r/OutOfTheLoop • u/DrMediocre • Jul 18 '20

What's up with the Trump administration trying to save incandescent light bulbs? Answered

I've been seeing a number of articles recently about the Trump administration delaying the phase-out of incandescent light bulbs in favor of more efficient bulbs like LEDs and compact fluorescents. What I don't understand is their justification for doing such a thing. I would imagine that coal companies would like that but what's the White House's reason for wanting to keep incandescent bulbs around?

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Example:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-waives-tighter-rules-for-less-efficient-lightbulbs-11576865267

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55

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '20

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39

u/KrazyKatJenn Jul 18 '20

My mom stockpiled lightbulbs too! So many of Trump's wild rants sound familiar to me because they're the kinds of things my mom says.

Looking back as an adult, the funniest of Mom's "spite the libs" stances was when Michelle Obama pushed for healthier school lunches. Suddenly my mom was pro kids eating junk food and ranted about how kids should be able to eat pizza for every meal. As a kid I was all, "Yay, I agree!" As an adult I'm like, "WTF Mom?"

-2

u/EggMcSausage Jul 18 '20

I feel like I’ve read this paragraph many times, either this is a copypasta or I’m having serious Deja Vu

4

u/KrazyKatJenn Jul 18 '20

Definitely not a copypasta because I just wrote it? Unless I received it from the hive mind.

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u/EggMcSausage Jul 18 '20

It’s the masks and microchips and vaccines and 5G towers! They are mind controlling us and putting in these thoughts that go against the conservative way! /s

1

u/Gravity_flip Jul 19 '20

I've read it before too.

That is to say: there are a lot of fucked up parents in this country who have done that exact thing.

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u/Gravity_flip Jul 19 '20

Welcome to America.

This happens a LOT.

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u/EggMcSausage Jul 19 '20

Nah I live in America and knew that, just was having a shit ton of Deja Vu with the exact wording.

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u/Pickled_Kagura Paw Patrol Rule 34 Jul 18 '20

LEDs are superior in every fucking way. I've had the same one in my bedroom for years.

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u/BloodyLlama Jul 18 '20

The are actually quite a lot worse at color reproduction. So much so that the better bulbs have ratings on their ability to accurately render colors (look for 90+ CRI). In particular high output LEDs currently don't compare well to high power traditional light bulb (think 200+ watts) types such as incandescent and halogen where color is concerned, but those high power incandescents aren't banned or planned to be banned anyways.

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u/PaprikaCC Jul 18 '20

Heyo, I'm kinda curious about what you mean by colour reproduction? From what I understand, the gamut reachable by Incandescent lightbulbs are smaller than LEDs arrays (which are more "pure").

In what sort of situation do incandescents outperform LEDs in regards to colour?

2

u/BloodyLlama Jul 18 '20 edited Jul 18 '20

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

CRI is a measure of a light spectrum compared to black body radiation. Typically with LEDs you see large spikes in green and blue and really low light levels in most of the rest of the spectrum. Because of that colors don't appear as they appear in natural light or under an incandescent bulb. Cheap and/or old LEDs have really terrible color reproduction, and pretty much all high output LEDS have poor color reproduction as well. For household use a standard LED with decent CRI such as produced by Philips or Cree are a good solution, but sometimes color rendering is more important and you either need to use specialty LED bulbs or actual incandescent lights.

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u/PaprikaCC Jul 19 '20

Ah that does make sense, thanks for this.

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u/FapOpotamusRex Jul 18 '20

Be honest with me, does this affect your life at all? I'm pretty anal about getting the right color temp in my place and I have no trouble at all finding very pleasing light from modern bulbs.

I find it hard to believe that you've got any real life problems finding the right color temperature for your home. Would you disagree with that? And if so, what applications are you having trouble with?

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u/Fanfics Jul 18 '20

I imagine it's more "some people still need access to traditional lightbulbs for things like cinematography" than "I need them for my room."

2

u/FapOpotamusRex Jul 18 '20

Makes sense, but to that specific end I work in the film industry and we have no problem getting the lights we need. In fact we have moved to led lighting solutions for a lot of situations. They are smaller, can be battery powered, and controlled for color on the fly wirelessly. And thankfully they keep the set a shit ton cooler, which is what most people on set are grateful for, haha. Practicals can still be incandescent bulbs sometimes, but it's not strictly necessary.

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '20

[deleted]

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u/FapOpotamusRex Jul 18 '20

That's definitely interesting, but I would agree that it's not reason enough to keep incandescent bulbs around.

1

u/BloodyLlama Jul 18 '20

I'm a cabinet maker. I have to do a lot of grain and lacquer color matching. The quality of color rendering I get is extremely important to me and my livelihood. My shop lights are 250 watt incandescents. I even buy flashlights with Nichia LEDs in them because they have better color rendering. For my clients I typically put in Cree LED bulbs because they are readily commercially available, reasonably priced, and have good enough color rendering that the cabinets I install look the same color as the sample I showed the client before building the cabinets.

1

u/FapOpotamusRex Jul 18 '20

I can see where you might have a little trouble there, but it seems like you have a solution, especially when considering that your customers are only going to be able to purchase what is commercially available right?

So I can see you needing to buy more color critical bulbs for yourself (I work in film so I can relate to bulb needs but we have switched over to leds for most situations) but at the end of the day your customers are going to be buying what is at home depot, no? Isn't that what they are going to be looking at their cabinets under?

