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The Light Bulb That Can Change the World
An anonymous reader writes to tell us FastCompany is reporting on the latest and greatest version of the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). While CFLs of the past may have been efficient, they certainly were not effective. However, according to the article, CFLs have come as far as cell phones have since the mid 80s while still maintaining that high efficiency. From the article: "if every one of 110 million American households bought just one [CFL], took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads."
How many light bulbs does it take to change the world? No wait, that's not right...
This guy's the limit!
"Nah, that's just too much work, let's just start daylight saving time earlier!"
(Lives in AZ, uses CFLs everywhere)
They save energy, last longer, and lower your electic bill... Why not?
"In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads"
I'll take two.
Does the above estimate of energy savings take into consideration the energy and raw materials required to produce 110 million CFL bulbs?
Earlier last year, I started buying those Wal-Mart swirl bulbs and haven't looked back. I have replaced nearly every old light bulb with one of the swirls in my house now. It's an awesome idea, and I wish I could convince others to do the same. The savings on your energy bill is nice too! I have since given away to relatives my extra pre-purchased packs of old light bulbs, and I will never buy one of those oldies again. Swirl bulbs it is!
Setting aside the debate over that statement - if it is even remotely true, then these bulbs are not just simply a 'good idea'.
They are a moral imperative.
Remember where those $100 bills that Hezbollah is handing out come from. Hint: they do not originate in Iran.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
From TFA: "The bulbs come on quickly; their light is bright, white, steady, and silent."
In my experience, the problem with non-traditional lightbulbs isn't that they're weak -- it's that they cast a harsh light. Many people I know would refuse to place even the most efficient light bulb in their living room if they didn't find the light warm and pleasing. When TFA says the light is "white," this makes me think that there is at least one problem remaining to be solved -- though perhaps it would be as simple as using lightly tinted glass for the bulb.
erm, forget CFL's... more and more types of bulb can be replaced with longer lasting, and I think more efficient, LED replacement's these days.
I am no expert on the matter by far, but I do believe the newest white LED bulb replacements, are more efficient, longer lasting, don't have a long warmup time like CFL's and also are brighter overall.
People don't see the benefits that these bulbs bring, the biggest thing people can commonly do to help the environment is to simply turn off unused lights and devices.
We are all guilty of leaving extra lights on and not shutting off the pc or tv, think of how much energy we can save if we switched off the internet just for a couple of hours (and I mean all of it, not just your terminal!)
liqbase
Is for the big box stores to start carrying the dimmable CFL bulbs.
My house is almost entirely on dimmers. Its a ten year old rennovation of a 70 year old house. Modern McMansions are almost entirely on dimmers as well.
With all these dimmers out there, you'd think you'd be able to get dimmable CFL bulbs places other than the very occasional lighting shop or online.
I've switched essentially everything else in my house over at this point, except for the ones on dimmers.
flourescent light bulbs are an investment. and for normal people, light bulbs are not exactly the type of thing you think of investing in.
I've been using these "next gen" CFLs for going on 4 years now. They're a lot more expensive than an incandescent bulb, but they last a lot longer.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
I hate those light bulbs, they give out visible light in narrow spectrum and it is very unpleasant to look at them or to read at their light. I guess they are ok for the halls. I say don't try to push us back into the previous century. Build more nuclear powerplants and start thinking about thermonuclear. By the way, how much energy will be wasted changing all the working lightbulbs with these contruptions? Oh, and they are not that cheap either.
You can't handle the truth.
If we all put our televisions and everything else that uses a remote control on power bars (and then remembered to turn them off occasionally) we'd save even more.
Honestly - since these bulbs are so efficient, shouldn't there be a government sponsorship / subsidization to make them as widely available (read: cheap) as regular bulbs? One would hope that it was be a no-brainer to include this in the energy plan - especially if we're funding experimental stuff like hydrogen powered fuelcells.
_Vishal www.squad9.com
PG&E in California is currently running a program where they take the bill for rebates on CFL bulbs so they can be had for under a dollar easily from Wal-Mart. Stock up and switch all your homes lighting over if you have not done so already.
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
Everytime I try to use a CFL I find that it starts to flicker after about four or five weeks. I cannot stand that so I give up on them. Great idea, poor implementation....
Caution: Contents under pressure
I think one thing holding back CFL's is that fluorescent lights have traditionally had a somewhat severe blue cast, which most people do not prefer in their households.
....that legislation isn't pending to ban all other kinds of light bulbs.
"This light bulb is what's best for all of us!"
Such laws would be a strange irony.
One of the big problems with fluorescent lights is that they produce a lot more radio frequency interference (RFI) than incandescents. While they are more efficient energy-wise, the RFI issue is a show-stopper for anyone sensitive to such things (radio amateurs and other odd folk).
