Ban The Ban – Sign The Petition!

August 17, 2012 at 11:22 pm (EU ban)
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EU incandescent ban

Now it has been three years since the first step of the incandescent phase-out was enforced in the European Union. In a few weeks, the last of the regular incandescent bulbs, 25 and 40 W, will be prohibited from production and import into the European Union. Remaining stocks may be sold until they run out. Next year reflector lamps are up for restrictions and 2016 most halogen lamps will be banned.

Was this a good idea?

Evidence is mounting that this was a very poor decision.

But CFLs are so great?

Since the ban, we have had a never ending flow of reports on CFL issues, from dimming problems, slow start-up time, poor performance at cold temperatures, lamps burning out prematurely, starting fires, emitting UV, radio frequencies and causing disturbances on the grid. Plus consumer tests showing much still to be desired when it comes to producing promised brightness etc.

And worst of all: Chinese workers and environment poisoned to produce ‘green’ lamps for us, risk for toxic contamination of your home, poor recycling rates, and recycling plant workers at risk from people throwing CFLs in glass recycling bins.

But incandescent lamps use more mercury than CFLs..? 

No, they don’t. This clever PR lie was invented in 1993 by the EU-funded anti-lightbulb lobby organisation IAEEL and based on a fantasy calculation exercise at a Danish university in 1991, with an imaginary scenario of a CFL containing only 0.69 mg mercury (impossible to attain at that time, and still is), while electricity production from coal was assumed at a whopping 95% (as was the case in Denmark at that time but nowhere close to true for the rest of EU then, and even less so today). 

So poof, the main argument that has gotten environmentalists, politicians, journalists and the general public alike to believe a mercury containing product is the best product for the environment, has no substance at all. 

See my Mercury posts for details and references on mercury issues above.

See also Good Greek Philosophy

But what about LEDs?

LEDs (and OLEDs) are great for TV and computer monitors, for coloured Christmas decoration, signal lights, possibly road illumination, stage lighting, spectacular lighting design (such as could be seen during the last Olympics) and many other creative purposes, just not as replacement bulbs for home illumination. Even industry leaders don’t seem to believe in that concept, as they know of the many challenges and that this is not the area in which LEDs perform best.

Most LED replacement bulbs available to consumers today are a joke when it comes to light colour, output and price. There are a few decent looking ones from top brands, but the prices on those are even more of a joke, and how long they last and give a useful light is still unknown. Many have electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) issues and may cause grid disturbances. Most are not dimmable, and the ones that are do not dim well.

But what about halogen energy savers?

Well, they give the same type of top quality light, can be dimmed nicely and have all the other advantages of incandescent light, plus longer life. But recent consumer tests disappointingly show that they don’t save as much as promised. They also contain bromine or iodine and can be quite glaring unless shaded or frosted.

Unfortunately, frosted bulbs were also banned by the EU in the first stage of the phase-out 2009, due to wanting to force the majority who likes frosted glare-free lamps at home to buy CFLs instead – that was the whole point of the ban. (Not that CFLs are always glare-free, but they can pass for ‘frosted’ by their phosphor coating.)

That the halogen energy saver is still permitted for a few more years was a temporary compromise, as there exists no clear bright point replacement for when such is desired. Its existence on the market – although at first, very hard to find – has been used by the Commission to stifle all the numerous complaints about CFL shortcomings: “But for those applications, you can use a halogen energy saver!” What the commission doesn’t tell the general public is that halogen lamps will also be banned – unless this regulation hysteria is put to a halt by EU citizens!

Time to ban the ban!

Freedom Lightbulb explains How bans are wrongly justified. Quoting from just one of the many excellent points:

CFLs are simply not suitable for all locations and uses: Hot or cold ambience, vibration, dampness, enclosed spaces, recesses, existing dimming circuits, timers, movement sensor switching, use in chandeliers and small and unusual lamps, aesthetical use if clear bulbs are preferred, rare usage when cheaper bulbs are preferred – and so on – apart from light quality differences, particularly noticeable when dimming. Usage in children’s rooms might be restricted on breakage and mercury release issues, see point 10 below.

LEDs offer an alternative choice especially for directional lighting – but otherwise, with several similar location and usage issues to CFLs, as well as having their own light quality issues in spiky emission spectra. LEDs also have even more light output problems than CFLs to achieve bright (75-100W and over) omnidirectional lighting equivalence, and at reasonable cost.

To put it bluntly:
Incandescent technology is optimal in BULB form,
Fluorescent technology is optimal in TUBE form,
LED technology is optimal in SHEET form.
Fluorescent and LED lighting technology advantages are compromised in trying to replace what incandescents can do.

You don’t make savings by regulating what products are on the market – unless they’re toxic, then you remove them for environmental and health reasons. You do it by using the appropriate lamp type and brightness for a particular environment and task, and by tuning it down or switching it off when not used. Lighting designer Kevan Shaw points out the obvious in Ecodesign Regulation Failure? (emphasis added):

As has been shown in previous studies the amount of lighting energy used in households is far more dependent on behavior than the type of lighting equipment used. Ultimately the length of time a light is left switched on has significantly more influence on total energy used than the wattage of the lamp. Another interesting point is that the proportion of electricity used in households for lighting is now being overtaken by that used for Audio Visual and Computers in the home. Despite this no one so far is proposing that plasma large screen tellys are banned in favour of LED types that use a fraction of the electricity!

Also, you can make an incandescent or halogen incandescent both use less electricity and last longer by simply dimming it – something many are already doing! Jim on Light:

Dimmer maker Lutron says that by dimming a halogen lamp by 30% will give you many of the same benefits as using a compact fluorescent lamp.  Lutron also says that a 3,000 hour halogen lamp will last 12,000 hours when dimmed by that 30%.

As Freedom Lightbulb frequently points out: people are not stupid. If there was a better product that truly saves both money and the environment and last as long as promised, we would buy it without being forced. We gladly buy energy-star fridges and washing machines. We have willingly followed energy authorities’ advice on better insulation of our houses; taking a shower instead of a bath; switching appliances off instead of leaving them on stand-by; turning lights off when leaving the room; installing sensors, timers and dimmers. We recycle and try to be as green as we can manage and afford.

All EU authorities need to do is enforce the energy and performance information on the package label, make tests to check that it’s accurate, and leave us all free to make our own informed choices on what we want to spend our hard-earned money on.

The market failure of incandescent replacements is a product failure, and banning the original high quality product in order to force an unwilling public to pay more for a problematic and lower quality replacement is just too absurd for words!

Save the bulb – sign the petition!

Here is a German petition to revoke the ban. It’s not very well written, but please sign anyway – every vote counts:

-> Avaaz petition to repeal the EU ban

Edit: Two more German petitions to sign (thanks to Lighthouse for the links):

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/pro-gluhbirnen.html
https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/aufhebung-des-gluehbirnenverbots

Update: The incandescent ban is actually illegal as the replacement lamps have not fulfilled criteria a, b and c in the Ecodesign Directive. Se my updated post New EU Ecodesign Directive

7 Comments

The Lightbulb Conspiracies

July 27, 2012 at 2:14 pm (Anti-lightbulb campaign, Global ban)
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The 1st Conspiracy (1924-1939) – The Incandescent Bulb

The first conspiracy was presented earlier this year in the documentary The Lightbulb Conspiracy, about planned obsolescence. (Freedom Lightbulb has review, comments and links to the full movie.) Here is a summary of the lightbulb part of the film:

In the early 1900’s, the goal was to make the light bulb last as long as possible. Edison’s lamp lasted 1500 hours, and in the 1920’s, manufacturers advertised lamps sporting a 2500 hour life. Then leading lamp manufacturers came up with the idea that it might be more profitable if the bulbs were made less durable.

In 1924, the Phoebus cartel was created in order to control global lamp production, to which they tied manufacturers all over the world, dividing the various continents between them. In the documentary, historian Helmut High shows the original cartel document that states: “The average life of lamps may not be guaranteed, advertised or published as more than 1 000 hours.” The cartel pressured its members to develop a more fragile incandescent bulb, which would remain within the established 1000-hour rule. Osram tested life and all manufacturers that did not keep the lower standards were heavily fined. Bulb life was thereby reduced to the required 1000 hours.

The film claims that there are patents on incandescent light bulbs with 100 000 hours lifetime, but they never went into production – except Adolphe Chaillets bulb of Livermore Fire Department in California, which has burned continuously since 1901. In 1981, the East German company Narva created a lamp for a long life lamp and showed it at an international light fair. Nobody was interested. (It later became accepted as a special ‘long-life’ lamp but was never a commercial hit.)

Wikipedia states that the Phoebus cartel included Osram, Philips, Tungsram, Compagnie des Lampes, Associated Electrical Industries, ELIN, International General Electric, and the GE Overseas Group. “They owned shares in the Swiss corporation proportional to their lamp sales.”

“The Phoebus Cartel divided the world’s lamp markets into three categories:

  1. home territories, the home country of individual manufacturers
  2. British overseas territories, under control of Associated Electrical Industries, Osram, Philips, and Tungsram
  3. common territory, the rest of the world

In 1921 a precursor organisation was founded by Osram, the Internationale Glühlampen Preisvereinigung. When Philips and other manufacturers were entering the American market, General Electric reacted by setting up the International General Electric Company in Paris. Both organisations were involved in trading patents and adjusting market penetration. Increasing international competition led to negotiations between all major companies to control and restrict their respective activities in order not to interfere in each other’s spheres.”