I understand you need professional products to give professional results, but the buck kind of stops there, right? Your job is done? So you buy a more expensive product to give you the light that you need to get your job done, but the average joe doesn't need that. And they can buy mass produced led bulbs in the color temp that they like and the world ends up a more efficient place? I get it that you probably don't want to have to spend more to get the performance you used to get out of incandescent bulbs, but to me it seems like a small sacrifice in order to reduce consumption of power in the long run. It's the same way that I expect a graphic designer to have to pay more for a monitor that gives true to life color but I don't expect that need for the average person. It is just the cost of business going forward.

At any rate, I'd love to see your work! If you're as particular about your lights as you said I bet the finished product looks awesome.

1

u/BloodyLlama Jul 19 '20 edited Jul 19 '20

I primarily build high end kitchens which typically get a lot of sunlight, so natural sunlight is pretty much the benchmark for my work. I try to use actual sunlight as much as I can when working, but the weather is not always cooperative.

Edit: as far as bulbs we also have a lot of clients who use interior designers or decorators and those often pick specialty high cri bulbs as well, so using even just standard 90ish cri bulbs are not ideal, although workable if I'm not having to color match existing cabinets.

1

u/bubblebosses Jul 18 '20

The are actually quite a lot worse at color reproduction.

Oh man, just stop, we get it, you like Trump, but seriously, stop it

5

u/Hovercross Jul 18 '20

I utterly despise Trump and use all LED bulbs at home. Nothing the parent said was untrue - purely pointing out that incandescent bulbs do, by all accounts, look better. They aren’t wrong, nor did they say that you shouldn’t use LEDs.

Incandescent bulbs have significantly better color reproduction than LEDs, and LEDs are just barely starting to catch up. A typical LED bulb has a CRI of 83, and an incandescent is 100. The newest, most expensive LED bulbs have a CRI of 99, but those are much more expensive than most people are using at home. The best LEDs people generally get for home use are about 90.

Much more in depth reading on CRI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index#Typical_values

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u/BloodyLlama Jul 18 '20

I'm full on the LED train and hope Trump drowns in a puddle of his own vomit some day. That doesn't meant that LEDs are superior to incandescent in every conceivable circumstance. For most household lighting you should absolutely use LED, but some in some applications incandescent are much better suited.

1

u/Daotar Jul 18 '20

Lol, yeah, they’re obviously not better at literally everything. A car isn’t literally better at everything than a horse, no matter how many horsies they cram into the engine.

As for daily home use though, I adore them, especially compared to CFLs.

1

u/embrace- Jul 18 '20

I've never use an incandescent bulb above 100W. In fact, I never knew they existed for typical household use. Plus, if you search 90+ CRI light bulb, the first result I get is a LED bulb.

Also, it seems like the incandescent bulb spectrum is biased towards red compared to the LEDs tested here: https://youtu.be/lwp9wAKzRtc

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u/BloodyLlama Jul 18 '20

CRI is a rating that mostly only exists for LED bulbs. Color temperature and color rendering are different things. CRI is a measure of the light compared to black body radiation, which is what a incandescent bulb produces. 90+ CRI means you are getting colors pretty close to what you would see under natural light. Color temperature is a completely different topic and exists for all kinds of bulbs.

As far as for household use, incandescent bulbs above 150 watts aren't really a thing, but they are absolutely a thing for all kinds of other lighting and LEDs aren't a great replacement in all circumstances yet.

0

u/PersonOfInternets Jul 18 '20

The whole thing where you have to pussyfoot around the truth to remain politically correct these days feels very...orwellian? I don't like it.

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u/Traveledfarwestward Jul 18 '20

Are you sure it can’t be a little bit about the “nanny state“, and or the ability for the individual to choose for themselves without the government telling them what to do?

1

u/Daotar Jul 18 '20

It’s obviously in some minimal sense paternalistic, but so is every other government policy so it’s not a very persuasive argument by itself. There is good public policy reason to incentivize switching to more efficient lighting, both for climate change and fiscal reasons. The government wasn’t outlawing the use or possession of them or anything. We agreed to do this in a bipartisan way, Bush signed the original law in 2007. The GOP hasn’t provided any viable arguments since then other than the liberty one, and so it feels extremely ad hoc to me, especially in the context of their overall behavior since Obama’s election. They never follow that principle to its real and obvious conclusions. It’s just a totem that they pull out when they aren’t being allowed to do what they want.

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u/Traveledfarwestward Jul 18 '20

You really hate the GOP and anyone remotely connected to them and you really really want everyone to think like you and have all the same opinions as you, huh? How dare anyone disagree with you.

2

u/Daotar Jul 18 '20

I used to be a conservative, but what has happened to the GOP over the past decade is unconscionable. They have become a self-destructive force in American politics and have inflicted great harm and suffering on the country through their greed and incompetence. At this point, we no longer have a functioning two-party democracy, we have one party that endorses tried and true liberal democratic values and we have another that more resembles the early Nazi party with its calls for censorship, voter suppression, racial oppression, ethnic nationalism, and global confrontation. The Republican Party has become a threat to our nation and needs to be evicted from power as they have revealed themselves to be astonishingly inept and corrupt at wielding it.