Apparently it wasn't good enough for them to ban fixtures and ballasts. NEMA has now proposed to ban all MV lamps from being manufactured by 2016. Yes, lamps. Here is a link to the NEMA article. Fortunately the bill is in its infancy stages and if we act now, we might be able to stop it. If you go to my gallery, there is an album called "Special" and in there is a picture of a 175 watt coated lamp. The comment thread for that picture is also a discussion thread for the original MV ban. In there, I have enclosed every article I could find about how efficient and green MV lamps really are within the comment thread. Please go there for links to the articles. I may repost a few of them here as well. Also, we should discuss starting a petition. It is still early and we still have time. Thanks for hearing me out.
Thanks.
Dave

EDIT:
Here are a few articles to help our cause for your reading pleasure. They are as follows.

1. Here is a link to a study done by William R. Chaney of Purdue University about the effects of night lighting on trees. Note how HPS has the highest effect on trees and MV has the lowest effect. The downloadable version of the article can be found here.

2. Here is an article by James Madison University and the Illumination Engineering Society of North America on light levels and visibility. Note what it says about the human eye being more sensitive to particular color frequencies. This means HPS is not as efficient as it may seem.

3. Lastly, here is an article by the USDA about security lighting. The USDA is a government agency and even they will tell you that people surveyed preferred mercury vapor lights over high pressure sodium lights by a 4 to 1 ratio because of their color and aesthetic. If even a government agency is saying it, that really says something.

If anybody feels like starting a petition, feel free to let me know and post a reply to this thread providing a link to the petition so that we can all sign it.

Thanks again and stay well, and well lit!
Dave

Oh, god! That's gonna destroy our childhood. Especially when there are no more MV luminares in Boston, MA at that time, my childhood will be gone.

Fortunately the bill is still in its infancy stages so if we can start writing letters and compiling research in our favor, we might be able to do something this time. the ballast/fixture ban happened because no one did anything to stop it. Are we going to let this happen again now? I hope not, but I don't think so.

tpirman1982 said:
Oh, god! That's gonna destroy our childhood. Especially when there are no more MV luminares in Boston, MA at that time, my childhood will be gone.

-What should I say? Here MV is banned 100% in 2015!! They are here now at replacing all MV lanterns!

@DaveMan: If someone would start a petition this were a good try, but do you think that so much people sign for such a thing?

tpirman1982 said:@DaveMan: If someone would start a petition this were a good try, but do you think that so much people sign for such a thing?

That's is what I am quite worried. Mebbe you tell them that "if you let the government ban some lamps and ballasts. Will the government stop there or start banning other things? Like what you're allowed to do. Other freedoms and rights are in danger. Let's nip the unwanted bans in the bud before it get worse!"

I agree that we should start a petition. I was too squeamish to do it last time. If nobody else wants to do it, I'm considering it but I need to know who to send it to and I think it could use a few more articles than 3 to prove our case. If what we've got is enough I don't know.

Dunno if this is any useful, but here goes: http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/spectroscope/elements.html#analysis esp. see "18. Overall:" (you might want to wait a while for all the pictures to load, then refresh to go to the correct section)