According to the documentary, the cartel officially never existed (even though their memorandum remains in archives). Their strategy has been to rename all the time, but still exists in one form or another. The film mentions The International Energy cartel, but that seems to be more about controlling world energy production rather than light bulbs specifically.

See also: Freedom Lightbulb: Light Bulb Testimonial

Update: Ceolas.net found an Osram pdf (nicely spotted!) where the Pheobus is mentioned, though of course not called a cartel but “an agreement”. Quoting from pp. 31-33:

The world light bulb agreement (Phoebus agreement)

Soon after OSRAM was founded its chairman, Dr. William Meinhardt, made it his mission not only to unite the German light bulb industry but also to achieve international cooperation among similar companies. His aim was to build bridges and make connections to bring the world’s leading companies closer together. The conditions for such a move were favourable. Preparatory negotiations lasted many years until finally in 1924 Dr. Meinhardt’s initiative bore fruit in the form of the “General Patent and Development Agreement”. A company called Phoebus S.A. was founded under Swiss law. Its highest decisionmaking body was the general assembly. The chairman of the administrative board (supervisory board) was Dr. Meinhardt.

This “world light bulb agreement” was one of the most far-reaching international agreements. It included the most prominent manufacturing companies in the world, with the exception of those in the USA and Canada (through with their agreement) as direct members.

Representing Europe were OSRAM from Germany, Philips from Holland, G.E.C. from the UK, the Compagnie des Lampes from France, Kremenezky from Austria, Tungsram from Hungary, the Società Edison Clerici from Italy and companies from Spain. Swedish and Swiss companies provided a representative together with medium-size German light bulb manufacturers. The initial agreement was set to run for ten years but it was extended in view of its success. It was nullified in 1940 because of the war.

To maintain the effectiveness of the agreement it was necessary to set up a streamlined organisation. The arrangements were generously adapted to suit the purpose of the agreement. 

The agreement related to all electric light bulbs used for illumination, heating or medical purposes. Arc lamps, neon lamps, x-ray lamps and radio tubes were excluded. If, during the course of the agreement, new light sources of general importance were developed they could be included in the agreement. This applied later to fluorescent lamps.

The 2nd Conspiracy (1938 and onwards) – The FL Tube & HID Lamps

This is perhaps more of a Zeitgeist thing than an actual thought-out conspiracy since at the time it was generally thought that, after millennia of dim lighting, light quantity was always a blessing and quality of no importance at all. It was also an era of industrial optimism and a complete unawareness of environmental and health effects of various toxic chemicals found useful in everyday applications.

So, in the 1920s and 30s, along with functionalism in architecture, there was a great rush to find new and more efficient ways of illuminating work places and public areas. The fluorescent tube (FL) seemed to be the answer and the first tubes were marketed in 1938. But then came WWII.

The situation after the war was ideal: a clean slate upon which to build massive functionalistic buildings lit by overly bright fluorescent light everywhere. Again, likely by the coordinated effort of the lighting industry, the FL tube became the standard light in offices and residential building common areas, as well as in home owners’ kitchens and basements – despite the light quality being outright appalling.

High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps such as the Mercury Vapour lamps were used factories and cast a harsh eerie blue-green light on public streets; in the 60s joined by Sodium Vapour and Metal Halide lamps (which are Mercury Vapour lamps with halogens added for improved light colour and colour rendition). Not that there was a better alternative at the time: short-lived and ineffective incandescent lamps would not have been practical for road illumination (though there were combination lamps for a time, where the incandescent helped ignite the MV lamp). But some might have preferred to have more quality light than quantity indoors, e.g. in schools and offices, like in earlier decades.

Mercury-based FL/HID light continued through subsequent decades to be spread into every area of human life, eagerly pushed by lighting industry organisations (e.g like Belysningsbranschen in Sweden and their equivalents in other countries) who issue professional lighting standards for all public spaces.

By the 1980s, mainly private homes and some commercial areas such as restaurants, hotels and small shops remained incandescent. But even such romantic sanctuaries were not to be left alone.

The 3rd Lightbulb Conspiracy (1985 and ongoing) – The CFL

This self-confessed conspiracy by lamp companies and utilities and national energy agencies has already been outlined in The Global Anti-Lightbulb Campaign, and on the New Electric Politics site Shining a Light on Politics and Light Bulbs.

When I wrote that first post two years ago, I was not aware of the first lightbulb conspiracy, but the info about the Phoebus cartel provided the last pieces of the puzzle as to how lamp manufacturers were able to pull off the CFL scam and get a global ban of their by then unprofitable product (the incandescent bulb) in such a short time. One only has to check the ELC (European Lamp Companies Federation) website to see that lamp manufacturers are still extremely well organized, and now brag openly about their lobbying:

We represent the leading lamp manufacturers in Europe. 95% of total European production. 50 000 employees in Europe. 5 billion EURO European Turnover  – view lamp statistics. We are an international non profit-making association under Belgian law with a secretariat in Brussels. We are a flexible, light & efficient decision-making lobby organisation. See our views on climate change & energy efficiency. Recent news. We were created in 1985 – view our structure.

Interesting date 1985… right before the CFL was released on an unsuspecting public.

Utilities and national market transformation programmes now also brag openly about how they managed to increase public acceptance of substandard CFLs by addressing consumer concerns with blatant propaganda (see The Global Anti-Lightbulb Campaign for details).

As for utilities’ part of the scheme, see New Electric Politics

Then in 2009, the conspiracy moved up to United Nations level, with a chance for lamp manufacturers to get subsidies for dumping their unwanted CFLs on unsuspecting Asian and African countries – who a) won’t be informed of the mercury content and other issues and b) are very unlikely to have efficient recycling plans and facilities set up – while getting a green halo for their saintly ‘environmental’ efforts.

“There is growing momentum now, and a very aggressive timeline to address the emerging issues of climate change. We have learned a lot in Europe and the United States over the past few years, and need to apply that in the emerging marketplaces of developing countries,” said Kaj den Daas, CEO, Philips Lighting North America.

I suspect the “aggressive timeline” has more to do with a need to squeeze out as much remaining profit as possible from the CFL before environmentalists wake up to the scam and mercury-free alternatives take over the market. It’s not like they’re going to give away free LEDs or halogen lamps to poor people in developing countries…

The result of this UN – lighting industry cooperation was the en.lighten initiative. Wikipedia has a handy description of it:

“As part of global efforts to promote efficient lighting, United Nations Environment Programme with the support of the GEF Earth Fund, Philips Lighting and OSRAM GmbH has established the en.lighten initiative. The initiative seeks to accelerate global commercialization and market transformation of efficient lighting technologies by working at the global level and providing support to countries.”

See my post Global Ban Craze for details on the deceptive numbers used in the 2009 press release, now perpetuated on the new site.

“Electricity for lighting accounts for almost 20 per cent of global power consumption and close to 6 per cent of worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If a global transition to efficient lighting occurred, these emissions could be reduced by half.”

See also Freedom Lightbulb for info and comments on the en.lighten initiative.

Edit 1 aug: Yesterday, Freedom Lightbulb posted more proof of the bulb ban conspiracy with an article from 2010 by two dutchmen about the findings of journalist Syp Wynia on how the incandescent bulb ban was achieved through cooperation between Dutch Philips and Greenpeace. Original article:  The Unholy Alliance between Philips and the Greens

Philips, the company involved, started in 1891 with the mass production of Edison lamps, at its home base, Eindhoven, Netherlands. There existed no international court of justice at the time, so they could infringe on US patent law with impunity. In the past 120 years it has expanded continuously, to become the multinational electronics giant it is today. Because nostalgia seldom agrees with the aims of private enterprise, Philips started lobbying to phase out the very product on which its original success is based. They started this campaign around the turn of the century, ten years ago.

Their line of thought is clear: banning incandescent bulbs creates an interesting market for new kinds of home lighting, such as “energy savers” (CFL’s, compact fluorescent lamps) and LED’s (light emitting diodes). The mark-up on these new products is substantially higher than that on old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. The rapid expansion of the lighting industry in China makes the profit margin on ordinary bulbs from factories in Europe smaller yet.  (…) 

Multiple government campaigns, aimed at promoting the idea that energy savers contribute to the well-intentioned goal of reducing the energy consumption of households, failed to convince citizens. 

The spectre of catastrophic climate change offered a new opportunity for the strategists and marketing specialists at Philips headquarters. They changed their marketing concept and jumped on the Global Warming band wagon. From that moment on, energy-saving bulbs could be put on the market as icons of responsibility toward climate change. This would give Philips a head start in the CFL end LED business. The competition would be left far behind by aggressive use of European patent law. That strategy fitted like a glove with that of the environmental movement. For them, ordinary light bulbs had become the ultimate symbol of energy waste and excessive CO2 emissions. Seeing the opportunity, Greenpeace immediately made a forward pass with the ball thrown by Philips’ pitchers. The incandescent bulb would serve as an ideal vehicle for ramming Global Warming down people’s throats. No abstract discussions about CO2-emissions any more: a ban on bulbs would suffice.