Has any progress been made in reducing fluorescent light RFI -- or is even feasable/possible?
From TFA: Compact fluorescents, even in heavy use, last 5, 7, 10 years. Years.
This is hype. I was tired of replacing so many bulbs in my house, so I replaced them with flourescents that guaranteed a 5 year lifespan. They lasted 6 months. I tried another brand, got the same performance. They did last longer than old style bulbs, but not enough to matter; I'm not sure if the power savings covered the added bulb cost or not. A wash at best.
Population of U.S (according to google) 295,734,134
...
Divide by 1,500,000
So if 110 million of us replace 197 bulbs each, we'd all have FREE ENERGY! Whoot!
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
I ask this in all seriousness. In my house, the lights that are on the most are 150-watt clear torch lamps. There are no CF equivilents to that. The lights that are on second longest are outdoor floodlights, which again aren't suitable for CF.
The only "standard" 60-watt white bulbs I use are in my kitchen fixtures and are turned on maybe an hour a day at most.
Do other people have that many lamps that use standard 60-watt bulbs that can therefore be replaced?
I'd been kicking around the 'replace lights when they burn out with CF lights' idea, and then I sat down and did the math and figured that within a year they would pay for themselves in energy savings. I did a write up about it on my boring ass personal blog just to document when I did it so that I could come back and see what power savings I saw.
I would say that I replaced 18 65W bulbs in regular light fixtures, 20 65W 'globe' lights in three bathrooms, 5 chandalier 45W bulbs, four outdoor 150W Spotlights, not including about 8 - 10 bulbs already installed in the 'light burned out' category since we moved into this home in May 2003.
I'm keeping track of the power spent so far, and interested to see if there is a noticeable drop. Noticeable to me = $5 - $10 average. I'm not expecting a bill to go down by half, I do live in North Carolina and it's summer time so the AC is on full blast most of the time.
My next venture is into a PV System to offset the amount of energy I need to buy every month vs. the sun could provide. I'm still investigating that system but it appears that I could invest about $10,000 in a decent system, and get about half back in tax breaks from my state & federal government programs. If I get it in before the end of 2007.
Honestly with the Slyvania bulbs I used, I don't see a color temp difference. There is a slight delay from 'on' light output to full light output and even though they use a lot less power they are on average much bright light luminosity wise. But just in the last 5 years alone the delay you would see from light switch - light on has dropped to near instantaneous. There are several bulbs I put in 2003 that you can count out a second or so from switch on to light in the room. But these new ones come on when you turn em on.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Or at least make a big difference. Problem is, most people couldn't care less.
Sugapablo
I've tried to use them, but, at least for the ones I've used, over time they get a "fading" effect. They start off dim and slowly get brighter. It's REALLY annoying in the places I used them. I've ended up going back to regular incandescent bulbs.
Actually, one of the reasons I switched to CFLs was more light per watt -- in some places in my house, I wanted more light, but was limited by the 60 watt fire limitation. Using bigger CFLs allowed me to get more light.
Hopefully when LEDs come of age, CFLs will be replaced.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A CFL in every Home = 1 Nuclear Power Plant
I spent a lot of my weekend doing research on energy, power generation, etc. (See my MyWeb links) I decided to run some rough numbers, and have come to the conclusion that the best use of government funds is to probably have a CFL handout/trade-in program.
There are an estimated 110M households in the US, so if you replaced one 60W incandescent with a similarly lumen-rated 13W CFL (I'd estimate a distribution cost of $100M-200M), you'd save just over $4.1B in electrical bills over the lifetime of the bulbs ($0.10/kWh over 8000 hours). At 5 hours/evening of usage (~4.4yr), we're looking at almost a billion bucks a year. That's not a bad ROI.
Another interesting figure that comes out of that is that we're talking about a significantly large amount of power saved. Over the bulb lifetime, the number comes out to over 41M MWh, or based on the 4.4y estimated lifetime, about 9.4M MWh/yr. That's more than your average 1000MW nuclear power plant will be able to generate (about 7.8M MWh at 90% efficiency), and a significantly lower cost ($2-4/MWh for handing out light bulbs versus $50-80/MWh).
So, replacing 1 incadescent light-bulb in each of the 110M households in the country would save the equivalent of one nuclear power plant (or better yet, a bunch of fossil fuel ones, which function at a much lower efficiency (around 60%) and are usually lower capacity).
It's probably fair to say that up to 4 bulbs per house could be replaced before the law of diminishing returns kicks in. So we could save the equivalent of 4 nuclear power plants or 8-10 "dirty" power plants at 1/10th the cost of operating them, plus saving all the externalities like reduced pollution too.
Nevermind what the labels say, I have found that a 15watt compact fluorescent is
- not
equivalent to a 60watt bulb!And if you wait a month after you first installed them, they lose 10-20% of their brightness, so you need 2-3 15watt lamps to replace a single 60watt bulb.
