Reuters reports that a German entrepreneur carefully studied the EU legislation that put a ban on traditional, incandescent light bulbs and found a loophole that enabled him to deliver the product consumers want. Siegfried Rotthaeuser classified 75 & 100 watt bulbs as “small heating devices” and branded them “Heatballs” since 95% of the energy consumed by the bulbs is converted to heat with only 5% converted to light. This enabled him to circumvent the ban on the bulbs. Rotthaeuser even pledged to donate 30 cents for rainforest perservation for every bulb sold. He feels that, due to the mercury contained in the bulbs, his solution is more environmentally friendly.
It is wonderful that Mr. Rotthaeuser was entrepreneurial enough to give the public a product they more highly valued, thereby increasing their standard of living. However, it is unfortunate that his entrepreneurial skills had to be put to use solving a problem arbitrarily created by government rather than toward solving a problem for which a solution does not yet exist.
Though I personally use only compact florescent lights (CFLs) in my own home because I like them and they are cheaper to own, this is a simple case of property rights. No government should ever dictate which lights a person can use in his or her own home. What ever happened to the notion that a man’s home is his castle?
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“. . . thereby increasing their standard of living.”
Is this line a joke as if it were a choice between incandescent light bulbs and candles? Or a lighting device that converts 5% of the input energy into actual light is better than another that produce 75-80% light? C”mon!
Gil,
Value is subjective. We know that their standard of living is increased because the first shipment of 4,000 sold out in 3 days. People would not have purchased the bulbs if they did not value them more than the next best use of their money. Likewise, had they all voluntarily purchased candles, their standard of living would have been increased.
If the Amish prefer candles for lighting are their standard of living is improved because they would prefer that over incandescent bulbs?
Yes.
Gil, repeat it aloud: “Value is subjective.”
If there’s doubt about people’s standard of living being increased or not, there’s just one sure method: ask those who bought the product.
Also it’s not just about heat, light, bills and rational calculation. By purchasing heatballs I’m sending out a message too. The original Boston Tea Party wasn’t exactly about tea either.
Yes. You increase your standard of living when you get what you want. Be that a wooden cottage in the mountains with no electricity. If you value it more than a town house with a TV in it.
great analogy
A lighting device that converts 5% of the input into actual light, and the remaining 95% into heat. Not bad deal for cold evenings.
I s’pose you would argue an internal combustion engine is more efficient in colder climates because the car’s heater is merely redirecting waste heat from the engine whereas an electric car would have to draw extra charge from the battery and flattening the batteries faster.
I s’pose you’d try to tell someone what they can and cannot drive.
Gil, shed your ignorance for a moment. It’s not about efficiency; it’s about freedom of choice. Those of us who value freedom of choice experience improved standards of living, no matter if that freedom is attained through force or if that freedom comes in small denominations, teased out of regulations as in this instance.
What really irks the EU legislation writers is that this inventive German beat them at their own game. “Heatballs”; who woulda thought? I enjoy incandescent and traditional lightbulbs. Let me decide which one is right for me in the free market. Auf Wiedersehen statist control freaks!
Anyone who thinks the government should enforce their views on other people should consider this: that only works until you don’t agree with the government on what to enforce, then you end up with someone else’s ideas enforced on you.
I had a European socialist tell me once that banning incandescent light bulbs was the result of democracy working properly.
I stated that if people really did not want incandescent light bulbs then there would be no reason to ban them as people would simply stop purchasing them and they would go away on their own.
Nobody had a answer for that except to tell me how stupid and backward thinking I was.
The worst thing for a statist is to be confronted by logic. Most of their belief system is based on emotion – logic throws them.
I don’t understand – why doesn’t the EU just keep raising electricity rates higher and higher until the public is all but forced to buy the crappy, weird-colored, mercury-laden, non-fixture-fitting eyesores? It worked for me!
Signed,
Dalton McGuinty
P.S. Look to patents for the root of this, ah, opportunity. Old style bulbs are no longer under patent and are a cheap commodity. New style tubes have patents up the wazoo. It’s kinda like the way we banned old but effective herbicides – to clear the shelves for the new, patented ones.
Quasi-government utility companies promote efficient light bulbs and household appliances because such devices offset the need to build expensive new energy plants.
In April 2008, I put together a review of CFL’s and some of their difficulties that are not talked about, or printed on the box.
The CFL Advertising Account
The good and bad about compact fluorescent lights. Why the ads are both true and false. How to save and waste money on CFL’s.
One of the points:
My research indicated that the average CFL at that time will turn on 2000 times before its electronics fail. The recommendation to leave them on for 15 minutes is a crazy interpretation of that fact. Leaving them on doesn’t heal them. But, hey, at least if you leave them on for 15 minutes each time, you will get 500 hours use out of them before they fail.
Interesting to me, people who report on current CFL’s omit definite information about how many on-off cycles current bulbs will complete. Consumer Reports gives a Good-Bad rating for this, but not an absolute figure. This still seem to be a problem.
I also present a cost analysis of expected savings, taking into account CFL and standard bulbs release of heat energy, under air conditioning, winter heating, and no heating or cooling needed.
In Poland (also part of EU) one can buy traditional lightbulbs to install in workshops. It is inherently insecure to operate a lathe or similar machine with spinning parts in an area that is lit with CFL. I bet some bureaucrat is already working to plug this legal detail.
Awesome.
What people don’t realise is that a cfl 20w cost the same amount of electricity to turn on, (yes just turning on) as a standard 60w incandescent bulb uses in 4 hours!!!! How is that saving money or energy!!?? Also, did you know that the british government gets a tax everytime you buy one!?? 15p per bulb goes straight to them!!!
Personally I have switched to CFLs, and may in the future switch to LEDs if they prove to be longer-lasting. The biggest thing to me is the fact that they are lasting longer than incandescent requiring me to change them much less. This convenience to me is well worth the price. Even in CFLs were to last only 2x longer I would still keep them.
The only negative is I did not buy the dimmable CFLs and that is missed in only one room. I may change these at some point, but other than that I am happy with CFLs. However I do not support removing someone’s choice. It is clear to me that CFL color/strobe are different than an incandescent, but fortunately it does not bother our family personally.
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