One of our clients approached us a bit vexed on Monday. Seems he was trying to find a replacement lamp for his oven and noticed the sign at Home Depot proclaiming that “Light Bulbs which generate less than 45 lumens per watt will not be sold anymore.” Our client is a “Tungsten” man for certain industrial lamp applications (due to LED’s having difficulty operating at high temperature as well as very poor lifespan UNDER higher temperatures) and certainly perplexed as to why this might be happening. We asked one of our agents to investigate and found out that our client’s fears were well founded. Under cover of darkness, the DOE HAD implemented a rule last year restricting any new light sources to develop 45 lumens per watt or more. Largely unnoticed by everyone until the trap was sprung.
Obviously not too many folks pay attention to ‘lumen per watt’ — instead finding a bulb which fits their application with the light intensity, power consumption, application characteristics, and quality they need for the job. It’s technical jargon which few of us have much need for. The market solves this issue quite nicely by providing choices OF lighting–with varying intensity, light quality, ruggedness, and power consumption. Each person has specific needs and a market evolves to satisfy these needs. This rule is attempting to crush that market and dictate yet another aspect of everyones’ life.
Remember back to when people were howling about an incandescent light bulb ban ? They loved the light quality OF incandescents (or halogens) and didn’t want to see some nanny stater do a light bulb grab. The feds quietly backed off and everyone was happy.
Until now.
Thwarted by public reaction towards an outright nanny-state ban, the Biden regime took a more subtile back-door approach. As it has in many OTHER regulatory environments like attempted gun control, ESG coercion in financial markets, screwing with diesels, various vax ‘mandates,’ and what we call ‘substance abuse’ (banning useful substances like freons and gas powered appliances over the climate change hoax). While LED’s can generate light output above 45 lumens per watt, NO incandescent/halogen — and even some fluorescents — can do this. Nor is it a particularly useful (or rationally based) number; a consumer gets a light source that satisfies THEIR wants and needs for the particular application they have in mind. Esthetics, performance, efficiency, durability, and simple want determine what kind of light source they get. Sometimes a person doesn’t WANT a hugely efficient light bulb because another choice is prettier and better suited for illuminating (think a nice halogen light source with broad spectrum to bring out the colors in a beautiful painting). The number was an arbitrary piece of tyranny designed to hoodwink the population by using numbers most don’t understand. The sinister DOE worked backwards to arbitrarily make up a number which would have a net effect of banning all incandescent and halogen lighting, and many fluorescents. Of course, it’s marketed as a form of positive in demanding a degree of energy efficiency in the name of public good and safety; in reality it’s simply a vehicle to insert a faceless bureaucracy in ANOTHER aspect of our lives. What we at D-J like to call creeping communism.
Of note is in the areas where the marxist greens have gone fully insane–those banning gas appliances (ironically DOUBLING carbon emissions)–these banned incandescents actually help heat homes with a more even heat distribution than the mandated electrical resistance heaters. Our clients are smart enough to figure out when and where they want LED lighting (which is in an overwhelming amount of applications) and where they don’t. And when using incandescents is advantageous in generating heat for useful applications (remember when you used a light bulb to help keep animals like birds or reptiles warm — or heat up a storage compartment for food, etc ? Well no more !).
An achilles heel of LED’s is in high temperature operations; heat rapidly degrades semiconductors. There remain many applications where halogens or incandescents remain superior for use. In addition, most have seen that the claimed performance of LEDs (most of which are produced in China) doesn’t always match what they achieve in reality. No regulatory body can look in ‘from the outside’ and determine where this might be in that there are trillions of permutations driven by individual choice, need or want. Leonard Read aptly describes this concept in his excellent essay “I Pencil” as does Ayn Rand in “Atlas Shrugged.” Not to mention the FSU collapsed under its own weight when ITS central planning entity attempted this impossible task.
The tactic of insidious intricate ever shifting rules is typical of communist regimes; the goalposts are always moving. While a general public might rapidly observe a ‘light bulb ban’ it’s far less likely to see a hidden regulatory number by a faceless unelected bureaucracy which does exactly the same thing. Especially when marketed under the guise of protecting people from themselves and ‘helping the environment’ (the latter of which we view as a ‘red flag’ propaganda term indicating that the person using the term is either ignorant, self-effacing, or malicious). Light bulbs are but the latest casualty of this creeping communist effort seeking to ban everything useful or fun.
We at D-J are strong proponents of LED lighting when it fits a client’s purpose and it’s a great light source. In fact most of OUR lighting is carefully chosen LED. But it can’t meet the performance standard of ALL our lighting needs and forcing people away from choices is what the present regime is all about. All over a false premise of ‘decarbonization’ (which is in no way desirable in ANY way; simply a scam to project power and make a few people rich while making all of society poor). The scam OF ‘decarbonization’ is being used to project tyrannical power into EVERY aspect of our lives. It’s the perfect vehicle FOR this.
Given the zeal of law enforcement officers misused to enforce useless mask-mandates and shutter businesses during the covid paranoia (which was later proven to be all for naught), we believe it’s not long before we’re going to see EPA or DOE agents with rifles attempting to enforce THEIR insane ‘mandates.’ So get YOUR rifles ready–the EPA and DOE are coming for YOUR light bulbs, gas cooktops, washing machine, and freon !!!
Diatomaceous-Johnson 