The Hill Street Blahg

“Fire, the greatest invention known to man” is mainstay trope we’ve all heard since grade school days. Apparently the perpetuates of this rhetorical claim have never read a book in the evening with a trusty light bulb turned on. The claim should be re-phrased to read like this; “Next to Fire, the incandescent light bulb is the greatest invention known to man.”

The humble but most important incandescent light bulb, which has brightened our lives for more than a century, is now in disfavor of the environmental extremists, the Al Gore global warming crowd, and the Hollywood bunch. Also hopping aboard the Ban The Bulb Club bandwagon are several states, local governments, and the dysfunctional bunch in D.C. Compared to the new energy efficient compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), the lowly incandescent bulb is now the red-headed stepchild of man made light.

Before we as individuals hitch are wagons to this ridiculous notion, there are many critical issues we need to be made aware of.

1. CFLs contain a toxic substance called mercury which creates a major disposal problem. Most cities have legislated strict fines if you attempt to dispose of them improperly.
2. CFLs are slower to turn on and reach full brightness.
3. CFLs are more expensive than incandescent bulbs, nominally by a factor of 20 or more.
4. CFLs are only good for long duty usage cycles and their lamp life diminishes with many on-off cycles.
5. The color rendition of CFLs is not very good compared to the incandescent bulb.
6. CFLs are very temperature-sensitive and often are dim or fail to turn on in cold climates.

While I’m as much for greening of the world as anyone, in my opinion, having government mandated stupidity is not the way to go. We don’t need government telling us how we are going to see in the dark.

So don’t listen to the Laurie David crowd just yet about your light bulbs (or your toilet paper either). GE has announced its intent to market a high-efficiency incandescent (HEI) light bulb which will be comparable to CFLs in efficiency yet more economical; while matching the illumination quality of the traditional incandescent bulb. The initial goal is to reach 60 lumens-per-watt bulb by the year 2012.

I say, keep enforced compliance out of the mix and let the free market take its course in the greening up of our planet. The Free Market rarely fails us…unlike government which most always does.