The so-called incandescent light bulb ban (not actually a ban) included as part of the recent energy bill has prompted a low-level but consistent set of complaints that deserve further consideration, because they betray a fair amount of confusion about which policy tools to break out for which issues.
On the right, the reaction to the new lighting efficiency standard has ranged from hysterical whining to hysterical snark. But even on the left, it's fairly common to run across the high-minded opinion that finicky legislation like the lighting efficiency standard only wastes time and stirs up needless recrimination. Instead we should set a price on carbon, and let the market sort out the rest.
It's an excellent theory, one that I subscribe to under most circumstances, but sometimes command and control really is just the thing. The math on light bulbs is pretty easy to run. Follow along if you're interested, or just skip the next two paragraphs.
Let's assume that carbon costs $7 per ton. This isn't an arbitrary figure -- it's the price cap baked into the carbon legislation coming online soon in the northeastern states. Assume normal usage patterns (100-Watt bulb, four hours per day) and average carbon intensity for the electrical grid (1.34 lbs CO2 per kilowatt hour). Such a carbon tax would impose a surcharge of $0.45 per bulb per year.
Let's increase the carbon tax to $80 per ton, bearing in mind that even if we were to enact the Obama plan tomorrow, it will be many years before carbon reaches this price. In this scenario the carbon surcharge is $5 per bulb per year. As a percentage increase on the cost of ownership for a light bulb, $5 is actually quite high. But it's still nowhere near the direct annual electricity costs to power a light bulb. And it's still only $5.
That's the problem. Information costs for consumers standing in a supermarket aisle trying to get their shopping done swamp the possible savings. Such information costs are certainly higher than $0.45, and possibly higher than $5. Yes, eventually the invisible hand will do its thing. But if we want to quickly achieve the massive efficiency gains that are technologically possible today, the most straightforward path is an efficiency standard, plain and simple.
And we do want to achieve those gains quickly. The benefits are quite large, and they go beyond the immediate, direct carbon reductions. It's easy to get so caught up counting pounds of CO2 that we lose sight of the bigger picture of transforming our energy infrastructure. If you build a coal plant today, be prepared to look at that plant for the next fifty or more years. Efficiency standards can complement carbon pricing nicely, because they help to relieve the pressure on our infrastructure now while we put into place the legislative and technological solutions needed for the longer term.
Merkley wants Senate jobs bill to help finance building efficiency retrofits
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Comments
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TheGreenMiles Posted 12:38 pm
11 Feb 2008
I think all future Gristmill posts should be written entirely in Simpsons references.
Join the discussion on global warming, recycling, and organic beer at The Green Miles!
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Easterbunny Posted 12:55 pm
11 Feb 2008
If I replace all my incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescents, I can cut my electricity usage for lighting by about 75%. I get approximately the same amount of light, which means that the 75% of energy was going somewhere. As it can't just vanish, it must have ended up as heat in my home. I live in Canada, and heat my home for about 8 months of the year. My heater is controlled by thermostat (lets assume I don't adjust it), which means if the lightbulbs stop contributing to heating my home, the furnace has to make up the difference. So for eight months of the year, there is no net energy saving.
Worse, my lights are powered by 100% renewable electricity (kindly supplied by a company called Bullfrog power). My furnace is powered by natural gas. So for eight months of the year, my new lightbulbs actually result in a net increase in CO2 emissions.
During the summer I might need to cool the house with an airconditioner for, say, 1 month. In that month, the old lightbulbs were working against the air conditioner. But of course, that's the month with the most daylight, so it's the month when I use the lights the least.
If this reasoning is correct, it means that changing the lightbulbs is pretty irrelevant in colder climates, even for people not getting their electricity from renewables. If I take into account the extra impact of the manufacture of compact fluorescents, and the fact that my electricity supply is 100% renewable, whereas my heating isn't, replacing my bulbs actually increases my carbon footprint.
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greentiger Posted 1:22 pm
11 Feb 2008
Now re: the original post, why can't we do a feebate system but with bulbs? I.e. establish an efficiency setting (i.e. lumens/watt) and then tax/subsidize bulbs accordingly... That means for applications/settings where people just need (and i mean really really want) an incandescent, they'll be able to buy them (albeit at a surcharge). Under such a system you could definitely put the price advantage in CFL's hands.