Just another example of the poorly mis-informed idiots doing whatever someone tells them without researching it first. Banning this bulb is NOT the answer. MV is still a very efficient and low cost light source that still has a variety of uses. I do not want to see this go away as it was very prominent during my childhood, so I kinda grew up with them. I may be partial because of that but all in all this really does not make sense. I can think of MANY other things, not necessarily light sources either, that they should be going after that are complete energy wasters, not the mercury vapor bulb/ballast. And CFLs? No. that technology has not yet proven itself, to me anyway, to be reliable (not burst into flames), long lasting, and have a very good CRI. I'm sorry but the light from a warm colored CFL is just plain ugly! And I do not want to be forced to use LEDs all over the place! I agree the LED source is very energy efficient and super long lasting, but it just seems so artificial, so lacking in character. There is no warmth to its light, it's so cold and unappealing. The slight bluish/white tinge of a coated mercury lamp is very pleasing to the eye, and with the right optics will not be harsh or glary, I don't think you can do that with LEDs. I keep hearing the reason for the mv ballast ban was that as lamps basically run forever, their light output falls below usable levels yet the ballast still consumes the same amount of energy. With the way technology has advanced there are many ways around that. One way I can think of is to add a device inside the lamp that cuts out the arc tube after, say, 24,000 hours, extinguishing the lamp and thereby forcing it to be replaced. Or you could do the same to the ballast, adding some kind of 'reset' button to it so when the lamp is replaced, the ballast will be again energized and go through the cycle all over again- not complicated. I have nothing against Metal Halide, it's a very beautiful, intense, white light source, but being forced to replace MV lighting with more expensive MH is wrong. As far as HPS, I remember the boom of the 70s and while this is a more efficient source than MV, it should not be used everywhere. The odd looking orange colored light is suited more for industrial areas and roadways, not really for residential areas. I live in an area where basically the entire city is lit with LPS, eventhough it is the most efficient light source, it is absolutely horrible at color rendering. This should only be used in areas where that doesn't matter, not in commercial/residential areas. There is an observatory near here that talked the city into using this source because it affects their viewing the least, but I believe in the near future the city is going to replace some 50,000 LPS light with LEDs. Although the color will be a lot better, it's still not MV and therefore I still won't like it. At least with the LEDs everything won't look brownish with the monochromatic awful yellow light the LPS puts out. Bottom line is I see no need to get rid of the Mercury lamp and ballast when there should be other things to get rid of or consider. And I think if the demand for MV somehow went up, some of these lamp companies would look into ways to improve the bulbs and ballasts. Actually one company is already doing this, EYE lighting has a line of Pulse Start mercury lamps that operate on Pulse Start MH ballasts. That is a step in the right direction and just proves to me that you can improve/adapt the mercury lamp to still be used today, and not just get rid of it entirely.

Frankly, unreasonable bans is seriously part of the thought pattern consistent with communism. Did you know that the EU official who brought up the incandescent light bulb ban in Europe was a former (...) official in one of the eastern bloc countries? I am tired of this crap going on and I wish all the governments would abandon banning lamps. Did you know that street lights consume only ONE percent of total electricity in the USA? Incandescent bulbs used in residences use only 5% of total electricity. Both are used primarily at night, during non-peak hours. The truth is that reducing the peak loads will help shut down power plants. Changing to LED street lights will only reduce electricity demand by half a percent or less! And who knows how reliable LED street lights will be? It's unproven. Judging from the hundreds of lead free solders that can oxidize and crystallize and hundreds of other components, I would bet they will have some problems.

So that's where all this is coming from, they are all (...)!---now it makes sense!

I have no idea what's all that hype with LEDs about. They are very expensive, need to be cooled very well, otherwise they get dim very quickly and it is quite impossible to do in a normal-sized streetlight (to have comparable light output to HID), they have worse light control, but mainly they are only about as efficient as metal halide at most! So this makes no sense at all to me, why would anyone use LEDs over metal halide in a streetlight.
Well, sorry for OT, just had to say this...

The government is always in everyones' business, they don't know anything about lighting nor do they care. Consumers should be allowed to choose whatever light source they want, not big brother.

Well if you want to STOP bans, we should do somthing about it. I am with dave. Not just MV, every kind of lamp. Even probe start MHs. And Magnetic Florescent ballasts.

Lets research, Where shall we put the petition, and who to send it to?

Also, we can also write a big persuasive letter why Bans DONT work and put it in the petition.

We can write all that. and maybe we can also Undo the MV ballast ban!

Lets  just see how it works. Nothing will happen if we don't try.so lets try it at least!

But who will we send it to?

A petition has been issued. I encourage all of you to sign it:
http://www.petitiononline.com/20016323/petition.html
Save our Mercury Vapor lighting!

Yeah! Definitely signed for sure!

Mebbe send it to the governor of your state. When enough states has agreed to the petition, who knows mebbe Obama will veto Bush's ballast (both MV and magnetic fluoros) and incandescent bans.