And I am not talking cheap chinese lamps, I am talking GE, Sylvania, etc...
No sig for the moment.
For those who, like myself, are uneducated about CFL bulbs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_l amp
Hey, where have you been living? These have been arround for 20 years and have become more effecient all the time. For anybody _not_ using them should be very ashamed by now for wasting energy for many years. I guess this is a US thing. (North-/west-)Europe has been aware of these energy savers and been using them for a loooong timg.
I'm pretty sure most homeowners know about CFL's, and a lot of them probably have one or two already. (So where's that city of 1.5 million that's now being powered by all that saved electricity?) My house came with a couple that the previous owner had put in about three years ago.
The problem with these is the same as with any other flourescent light. Namely, they make ugly light and they hurt your eyes. Until that changes (read: never), don't expect people to be replacing their incandescents. It's not just a question of economics; light quality is just as much a health issue as air or water quality. Flourescents have been proven to cause a variety of sight-related issues, including eye strain and headaches.
But the good news is LED light bulbs are getting better and more common. Here's an example of what's available. No, I don't work for an LED manufacturer or seller, and no, I don't think LED bulbs are quite there yet. But they promise to provide a dramatic decrease in energy costs (about 1/10 the energy of even a CFL) and they can provide pure white, steady light (which CFL's, by their nature, cannot do). They are the future, and they're now starting to be carried by big box stores like Lowes and Home Depot.
CFL's have been around for a long time and their lack of success isn't because of cost or because people don't know about them. It's because people don't want them. That's a different thing. News articles can do a lot to raise awareness, but they can't do much when that awareness already exists and people have made up their minds.
" if every one of 110 MILLION American households did this thing"
Well geez, the title of the article should be, "Tiny numbers of stuff, multiplied by a HUGE NUMBER, gives you..., A BIGGER NUMBER! SURPRISE!!"
Guess what, if 110 Million People ate less, THERE WOULD BE A LOT LESS FAT PEOPLE.
Guess what, if 110 Million People gave me a dollar, I'd have $110 Million !
This is a non-story. This is just basic multiplication.
The electric bill should also be smaller, hopefully. I've replaced all my lightbulbs with energy saving versions. Haven't really calculated how I save per year but I estimate it to be quite much.
I've replaced all the outside lighting and the utility lighting in the basement with CFLs. All in all, I've replaced 700W of incandescents with 137W of fluorescent. They're much brighter, faster to come to full output, and purer white than any compact fluorescent bulb from the last generation.
They're absolutely perfect for work and utility areas. For living areas and reading light, however, I still prefer tungsten bulbs.
At 3 A.M. you can see people's auras; at five you can see their contrails...
Always have some hypertechie/transhumanist piping up how we just need antimatter!!! Well, I'm a solid transhumanist and I think it's not necessary to replace. In twenty years, everything changes. Whatever environmental changes humans make up until then is nothing compared to previous mass extinctions. And after that point--we can't even see past that point.
I have CFLs in my bathroom, bedrooms, hallway, washroom and garage. The only reason they aren't in the other rooms is because of light fixture limitations or the existing bulbs haven't burnt out yet. I have two different styles. One is the exposed spiral style, and those ones are warm and bright. All of those ones I have are either in can lights, or behind some type of glass. I had another few that had a spherical bulb over the CFL, those were a bit more warm (just a touch of yellow). The bulb made them a bit large for some fixtures though, so they are now lighting my garage.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I'm curious about the future of LED light bulbs - the potential from a bulb w/ 60,000 hours of life and power consumption under a watt is very attractive. I know light dispersion is an issue (e.g. they just don't throw out enough light), but what's on the horizon?
'ARRGH! Pirate Designers of the Internet, we be!'
I've had much the same experience. They don't seem to last noticeably longer than incandescent bulbs. Maybe the problem is that those quoted lifespans are "in captivity," where the bulb is just kept quietly shining, maybe turned (gently) on and off. In the wild, so to speak, it could be that other things are more important in determining bulb lifespan, e.g. how many dings the lamp gets if it sits on your desk.
The smaller sized bulbs are availible (they usually use around 5W) and what's more, you can put those in an adapter for your areas that need a low light but have the normal socket
"if every one of 110 million American households bought just one [CFL], took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. "
Yeah, I guess it sounds a lot better to put it that way than to say "A 0.5% reduction in electricity usage".
So we trade off co2 emissions for high levels of murcury being dumped in the land fills from disposal of the spent CFL bulbs?
Got Code?
