Jan 27 - Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

From light bulbs to clothes washers, the energy law passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in December will change many of the appliances in the average American home.

The incandescent light bulb, invented two centuries ago and perfected and popularized by Thomas Edison in the late 1800s, will become a thing of the past by the middle of the next decade.

The look of the future? The curvaceous compact fluorescent bulbs that recently have become popular and other bulbs featuring light- emitting diodes or other advanced technologies.

The energy law will bring about important but less noticeable changes in the way clothes washers, dishwashers, boilers and dehumidifiers use energy and water.

The goal is to reduce U.S. electricity use, a major source of greenhouse gases that scientists say contribute to global climate change. Half of the nation's electricity generation comes from coal- fired plants, which emit carbon dioxide. Moreover, if households cut electricity used for lighting and appliances, it could become easier to introduce electric cars, which could cut oil use without creating the need for a huge, new electricity-generating investment.

Five to 10 percent of residential electricity goes into lighting, making it a prime target for policymakers searching for energy savings. If every American household replaced just one incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb, the country would conserve enough energy to light 3 million homes and save more than $600 million annually. It would be as if 800,000 cars were taken off the road, according to a Web site maintained by the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Cutting down the amount of electricity used for light bulbs makes economic sense for homeowners, too, though most consumers are reluctant to make the switch. "These bulbs will be more expensive, but for a light bulb that you have on a couple of hours a day, the electricity is more expensive than the bulb," said Lowell Ungar, a senior analyst at the Alliance to Save Energy. "It will pay back in a few months."

Compact fluorescent bulbs can screw into existing sockets, and they last many times longer than traditional lights.

Homeowners' reluctance prompted lawmakers to illuminate the path forward. The new energy law says that in 2012, any bulb emitting the amount of light a 100-watt bulb does today must use only 72 watts. In 2014, 40-, 60- and 75-watt bulbs will have to cut energy consumption by similar percentages.

In 2020, the required energy savings become even more stringent, limiting electricity usage to about a quarter of today's incandescent bulbs.

Even before the law, the nation's light bulb makers had been scrambling to come up with new technologies to meet the standards and the sudden increase in demand for energy-saving bulbs.

General Electric says it has come up with a more efficient incandescent bulb that would meet the intermediate standards to take effect in the next decade, but it hasn't begun selling it.

The main beneficiary of the push to reduce energy used by lighting has been the compact fluorescent bulb, invented by a General Electric engineer in 1976 but long neglected by consumers and manufacturers. Now, sales of energy-efficient bulbs are doubling annually, and sales of traditional incandescent bulbs have been falling at an annual rate of about 10 to 12 percent, according to Charlie Jerabek, chief executive of Osram Sylvania.

"The dynamics are in place, and the new legislation will just accelerate it," Jerabek said.

Unlike incandescent bulbs, compact fluorescent bulbs contain no filament. They are gas-filled tubes with an electronic ballast. When turned on, an electric current flows through the gas, which emits ultraviolet light. That excites a white phosphor coating, which produces visible light. The tubes are twisted so their shape resembles an incandescent bulb.

There are drawbacks, however. The bulbs can fade before burning out. And because the bulbs contain mercury, homeowners must be careful if one breaks. (Guidelines: Open windows, use disposable gloves, seal debris in a plastic bag, don't use vacuum cleaners. More instructions are available on the Energy Department and EPA's Energy Star Web site.)

In addition, many consumers fault the bulbs for being too white - - giving a room all the charm of a late-night bus terminal -- or too slow to switch on. Manufacturers say their newest bulbs address those problems. For bulbs with "warmer" color, look for lower Kelvin ratings, around 2,700. The brighter, "colder" bulbs have much higher Kelvin ratings.

Manufacturers say they are coming up with ways for compact fluorescent bulbs to turn on more quickly. Some of the bulbs, but not all, can be used in fixtures with dimmers.

Makers of halogen lights are making a new push. Philips is pushing its Halogena bulb, which can screw into sockets used by traditional incandescent bulbs.

Also coming: Light-emitting diodes. They are made more like semiconductors than light bulbs. For now, they're too expensive, but costs are coming down. Unlike compact fluorescent bulbs, LEDs don't contain any hazardous materials, Jerabek said. What's more, LEDs use half as much energy as compact fluorescent bulbs.

For now, Osram Sylvania is offering its customers packaging to send the compact fluorescents back for recycling and prevent the mercury from leaking into the environment. The used recycling packs can be dropped off at FedEx Kinko's locations or post offices.

Other home appliances will be affected by the energy law, but the changes won't be visible. Dishwashers and washing machines, for example, will have to meet new standards. Today's average energy- efficiency standards will become the new minimum standards.

According to the Energy Department's Web site, the average household does almost 400 loads of laundry a year, consuming about 13,500 gallons of water. By wringing out some energy and water consumption, more-efficient units could cut homeowners' utility bills by an average of $50 a year.

For more efficiency, manufacturers are turning to front-loading washing machines. These machines account for more than 30 percent of sales, according to Earl Jones, a senior counsel for government and industry relations at GE, which made its first front-loading machine in 2006. The clothes tumble the way they do in a dryer and do not sit in a pool of water. As a result, they use less water, require less energy to heat the water and ease the energy-intensive job of the clothes dryer.

Over the 11-year lifetime of the typical clothes washer, that would save enough money to buy a new energy-efficient dryer or dishwasher, the Energy Department said.

Efficiency standards

The 2007 energy law changes minimum efficiency standards for light bulbs, dishwashers and clothes washers.

Light bulbs

The law effectively phases out the manufacture of traditional incandescent bulbs by the middle of the next decade. It does this by setting efficiency standards that traditional incandescent bulbs can't meet. Starting in 2012, for example, a bulb that gives off the light a 100-watt incandescent does today can only use 72 watts of energy. Hoping to prolong the life of incandescent bulbs, General Electric says it is working on a more efficient version that will be for sale by then.

But in the long term, it will be hard to compete with compact fluorescent bulbs, which use only a third or less of the energy of existing incandescents. In 2020, the standards get even tougher and would be met only by compact fluorescent bulbs or light emitting diodes.

Dishwashers

Today's dishwashers use anywhere from 194 kilowatts to 531 kilowatts of energy a year. The most popular ones fall in the middle range. General Electric's machines use 342 to 358 kilowatts a year, Whirlpool's use 349 kilowatts, Kenmore's use 319 to 353 kilowatts and Bosch's use 315 kilowatts, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Under the law, a standard size dishwasher manufactured after Jan. 1, 2010, will not be able to use more than 355 kilowatts a year.

Eighty percent of dishwashers sold today meet the new standards, according to the Energy Department.

Televisions

The energy bill sets no standard for televisions but aims to make Americans think twice about energy-hogging sets as they go for bigger screens with more power-hungry technologies. The law requires sales tags to have information about how much energy televisions use.

Clothes washers

There are two measurements used to judge the efficiency of clothes washers: The "modified energy factor" measures the amount of energy used, and the "water factor" measures the water used for every cubic foot of the machine. The best arrangement is to have a higher modified energy factor and a lower water factor.

Under the new law, all clothes washers manufactured after Jan. 1, 2011, must have a modified energy factor of at least 1.26 and a water factor of not more than 9.5.

Half of the clothes washers sold today already meet those standards. The new minimum standards, however, are still not as tough as the current standard set by the Energy Department for its Energy Star rating.

Other

New standards will require greater efficiency for electric motors, dehumidifiers, residential boilers and walk-in freezers.

Sources: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Energy Department

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