Retirement of 100-watt light bulbs causing consternation

Sight and sound play a major role in the human experience, to be sure, so it's always difficult when somebody suggests we're getting too much of either.

The brightness of light bulbs and the loudness of internal combustion toys are under scrutiny, and it appears certain that changes are in the works.

I have deep passions when it comes to motorcycles and I understand why others may feel that way about other often noisy recreational motor vehicles. I have especially fond memories of things that go vroom in the dirt, which interest me more than light bulbs, but I'll try to contain myself until we get the latter out of the way.

On Wednesday, The Morning Call's front page divulged that Lehigh Valley light bulb lovers are hoarding 100-watters as the federal government pushes a scheme to force everybody to buy light-emitting diodes or compact fluorescent lights.

The LEDs and the CFLs use less electricity and will replace the incandescent light bulbs that have remained basically the same since Thomas Edison invented them 133 years ago. The problem with CFLs is that some people think they do not work very well (they start to dim after a while) and each LED costs more than 28 times as much as each incandescent bulb.

Government officials say LED bulbs will last 50,000 hours each, compared to only 1,200 hours for each of the Edison things.

I don't think government officials have been right about anything since the first bipeds formed groups. Even if they're right this time, their math does not work for me. My house has so many lights it would cost me $1,000 to put LEDs in all of them, and I never have all the lights on at the same time.

That means each LED light bulb would burn an average only, let's say, an hour each day, for a total of 365 hours a year. If an LED lasts 50,000 hours, that's 137 years.

I'm 74 and I'm not sure I'll last another 137 years. (My wife may make it, out of sheer orneriness.) Anyway, that means I'll be throwing away money just so someone else can use my lights to read The Morning Call every morning in the next century.

As for CFLs, which are supposed to last 10,000 hours, I have tried only one and it burned out in three weeks. That may be an anomaly, so I'll reserve judgment until the government holds a gun to my head and makes me screw in another one.

The only comfort I anticipate is that some politicians may benefit from the generosity of the LED and CFL manufacturers and their lobbyists, as happened in the subsidizing scams that have uglified much of the nation with wind turbines.

Wednesday's story said that in anticipation of regular light bulb companies being forced to stop making 100-watt incandescent bulbs, some businesses rushed to buy them in bulk.

"They [LED bulbs] don't shed enough light," Tom Marks, manager of Cantelmi's Hardware in Bethlehem, was quoted as saying. He bought 100 cases of the old-fashioned (but bright) light bulbs, but most have been sold already.

It's unfortunate that Marks and his customers do not want to do their patriotic duty, stumbling around in dimly-lit places, to make the government people happy.

Another problem arose at the Allentown Art Museum. It seems LED lights do not illuminate the color red, so I guess any masterpiece that is not all in blue and yellow will have to be redone. Small price to pay for our patriotic quest to save electricity and to facilitate politician-lobbyist accord.

Now let us move to a less prosaic topic.

Another story said officials in lovely Tinicum Township, on the banks of the Delaware River in Upper Bucks County, decided last week to approve a new ordinance that will turn down the wattage on the music of off-road motorcycles and other recreational vehicles.

Fines up to $1,000 could be imposed on off-roaders who belch 99-decibel engine noise more than 20 inches from the end of their exhaust pipes. Also required will be spark arresters on the pipes to reduce the likelihood that fun-lovers will burn down Tinicum's woodlands, and the maximum noise at a property line will be 65 decibels, about the same as an air conditioner.

The levels were set after police went to a motorcycle shop and measured the exhaust noise on stock recreational vehicles.

Happily, the ordinance also addresses the world's two most obnoxious classes of pests — barking dogs and loud music.

When it comes to dirt bikes, alas, my own racing days are over. (My silly wife thinks I'm too old for motocross.) In the glorious old days, we had two-stroke machines with fantastic performance, especially when we took the silencers off the end of our tailpipes to race. (Motocross races were always held in remote areas to avoid bothering people with the noise and dust.)

We always used the silencers when riding through the woods or fields just for the fun of it (with permission). So I fully support rules against unnecessary noise.

Furthermore, now that I have two on-road bikes, I think it's high time there were limits on the amount of noise that a motorcycle with a license plate can make.

Louts who deliberately modify motorcycle exhaust systems to make them louder do it for only one reason — to bother other people. Any other explanation is bogus. 610-820-6176

Paul Carpenter's commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.



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