The 4th Conspiracy (c. 2005 and ongoing) – The LED

Since at least 2005, the U.S. Department Of Energy (DOE) Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy department have had their main focus on solid state lighting (SSL), which is a fancier name for LED. Market Studies and Technical Reports

Naturally in cooperation with leading vested interests such as Philips, Cree, Lumileds Lighting Company, Dow Corning, General Electric, Osram Sylvania and Eastman Kodak (examples from this document: Energy Savings Potential of Solid State Lighting in General Illumination Applications) who made projections spanning 20 years, from 2007-2027, and seem to consider LED (and eventually OLED) to be the optimal replacement for pretty much all other  lamp types in all sectors, but especially for the “high CRI” (CFLs and T8 FL tubes) and “very CRI” (incandescent, halogen) groups in the residential and commercial sectors.

“In both the LED and OLED scenarios, SSL displaces light sources in all sectors by the end of the analysis period, but the significant energy savings are primarily from the displacement of incandescent lamps in commercial and residential applications.”

So, with the pesky incandescent bulb out of the way, and more and more people becoming aware of or experiencing first hand the many drawbacks of CFLs, now the whole circus starts over again with yet another hyped incandescent replacement. Again at ridiculous prices, with more or less appalling light colour, suboptimal colour rendition, dimming problems, heat sensitivity and a promised life that still remains to be seen.

Does this sound familiar? Story of the CFL, for which millions have paid hefty prices to get substandard lamps which only now, after 20 years, appear decently incandescent-looking, decently affordable (due to heavy sibsidies) but still have most of the other problems left. So, do we now have to wait another 20 years for the LED to become decent-looking, affordable and working as promised, while paying even more hefty prices for being consumer guinea pigs in the mean time?

Alas, the Lightbulb Conspiracy film maker didn’t see through this one. Instead a younger generation Philips got to present ‘his’ new generation bulb: the LED, as if he personally made the whole lighting industry suddenly wake up with a bad conscience and now truly wants home bulbs to last for 25 years! I predict that future consumer tests will show LEDs lasting significantly less than 25 000 hours, or become dim enough to be useless long before that.

Epilogue

I also suspect that those of us who have spent years revealing all the dirty little secrets of CFLs, are probably in a way just helping to prepare the ground for the LED. Those of us who genuinely believe that natural, healthy, beautiful light is as basic a human need and right as clean water, food and air, are of course no willing participants in such a scheme, but something to be mindful of.

3 Comments

New EU Ecodesign Directive

December 22, 2009 at 9:19 am (EU Ecodesign Directive)
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Updated Dec 2012

Let’s look at the crucial parts of the European Union’s amended (Oct 2009) Ecodesign Directive:

5. Implementing measures shall meet all the following criteria:

Please notice the word “all”.

(a) there shall be no significant negative impact on the functionality of the product, from the perspective of the user;

• With CFLs, the user gets poorer quality light with suboptimal colour rendering (CRI 81-83 of 100), sensitivity to heat, cold, moisture and frequent switching (not recommended for bathrooms and shortly visited spaces); that may not fit well in many existing luminaires; is often incompatible with dimmers, (will fry existing electronics); may cause disturbances on the grid and use more power than marked watts; has recycling difficulties (being hazardous waste they must be taken to special recycling facilities, often reachable only by car, instead often contaminating other recycling materials); and risk of mercury contamination of one’s home if accidentally broken.

• With LEDs, the consumer gets a poorer quality, dimmer light with often strange light colour, dimmability problems, suboptimal colour rendering; extremely high purchase price and poor electromagnetic compatibility (may disturb the power grid and other electronic devices).

• With clear class C Halogen Energy Savers, you get good quality light but more glaring and can get very hot. Frosted would be ok but they were banned 2009. Clear class C halogen lamps will be banned 2016.

• With clear class B Halogen Energy Savers with integrated transformer; glare, higher EMFs, very high price, and not available on the market at all! The only European manufacturer who made these lamps for a few years, Philips, replied when asked a direct question, that that they have no plans on re-introducing this halogen lamp on the market, and that all R&D will go towards developing [the more profitable] LEDs.

–> Thus, this condition is not fulfilled.

(b) health, safety and the environment shall not be adversely affected;

• CFLs can not be considered anywhere near safe for health or environment as long as they are breakable and contain highly toxic mercury vapour. Increased mercury mining in China due to rising demands from the West is causing an environmental disaster in Asia! CFLs  may also emit other carcinogenic chemicals and UV radiation (through cracks in the phosphor layer in the inside of the tube).

• LEDs can also flicker, contain toxic chemicals, emit potentially harmful amounts of blue light and cause health problems for a number of patient groups, as well as disrupt circadian rhythms.

As there are also many patient groups, an estimated 250 000 light sensitive people in EU which SCENIHR thinks will be adversely affected, and anecdotal evidence for even more patient groups reporting everything from subjective discomfort or serious illness in FL/CLF and LED light. Others have estimated that 2 million will be affected in the UK alone.

–> Thus, this condition is not fulfilled.

(c) there shall be no significant negative impact on consumers in particular as regards the affordability and the life cycle cost of the product;

• The reason standard CFLs are now more affordable, besides competition from poor quality no brand bulbs, is that they are often subsidised by tax money. Your tax money. And you may also be paying an extra nominal fee on your electricity bill to compensate for the poorer power factor of most CFLs, LEDs and other home electronics. In both cases: whether you’re actually using them or not.

• Dimmable CFLs and LEDs are still prohibitively expensive to buy, even if they allegedly last longer. And most of the replacements don’t save as much as claimed, give as much light as the lamp they replaced, or last as long as promised. Burned-out CFLs often have to be delivered by car to special collection places, or to recycling stations for hazardous waste.

• Recovery of the higher purchase price is dependent on the product lasting as long as advertised, something which CFLs continue to fail even under optimal lab testing conditions, and even more so in real life conditions where they easily get overheated or get switched on-and-off more frequently than recommended etc. The promised life of LEDs still remains to be proven. As CFLs and LEDs become dimmer over time and some also change colour, they may neeed to be replaced even before they burn out prematurely.

• Savings are also 50-60% less in North Europe due to the scientifically established Heat Replacement Effect.

• The whole life cycle cost of the product typically never includes the mining of the mercury, phosphors and rare minerals in Asia, and all the cost to health & environment for the workers there. Nor for the shipping of the many electronic and chemical parts over Asia for assembly in a specific factory; shipping by polluting oil tankers from Asia to Europe; transport to recycling facility for toxic waste after the lamp has burned out; and then for the complicated recycling process to recover the mercury and cleaning the glass; and finally for depositing the mercury and other toxins as they cannot be exported from EU according to the RoHS Directive.

• If a CFL breaks in your home, you should first of all already have bought an expensive mercury spillage kit for safe clean-up. Then you may have to replace all carpets, textiles and other contaminated things in that room. If your children inhale the noxious mercury vapour, they may become sick and develop learning disabilities for life. What is the cost of all this?

–> Thus, this condition is not fulfilled.

(d) there shall be no significant negative impact on industry’s competitiveness;

(e) in principle, the setting of an ecodesign requirement shall not have the consequence of imposing proprietary technology on manufacturers; and

(f) no excessive administrative burden shall be imposed on manufacturers.

I’ll leave that part for manufacturers to comment, on the remote chance that they find anything to complain about, as the ban has been a direct result of their lobbying. But they have had to change the lamp labels to include much more information than earlier. And I believe leading lamp manufacturers hold most of the patents for creating decent LEDs.

= As A, B, C are clearly not fulfilled, the incandescent phase-out is invalid and should be revoked immediately. 

• Furthermore, naked tube & spiral CFLs for private use should be banned effective immediately, as they are a hazard to health and environment both! This is very urgent and imperative!

• LEDs should also be restricted to professional use only, due to the blue light hazard – which is greatest for children and certain patient groups – and/or only warm-white LEDs allowed on the market.

• A special ban on cool white/light blue lamps for vehicle headlamps is urgently needed for safety reasons, as glaring blue-white light is a very real danger to traffic and vision both.

• The old ineffective Mercury Vapour street lights should be banned according to schedule as there are more effective replacements with better colour rendition, such as ceramic metal halide.

• All other gas discharge lamps should be permitted on the market in order to offer lighting designers and engineers a full range of options for various situations when lighting public spaces. Different environments call for different lighting solutions, optimised for that particular situation. Sometimes more quantity than quality is needed (e.g. in parks and attractive tourist areas), sometimes quantity and long life is the highest priority (e.g. for illuminating highways). Each type of lighting has its unique qualities and one lighting technology is NOT replaceable by another without getting completely different light qualities. Lighting designers know this and are well educated to choose the most optimal lighting technology for each situation.

Light is a bio-nutrient just like food, air and water, and good light quality should be a basic human right.  The quality, colour, colour rendition, direction and quantity can have a very profound effect on how a space is perceived, as well as direct biological effects on the endocrine system, vision, mood and performance on normal healthy people. Lighting is also one of the most potent mood enhancers at the disposal of an interior designer, architect or lighting designer.

Restricting choices for both professionals and for the general population is just wrong, unless a product is found harmful – such as the CFL and some LEDs.

Banning fire-based incandescent light in order to force everyone to use chemical-technical light is the equivalent of banning water in order to force everyone, including diabetics, to drink only Coca-cola when they are thirsty. That’s how big the quality difference is. Truly. Just check any manufacturer’s online catalogue. Even the best CFLs and LEDs for the consumer market only have 80% colour rendition (CRI) whereas incandescent and halogen lamps have 100%, just like sunlight.

