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Australia to ban incandescent lamps

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RODALCO

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:( Latest news from this part of the world is that Australia want's to ban incandescent lamps.
The government plans to introduce a bill to stop using and importing these lamps around 2009.
The idea is to reduce powerconsumption this way on extra green house emissions and to force consumers to use compact fluorescent lamps or perhaps LED lamps.
It sounds like a joke to me and a typical way from politicians to interfere in our lives again.
It should be up to the power consumer to decide what they want to use, The consumer pays the bill and in a democracy you should be able to choose weather you want incandescent lamps, compact fluro's or LED lamps.
It's also already providing talks at our Wellington politicians who think that's a great idea.
Who knows what they will come up with for NZ.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17233145/
 
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Eh Rodalco,
I don't know if your keeping up with the political feild over here in Oz but that hemmeriod of bush's butt our prime minister who has done nothing on global warming for the 10 years he's been in office has suddenly done an about face as this is an election year. Just like David Hicks who has spent 5 years in the US concentration camp who has been ignored by the govt, now theres heaps of protests involving 1,000's of people. Now he's talking about bringing him home before any US kangaroo court. Us Ozzie's can only hope the election is in the 1st half of this year so we can finally kick little johnny out on his ear. As for those incandesant lights being banned for the little gain it provides will be offset by the opening of yet more coal fired power stations. They are saying RE like solar and wind farms won't be enough but consider this if every house had 1kw of solar and a grid tie inverter it would provide about 1/2 of the power needed and teach people to be more conservative on using power. Now if 2 led's were put on the inverter say green for free RE power and red for grid power how many people would try and keep the green going where they can. Apart from that the price of solar panels would become cheaper.

Enough of my rant for today

Cheers Bryan :D
 
They're trying to do the same thing here in the U.S. in California.
 
Low energy lights only save real power in warm countries where the energy "wasted" by an incandescent bulb is really unwanted.

In countries which have cooler climates and cold winters (Europe, N USA etc) all that "wasted" incandescent energy (heat) is not really wasted at all because it contributes to warming up our well-insulated houses hence saving the heating system from working quite so hard and thus saving energy that way - comparatively small amounts its true, but exactly equal to the perceived saving of the low energy lamps.

In these cool countries when real savings could be made (ie in the summer), the lights are hardly needed anyway as its light till late.

Anything wrong with this argument?
 
That's strange, here in Manitoba, they encourage the use of compact fluorescent lamps, to the point that if you buy 1, you get one free.
Trade in your old Christmas lights for LED ones. Free of charge. Purchase new thermostat for your home and change the furnace here for 600$. This is the best time to upgrade here in Manitoba, as everything is at least 50% off.

The government is now implementing a 90-100% rebate for any insulation project.
That includes windows, interior and exterior insulation projects, furnace etc...
Of course I wish I would of waited a bit longer.
I had just bought $12,000.00 of windows for bargain price of $6000.00.
Sure I have to pay it, but at half the original cost.

They are going crazy here, about the impending Global warming.

As for power consumption, the Hydro company here would rather sell their power to the states, then have us buy it.

It's all about money.
 
Those two links look like a scam to me.
Firstly you can not be more efficient than 100%.

And all these so called claims still rely on a connection to the grid, The agents who try to promote them, where do they operate from ??
Not from a building with a stand alone powersupply, no way.
They probably operate from a unit somwhere in an industrial complex with a mains on the electricty grid.

Good point dch222 re the heat from incandescent lamps.
They add to the heating and less demand on your heating bill in colder countries.
 
bryan1,
At first, I could swear you were in Canada:
that hemmeriod of bush's butt our prime minister

It seems the current trend for politicians, it to capitalize on people's fears. Er, wait a minute, isn't this the way it has been all along?
 
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**broken link removed**... can somebody explain to me what he said about climbing a hill and gaining energy?
 
I hope they drill it into people that fluorescent light bulbs contain mercury so people are tossing them in the trash. I just found this out recently and am pretty sure that the vast majority of people do not know.
 