CFL's come in man wattages and in many colors. You shouldn't have a problem finding a 150 watt equivalent CFL unless it is the size/shape of the bulb that is preventing replacement. Some people have also been complaining about color but at my local Menards/Lowes/Home Depot they have several different bulbs ranging from red/blue/yellow to soft white to bright white. Near as I can tell, there aren't too many bulbs that can't be replaced, save for halogen and some of the odd candle shaped bulbs maybe.
Fluorescents aren't nearly as energy efficient as LEDs. I'm just waiting for cheap LED light fixtures. Never need replacing, unbreakable, and no RF interference.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
A Watt is a Watt, whether it comes from a lightbulb or an electric heater. Having said that I've gone 100% fluorescent and my bills have dropped significantly, not hugely but a sigificant amount, enough to pay for the bulbs and then some.
Deleted
I recently picked up 4 new flourescent bulbs at Walmart that didn't look like coils. They were actually close to the shape of a normal incandescent bulb. I placed the in a bathroom that had 4 lights above a mirror (you've probably seen that kind of setup a thousand times), so naturally you don't need the kind of light you get from 4 100 watt bulbs. I'm surprised at the quality of light that I'm getting, and they don't look funny either. (they're fully exposed bulbs). They even had the "tulip" shaped bulbs that you might put in a ceiling fixture. I may replace my bulbs in my ceiling fans with them.
My house has no 150 watt lighbulbs, I consider 60 watt bulbs the 'bright' kind. Didn't start out that way. When I bought my house it came with all 100 watt lightbulbs which I took no notice of. After a couple very high power bills, we decided there must be a power leak. So we turned everything off in the house except the kitchen light so we could read the meter. The thing was spinning like a top, 2500 watts. At first we thought it must be a leak, since that one light switch in the kitchen couldnt take that much power..or could it? I hadn't ever counted before, but my kitchen had 25 light bulbs in 5 fixtures, all at 100 watts. Wow that was nuts. The bathrooms also had 10 bulbs. So we took out every other bulb and swithed to 60 watts or less everyplace in the house. Didn't make a huge difference in the quality of lightning, but it did on the speed of the power meter and the power bill.
One roadblock on the path to acceptance is the color temp or quality of light for these bulbs. As soon as I can secretly replace the bulbs in my house and my wife doesn't walk into the first room screaming at me, "Oh, my eyes!", I'll covert the whole house.
While the all too warm traditional bulb is rather a poor standard, it is what we're used to. CFLs are way too blue. Too cold.
I've tried a few (rather expensive) CFLs. Haven't found one yet that isn't religated to an less travelled part of the house -- usually closets.
For desk lamps the GE "full spectrum" natural light bulbs are the best yet. If the CFLs could put out that light I'd buy them at twice the price.
All that energy saving, green stuff is very well, but speaking as someone who has several of these lights, I prefer ordinary bulbs which (subjectively) deliver a softer, less penetrating light. LEDs are great too. In fact, I think LEDs are the future.
Is the power saved during the lifetime of the bulb worth the energy to safely dispose or recycle them? Currently this extra cost is usually absorbed by a local government rather than passed onto the consumer.
I did the math and bought several packs of swirl bulbs for all of the light fixtures that were not the main source of light for reading. It cost me quite a bit of dough, but as several posters say, the match works out. However, within six months they had all failed. Most had burn marks on the base. I sent a letter to the manufacturer notifying it that their bulbs not only lasted but a few months but posed a fire hazard as well. No reply.
So, I screwed regular bulbs back in. I'll let the technology mature before trying it again.
I understand the sentiment. My large master-bathroom has 12x40 = 480 watts which is indeed quite bright, but realistically, that's on maybe an hour a day at most.
In the case of the 150-watts I mention, we're using 3 of them to light 3 total rooms, so 450-watts for 3 rooms, which I don't really consider excessive seeing as it's on the order of 350 square feet.
I recently replaced several of my bulbs with CFLs, and it came out better than I had hoped. I ordered them online, and since they were for an exposed chandelier I paid extra to get them in the 'decorative torpedo' form factor. Furthermore, the place I got them from even had multiple color temperature choices, so they came out being even more warm in color than the old bulbs. Overall, a good experience, and I plan on phasing in the rest of my bulbs with CFLs, they've really come a long way.
If you shop around you can get the simple replacements for quite cheap, about $3 per bulb.
wish you could.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Er...have you thought this thoroughly through? Where do you suppose the government is going to get the money to pay everyone $2 every time they buy a $3 swirly bulb, so the price is the same as the regular bulb? Taxes, right? Which everyone pays.
So here's how it goes: everybody pays $2.50/bulb in taxes so that he can get a government benefit of $2.00/bulb. (The extra 50 cents covers the salaries of the government employees to handle the cash back and forth.) And this makes sense how?
Government funding of research into fuel cells is another thing entirely. See, the idea there is you fund the construction of a small number of advanced technology widgets, with the idea that, once you show private initiative the way, it will follow. It's like the difference between mom making your lunch every day, and mom teaching you how to make it yourself.