Anyone can see this for themselves by taking a dark room and lighting it first with CFLs or LEDs (especially one’s that have been used for a few years) and then light that same room with only incandescent or halogen light and you will see that in the former you will strain your eyes to see anything through the dim, gloomy, greyish fog.  With incandescent/halogen light you will see and feel like letting in the sun on a cloudy November day; all colours will come alive and look more brilliant, and people will no longer have a sickly pallor.

5 Comments

Global Ban Craze

November 25, 2009 at 8:06 pm (Global ban, INCANDESCENT BAN)
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Updated July 2012

More and more countries are being persuaded to phase out incandescent lamps:

Cuba: banned incandescent bulbs 2005.
Brazil: initiated phase-out 2005.
Venezuela: initiated phase-out 2005.
Argentina: bulbs will be banned by 2011.

European Union: gradual phase-out between Sept. 2009 and September 2012.
Italy (EU member): speeded up ban by 2011.
United Kingdom (EU member): speeded up ban by 2011.
Switzerland: “Switzerland banned the sale of all light bulbs of the Energy Efficiency Class F and G, which affects a few types of incandescent light bulbs. Most normal light bulbs are of Energy Efficiency Class E, and the Swiss regulation has exceptions for various kinds of special-purpose and decorative bulbs.”
Finland: is considering a ban by 2011.

Canada: plans ban in 2012 (Update: “On Nov 9, 2011, the federal government approved a proposal to delay new energy efficiency standards for light bulbs until Jan. 1, 2014”)

U.S.A.: gradual phase-out between 2012 and 2014 (a few of the most efficient Halogen Energy Savers may still pass the efficiency requirements). (Update: In 2011, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas and 14 other Republicans joined to introduce the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act or BULB Act (H.R. 91), which would have repealed Subtitle B of Title III of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.)

Israel: phase out of 60w and over incandescent lightbulbs has been implemented from 1st January 2012.

Russia: phase-out between 2011-2014, starting with the 100W like in EU.
Tajikistan: has banned import & production 2009.

India: “While not a complete ban, the plan is to replace 400 million incandescent light bulbs with CFLs by 2012.”
People’s Republic of China: “China will ban imports and sales of certain incandescent light bulbs starting October 2012 to encourage the use of alternative lighting sources such as LEDs, with a 5-year plan of phasing-out incandescent light bulbs.”

Philippines: 2010.
Malaysia: “The Government will stop all production, import and sales of incandescent light bulbs by or before January 2014.”

Australia: started ban 1 November 2009. (Lamps must be over 15 lm/W which means some Halogen Energy Savers may still qualify.)
New Zeeland: 2007 ban plan got scrapped by the new government in 2008.

Quotes and info from Wikipedia

*********************

But not even this is enough to satisfy the vested interests and duped do-gooders:

Global Phase-Out of Old Bulbs Announced by UN, GEF, and Industry

Ever since I read this press release two months ago, I’ve been too stunned for words. But now I want to make a few comments:

The close to $20 million initiative, the Global Market Transformation for Efficient Lighting Platform that will be implemented in collaboration with the private sector companies OSRAM and Philips, is aimed at reducing the bills of electricity consumers in developing economies while delivering cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases.

I would guess it is more aimed at increasing profits for OSRAM and Philips and funding for involved organisations.

It is also aimed at replacing fuel-based lighting systems, such as kerosene, that is linked with health-hazardous indoor air pollution.

This is good! Or would be, if the plan was to hand out free solar-powered LEDs rather than free CFLs, which are health-hazardous if dropped or not recycled properly. But LEDs are still too dim, too imperfect and too expensive to give away for free, and as manufacturers still meet (often justified) consumer resistence to their CFLs due to lingering quality problems, it seems the plan is now to dump them on unsuspecting developing countries who can’t afford to be choosers.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-secretary General and UNEP Executive Director: “This new project aims to accelerate growing national initiatives to replace old bulbs into a global one by overcoming market barriers in developing economies and by setting international energy and performance standards in order to build consumer confidence.”

I guess manufacturers are in a hurry to find an alternative outlet for their unwanted CFLs before LEDs become good and affordable enough to take over their part of the market. So now they need the help of the UN to “accelerate the plan” and “overcome market barriers” (such as high price for decent quality and dimmable lamps, mediocre light quality, gradual light loss, temperature sensitivity, varying durability, mercury content & recycling difficulties).

Globally, 70% of total lighting market sales are still made up of inefficient incandescent lamps.

But sales do not necessarily reflect use:

– Since incandescent bulbs have a much shorter life than fluorescent and High Intensity Discharge lamps, there will be more incandescent lamps sold, while old tubes and HID lamps keep burning year after year.

– At home, a family may have numerous light points installed but only use a few every day, for just a few minutes or hours at a time, and some on dimmers, sensors or timers.

A market shift, from incandescent lamps to energy-efficient alternatives, would cut the world’s electricity demand for lighting by an estimated 18%.

But this is what the notes at the bottom of the press release says:

Some additional facts and figures

• The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that in 2007 total electricity consumption for lighting was 2,650 TWh. This represents almost 19% of global electricity use.

But only a small fraction of that light is incandescent. And global electricity consumption is only 4.5% of world total delivered energy.

“Eight per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions are linked with lighting.”

If that is true it does not come from incandescent lighting.

Estimates clearly include all sectors. Please note that the majority of lights in the Commercial sector, and probably nearly all in the Industrial sector, are already fluorescent or HID. Transportation sector lighting is still mostly halogen, but that is not what this project aims at addressing.

Left is the Residential sector, which accounted for just under 15% of world delivered energy consumption in 2009 (according to EIA International Energy Outlook). Note: all types of energy.

Electricity is just under 30% of those 15% = 4.5% of total world energy consumption in the residential sector.

In EU and USA, lighting is estimated at a mean of around 9-10% of household electricity = 2-3% of total household energy consumption (source: EuroStat and EIA) = 0.45% of total. And of the lamps in the residential sector, most but not all are incandescent, and of those that are, only some are suitable for replacement.

Statistics for the rest of the world are often incomplete, conflicting, non-existent or hard to come by, but I doubt it is much more than in EU and USA.

OSRAM representative Martin Goetzeler, CEO: “The lever is enormous. Over 1/3 of the electricity used worldwide for lighting today could be saved. That corresponds to half the electricity consumption of China.”

Above it was 18%! How is it possible to save either “18%” or “over 33%” of world electricity used for lighting when most of this light is already fluorescent or HID? Doesn’t anyone see through this obvious fraud?

As lighting in the Commercial and Industrial sectors together represent a much larger portion of world energy consumption (again, according to EIA) and lamps are typically left on all day and/or all night (!), isn’t it obvious that the greatest savings can be achieved in those sectors? E.g. by upgrading existing linear halophosphate FL tubes with magnetic ballasts to triphosphor tubes with electronic ballasts or metal halide downlights in offices, and to switch from Mercury Vapour street lights to Ceramic Metal Halide and High-Pressure Sodium for highways, or by reducing unnecessary over-illumination. None of which requires a global incandescent ban or a CFL push on the remaining private sector, though possibly a ban on Mercury Vapor lamps.

“Historically, the main barrier hampering the deployment of energy efficient lighting products was their high initial cost. When first launched in the early 1980s, CFLs were 20 to 30 times more expensive to produce than their incandescent equivalents. However, CFL costs have steadily declined through use and increased competition. They now retail for about four times the price of an incandescent lamp. Consumers have traditionally been slow to come on board and according to some reports, were initially unimpressed by early models, disliking the look and functionality of these models.”

Not just initially. A whole new generation have never even seen the early horrendous models so that argument has long passed its best-before-date. The newer CFLs, even if they have admittedly been improved in size, colour, light-up time, affordability etc., and most no longer hum and flicker, still leave much to be desired when it comes to colour rendering and general light quality. Since the light is not incandescent, it cannot ever give that incandescent light quality, period.

The only viable replacement is the Halogen Energy Saver – which oddly enough gets no attention at all despite being probably the best, cheapest and most problem-free and environmentally-friendly replacement on the market today.

“Manufacturers are of the view that consumers need to understand how using energy saving bulbs will allow for long term cost savings, as well as be assured of the quality and reliability of new models, as well as the growing number of energy saving options that are and will become available.”

I’m sure consumers understand this already as it’s been harped and regurgitated millions of times in every conceivable medium for 20 years now. Many still prefer quality over quantity. I think manufacturers and legislators need to understand that there is still good reason not embrace the CFL – if it was such a great product, it would sell itself and no legislation or freebie campaigns would be necessary.

“The new global project, which will include a centre of excellence of lighting, will build on and support further commercialization and market penetration among several developing countries that have already made efforts to promote the adoption of CFLs and to phase-out incandescent lamps—some with GEF support and the involvement of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

1. How can a project aimed at lowering light quality all over the world have the audacity to name a centre “excellence of lighting”? Talk about Orwellian!

2. What about the possible health- and environmental consequences of distributing CFLs free of charge in countries where many are still struggling with literacy and daily survival? CFLs contain mercury and need to be a) handled with care and b) recycled correctly. Will the initiators of this campaign accept personal responsibility for making sure the CFLs are not accidentally broken around children and pregnant mothers, and that every single bulb get properly recycled after use?

