“I don’t want to say it’s exorbitant, but if a customer is only looking at the price, they could come to that conclusion.”
The Washington Post reports:
The U.S. government last year announced a $10 million award, dubbed the “L Prize,” for any manufacturer that could create a “green” but affordable light bulb.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the prize would spur industry to offer the costly bulbs, known as LEDs, at prices “affordable for American families.” There was also a “Buy America” component. Portions of the bulb would have to be made in the United States.
Now the winning bulb is on the market.
The price is $50…
Take out a second mortgage, buy one and quit complaining.
[ I think WordPress has decided to block links to their rival blogspot blogs 😉 since other links are not blocked
Anyway trying a repost here of the first comment part with a different link… ]
The “Pay a lot upfront and Save later in usage” philosophy
does not hold up with energy efficiency regulations for many reasons (some via link),
and particularly not with light bulbs.
Specifically on LED – CFL price,
other LED or CFL “energy saving” bulbs will hardly become cheaper either, as promised..
(http://ceolas.net and the blog linked from it, Deception listing)
Firstly from supply and demand.
Having removed the most popular cheap incandescent bulb choices,
there may be insufficient supply for the new demand.
That raises rather than lowers prices
Secondly, it is irrelevant how many bulbs are sold,
in that manufacturers / distributors / retailers simply charge what they can.
Since the cheap competition has been removed, and since there are
fewer manufacturers of newer more complex bulbs, there is less pressure to reduce prices
(besides which light bulb manufacturers have a history of cartels, as covered in other JunkScience posts).
Meanwhile, on the Governmental side, pre-ban price lowering subsidies are no longer seen as so necessary
-so removing American LED manufacturer (eg Cree) subsidies, or California, Ohio etc bulb subsidies also raises prices
(continued)
(re why prices will hardly come down, continued
– see spam folder if other comment does not show up 😉 )
That is not all.
CFLs and LEDs contain rare earth elements, the price rise in recent years giving an increase in their prices, as covered in 2011 news reports.
Also they are mostly made in China, where wages are rising, and
shipping transport fuel cost has also risen in recent years.
Finally, CFLs (and possibly LEDs, based on Univ of California Davis research 2011) will be subject to increasing recycling mandates on manufacturers and retailers, which will again add to consumer purchase cost.
In comparison, incandescents are of course more cheaply, simply and often more locally made, and have no recycling requirement.
And this is all because politicians swallowed whole the scam of CAGW and won’t or can’t back down now. No bright lights there are there?
“Affordable???”
Yep. One type of cost, anyway. Also concerned about the cost of imposition in general.
The cost of imposing the future on the present.