You typo'd Wimax in the link text
Put in a bunch of them and they do not last any longer than a reguar bulb, the light is also no where near
as good and they suffered from dimming over their short life span. Hell I doubt they even reached the 750 hour payback period.
Got Code?
You could see sheets of uncut $100 bills in one of the photos taken in the region.
1
http://www.kxma.com/getARticle.asp?ArticleId=3597
Work Safe Porn
Yes, considering the scale of power savings here. Over just one week of 4 hour-per-day operation, there is a 2kWHr difference between a 30W CFL and the 100W bulb it replaces, and I haven't even addressed cooling costs.
If you want further proof, look at just purchase costs. CFLs last several times longer, but cost more- yet they still last long enough that the consumer comes out ahead on replacement costs over the lifetime of the bulb.
The only problem I have yet to see addressed is that most CFLs don't work well in already-installed overhead recessed lighting; they don't like the higher temperatures, and the electronics bite the big one faster. Most people also like dimmable lights, and dimmable CFLs are much more expensive and harder to find.
Please help metamoderate.
I haven't finished RTFA, but here are my gripes regarding modern CFLs:
1. The light output is over-rated. A CFL that claims to be the equivalent of a 100w incandescent lamp is actually only a little brighter than a 60w lamp, and nowhere near the output of a 100w lamp.
2. Color. Many of the CFLs available are a blueish cool white, not the yellow incandescent color people are used to, or even the blueish GE Reveal color that many seem to like.
3. Warm-up time. When you flip the switch, a modern CFL turns on immediately, but does not reach full brightness immediately. Some take a minute or more. It's even worse if it's being used in a cold area. While this may be useful in some situations, people are used to having instantaneous full brightness from their lamps.
4. Noise. I bought and returned a three-pack of CFLs because they produced a buzzing sound that was quite irritating for a reading lamp.
Sent from my iPhone
Same here - bought a bunch at the local hardware store. Not one lasted more than 6 months. They are clearly low end Chinese junkers but I cannot find a reliable source of decently built bulbs to make it worthwhile to screw them in.
Even "brand names" like GE are just junk. You can see it in the poor fit of the parts, the brittleness of the ceramic and the quality of the bases.
Yes, I realize that "real" incandescent bulbs are not built to aircraft standards, but for $7 - $8 a pop, they've got to last longer than they do.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Except everyone now has big-screen plasmas and LCDs that use 250 watts, negating any savings from CFLs.
1. They have a hideos glare to them 2. The light is *too* white 3. They give some people headaches because of the nature of the emitted light - it is like staring at a 60hz refresh rate screen - ANNOYING! 4. The are bulky and look ugly 5. Their spiral or long tube shapes do not permit elegant styles in most cases People will never flock to these things if they are not attractive. I had a few in my house and after a few weeks replaced them with halogen or 'normal' light bulbs just to save my sanity. Other than that, they're great.
...all of them in my home, because I'm a cheap lazy bastard who got sick of replacing incandescent bulbs all the time, and the electricity savings is VERY noticeable.
The highest I've seen readily available replace 100-watt bulbs, which is close, but not quite what I want. The more important issue is that as I mentioned they're clear bulbs, not "soft white". I've yet to see a CF have the equivilent spectrum.
Even in the case of the 100-watt CF bulbs, they're using 27-watts. So let's assume 40-watts for a 150 replacement. This reduces my 3x150-watts=450 to 3x40=120. Let's assume I use the lights 8 hours a day (overstatement, but let's assume maximum). This means I save 2.6KWH each day, which at about 10 cents per KWH means a savings of just over 26 cents a day, or about $95/year. Not bad, but unless the light quality is the same, not exactly enough to motivate me to jump out and buy them either.
so if one bulb eliminates the pollution from 1.3 million cars, then 110 million Americans using one bulb would eliminate the pollution of 143 trillion cars.
If we reasonably assume that the average household has a hundred and fifty bulbs replaced by CFLs, we would eliminate the pollution from 21 quadrillion cars!
With a world population of 6.5 billion, we could drive 3.3 million cars each.
I use two of these CFLs, so now I don't feel so bad driving my Hummer to rain forests to burn them down with oil, and keep myself cool from the fires with my leaky air-conditioner.
I have the latest phillips cf bulbs, I just installed a batch of 8 in my condo. The light is still ugly-harsh. I still have to use incandescent for reading. At least all of the utility lights are replaced at this point.
