Shining a Light on the EU’s Energy-Saving Scheme
Civitas, 2 September 2009
EU regulation came into force yesterday banning the manufacturing and importing of 100w incandescent (clear and non-clear) bulbs and inefficient halogens writes Ariane Poulain. This ban is the first phase of the regulation which requires a progressive phase-out of all inefficient light bulbs over the next three years.
Traditional light bulbs must be replaced with energy-saving bulbs, known as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), a move which is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 32 million tons as well saving EU households around €50 per year.
At first glance the environmentally-friendly and cost-effective aspect of this new EU regulation would appear fairly uncontroversial (after all, we are just talking about light bulbs!). However, whilst shopkeepers are reveling in the rise of sales due to widespread panic buying, anger at the new regulation is mounting in the UK and across the EU.
If you feel indifferent to the ‘Great Light Bulb Debate’ I fully understand. I did too until I began writing this blog.
The move to CFL’s is part of the EU’s wider ‘Ecodesign’ scheme which ‘aims at reducing environmental impact of products, including the energy consumption throughout their entire life cycle’ and the gradual phasing-out of incandescent light bulbs is the first of seven so-called ‘priority products’ to face reform. Pressure for countries to effectively (and swiftly!) respond to climate change is commonplace.
With the UN’s Climate Change Conference due to take place in Copenhagen this December to discuss a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol (which expires in 2012), addressing environmental concerns will become more pressing for the international community as time passes. The EU arguably faces more pressure than any other industrialized region. The EU has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 and is, in fact, sending a delegation to Washington later this month to encourage the US to follow its lead. The EU is viewed by many as the global actor most capable of leading the way to a greener world. Back in 1990, the Journal for Climatic Change, called on countries that could best afford it to ‘prevent adverse environmental and climate impacts…at least the EC member states’ and only last year, at an international meeting of environment ministers, the head of the UN gave a speech ‘urging the EU to trail blaze…on international talks to combat climate change’. The EU’s decision to withdraw inefficient light bulbs from consumption is certainly understandable as a means of reducing the region’s carbon emissions, plus the US is planning to adopt a similar regulation in 2012 (a sign of the EU bloc’s status as a ‘soft’ superpower?). Besides the obvious energy-saving benefits, this new regulation prevents the EU from being called a hypocrite at the global level.
Nonetheless, the replacement of all incandescent bulbs and inefficient halogens with CFLs by 2012 in all twenty-seven member states does raise some serious concerns, mainly centered around whether or not CFLs are a sufficient alternative to traditional bulbs.
There is concern that CFLs do not emit enough light, they can take longer to turn on (after 1 minute, only 60% of the light is emitted) they also take longer to turn off (which reduces the longevity of the bulb), and they are considerably more expensive than traditional bulbs. However, CFLs are 80% more energy-efficient compared to incandescents (which only use 5% of the energy they use to make light) and the BBC claims that energy-saving bulbs do save money in the long term.
Nevertheless, there are several medical concerns surrounding the use of energy-saving light bulbs. CFL’s have a tendency to flicker which can trigger migraines and seizures as well as intensify symptoms of people who suffer from skin conditions such as lupus and eczema. The Migration Association has joined Spectrum, an alliance for light sensitivity, in campaigning about the health risks associated with CFL’s. Spectrum argues against the total ban of incandescent bulbs claiming that it ‘will mean suffering and total social exclusion for people with light-sensitivity conditions’.
Moreover, health worries also surround the risk of mercury, which is a vital component to the functioning of energy-saving CFLs that incandescent lights do not contain. Mercury is a hazardous neurotoxin and emissions can cause serious health problems if the CFLs are not correctly recycled. The University of West England, in 2007, argued that any EU regulation introducing the replacement of incandescents with CFLs would ‘add urgency to the need to encourage appropriate recycling’ and ought to be enforced within the total policy framework.
The new regulation does emphasize the need for proper recycling of CFL’s and the European Commissioner for Energy, Andris Piebalgs, calls upon the need for member states to help facilitate the correct waste management, following the guidelines of a 2002 EU directive on the disposal of electrical products. Due to the lack of direct enforcement the responsibility for recycling resides with the consumer, which raises concerns about potential exposure to mercury emissions.