In the Gulf Cooperation Council (which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Philips doesn’t even wait for a governmental ban but initiates a phase-out singlehandedly, making it sound like a saintly sacrifice to help the environment when it is just a matter of getting rid of that pesky light bulb with too small a profit margin, in favour of more profitable lamps such as the hard-to-sell-CFL – naturally without mentioning any of its drawbacks such as mercury content etc.

Philips announces the phase-out of incandescent lamps in the GCC

And again this absurd focus on the small part of lighting that is used in private homes and not a word about things that could make a real difference, such as phasing out inefficient standard halophospate fluorescent tubes for offices or mercury vapour street lights.

4 Comments

CFL Analysis – Mercury

March 29, 2009 at 3:36 pm (CFL ANALYSIS, Mercury)
Tags: ,

Mercury & health

Although the European Commission does not regard it as an immediate risk to the average user, CFLs contain small amounts of mercury and this is a risk, if lamps are broken and mercury escapes into the air and is inhaled (since mercury vapourises at room temperature). Swedish environmental expert Minna Gillberg, adviser to Commissioner Margot Wallström, says all CFL bulbs should be marked with a skull-&-bones label to increase awareness among consumers. [1]

Although the risk of breaking a CFL at home is probably not overwhelmingly huge if people are informed of the risk and take care not to place them in luminaires that are easily knocked over, and though the amount of mercury each bulb contains usually is minute and decreasing with age, even small amounts of mercury vapour may be harmful to inhale, especially for children, pregnant women and sensitive people. Therefore both manufacturers and various national health protection agencies have issued safety instructions in case of CFL (or mercury thermometer) breakage. [2, 3, 4]

How should I deal with a broken CFL?

In the event of an accidental breakage of a CFL, normal good housekeeping is required.

1. Take care to prevent injury from broken glass.

2. Vacate the room and keep children and pets out of the affected area. Shut off central air conditioning system, if you have one.

3. Ventilate the room by opening the windows for at least 15 minutes before clean up.

4. Do not use a vacuum cleaner, but clean up using rubber gloves and aim to avoid creating and inhaling airborne dust as much as possible.

5. On hard surfaces sweep up all particles and glass fragments with stiff cardboard and place everything, including the cardboard, in a plastic bag. Wipe the area with a damp cloth and then add that to the bag. Household cleaning products should be avoided during clean up despite the very small amount of mercury involved. See the next section for cleaning carpeted surfaces.

6. Use sticky tape to pick up small residual CFL pieces or powder from soft furnishings and then add that to the bag.

7. The plastic bag should be reasonably sturdy and needs to be sealed, but it does not need to be air tight. The sealed plastic bag should be double-bagged to minimise cuts from broken glass. [3]

If you’re a U.S. citizen, you can always order a Philips Spill-kit for ‘only’ $100.00… 😉

“Offers Customers the tools to handle the clean up of broken mercury containing lamps. The materials may be placed in a sealed plastic bag and sent to EPSI in the standard EPSI-PAK lamp recycle box. Kit includes a pail containing training video, safety data sheets, instructions, guidelines for clean-up, mercury chemical information, gloves, scraper, brush, pan, dust mask, safety goggles, sponge pads, plastic sealable bags and large plastic bags.”

Update: Unfortunately, the Maine DEP found when testing that plastic bags are not enough to contain the mercury, not even air tight plastic containers. See my newer post Mercury Problem Worse Than Suspected.

CFL mercury may also constitute a health hazard if thrown away with household garbage or in glass recycling containers:

“‘The problem with the bulbs is that they’ll break before they get to the landfill. They’ll break in containers, or they’ll break in a dumpster or they’ll break in the trucks. Workers may be exposed to very high levels of mercury when that happens,’ says John Skinner, executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America, the trade group for the people who handle trash and recycling. Skinner says when bulbs break near homes, they can contaminate the soil.” [5]

Mercury & coal

The European Commission, however, continues to defend the CFL despite its mercury content, using one of the oldest CFL lobby arguments in the book:

“Indeed the decrease of mercury emissions resulting from energy savings (electricity generation in power plants has its own mercury emissions) outweighs the need for mercury in the lamps.”

That the anti-lightbulb campaign in early 1990s came up with the idea to blame powerplant emissions on the lightbulb in order to get around the uncomfortable fact that FL and CFL contain mercury, is not as surprising as the fact that so many keep regurgitating this argument without ever stopping to consider the blatant flaws in it!

One eloquent exception is Dr Peter Thornes:

“This is based on North American studies, crucially making various assumptions:

“1. That most power is derived from coal. It is about 1/3 in the UK, for example, 1/5 in Ireland, and of course substantially less (and decreasing) in many countries. As an example, the US Government EPA 2002 5-year comparison diagram, variations of which are often used by ban proponents, assumes all power comes from coal, concluding that in such situations CFLs are better.”

“2. That emissions remains at the fixed levels. Power station mercury release has for a long time been treatable by using wet scrubbers (chemical, not human, I hasten to add), in combination with recently cheaper and more effective injection and photochemical techniques.”

“If and where power station mercury release is a problem, ecological warriors might want to do something about it, rather than just use it as an excuse to ban light bulbs. In a nutshell:

“1. What comes out of ever decreasing coal power stations chimneys can be dealt with: we know where the problem sources are and we can treat them with ever increasing efficiency at lower costs.

“2. Compare that with scattered broken lights on all the dump sites, we do not know where the broken lights are, and we can’t do anything about them.” [6]

Danish LCA study:

Update 13 Sept (copied from the LCA page): For those who still believe that incandescent bulbs “cause more mercury emissions via coal plants”, please understand that it really is nothing but a cheap PR trick which seems to originate from the pro-CFL/anti-lightbulb lobby organisation IAEEL 1993, and based alternately on:

I. U.S. conditions in which, at that time, 59% of electricity production came from coal. June 2008 it was 48,5% and decreasing. [7]

II. A Danish ‘study’ (= calculation excercise) from 1991 [8], based on an electricity production from coal assumed at 95% (as was the case in Denmark at that time – the highest in Europe!) [9]. According to EuroStat, the EU share of coal used in electricity production was 39% in 1991 and has since decreased to 29% in 2006 (though varying widely between countries, many use no coal at all). [12]

Mercury in China and India

Also note that there are both automated and non-automated factories in China. In the small, non-automated factories, workers distribute the mercury and phosphors into each CFL by hand! Besides the risk of easily exceeding the specified limits, mercury vapourises at room temperature [13] and Chinese factories are not exactly known for issuing protective gear to factory workers. How ‘green’ is it to poison Chinese labourers and create more toxic waste?

Edit: A May 2009 Times Online article, ‘Green’ lightbulbs poison workers, confirms this information:

“In southern China, compact fluorescent lightbulbs destined for western consumers are being made in factories that range from high-tech multinational operations to sweat-shops, with widely varying standards of health and safety.” [14]

As I pointed out above, hand-dripping risks more mercury being injected into each CFL than the specified limit. VITO, the consultant firm hired by the European Commission to do the preparatory study before the ban, found this procedure to be the likely explanation for the widely varying mercury content in sampled CFLs:

“VITO performed a control on the mercury content of a limited sample CFLi’s, currently available on the market. The control was made by atomic fluorescence spectrometry, conform CMA 2/I/B.3.” (Sampe 1: 1.8mg; sample 2: 1.1mg; sample 3: 6.4mg; sample 4: 3.5mg, sample 5: 0.28mg.) “It must be stated that sample #3 significantly exceeded the maximum allowed mercury content. This is probably caused by the cheap but inaccurate method of mercury filling (drip filling) that seems to be very common in most small far eastern production plants.” [15]

I also warned that this manual dripping will poison workers, as mercury vapourises at room temperature (+20 degrees Celsius). Now this is exactly what has happened!

“Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs.” [14]

Also, mercury mines in China are being reopened to meet the increased Western demand for CFLs!

“A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment.” [14]

As the article is no longer available on the original site, here is a copy of the full text:

“Green” lightbulbs poison workers

By Michael Sheridan, Foshan | timesonline.co.uk, May 2009

Hundreds of factory staff are being made ill by mercury used in bulbs destined for the West.

When British consumers are compelled to buy energy-efficient lightbulbs from 2012, they will save up to 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. In China, however, a heavy environmental price is being paid for the production of “green” lightbulbs in cost-cutting factories.

Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment.

Doctors, regulators, lawyers and courts in China – which supplies two thirds of the compact fluorescent bulbs sold in Britain – are increasingly alert to the potential impacts on public health of an industry that promotes itself as a friend of the earth but depends on highly toxic mercury.

Making the bulbs requires workers to handle mercury in either solid or liquid form because a small amount of the metal is put into each bulb to start the chemical reaction that creates light.

Mercury is recognised as a health hazard by authorities worldwide because its accumulation in the body can damage the nervous system, lungs and kidneys, posing a particular threat to babies in the womb and young children.

The risks are illustrated by guidance from the British government, which says that if a compact fluorescent lightbulb is broken in the home, the room should be cleared for 15 minutes because of the danger of inhaling mercury vapour.

Documents issued by the Chinese health ministry, instructions to doctors and occu-pational health propaganda all describe mercury poisoning in lighting factories as a growing public health concern.

