EU lightbulb ban: a bad law made to be broken?

[matgb]

I'm a liberal. I don't like banning things. I'm an environmentalist, I think destroying the planet is a Bad Thing, and am fairly convinced by the science on climate change. But, as is always the case, liberalism wins out. Banning traditional lightbulbs is a bad idea.

Sometimes, they're the most efficient method of both heating and lighting something; lava lamps my be kitsch decorative junk not to everyone's taste, but there's no reason to ban them. Snake and reptile housings also benefit from a combine light/heat source, etc. Sometimes, they're simply a very cheap alternative, and when you're living on very little money at all, and generally don't use lights that much but need to have them, they're an acceptable option.

The answer, therefore, is not to ban them. The liberal answer is to apply a pigouvian tax on them. You can even, if you like, apply a pigouvian subsidy on the much more expensive, complex and hard to dispose of safely "environmentally friendly" bulbs containing mercury and other expensive poisons to make them cheaper. But banning something? It's just asking for trouble:

German heatball wheeze outwits EU light bulb ban | Reuters (via)

Rotthaeuser has pledged to donate 30 cents of every heatball sold to saving the rainforest, which the 49-year-old sees as a better way of protecting the environment than investing in energy-saving lamps, which contain toxic mercury.

I think Herr Rotthaeuser and his brother-in-law deserve a little bit of praise for their Heatball project. And they're not even breaking the law, just showing it up as the futility it is.

Comments

[chris]

The partial objection that I have to compact flourescents is the colour of the light they produce; get that cracked and I'm all over them. That said, Tesco seem to have some 24W CFs that claim to be somehow equivalent to 120W incandescents; if they're even nearly as bright as 100W incandescents then they may well be worth a try.

[rankersbo.wordpress.com]

I find a 20W standard bulb does the job of a 100w OFI (old-fashioned-incandescent) easily. Problem is they usually sell 15w as comparable to the old 100w, which is where the idea that "they don't give out enough light" comes from. 15w CFLs usually don't match 100w OFI out in the field.