This new EU regulation puts the spotlight on two distinct issues: firstly, the obligation the EU has to act upon the growing demand to address environmental issues. Secondly, the EU’s increasing regulations are reducing an individual’s autonomy to make decisions. Peibalgs refers to this as an ‘alleged intrusion’ and implies that this new regulation has been in the citizen’s best interest. The international responsibility upon the EU to tackle climate change resides with the citizen first, not Brussels.
The EU’s phase-out of incandescent bulbs will end on 1st September 2012 and Thomas Edison’s lights will no longer be switched on. I doubt, however, that the spotlight will go off on the EU’s leading role in international climate change or, in fact, its intrusion into citizen’s private lives.
Reference the “need” for CFL light bulbs: As a physicist working in a related area to climate, I can state that there was never any evidence supporting the conjecture (it is not a hypothesis or a theory) of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and the last few months have seen the publication of papers in the scientific literature which puts the final nails in AGW’s coffin. The papers cover how sun, clouds and cosmic rays modulate climate, how water vapour feedback (which is actually what the fuss is really about, it was not about CO2) is nothing at all like what government scientists say it is, how the planet is cooling and how the earth’s atmosphere leaks infrared (=heat) like a sieve. In other words we know why climate change happens, and we know that human emissions make next to no difference. It ain’t us, it never was, panic over. The BBC reported none of this yet, if they felt that AGW was the biggest threat facing mankind, then the proof that it is not us would be headline news and something to rejoice.
UK Government scientists’ theory clearly states what the fingerprint of AGW looks like, yet data from the oceans (cooling slightly – it ought to be warming according to AGW conjecture) and from satellites show a leaky atmosphere (Team-AGW says is should not leak so much, the heat must stay trapped to provide this additional warmth, but it does not). This science is pretty much exactly as most climate physicists always said it must be but who listended? Not the EU.
So there is no need for CFLs, unless you want them (I think they have their place, as do LEDs but if it’s a particular type of light you want, then basic physics says that light from fluorescing source will not take the same spectrum as that from a hot hire). The EU, as ever, with no science in it environmental policy and no democracy in its democratic credentials.
About the political side of all this:
The strange and unpublicised EU and industrial politics that went on before the ban took place:
http://www.ceolas.net/#li1ax
More:
The man responsible for the ban,
EU Energy Commisioner Piebalgs,
is now responding to protests,
defending his ban on his blog
by saying it INCREASES choice…
see the comments in the blog to that 😉
http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/piebalgs/lighting-the-way-to-the-future/
What if dealing directly with power stations and low emission electricity distribution
– as suggested in previois comment at the end – is felt to be too slow in lowering emissions?
Taxation is then the next logical step, and better for all concerned than bans.
The Taxation alternative
A ban on light bulbs is extraordinary, in being on a product safe to use.
We are not talking about banning lead paint here.
It’s a ban for consumption reasons.
Even for those who remain pro-ban,
a temporary taxation to reduce consumption would therefore make much more sense,
since governments can use the income to reduce emissions (home insulation schemes, renewable projects etc) more than any remaining product use causes such problems.
A few pounds/euros/dollars tax that reduces the current sales (EU like the USA 2 billion sales per annum, UK 250-300 million pa)
raises future billions, and would retain consumer choice.
It could also be revenue neutral, lowering any sales tax on efficient products.
http://ceolas.net/LightBulbTax.html
When power station emissions are low enough, taxation is lifted.
However, taxation is itself unjustified:
It is simply better than bans also for ban proponents, in emission or energy lowering terms.
Of course a ban is underway anyway, but supposedly with reviews of the phase-outs down the line, for what that’s worth…
Agree with Peter comment 🙂
I agree with Civitasposter too
– the more you look at this at first perhaps innocuous ban, the stranger -and less warranted – it gets.
Europeans, like Americans, choose to buy ordinary light bulbs around 9 times out of 10
(light industry and EU commission own data 2007-8)
Banning what people want gives the supposed “great savings for the people”
– no point in banning an impopular product!
If new LED lights -or improved CFLs- are good,
people will buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (little point).
If they are not good, people will not buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (no point).
The arrival of the transistor didn’t mean that more energy using radio valves were banned… they were bought less anyway.