“Pregnant women and mothers who are breastfeeding must not be allowed to work in a unit where mercury is present,” states one official rulebook.

In southern China, compact fluorescent lightbulbs destined for western consumers are being made in factories that range from high-tech multina-tional operations to sweat-shops, with widely varying standards of health and safety.

Tests on hundreds of employees have found dangerously high levels of mercury in their bodies and many have required hospital treatment, according to interviews with workers, doctors and local health officials in the cities of Foshan and Guangzhou.

Dozens of workers who were interviewed on condition of anonymity described living with the fear of mercury poisoning. They gave detailed accounts of medical tests that found numerous workers had dangerous levels of the toxin in their urine.

“In tests, the mercury content in my blood and urine exceeded the standard but I was not sent to hospital because the managers said I was strong and the mercury would be decontaminated by my immune system,” said one young female employee, who provided her identity card.

“Two of my friends were sent to hospital for one month,” she added, giving their names also.

“If they asked me to work inside the mercury workshop I wouldn’t do it, no matter how much they paid,” said another young male worker.

Doctors at two regional health centres said they had received patients in the past from the Foshan factory of Osram, a big manufacturer serving the British market.

However, the company said in a statement that the latest tests on its staff had found nobody with elevated mercury levels. It added that local authorities had provided documents in 2007 and 2008 to certify the factory met the required environmental standards.

Osram said it used the latest technology employing solid mercury to maintain high standards of industrial hygiene equivalent to those in Germany. Labour lawyers said Osram, as a responsible multi-national company, was probably the best employer in a hazardous sector and conditions at Chinese-owned factories were often far worse.

A survey of published specialist literature and reports by state media shows hundreds of workers at Chinese-owned factories have been poisoned by mercury over the past decade.

In one case, Foshan city officials intervened to order medical tests on workers at the Nanhai Feiyang lighting factory after receiving a petition alleging dangerous conditions, according to a report in the Nanfang Daily newspaper. The tests found 68 out of 72 workers were so badly poisoned they required hospitalisation.

A specialist medical journal, published by the health ministry, describes another compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Jinzhou, in central China, where 121 out of 123 employees had excessive mercury levels. One man’s level was 150 times the accepted standard.

The same journal identified a compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Anyang, eastern China, where 35% of workers suffered mercury poisoning, and industrial discharge containing the toxin went straight into the water supply.

It also reported a survey of 18 lightbulb factories near Shanghai, which found that exposure levels to mercury were higher for workers making the new compact fluorescent lightbulbs than for other lights containing the metal.

In China, people have been aware of the element’s toxic properties for more than 2,000 years because legend has it that the first emperor, Qin, died in 210BC after eating a pill of mercury and jade he thought would grant him eternal life.

However, the scale of the public health problems in recent times caused by mercury mining and by the metal’s role in industrial pollution is beginning to emerge only with the growth of a civil society in China and the appearance of lawyers prepared to take on powerful local governments and companies.

A court in Beijing has just broken new ground in industrial injuries law by agreeing to hear a case unrelated to lightbulbs but filed by a plaintiff who is seeking £375,000 in compensation for acute mercury poisoning that he claims destroyed his digestive system.

The potential for litigation may be greatest in the ruined mountain landscape of Guizhou province in the southwest, where mercury has been mined for centuries. The land is scarred and many of the people have left.

Until recently, the conditions were medieval. Miners hewed chunks of rock veined with cinnabar, the main commercial source of mercury. They inhaled toxic dust and vapours as the material seethed in primitive cauldrons to extract the mercury. Nobody wore a mask or protective clothing.

“Our forefathers had been mining for mercury since the Ming Dynasty [1368-1644] and in olden days there was no pollution from such small mines,” said a 72-year-old farmer, named Shen.

“But in modern times thousands of miners came to our land, dug it out and poured chemicals to wash away the waste. Our water buffaloes grew stunted from drinking the water and our crops turned grey. Our people fell sick and didn’t live long. Anybody who could do has left.”

The government shut all the big mercury mining operations in the region in recent years in response to a fall in global mercury prices and concern over dead rivers, poisoned fields and ailing inhabitants.

But The Sunday Times found that in this remote corner of a poverty-stricken province, the European demand for mercury had brought the miners back.

A Chinese entrepreneur, Zhao Yingquan, has paid £1.5m for the rights to an old state-run mine. The Luo Xi mining company used thousands of prisoners to carve out its first shaft and tunnels in the 1950s.

“We’re in the last stages of preparing the mine to start operations again in the second half of this year,” said a manager at the site, named Su.

At Tongren, a town where mercury was processed for sale, an old worker spoke of the days when locals slaved day and night to extract the precious trickles of silvery metal.

“I worked for 40 years in a mine and now my body is full of sickness and my lungs are finished,” he said.

Additional reporting: Sara Hashash

And India’s lighting industry, for example, already uses 56 tons of mercury per year. If forced to increase the use of FL/CFL from current 10% to 100%, that will be 560 tons! [16]

This is truly alarming, considering the fact that one teaspoon of mercury is enough to poison a medium-sized lake!

Once you’ve opened Pandora’s box and let the mercury out, there is no way of putting it back in again; it will just keep circulating and climb its way up the food chain. Thus, focus should be on the direct sources of mercury: fluorescent light and fossil fuels.

Stop mercury emissions it at the source before its too late! 

Ban CFLs

In my opinion, only FL tubes, CFLs and HID lights used professionally should be exempt from the EU mercury ban, as most factories, offices and shops already have well established routines for recycling tubes and lamps correctly and especially linear fluorescent tubes tend to be returned as they don’t fit in standard trash cans.

To put such a burden on private individuals, especially in developing countries who usually already have enough to worry about without needing the extra hassle of safely deposing burned-out bulbs, can certainly not be called a wise and responsible decision.

References

1. Nyhetskanalen: “Expert varnar för lågenergilampor”
2. U.S. NPA: Mercury – Spills, Disposal and Site Cleanup
3. U.K Health Protection Agency: Fact sheet on mercury and CFLs
4. Swedish Chemical Inspection Agency: Kvicksilver i lågenergilampor och lysrör
5. “CFL Bulbs Have One Hitch: Toxic Mercury”
6. New Electric Politics – Environment
7. Mercury: A Broader Perspective, IAEEL Newsletter 3/93
8. Life Cycle Analysis of Integral Compact Fluorescent Lamps, 1991
(now removed, local copy: IAEEL – Danish Life Cycle Analysis)
9. EIA: Electric Power Monthly, September 2009
10. More on mercury, IAEEL Newsletter 1/94
11. Lot 19: Domestic Lighting Part 1, Chapter 4
12. Eurostat: Panorama of Energy 2007
13. Mercury Waste Solutions
14. Times online: “‘Green’ lightbulbs poison workers”
15. Lot 19: Domestic Lighting Part 1, Chapter 4
16. “Think before you make the switch to CFL!”

3 Comments

The Global Anti-Lightbulb Campaign

March 29, 2009 at 11:08 am (Anti-lightbulb campaign, INCANDESCENT BAN)
Tags: ,

As CFLs did not exactly fly off the shelf when first introduced, due to high price, poor light quality and technical drawbacks, the lighting industry found more drastic measures necessary to make people buy the new FL lamp, besides working on improving the product. In the campaign to force an unappealing and expensive product on unwilling customers, a very well thought-out campaign was launched where nothing was left to chance. This is how you do it:

1. First give the compact fluorescent lamp a more appealing name, like “Energy Saver” (or equivalent in other languages) since most people associate fluorescent lamps with dull office light which may be OK at work but hardly at home.

2. Create some great-sounding PR slogans, like “gives 5 times more light”, “saves 80% energy”, “saves hundreds of dollars/pounds/etc per year” and “lasts 10 times longer”, based on theoretical figures for the best lamps on the market. Nevermind that this is not true for most CFLs in real life situations, just repeat it in brochures and PR-articles until it becomes a ‘fact’.

3. Then make sure to target the main competition, that pesky incandescent bulb which consumers insist on preferring due to its low price and nice light, and blame it for everything you can think of, complete with derogatory pictures of dark sad bulbs beside pictures of bright happy CFLs.

4. Use the growing public environmental concern and convince leading environmental organisations and authorities of the “environmental benefits” of CFLs, based on inflated figures and downplayed mercury impact, and you’ll have reliable allies who would otherwise surely complain about mercury content (if/when eventually informed of it) but who will now instead do part of your marketing for free. Finger-point the incandescent bulb as the “bad guy” and let them beat up the competitor for you. Klaus Stanjek explains how the campaign was carried out in Germany:

“It was [vital] that this targeted and expensive campaign also reached customers whose ecological conscience motivated them to try and save energy. Through a clever information strategy Osram and other lamp manufacturers convinced many newspapers and magazines to print their argumentation, and they gained the support of Stiftung Warentest [equivalent to “Which?”], “Globus” (a TV programme on environmental issues), the German Federal Environmental Agency, and even critical organisations such as the B.U.N.D. (German Association for the Preservation of the Environment and Nature). By now the ministries even prompt their admistrative offices to install “energy saving lamps”. These fluorescent lamps were not even assessed by others than the manufacturers themselves.”