Still, I'm hopefull that home LED lighting will soon allow me to replace those last bulbs where I care about the quality of the light.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I noticed these on sale at my local hardware store about a year ago. I was interested in lowering my electric bill, so I bought a bunch. I replaced all the bulbs in my house and my electric bill dropped dramatically. I don't have any hard data to back this up, but I bet they've more than paid for themselves by now. As far as the negative side, they are fluorescent, so they light up slowly and they do have the slightest flicker. After a while I went back to normal bulbs in my livingroom and bedroom, where I wanted better light. As for hallways, the kitchen, bathrooms, etc, they're great. I'd highly suggest them to others, not just for the environment but for your own pocketbook.
http://www.1000bulbs.com/products.php?cat=40-Watt- Compact-Fluorescents8
http://www.1000bulbs.com/category.php?category=40
I tried to use CFL's for indoor fixtures, but the noise was driving me insane - a very high pitched whine.
Hopefully newer versions are better about that.
I still use them on external fixtures though, they are great for that as I leave front lights on almost all the time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Are they as bad as the lights at my place of employment?
Bryan
I'm more interested in LED and related light-emitting polymer technologies. With more than five times the life of fluorescent bulbs and comparable energy efficiency they are the future. Of course, the technology still has a ways to go so the efficiency will only improve.
l ications .
I've seen them used all over the place: some cars and buses use LED arrays for their brake/indicator lights, and I've seen traffic lights use them too.
At the moment, unfortunately, it's cheaper to buy five fluorescent bulbs than a single LED-based one. More at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led#Illumination_app
It is estimated that between 6 and 16% of all electricity used in the USA on an annual bases is wasted because of this. (Source)
It is also estimated that:
(Source)
And that:
(Source) Also interesting: (Source)
Personally, I'm more than happy to take the small effort of actually walking to the TV (and other devices) to turn it on/off instead of leaving it on standby. And you're not just saving the enviroment either, being aware and watching devices which "leak electricity" in your house can easily save you $$$ (yes, 3 digit number) on a yearly basis!
To add a personal bit of evidence discovered while inspecting all electrical devices in the house with something similar to the Kill-A-Watt meter: it is shocking to discover that a lamp is using 40 Watt while in use, and still 25 Watt when switched turned ""off""! Bad, bad design with perhaps some cheapo, heat generating transformer.
Oh, and strategicly placed power strips with a single master switch to operate for example your TV/Stereo installation make all of this very simple.
How many of your fixtures are actually rated for the 150 Watt bulb you have in them? Most of my fixtures have a 60 Watt max warning label on them.
I have one CFL in my house. It is in my stepsons's room. If it saves energy that is great, because he is incapable of turning off a light. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit under the fixture cover so he has to stare at a bare bulb.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
good ones cost 6.75 each in bulk...
I don't find $3.00 to be a realistic price point.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
this doesn't belong on slashdot, it belongs on a press release service. It's all marketing.
bfd.
And in the end, nobody has removed the old lightbulb and put in the new one. Some will claim to have written to their congressman about the new lightbulb adjustment policy, but we all know it's just forum posturing. :)
that's where I usually put mine. Garages, attics, basements, porch lights (works fine in sub zero weather for me), laundry rooms etc.
Most people could buy 3-4 of them for places like that and rarely notice the difference. You do not have to change your entire lighting approach, just find a few areas where they fit in.
my $.02
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
You use 150-watt lamps? Try this 42-watt CF. Or perhaps you'd like to get even more light than your current lamp, and still save energy with this 40-watt CF. Just because the article focuses on the 60-watt replacements doesn't mean the others aren't out there -- they just use more electricity, just like a 75 watt incandescent uses more electricity than a 60 watt.
From personal experience, don't waste your money on the super-cheap packs of bulbs that cost less than $2/bulb. They just don't last, and you end up with a small pile of dead bulbs (which shouldn't be tossed in the regular household garbage).
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Good news all around, but what about the mercury contained in each CF lamp ending up in the landfill?
Before anyone wonders why the 42-watt CF emits less light than the 40-watt, notice that there is a difference in the emitted color spectrum, and the 42-watt bulb emits a more natural color spectrum.
We started using the CFL's earlier this year simply by replacing incandescents as they burned out. So far, it's been a good experience--not great, but good. I've noted:
1) Great in the kitchen. We have six older recessed "can" lights, and the CFL's have performed well. It would possibly be better to convert to recessed halogen lights, but that's a spendy proposition. The CFL's illuminate task areas just fine.
2) Good in the living room and other reading/chatting areas. Haven't had any problems reading, and the light seems warm enough that we don't look like we live in a bus station.
3) Really good in hallways/stair areas. There's an elderly relative around, and the CFL's have done a better job than incandescents at clearly illuminating the upstairs hallway, stairwell, etc. I think this is because of the "white" quality of the light.
4) Awful in the bathroom. For some reason--maybe the light paint, glossy tiles, or mirrors--they turn you into one of the undead when you look into the mirror early in the morning. Incandescents are better here.