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katakanadian Posted 2:53 pm
11 Feb 2008
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GreenEngineer Posted 3:54 pm
11 Feb 2008
A lightbulb isn't the most efficient way to heat your house (because the heat is not ideally distributed), but it's not as bad as you'd think. Most of the heat comes out as radiation (visible and infrared) which means it hits other surfaces in the room and reradiates, so it gets pretty well distributed. It's probably roughly as effective as any other kind of electric radiant heater used to heat a space generally. A 100-watt bulb is roughly equivalent to having another person in the room. In a decently-insulated room, that can make a substantial difference.
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scatter Posted 8:25 pm
11 Feb 2008
In the UK, average lighting demand is around 700kWh per year while average heating demand is around 21,000kWh per year. Anyone have the figures for the US?
From the UK perspective: Let's assume (and it's a very big assumption), that all of the 75% (525kWh) of that lighting energy you lose by installing CFLs is replaced by an increased load on your heating system. That's an increase in heating demand of 2.5%. I'd be amazed if your average thermostat has those kinds of tolerances (I have no figures but they're not exactly high precision instruments). Most of that lighting heat is going to be lost in the noise and taken as increased comfort by the occupier of the home.
Anyway, it really depends on what fuel you use to heat your home. In the UK it's mostly natural gas and electricity is 2.5 times as carbon intensive per kWh than gas so using your lights to heat your home is a Bad Idea. What's the average grid carbon factor and main heating fuel in the US?
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spaceshaper Posted 9:24 pm
11 Feb 2008
Of course for those of us stuck with fossil-fueled electricity, the simpler point is that hanging on for dear life to incandescents is just plain wack.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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kmp Posted 12:12 am
12 Feb 2008
I have CFLs in the garage and over the garage doors, but that is it. I have searched high & low for a CFLs that is dimmer-compatible, and a few people have pointed one out on the Web, but I still have to yet to find one that I can actually purchase.
Guess I'll be one of those people stock-piling incandescents until they sort out the dimmer technology.
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willa Posted 12:23 am
12 Feb 2008
Of course, cooling season also has more hours of daylight than heating season, so I guess that changes it very slightly, but still.
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sunflower Posted 12:58 am
12 Feb 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 1:04 am
12 Feb 2008
Even encouraging consumers to make the reasonable, money saving choice on this simplest issue is far too complicated. The choice has to be made for us. But don't try to ban incandescent bulbs or gas guzzlers.
Subsidize conservation.
Amory Lovins' home uses 120 watts, one tenth of the average home electric power use. Including heating/cooling, no fuel burned. and more than that amount of power comes from his roof mounted solar panels. Subsidize that.
Instead of bickering over bulbs. Wasting political capital on hopeless campaigns that feed the wing nut backlash against environmentalism. Or creating a whole new financial crisis, like the mortgage crisis, by letting insider trading hedge funds get their filthy fingers into GHG/energy policy.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:32 am
12 Feb 2008
Refrigerators and freezers: 6%
Air-conditioning: 5.6%
Space heating and related: 5.3%
Other appliances: 3.6%
Other kitchen: 3.3%
Water heating:3.2%
Home electronics:2.5%
Washers/Dryers: 2.3%
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atreyger Posted 1:50 am
12 Feb 2008
Pricing carbon, particularly at 7 $/ton, does not work, consider this: a year's worth of tree biomass sequestration on a hectare (2.5 acres) in the Northeast is about 2.5 tons/ha, so 1 ton/acre. In the long-run, on a rotation of about 20 years, Northeast forests would sequester about 140 $/acre.
Supposing that there is a medium to large (more than 20 acres) Non-Industrial Private Forest (NIPF) land-holding, the value of the trees for lumber or firewood would far outweigh the cost of retaining the sequestered carbon for any time. Which isn't a bad thing, but still since there is some C sequestration, maybe the landowner gets some sort of a small rebate for practicing good forestry. However, in most cases, say for a 20 acre property and supposing a full pay-off of 7 $/ton for good stewardship, 2800$/20 years will not be enough for him to remain a good steward, and the owner may very well diameter-limit cut (or butcher) the property and sell it to the next sucker, who will say well, let's develop. Or plain develop it outright.
That's one extra forest economics example of why pricing the carbon will not do much in terms of affecting behavior. It will only lead to more speculation and bubbles, a la housing bubble, internet bubble, Great Depression-esque bubble, the tulip bubble in Netherlands of I believe 1700s.
Peace out.