5. Convince energy agencies and utilities that switching to CFLs will save more energy than just about any other measure conceivable, and you’ll have a free, tax-paid marketing channel working steadily to sell your product. Here is one example described in the paper (F. Kjoerulf – Transforming the CFL Market by Consumer Campaigns, 1997) of how Danish utilities, by targeted campaigns between 1990 and 1997, managed to increase CFL use dramatically by its detailed plan to overcome consumer resistance:

This paper focuses on the fact that it has been proven that it is possible to make a dramatic influence on the market by combining marketing tools and co-operation with the manufacturers and distributors.

B A C K G R O U N D

Why transform the market. The Danish electric utilities have spotted the use of CFL’s as an alternative to incandescent lamps as the absolutely most potential demand side management (DSM) program within the domestic office and retail sectors.

The major barriers to choosing CFL’s was found to be:
• high “initial price”
• “does not fit”
• doubt about light “quality” (color, long light up time)
• doubt about actual lifetime
• beliefs that savings are only possible where the light is on for long periods
• fears that the CFL’s cause mercury pollution

Obviously the goal for electric utilities would be to increase the market share for CFLS. However, it requires quite different approaches to overcome the barriers. The barriers were attacked by different means:

Price
The use of price incentives, such as give-aways, rebates and financing has been tried out. It is believed (and turned out to be true) that the price will decrease in time. When volume goes up, production technology is refined and last but not least the competition will increase. It could be argued that keeping away the low-price/low quality products by initiatives as described in this paper would delay this process. Lately the Danish market has experienced a price bomb by a CFLS claiming to be of high quality being offered country wide at a 1/3 of the established market price. This might be the beginning of a drastic price slide.

“Does not fit”
Several activities have been considered to overcome this problem as for instance contests among designers and architect to develop light fixtures designed for CFLs. So far no initiatives have been taken by the utilities. The manufacturers are of course equally concerned with this barrier and more and more compact CFLs have arrived trough the years. However, due to the different characteristics of the CFLS opposed to the incandescent lamp, the need for better fixture design is still evident.

Light “quality” (color, long light up time)
So far the best light quality has been consistent with the CFLs with long life time and good switch on/off capacity. Therefore no specific action has been taken to lower this barrier. However it is still expected that introduction of five-powder CFLs will have a positive effect. According to CFL manufacturers the concerns for light quality is mainly a Nordic phenomenon.

Life time
The barrier of lifetime does not seem to be a major barrier (in 1992 it was 5%, [ref 3]). However, when the first “bamboo bulbs” arrived at the Danish market, it was immediately evident that stories about CFLs that quickly burned out or lost light output, would be a setback to the growing market for CFLs. It was therefore decided by the Danish electric utilities to attack this development by testing all the CFLs on the market. At first the tests were merely a tool for the consultants to give the proper advice to the customer. Later on the CFLs that passed the test were listed on a positive list named SPAREPÆRELISTEN®. The CFLs listed were allowed to use a special label symbol with the text “recommended by your electric utility”.

Beliefs that savings are only possible where the light is on for longer periods
It is a strong popular belief that it is not economically feasible to switch off and on fluocent tubes very often. This belief has somewhat been transferred to the CFLs. This belief could be confirmed as it turned out that frequent switching of some CFLs seemed to cause shorter service life. In 1995 it was therefore decided to add a test of the life time with a predefined switching cycle.

Fears that the CFLs cause mercury pollution
In the Danish electricity supply the major production source is coal based cogeneration. It is evident that the mercury pollution resulting from the electricity production for supplying an incandescent lamp of equivalent light output, for the service life of a CFLs, is greater than the mercury content of the CFLs.

C A M P A I G N S

The campaigns were organized in the following schedule:

1989
A local test campaign is launched by ELSAM (cooperation covering 57% of the Danish electricity market) and OKE (utility). Price incentives are used together with newspaper advertisements and general information.

1990
NESA (utility) runs a campaign with the goal to accelerate the market penetration of the CFLS and breaking barriers, especially price and general knowledge. The campaign used “agreements” with the suppliers of a special price. Simultaneously it was possible to pay the CFLs via the electricity bill. During this campaign the bamboo products showed up for the first time and caused confusion as they were sold at a lower price than the “campaign price”. The number of households with CFLs was increased from 30% to 42% in the 7-week campaign period. All together 170.000 CFLs were sold in the NESA district.

1990
ELSAM and the utilities run a campaign involving TV, local radio and newspaper advertisement. Price “agreements” are used. Co-operation with the retail outlets and in-shop advertisement is introduced. Further local events by the utilities are part of the campaign. The campaign resulted in 400.000 CFLs sold in 3 months.

1991/92
ELSAM and utilities run a campaign as 1990 but also introducing the possibility to borrow a box of the different types of CFLs to test wich type suit the particular application. The campaign resulted in 400.000 CFLs sold in 30 days.

1994
The Danish utilities runs a nationwide campaign involving the above mentioned “positive list”. The campaign resulted in 570.000 CFLs sold in 3 months.

1996
The utilities in the eastern part of Denmark run a campaign specially focused on the ability of the CFLS to turn on and off.

R E S U LT S

The market reactions have been that Denmark is among the countries with most CFLs per household. 2.0 CFLS/household (1995) [ref 1]. It is proven, that it has been possible by the above mentioned marketing tools to keep the low quality products away from the Danish market, where the market share of the far east “no name” products is less than 5% compared to the German market where the market share is 30-40 % [ref 1]. The interest in energy saving by using SPAREPÆRER® has been growing, even though the general “green awareness” seems to have topped in 1995 as illustrated below.

6. Encourage other national authorities, organisations and large companies to jump on the band wagon with various campaigns. In the Market Transformation Strategy paper by Kalle Hashmi, current Executive Officer of Technology & Market Unit at the Swedish Energy Agency, gives a candid description of how it was done in Sweden (although he was not involved himself at that time):

The first campaign was launched by NUTEK in cooperation with IKEA in 1993, when IKEA celebrated its 50th anniversary. IKEA through federal government subsidy donated a CFL to each of its “IKEA Family” members. NUTEK prepared a small information leaflet containing information about energy efficiency (lumen/watt) and lamp life (hours) of CFLs, for distribution with each lamp. However, this information leaflet had no relevance for the actual lamps distributed by IKEA i.e. there was no established or known relationship between how the quality of lamps distributed by IKEA to the households corresponded with the performance figures mentioned in the leaflet. In retrospect it may be said that the CFLs distributed by IKEA were of extremely poor quality. There were, however, some advantages gained through this campaign i.e. that IKEA got seriously involved in the market for CFLs, not only in Sweden but globally.

The paper admits that during the 1990s:

STEM engaged in ill conceived, inconsistent and ad-hoc promotions. STEM did not take into account the consumer perspective but rather concentrated exclusively on energy efficiency and technical issues. STEM relied indiscriminately on the information provided by the vendors. STEM was very passive about dealing with CFL technology failures that affected main benefit claims. STEM did not study, did not know or admit technology limitations. STEM did not demand or work to establish minimum performance requirements. STEM never questioned why long life claims were not backed by a guarantee.

The UK has also had a strong Market Transformation Programme.

A couple of years ago the European Commission also made a detailed summary of the various national – often tax-paid – campaigns in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, UK; Spain, Italy, Lavtia, Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic, complete with suggestions on how to keep increasing CFL sales in all of Europe: Residential Lighting Consumption and Saving Potential in the Enlarged EU. Also mentioned in Market transformation for energy-efficient products: lessons from programs in developing countries:

“The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has allocated more than $90 million over the past 10 years to eight energy-efficient-product market transformation projects in developing and transition countries. We review the early experience and lessons from these projects and offer a framework for thinking about market transformation program design based on GEF project designs, cataloging both demand-side and supply-side strategies.”

“From its early roots in the early 1990s, market transformation blossomed into a comprehensive energy efficiency approach widely sanctioned as effective and low-cost, and became a common energy efficiency policy in Canada, the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and several other European countries.”

In developing and transition countries, market transformation programs have made some inroads, but not on the scale found in developed countries. Countries with notable programs include Brazil, China, Hungary, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, and Thailand.”

7. Besides regular TV & magazine ads, spread PR-brochures and PR-articles through every possible channel, in order to set a standard where no light-related article is published without mentioning the compulsory PR-slogans and anti-lightbulb-arguments at least once – even if the article has something negative to say about CFLs!

8. Use Internet websites and blogs to further your cause and let other well-meaning idealists do the job for you, thinking they’re helping to save the planet.

9. Always be active and pro-active and leave nothing to chance. As soon as some new embarrassing fact about CFLs is discovered and pointed out in media, issue “FAQs” and “Myth-Fact” lists that “debunk” or downplay anything unfavourable about CFLs, and make sure they are spread through as many channels as possible, including the flood of unsuspecting green websites and blogs who usually dutifully repeat these carefully constructed PR-arguments more or less verbatim without ever questioning the source. Keep ignoring and ridiculing every attempt to offer a different perspective.

10. If possible, also make sure to produce at least one lamp model which does not have the discovered limitation, e.g. that is dimmable, can be used at high or low tempeatures, looks like a bulb, fits in recessed luminaires etc., so that customers, journalists, lighting designers, light researchers and others who notice drawbacks with the CFL that the lightbulb doesn’t have, can be silenced with the argument that such shortcomings “are a thing of the past”. Nevermind if the improved CFL costs several times as much, is hard to find and may have lower efficacy or other trade-off effects, or that most CFLs still have more limitations than benefits.