A couple of drawbacks we've noticed are:
1) They can make an odd noise. This seems to be a prelude to one of them going bad.
2) We seem to get an occasional bad one. That hurts due to the price.
3) They do take a while to come on. Hasn't been a problem so far except in the upstairs hallway.
I believe (but am not sure) that we're saving on electricity. Our utility company railroaded through a 72 percent increase over the next three years, so it's hard to tell at this point.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Power plants spend an enormous amount of effort figuring out exactly how much power they are going to need to produce. Remember the old law of supply and demand? The electric companies don't want to waste coal either. Granted overproducing is much better from their point of view than underproducing, but if people reduce their power consumption, the plants are gonna reduce their production.
It's the I-can't-make-a-difference attitude that makes widescale change so difficult. People have to remember that the load on power plants isn't just god-given, it's made up of a hell of a lot of individuals' light bulbs, computers and air-conditioners.
Closest I can find on Amazon right now without spending more than 10 seconds looking. But I belive you can find them in different color temperatures with a little more effort. Only uses 36 watts. http://www.amazon.com/150-Watt-Replacement/dp/B000 13VM6C/sr=8-1/qid=1156886866/ref=sr_1_1/103-363414 9-8977438?ie=UTF8
The main reason I don't use them to replace every bulb is the delay and the size.
Main use lights in rooms at my house still use the old fashioned burn out every 6 months bulb. The delay in "on" is not acceptable to me for regular use in my house. Things like tourch lamps, always on or mostly always on lights like in the garage, laundry room, stairs from the basement, the basement are running CFL. There are a few lights I would like to replace, but due to outlet(like the little lights on a ceiling fan) or the fixture it is not possible. Most of the fixtures in my house aren't big enough to support a CFL bulb. We plan on replacing some of the ceiling fans with fixtures soon, so maybe I can put CFs in those provided they will fit.
I don't do the paying on the powerbill, so I don't know if moving to them made any difference in power consumption. But the fact that I haven't had to replace the bulb in those commonly on rooms is sure nice. I'd rather buy a 2-3x expensive bulb that last many more times longer.
-takes a bit to light up to full power (nice when your eyes aren't completely shocked by the change)
-Don't get as hot, less chance for fires due to proximity
-Saves more energy than stated in some cases, for instance, a aower energy bill in summer as well as winter (long nights), not just due to lighting, but because the airconditioner has to do that much less work (less heat)
Let's take that into consideration - let's say you have 12 60w (3 rooms x 4 lights to be conservative) lights lighting up the inside of your place at one time. Replaced by CFL 13w (60 w equivalents) that's a reduction of
720
-156
-----
564 watts.
Thats ~500 less watts of extra heat the airconditioner needs to negate, plus 500 less watts wasted on lighting. That's over a thousand watts (1 kilowatt) savings per hour.
Counterpoints:
-I actually find them brighter than their stated equivalent. Did you test this?
-I saw the small color different in the beginning, but I got used to it and now appears as normal to me.
-The small (1 minute) to full brightness should not be a problem unless used in a application that requires fast on and off switching.
BTW, I'm all for letting people use what they want - but that list was presenting some things as negative which I don't see as necessarily negative.
The one bad thing about the lights was that I think they overstated their life in the beginning. Enough of them died on me to make me doubt the 10+ year lifespan (did they test this by just flicking it on once and letting it run out, the on and off switching may have an effect on lifespans), but it seems to have gotten better in the later generations.
Also, I like CFLs better than regular fluorescents, as regular fluorescents have a ballast in the lamp, so if that dies (which happens from time to time) it is a time consuming job of opening the lamp and replacing that costly part. Lots of labor. A CFL has a ballast built in and has similiar efficiency, so it is just a matter of replacing the bulb if the ballast dies.
What's the opposite of FUD?
(False) Hope, (mistaken) Certainty, and (presumed) Knowledge?
We swallowed the 'OMG compact flourescents will save teh WORld!_!!EHUO" hype and bought several for our home 2001-2002, hoping to find that they were "all that".
They weren't.
1) Kitchen light - on MOST of the time. Annoying high-pitched buzzing caused us to try to leave it OFF most of the time (ironic way to save energy, I guess). By a few months down the road, it was so dim that we could barely tell it was on during the day (needed to have it on to light shadowed areas).
2) kitchen-table light - on a rheostat. Don't even BOTHER putting these on a rheostat. You don't even get the normal span of an incandescent out of it.
3) back porch light - whups, it gets down to -30 F on our back porch in the winter. Compact flourescent + bitter cold = hahahahaahah
4) table lamp in family room - after only a month or so it was extremely slow to light, light output decreased notably over time, didn't get much more life out of it than an incandescent (certainly not enough to justify the price).