P.S. I'm all for CFLs, they keep my bills down, especially in the dreary North
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atreyger Posted 1:51 am
12 Feb 2008
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Adam Stein Posted 2:04 am
12 Feb 2008
But that doesn't mean a range of complementary policy options can't also be brought to bear, including efficiency standards, awareness campaigns, R&D spending, etc. A lot of these options trade off some economic efficiency for speed, which obviously a critical factor.
www.terrapass.com/blog
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Spectrumist Posted 2:07 am
12 Feb 2008
Consider the either/or case where every household in Ontario either switches to CF's or stays with IC lighting. If all users switch to CF residential lighting, now you are talking about a significant drop in electricity demand during peak lighting hours. A lot more than 3% for sure. Under the current economic conditions, this would likely result in natural gas fired generation output reduction, with a commensurate reduction in CO2 emissions.
In many cases the economic and environmental benefits of new technology are raised above trivial levels only when the technology is widely deployed. That is why, in my view, a command and control strategy often works better than the invisible hand in practice. Mandatory efficiency standards will serve to expedite the changeover to the new technologies.
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:47 am
12 Feb 2008
That was for 2001. To figure out how much residential use is as a percentage of all electrical use, you can see total electrical use here, and according to my calculations, in 2006, residential use was 1,351,520,036 megawatt hours, out of 3,816,845,452 total megawatt hours, which is 35.4%, according to my calculations (the problem is to syncronize 2001 data and 2006 data, I apologize if I mangled the itemization).
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rsmith02 Posted 3:53 am
12 Feb 2008
This isn't right. At $7 more offsets are allowed into RGGi which should put downward pressure on the allowance price, but it isn't an actual cap.
If you're looking for dimmable CFLs, 3 ways, floods, outdoor lights, etc go to
http://www.energyfederation.org/consumer/default.php
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2wheeler Posted 4:16 am
12 Feb 2008
NObody has explored the transmission losses of electricity due to power lines carrying it for great distances, which I understand may be substantial. Nobody has acknowledged the more likely truth that coal powered energy is more common in cold climates such as my home state.
I also happen to know the coal fired power plants are dinosaurs-- inefficient old grandfathered-in plants from 40-50 years ago, that still don't have any controls to meet the Clean Air Act-- they are spewing mercury, CO2, NOX and SO2 at various high rates.
In comparison my 15 year old high efficiency natural gas furnace at 90 percent efficient seems a much better option than heating my domicile with incandescent light bulbs from coal power created and transmitted at very low efficiencies. Even assuming I would use all the heat from the light bulbs, it is a very dirty energy source. I can't buy green energy on my grid, by the way. Maybe Bullfrog can hop over to my area (are they burning hemp biofuel?)
Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.
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sunflower Posted 4:36 am
12 Feb 2008
Seattle power is largely low-carbon power. The power we do not use can be used by other areas that would otherwise use coal power.
Heating with natural gas is largely heating with Hydrogen. When compared with coal, natural gas is the lesser of two evils.
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:42 am
12 Feb 2008
For industrial use in 1998, out of 889 billion kwh used, 62 billion kwh were used for lighting.
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sunflower Posted 4:59 am
12 Feb 2008
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inkabinkaboo182 Posted 6:21 am
12 Feb 2008
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inkabinkaboo182 Posted 6:24 am
12 Feb 2008
-These bulbs will save lots of $$$ and electricity.
-These bulbs have mercury in them, yes, but they reduce mercury emissions from coal power plants.
-There are many varieties of these bulbs, many of which are identical in their light quality to incandescents.
-Waiting a minute for the light to "heat up" is a small price to pay for a much lighter electricity bill and a better world.
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cneal Posted 6:26 am
12 Feb 2008
Two cents a watt would make a 100 watt bulb $2 more expensive on the shelf, while an 11 watt CFL would only cost 22 cents extra. That would give most CFLs a price advantage on the store shelves, while at the same time giving bulb manufacturers an incentive to innovate towards greater efficiency using any kind of technology (including incandescent) available.
See http://vigorousnorth.blogspot.com/2008/02/contraband-bulb ...
vigorousnorth.blogspot.com
A field guide to the wilderness areas of American inner cities.
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amazingdrx Posted 6:43 am
12 Feb 2008
A 10 cent per kwh incentive. Much more effective at reducing GHG. No new taxers would shoot down any tax raising plan.
Pay for it by diverting subsidies that now go to big oil and energy and agribizz companies.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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sunflower Posted 7:09 am
12 Feb 2008
Subsidizing solar electric deployments does not make economic thermal dynamic sense, and not remotely sustainable. It is far more efficient and cost effective to displace natural gas used for wet steam industrial process heat and commercial/residential heating/cooling. Lopsided subsidies ignore the least cost paths for low carbon energy futures and warp business investments.
