied were "UK initiatives".
But the nationality of the king or queen was frankly irrelevant to the constitutional principle that there should be a proper and effective check on executive power.
Without that check, abuses of power or wrong-headed laws and taxes could more easily be imposed.
That was a major philosophical justification for a parliament elected by and answerable to the people, without which executive direction should not exist.
I agree that the effect of this legislation will cause problems of its own which have (probably) not been properly thought through.
The deeper point I am making is that the British parliament has been neutered in its ability to consider, challenge, amend or throw out this proposal. We have returned to a position where the effective parliamentary check on the executive has all but been abolished in vast areas of lawmaking in this country. And that applies, whether it is environmental many other types of legislation.
I don't agree with you about Parliament. Our problem is obssesively British need to "play by the rules", if we simply "no we're not implementing that it's stupid", nothing would happen. What they gonna do? Invade? We'll get a little fine which, if we act like France and Germany, we can ignore.
I;ve posted about this before. We need to stop saying cricket and leanr to tell them to "fuck off" when feel we want to.
We are different from most of the rest of the EU in four crucial, interrelated ways:
- as you say, our respect for democracy and the rule of law;
- that we haven't had a civil war or a revolution in three centuries or been invaded and occupied in more than nine centuries;
- our law is not based on Roman Law or the Code Napoleon, but on Anglo-Saxon common law;
- we don't have a written constitution which can take priority over EU treaties and laws.
This makes us utterly unlike any other EU member, past, present or future. And these are important reasons why we may well be Better Off Out.
But I think as a nation it is right to abide by the rules that we have agreed to abide by. That is a GOOD national characteristic, by and large.
I just think that we should't be signed up to a certain set of rules which a good deal of time it is not in our practical interests to obey. That is no way to conduct our relationship with foreign states, and perpetual disobedience to commonly agreed rules is not an admirable characteristic of the nations you refer to.
You saw in the 1980s and 1990s how Labour and the Lib Dems attacked Thatcher and Major when each of them tried to resist going along with what other EU members wanted. It led to no end of attacks on the Conservative government as "isolated" or "awkward" or somehow letting down the national interest by always being at odds with other EU nation states.
The type of policy you advocate is, I think, closer to Redwood's argument about how to proceed, but I do not think it sustainable in the long term.
If we were to have that type of attitude, I should it be with a view to achieving a longer term settlement whereby we weren't signed up to any rules except basic trading ones. That would mean that we weren't perpetually souring our relationship with other important European nations over lightbulbs or the price of cheese or whatever.
These things are the real future of lighting.
http://www.ledonline.co.uk/PAR20-32-LED-4-1.htm
Just one quick point. Incandescent light bulbs are only inneficient in summer when the heat they produce is unwanted.
Good thread Dizzy.. I think AL has cast some eco friendly light here myself
to scrap Thomas Edison's classic incandescent
Well since you speak of Edison-General Electric and his incandescent bulb I care not - I have few using ES (Edison Screw) 27 fittings....
...I thought for one minute you were referring to light bulbs invented by Sir Joseph Swan and patented in 1878....the fact that he later formed a JV in England caled Edison-Swan should not cause you to be so ignorant of British inventors
I will now stock up on the old type cos there cheap and not fit the poxy mercury filled balls of death till i have to.as for global warming i think
that fairy story is a dead duck now.ITS THE SUN PEOPLE ITS GETTING HOTTER!!!.TOTAL CO2 IN ATMOSPHERE 0.054% EFFECT ZERO.
Voyager - I care not for your historical pedantry.
Having said that I may do a post about how Zworykin invented television just to see how long it takes for some tit to start screaming about Logie Baird. I have faith in the Internet's ability to provide me with such entertainment. You can't beat a good bit of historical wedge pedantry on a Sunday.
You can't beat a good bit of historical wedge pedantry on a Sunday.
So long as it brings a bright light of truth into those dark unvisited depths of your ignorance......fine !
What ignorance? Swan's 1878 patent was different to Edison's 1880 one.
Swan's 1878 patent was different to Edison's 1880 one.
I do hope so...that is the point of a patent
He's right, Dizzy. Swan went to law and won the patent case and Edison had to stump up. Shame on you for recycling Yankee propaganda.
Swan also said that Edison's lightbulb was much better than his because of the type of filament he used. Edison's is the one we have today, not Swan's.
Dizzy - CFLs contain 4.0mg of mercury, and generating the electricity used to power them releases another 2.4mg into the environment. Generating the electricity used to power an incandescent bulb releases 10mg (which is worse than having it in a sealed container...)
http://www.nema.org/lamprecycle/epafactsheet-cfl.pdf
John B
I read that document on Saturday and it's comparing apples and oranges. Incandescent lightbulbs don't contain mercury, whilst CFL's not only create emissions (assuming you are using a coal power plant for generation) but contain it too. As you pointed out, 4mg.
Let's do some dirty maths. There are approximately 20 million homes in the UK, each with approx 10 lightbulbs, with each light bulb running out every five years. That's 1,000,000,000mg of Mercury being dumped into landfill which coulod quite easily reach the water table.
Whilst that may seem "not as bad" as the example for incandescent, the example is based on the assumption that we will be using coal power plants - something that, given other targets etc, will be phased out. Additionally, whilst air emmissions are higher in mg terms, they have a far wider scope of travel create a less concetration of mercury in area terms.
Basically, the document is dodgy because it's drawing conclusions by hanging it on an assumption about power plant generation methods and ignoring the issue of concentrated spots of mercury in the ground that CFLs will create compared to air emmissions whcih the wind has impact on and spreads far wider reducing its concentration.
At the end of the day the issue here is disposal, and from what I can tell no one is talking about how it will be handled.
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