Incandescent light bulbs are officially banned in the U.S.::America’s ban on incandescent light bulbs, 16 years in the making, is finally a reality. Well, mostly.
What is not banned?
Surprisingly, there is a whole slew of exempt special-purpose bulbs that will continue to be manufactured, according to the Energy Department. Here’s what manufacturers can still build and stores can continue selling:
- Appliance lamps, including fridge and oven lights
- Black lights
- Bug lamps
- Colored lamps
- Infrared lamps
- Left-handed thread lamps
- Plant lights
- Floodlights
- Reflector lamps
- Showcase lamps
- Traffic signals
- Some other specialty lights, including marine lamps and some odd-sized bulbs
I mean, good for the effort, but that’s still a lot of exceptions.
This article is dogshit, and those are not the current exemptions. DOE revised the definition of a general service lamp on 2022 to include the majority of reflectors. The rest have miniscule sales and have technical limitations that make LED replacements difficult. It’s not a lot of exemptions. When was the last time you bought a left hand thread or a colored incandescent lamp?
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You need a history expert for this one. I want to say theft deterrent, and possibly different voltages for niche applications. Also Need Flanders Leftorium.
I don’t get the exception for colored incandescent. LEDs come in whatever color you want, or get a smart bulb to change it at will
Black lights
Nice.
They’re lights that emit in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum for the purpose of making fluorescent materials light up. To the human eye they don’t look quite black, but more like a darkish purple.
But yeah, I too always found the name deliciously ironic.
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Several of these exceptions are unexpected. Oven light, sure: LEDs can’t survive the heat. That makes sense. Plant lights because you probably need full spectrum. And traffic signals because they’re odd shape and fixtures probably last decades, but the rest?
Bug lights? A regular LED attracts fewer bugs than an incandescent bug light …. Unless they mean an attractant like fora bug zapper
Flood lights? Reflector lights? Fridge lights? Colored lights? Why aren’t these all LED?
OPs list is wrong, that’s why. DOE revised the definition of a general service lamp in 2022 to include the vast majority of reflector lamps. Bug/appliance/left hand thread/etc are all sold im tiny numbers and therefore exempt.
I was just quoting the article. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that the writer knew what they were talking about, which I guess was wrong of me.
That’s totally fair. I happen to know a lot about this topic and didn’t read the article at first, and I also meant OP as in whoever posted the article, not you. I could have been more helpful here, sorry.
Plants don’t need much, if any, green light (they reflect it). LEDs can be made to be full spectrum. I can think of no reason why anyone would want incandescent lights for plants. Even before cheap high power LEDs were a thing, people usually used high pressure sodium lights.
