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Comment by jay_kyburz | Hacker News Reader

Do you still have incandescent bulbs in the US? Its really hard to find them here in Australia. I thought they were banned but I just read that they are not, but have been phased out.

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There are loopholes that allow incandescent bulbs to be sold in the US still. However, replacing incandescent bulbs would do basically nothing to help with this kind of power shortage caused by a cold spell - all their waste energy is heat, and they're as efficient at producing it as any other resistive heater. Switching to LED lighting saves people money during more normal times but makes the long-termp peak to average power usage ratio worse, and ordinary people have no reason to care about that because they pay the same amount for power during this kind of peak than they do at any other time even though it's a lot more expensive to produce.

> However, replacing incandescent bulbs would do basically nothing to help with this kind of power shortage caused by a cold spell

It depends on what you replace it with. If you switch to a resistive heater, yeah, that's pointless, but if you switch to a heat pump or natural gas-based heating it'd help.

There was an incandescent bulb phase out over several years that was supposed to end in 2020, but Trump blocked it because he claimed that LED bulbs were too expensive and made him look orange.[0]

You pretty much can’t buy them anymore at stores except for specialty bulbs like oven lamps, but that might vary state-to-state.

0: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/climate/trump-light-bulb-...

So, someone at the Department of Energy that was hired in 2012, under Obama, made a ruling, and that's translated by the NYTimes as the "Trump Administration" doing it, which then gets referenced as "Trump blocked it because they make him look orange". Fake news in action, folks.

You gotta love implying the president has no power in this sort of thing while simultaneously implying Obama is at fault here. In the same sentence, no less.

He literally said it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_iFi1qH8Cg

Typical LED bulbs have shit spectrum coverage, and have terrible flicker when used with dimmers. I’ve been stockpiling incandescents.

Stockpiling incadescent bulbs instead of spending time doing research to find LED bulbs with a better light spectrum?

LEDs tend to give off a good range over the visible light spectrum. Incandescents tend to bias towards the higher end of the spectrum (towards red).

Agreed that some research can also help find a good light. There are plenty of "full spectrum" light solutions out there which may work for the original poster.

Compare Incandescents (A) vs LED (D) at https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Emission-spectra-of-diff...

As an example for high-CRI LED lighting components, I'll mention Yuji.

https://www.yujiintl.com/

I replaced all of the frequently used lights in my house with LEDs. Now I actually have a stockpile of incandescent bulbs for things like the closets, laundry, and guest rooms where those lights may be on for less than a minute a day.

I bought a bunch of 25w bulbs for my lava lamp :)

When's the last time you used an LED bulb? The CRI has greatly improved since they first came out.

Maybe try dimmable LED bulbs? They work perfectly fine here.

I find LEDs look much better, particularly if you have chandelier type lights.

Dimmable led bulbs come in multiple varients and don't work with all style of dimmers. Quality matters too.

The best bet is switching to Hue or other smart bulbs that manage their own dimming. It's generally cheaper too unless you have a dozen bulbs on one dimmer.

Worse, a bunch of them have awful coil whine. I seem to be one of the few who can hear it, but quite a lot of electronics kick off an infuriating, high-pitched ringing and I don't want one more doing that.

yep. CFLs and LED bulbs are available everywhere, but every store stocks extremely cheap incandescent bulbs right next to them

Its pretty much LED bulbs and fixtures in the US. I think Trump administration reversed the original law but there are a few state laws that are even stricter. The manufacturers have all moved onto LEDs so no going back.

It would have been an executive order the Trump administration reversed, he wouldn’t have had the authority to reverse a congressional passed law.

Looks like it was just the more recent DOE regulations that were reserved. These were for specialty bulbs. But with some of the states still enforcing the changes combined with other countries doing similar things, the manufacturers probably will move on to newer technology.

> In 2014, the Department of Energy issued regulations that would extend the efficiency standards of the 2007 EISA law to some specialty bulbs, effective January 2020.[91] The new standards would apply to Edison, globe, and candelabra bulbs among others. In February 2019, the Department of Energy announced a proposal to withdraw this change. In September 2019 the Trump administration rolled-back these energy efficiency standards for lightbulbs with the Energy Department's publication of regulations in the Federal Register.[92][93] The Energy Department announced the reversal of the 2014 regulation that would have taken effect on January 1, 2020 and implemented the last round of energy-saving light bulb regulations outlined by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.[94]EISA law to some specialty bulbs, effective January 2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_ligh...

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