11. Finally, if all this still doesn’t help, persuade EU legislators and world leaders everywhere to ban the competitor in the name of “saving the environment” and push the CFL for domestic use above all other alternatives. Starting with the most popular frosted incandescent and halogen bulbs so that everyone who wants or needs a frosted bulb will be forcred to buy a CFL instead!

“Philips calls for action to replace incandescent bulbs with energy saving lamps”
“OSRAM welcomes the European Union directive to phase out incandescent lamps” and European Lamp Companies Federation proudly announces that “ELC members participate in a number of EU energy saving initiatives.”

Read more about why this ban (or “phasing-out” as they call it) is a very ill-concieved idea, and what would be a more effective approach to save both money and the environment: New Electric Politics

Update 4 Aug: Some confirming highlights from the 2006 updated detailed list of marketing strategy and “consumer education” bullet points by the the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy:

• Identify and focus first on niche markets where the benefits of the new technology make sense.
• Focus product marketing on attribute that is most important to consumers (e.g., energy savings and long life for CFLs).
• Be specific about benefits. How long do they last? How much do they save?
• Back up long-life claims with guarantees.
• Shift consumer focus from product price to product value. Build a message of value (costs more/worth more).
• Focus message where the technology can meet/exceed expectations.
• In marketing literature show comparisons of savings to the standard technology, e.g., 1 CFL = 10 incandescents.
• Use mass media, both paid (TV, radio, newspaper, and magazine ads) and unpaid (host press events, tie news releases to current events).
• Promote products through several different mediums to reinforce familiarity.
• Work toward consistent, industry-wide terminology. Identify and avoid terms with negative connotations.

• Target training programs/awareness campaigns to market channels such as builders, designers, and retailers.
• Join forces with others in national energy-efficiency programs (e.g., ENERGY STAR).
• Use utility or manufacturer field representatives as link between manufacturers and retailers; they can educate and train retailers, set up displays, distribute promotions, and iron out problems.
• Coordinate incentive programs; avoid overlapping, inconsistent promotions.
• Require action on part of consumer, in give-away programs, for higher installation and retention rates, and greater consumer awareness, e.g., make customers mail in a request card to get the free bulb, don’t just hand them out door-to-door to customers who may not want them.
• Delay program launch rather than introduce inferior products; first impressions are long lasting.
• Design multi-year programs around the lighting season (Sept to April) not the calendar year.

• Strive to make new lighting technologies available through market channels where products are typically purchased (e.g., lighting purchases are often made at grocery stores).
• Conduct in-store product demonstrations.
• Let consumers see new technology – use lit in-store displays and see-through packaging.
• Invest in visible, attractive point-of-purchase displays and signage.
• Arrange shelf displays by lighting application rather than manufacturer and identify good/better/best options that correlate to longer product life and greater energy efficiency.
• Provide retailers with many education tools including brochures, posters, demonstrations, and wall displays.
• Support retailer efforts with utility bill stuffers and product demonstrations at local fairs, home shows, and energy shows.
• Encourage and applaud enthusiastic and ongoing retailer participation.

Compact Fluorescent Lighting in America: Lessons Learned on the Way to Market

Conclusion

Even though I’ve followed this anti-lightbulb campaign since its conception in the late 1980s and saw this coming, I’m still astonished that it was this easy to get an almost global ban in such a relatively short time when it often takes several decades to get a ban on things that are proven to be hazardous to public health, the environment, or both.

But why would the lighting industry want the light bulb banned; after all, they make incandescent bulbs too, so what difference does it make to them if customers buy one of their lamps or the other? Well, I recently got the answer to that question from a product manager at Philips Lighting. It was so simple I should have guessed it myself…

Prices on incandescent lamps are now so low that leading producers no longer make a profit on them!

OSRAM appears to confirm this: “For many years, the manufacture and sale of incandescent lamps have become less and less important for their business.”

Whereas CFLs are an estimated 80 billion dollar business. And the LED market is expected to reach $14 billion by 2013.

And companies are, after all, in business to make a profit.

As simple as that?

********************

Update Sept 2: Here Philips admits to ‘helping’ U.S. Congress set the new lighting standards:

“Companies such as Amsterdam-based Royal Philips Electronics NV, the world’s largest light-bulb maker, and GE, seeing the determination by Democrats to act on energy legislation, helped Congress develop the lighting standards that will end the sale of incandescent light bulbs within a decade.

Randall Moorhead, vice president of government affairs at Philips Electronics North America, said that after the 2006 elections, in which Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress, his company knew it needed to act.

‘We knew that 12 years of pent-up demand by Democrats to do the things they wanted to do was going to be released in a number of ways and one of those ways was in energy efficiency,” said Moorhead.

Ungar called the light bulb standard ‘the single most important efficiency standard in the history of the program.”’

Bloomberg: Light Bulbs, Gas Changing as U.S. Energy Bill Passes

Update Dec 2: More of Philips’ bragging in the press:

“The head of Philips Electronics NV said his company’s lighting business stands to gain from government spending on energy efficiency in the U.S. and abroad.

“Philips said it won a $6 million contract with the U.S. General Services Administration to retrofit two federal buildings in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., with energy efficient lighting. The Dutch company said $71 billion of the $787 billion stimulus package is reserved for green initiatives and another $20 billion for green-tax …”

Philips CEO Sees Gain From Efficiency Push

CFL makers rise to defend incandescent bulb ban

Article from Dec 2007 by Harry Verhaar, Philips Lighting, complete with all the usual lies and exaggerations:

The idea of phasing out incandescent light bulbs in order to save energy has been widely welcomed across the world and for many the question is not “if” we should do it, but “how fast” we can do it.

The benefits are clear: The potential energy savings are 10 billion Euros per year in Europe alone, along with 25 million tonnes of CO2. Globally, these savings are roughly four to five times. Politically too it seems an easy win at a time when strict carbon reduction targets are being set and the absolute need to reduce carbon emissions have been widely accepted by governments, scientists and NGOs.

However, a number of people remain uncomfortable with the idea. Resistance is generally based on the notion that the only alternative to the incandescent light bulb is the CFL energy saving bulb and a number of supposed (negative) issues associated with this light source are then listed and multiplied. This picture however is misleading.

In fact, the Lighting Industry is fast developing several alternatives to the incandescent light bulb in addition to the new ranges of CFL lamps. A new generation of energy saving Halogen lamps is now becoming available in Europe and the US. These offer energy savings from 30 to up to 50 %, will last three times longer, and provide a quality of light, which is equal to that of an incandescent bulb. These new lamps are dimmable, allowing for even greater energy savings, and are the same size and shape as the ordinary incandescent bulbs. Most importantly, they can directly replace incandescent bulbs. Within a few years these new halogen alternatives will be available in the huge quantities needed.

The second alternative being developed is light emitting diodes (LEDs). These will truly take lighting into the 21st Century with lifetimes that are fifty times longer than incandescent bulbs and anticipated energy savings of 95 %. The first high quality light generation to provide enough light to replace low wattage incandescent bulbs will be available within 1–2 years and major developments are expected within the next 3–5 years. LEDs will also offer energy saving alternatives for those specialist areas such as fridge and oven lamps, which CFL lamps are unsuited for.

The existing CFL lamp also offers an important alternative. The days when they were heavy, ugly and pricey have long gone. Today’s CFL lamps offer energy savings of up to 80 %, are small, bulb or candle-shaped, and much cheaper. Colour variations are also available and increasing numbers can also be dimmed. Well known brands offer the best all round quality. They are ideal for areas where lighting is left on for longer periods such as halls, landings and porches.

However a number of concerns still exist regarding CFLs. These lamps contain minute amounts of mercury, which is needed to create light in an efficient way. Despite the fact that the mercury used would fit on the tip of a ballpoint pen, there is a justified worry about this mercury being disposed of in the ground. CFL’s fall under the EU WEEE recycling laws and it is expected that in the future the great majority will be recycled.

However, mercury is also omitted in the atmosphere from the power system, and the mercury contained in lamps need to be weighed against that emitted from power plants.

Studies show that indirectly the additional energy usage of incandescent bulbs is responsible for more mercury entering the environment than that is contained in a CFL. It should also be remembered that each CFL lamp means that 6–10 incandescent bulbs don’t need making, transporting and disposing off. Life cycle studies have clearly shown that about 90 % of the environmental impact of a light bulb is in its usage phase, in other words when it consumes electricity. Both these factors favour the CFL.

It is often assumed that the discussion about phasing out incandescent bulbs is about lighting in the home, but figures show that about 25 % of all such bulbs still sold in Europe today end up in commercial applications such as hotels, restaurants and even offices.

There is also a striking unbalance between the amount of electricity used by incandescent bulbs, their sales volumes and the work they actually perform: Incandescent bulbs consume 25 % of all electricity used for lighting in the world, but they only produce 4 % of all electric light. This is despite the fact that they represent 2/3 of all global lamp sales!

Huge savings can thus be made in the way we are lighting our offices, roads, shops and factories. It would be a real shame, if we let our nostalgia for a century-old, inefficient bulb, obscure the need to switch to more energy efficient technologies.

Why we need to get rid of incandescent bulbs

See also my post Global Ban Craze

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