Supposed savings don’t hold up for many reasons:
(http://www.ceolas.net#li13x onwards
about brightness, lifespan, power factor, lifecycle, heat effect of ordinary bulbs, and other referenced research)
Effect on Electricity Bills:
To the extent energy use does fall with light bulb and other proposed efficiency bans,
electricity companies make less money,
and they’ll simply push up the electricity bills to compensate
(especially since power companies often have their own grids with little supply competition)
Energy regulators can hardly deny any such cost covering exercise…
Energy?
There is no shortage of energy:
I am perplexed by the craze for efficiency everywhere.
Advice is always welcome, but bans are another matter.
As it happens, there are radical usage advantage differences between inefficient and efficient products of any kind, not just light bulbs
(more: http://www.ceolas.net/#cc2x )
People -not politicians – pay for energy use, and if there was an energy shortage, the price rise would lead to more demand for efficient products anyway – no need to legislate for it.
Emissions?
Does a light bulb give out any gases?
Power stations might not either:
Why should emission-free households be denied the use of lighting they obviously want to use?
Low emission households already dominate some regions, and will increase everywhere, since emissions will be reduced anyway
through the planned use of coal/gas processing technology and/or energy substitution.
A direct way to deal with emissions (for all else they contain too, whatever about CO2):
http://ceolas.net/#cc10x
Agree with Peter comment 🙂
I agree with Civitasposter too
– the more you look at this at first perhaps innocuous ban, the stranger -and less warranted – it gets.
Europeans, like Americans, choose to buy ordinary light bulbs around 9 times out of 10
(light industry and EU commission own data 2007-8)
Banning what people want gives the supposed “great savings for the people”
– no point in banning an impopular product!
If new LED lights -or improved CFLs- are good,
people will buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (little point).
If they are not good, people will not buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (no point).
The arrival of the transistor didn’t mean that more energy using radio valves were banned… they were bought less anyway.
Supposed savings don’t hold up for many reasons:
(http://www.ceolas.net#li13x onwards
about brightness, lifespan, power factor, lifecycle, heat effect of ordinary bulbs, and other referenced research)
Effect on Electricity Bills:
To the extent energy use does fall with light bulb and other proposed efficiency bans,
electricity companies make less money,
and they’ll simply push up the electricity bills to compensate
(especially since power companies often have their own grids with little supply competition)
Energy regulators can hardly deny any such cost covering exercise…
Energy?
There is no shortage of energy:
I am perplexed by the craze for efficiency everywhere.
Advice is always welcome, but bans are another matter.
As it happens, there are radical usage advantage differences between inefficient and efficient products of any kind, not just light bulbs
(more: http://www.ceolas.net/#cc2x )
People -not politicians – pay for energy use, and if there was an energy shortage, the price rise would lead to more demand for efficient products anyway – no need to legislate for it.
Emissions?
Does a light bulb give out any gases?
Power stations might not either:
Why should emission-free households be denied the use of lighting they obviously want to use?
Low emission households already dominate some regions, and will increase everywhere, since emissions will be reduced anyway
through the planned use of coal/gas processing technology and/or energy substitution.
A direct way to deal with emissions (for all else they contain too, whatever about CO2):
http://ceolas.net/#cc10x
Too slow in lowering emissions?
The Taxation alternative
A ban on light bulbs is extraordinary, in being on a product safe to use.
We are not talking about banning lead paint here.
Even for those who remain pro-ban,
a temporary taxation to reduce consumption would make much more sense, since governments can use the income to reduce emissions (home insulation schemes, renewable projects etc) more than any remaining product use causes such problems.
A few euros/dollars tax that reduces the current sales (EU like the USA 2 billion sales per annum, UK 250-300 million pa)
raises future billions, and would retain consumer choice.
It could also be revenue neutral, lowering any sales tax on efficient products.
http://ceolas.net/LightBulbTax.html
When power station emissions are low enough, taxation is lifted.
However, taxation is itself unjustified:
It is simply better than bans also for ban proponents, in emission or energy lowering terms.
Of course a ban is underway anyway, but supposedly with reviews of the phase-outs down the line, for what that’s worth…
Isn’t the idea of the European Union attacking anything for “inefficiency”, rather like Satan rebuking sin?