Flourescent lamps also cause headaches and eye fatigue as proven from studies in offices, schools, etc. Folks would need to switch to "daylight" type bulbs to alleviate part of the problem. Flourescent lamps also like to interfere with infra-red based products at times. They also cannot operate on inexpensive, every-day type dimmer circuits. They work lousy in the cold outdoors unless you buy the specific type designed for that temp. range. Personally, I prefer the warm look and ambience of incandescent lamps, despite their tendency to create harsh shadows and uneven illumination.
 
My compact fluorescent light bulbs use 1/4 of the power of incandescent ones and last 10 times longer. I heat my home with clean and cheap natural gas so the heat from incandescent bulbs that waste expensive electricity produced by burning dirty coal is not missed.

I have some cheap Chinese compact fluorescent bulbs outside and when it was -22 degrees C they started dim then took a whole minute to get to full brightness.

Mercury? I don't eat the stuff in the garbage dump. If anything is leaking into my water supply then mercury is the weakest of all the deadly chemicals there. No, my garbage is sent to the USA because my garbage dump is full.
 
"so the heat from incandescent bulbs that waste expensive electricity produced by burning dirty coal is not missed."

Maybe you are saving yourself money in this case if your source of home heating is cheap, but you are still not saving any of the earth's resources by using flourescent bulbs since you have to use a little more of that gas to replace the heat the old incandescents used to generate.

Here in the UK we have been living on local natural gas for a couple of decades or more, but it is now running out and we are having to buy it from Russia.
 
audioguru said:
My compact fluorescent light bulbs use 1/4 of the power of incandescent ones and last 10 times longer..

They cost more then and incandescent and although they claim to last 10 times longer my experience does not support that.

The few people I have talked to are generally unimpressed.

I do not have any hard data.
 
The cost of a compact fluorescent bulb is the same as a bowl of rice. Nothing.

I buy them only when the government is giving rebates and when they are on sale.
 
audioguru said:
The cost of a compact fluorescent bulb is the same as a bowl of rice. Nothing.

I buy them only when the government is giving rebates and when they are on sale.

I am starting to wonder about you? You export your garbage and light you house with government subsidized light bulbs. Perhaps you are suffering from an overload of Canadian content. ;)

We live in a small town with a nonfull dump. But because it is too expensive to have the dump certified safe we haul all our garbage 60 miles into the next state where we pay another landfill to take it. As the kids would say, that is wack.
 
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here's a novel idea ... in addition to switching out light bulbs, how about banning needless corporate light pollution?

nearly every business in town leaves their lights on 24/7 - huge powerful parking lot lights for an empty lot at 2am. not to mention the floodlights on the signage, and just aimed at walls! sure we need those lights when it gets dark at 3:30pm during the winter season, but we don't need them at 3:30am.

some may claim its for security. that's rubbish - upgrade your cameras to night vision or install a few IR floodlights in key locations.

I tip my hat to the local Burger King, although their drive-through is open till 1am, they turn off most of their lights at 10pm (including the parking lot lights) when their dining room closes.
 
3v0 said:
I am starting to wonder about you? You export your garbage and light you house with government subsidized light bulbs. Perhaps you are suffering from an overload of Canadian content. ;)
Yep, the landfill in my town is one location where Candian crap get's dumped. I see the trucks arriving often, on my interstate travels. We get it from Canada and Buffalo, N.Y. Can't they simply toss their trash into the Niagara River and eventually over Niagara Falls? ;) Think what a boost that would be for Falls tourism --- thousands of sightseers crowding the railings to observe various trash taking the plunge.
"Oh look, there goes a mattress." "And lookie over there, I think that's a car fender and the back seat." Wait a minute, is that a corpse? It's no store window maniken!!":eek:
 
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For good colour rendering you can't beat the incandescent lamp.

Also to reduce the flickering of fluorescent lamps it is good practise to have some incandescent lamps on at the same time if no access is available to a 3 phase supply to spilt the lighting load over the three phases.
 
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