My #1 gripe is that wind turbines and solar power will not shut down coal power plants. I am beyond taxing coal. Make coal an illegal weapon of total destruction -- a crime against humanity. No coal at any price.
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elbarto Posted 7:47 am
12 Feb 2008
They are Australian 240V not US 110V so maybe not much good to most Gristers but they are available. I'm sure they could be found in the US.
At AUS $30 they are expensive but I bought 6 of them anyway. They work very well, but you may also need to replace your dimmer switches to a "low noise" type if you have old dimmer switches otherwise they may flicker when dimmed.
I can't tell the difference between the light from these CFLs and regular incandescents, except when fully dimmed the light has a slight pink tinge - which isn't actually unpleasant for mood lighting.
Using these lights and a number of other energy efficiency measures has enabled me to reduce my daily electricity use down to 3.9 kWh/day which is less than my grid connected solar panels put out on average.
I'd hazard a guess that in 5 years time dimmable CFLs will be the norm and go for $5 in your local supermarket.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:06 pm
12 Feb 2008
This could take some thought. Many now say that pricing carbon will do that. But only by raising the price of energy, further hurting stressed consumers. that would shoerten the payback period for renewables.
I disagree on not subsidizing solar PV though. PV subsidy is a great idea if done per kwh. But of course solar thermal that heats domestic hot water should be subsidized too. it is more cost effective than solar PV. But I say find a way to subsidize all of it.
Clean kwh and conservation both save the ones who invest in them money on power costs. but adding an incentive could really move things along fast enough to benefit the economy, job base, and climate. I would like to see geo heat exchange heating/cooling subsidized too. Based on how many kwh it saves.
If your average power use over the last 10 years were used as a base figure, then for every kwh less that you used in the next year you would get 5 cents per kwh? Something like that might work. The 10 year average would go down as you put in more conservation devices, eventually leveling off. 5 cents instead of 10 since conservation is generally cheaper.
So for using the clothesline you might save 3 kwh by not running the dryer. 15 cents. Sounds good.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:36 pm
12 Feb 2008
Well, actually, they would.
If you could supply cheaper power from a wind farm, given the current grid system, where you can buy and sell electricity at the lowest rate, you would put the coal plant out of business.
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NBKBoston Posted 2:49 am
13 Feb 2008
A consumer would pick up a pack of incandescent bulbs, and instantly learn that they would cost him $100 (or whatever) in energy for the year, and also that rival CFLs would only consume $20. The information is cheaply and instantly available and an informed choice can then be made.
But you'd rather stick a proverbial gun to peoples' heads and tell us all which lightbulbs we can and cannot buy.
Commanding a retailer to make certain disclosures is, in my opinion, almost always the better way to get around an informational problem than outright bans on popular products. It may not work in each case (cocaine?), but it's worth trying first.
And in the end, you also have to define what it means to say that a measure "works." A high level of incandescent usage even with stickers may simply mean that despite all protestations to the contrary, CFLs lack certain positive characteristics that customers value, and people are willing to pay more to obtain those results. I, for instance, always notice (and am annoyed by) the difference in color quality seen in CFL bulbs -- and I've seen a lot of them -- and so I only use them in certain settings where I know the irritation will not be too much.
If you dispute the above and believe that people should not be entitled to use any more energy than is absolutely needed to meet the barest of their needs, no matter their willingness to pay (which could fund mitigation), then I suspect our differences are too deep to be bridged and I'll have a hard time taking you seriously at all.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 3:13 am
13 Feb 2008
I'm with jabailo on this. The ultimate goal is to produce enough clean power so that as traditional dirty power plants age, they'll just be dismantled and not replaced with any newer dirty plants. Eventually, the system becomes almost entirely based on clean energy.
In the meantime, if we can get enough clean energy on the grid, we can at least use it to help stop any new dirty plants from bein' built, even if we haveta wait for the current plants to age to the point they become so costly that they must shut down.
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mwildfire Posted 11:33 pm
19 Feb 2008
I think what was meant about renewables not shutting down coal plants is that without a major change in policy, renewables are going to increase at a slow pace, and without an education campaign people are likely to just use more power, sucking up what the renewables add without reducing use from dirty power. I think No New Coal is a simple and sensible provision, and later we can work to shut down the oldest and dirtiest coal plants.
As for Easterbunny's points, it seems to me it may well be true that in his/her case, the incandescents are better--but it's a rare case, at least in the US. Perhaps in Canada this issue is worth looking at, but for 99.5% of us in the US, we don't get our power from renewables, or we cool our houses as much as we heat them, or both.
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