So maybe they work wonderfully and perfectly for some OTHER people in this universe. But we neither saw the utility, value, nor, particularly, the quality of light that it would take to prompt us to change.
Frankly, I'm hoping LEDs are coming soooner rather than later. I'm unconvinced about compact flourescents.
-Styopa
I always thought the Canadian Football League was a waste of time and energy.
Given how much energy can be saved by replacing these bulbs, and how little effort and money it takes for people to do so, I propose that the governments of the world apply a sin tax to all incandescent and halogen light bulbs intended for home or office use. Right now the biggest problem CFEs have is that they still cost several times what regular bulbs do up front; especially since some retailers still charge absurd premiums for CFE bulbs. The tax itself would actually save most people money in the long run by lowering electric bills, cutting replacement costs, and helping slow the rise in energy prices by lowering demand.
This is actually an idea I've had for a few years now, but I just don't know how to get it off the ground. Anyone have any suggestions?
Are there any CFLs that do not product the high pitched whine? I put one in and then quickly took it out. High pitched whines drive me nuts.
Cow Cube
Are air conditioning cost savings factored into these numbers? TFA doesn't mention AC costs. I would imagine that a few hundred watts of extra heat in a room makes the AC kick in more often, and switching bulbs might improve that.
My server
I'm not going to be much help here, but let me share an anecdote:
My wife replaced all the bulbs in our McMansion with some kind of super-efficient full-spectrum bulbs. I didn't look at the credit card statement, so I don't really know how much it all cost, but I do know that we're using about 15% electricity each month and I can read and work at the computer longer without eye fatigue. Also, I look prettier in the mirrors and I can tell when I'm wearing one dark green and one dark blue sock (I didn't used to be able to do that).
I don't know what kind of magic these new bulbs posess, but I'm all for it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In around 2000 my wife and I found these compact flourescent bulbs in the IKEA in Emeryville and decided to try them. We were super pleased with the lack of flicker. About a year later we moved to Geneva, Switzerland and of course there's an IKEA not far away in Allaman. We got a bunch of bulbs and replaced all the incandescent ones in the new apartement. Now after 5 years the SIG still owes us money for what we overpayed the first year!
____________________________________
-- I beleve you'll like this -->
Just like dumping sewage in the ocean everyone denies that there is mercury in these bulbs.
Everybody has their heads up their ass just like it's ok to dump feces in the ocean or even pumping oil.
How come there is no study about the correlation between earthquakes and oil drilling?
"I'm me and fuck you" - credo of SUV drivers
So if we replace ALL the 60-watt bulbs with these higher efficiency models, that means gas prices will come back down to a nickel a gallon?
I have some of these lights in my house, and for the most part they are fairly good. However, the manufactures need to make sure they don't cut corners and prevent these things from generating RFI (radio frequency interference). I have several CFL's and for the most part, don't generate any noticeable RFI. But I have one in my laundry room and it generates huge amounts of RFI. This may be of no concern to most /.'ers but it's a BIG deal to me. As long as they don't cut corners on the driver circuitry things are just fine.
Being a ham radio operator, I am constantly fighting RFI from all sorts of consumer electronics; especially the shitty switching wall warts that come with most consumer electronic devices.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
They also carry the Al Gore Home/Environment Friendly Seal of Approval
From TFA: "The real issue is, if we don't do it, someone else will," says GE's ecomagination vice president, Lorraine Bolsinger, of Wal-Mart's effort to push CFLs. "It's old thinking to imagine that you can hold on to a business model and outsmart the consumer. You can't."
I used to buy the cheap incandescent bulbs, and I was replacing about one every other week in the house.
Then I broke down and blew a LOT of money on various bulbs of this type (including some daylight bulbs -- sweeet) and replaced the cheap ones with them as they blew. It's been a while, and I haven't yet replaced one of the new bulbs.
I figure maybe another year or so and I've recouped the cost of the bulbs due to no replacements, and all the while I've saved a bunch on electricity.
Another big problem with regular incandescent light bulbs besides its high power use is that they also generate quite a lot of heat, which can sometimes shorten the life of light fixtures. Since a CFL with the equivalent light output of a standard 60-watt bulb only uses 13 watts of power, it also means dramatically lower heat generation.
Yes, there is the issue of recycling CFL's with their mercury content, but fortunately most municipalities have facilities to recycle CFL's.
0 1 - just my two bits
Actually, you can indeed get outdoor CF floodlights. I was surprised when I saw them at Sams Club a few months ago. I have four flood lights on my garage that cover nearly my entire yard and have them turn on at dusk and off at dawn. Since they're on every day for hours a day, I figured it was worth a try. It's just a swirl bulb inside a floodlight type enclosure. Wow. They put out easily as much light as the 100 watt halogens they replaced. And now, in theory anyway, I won't need to climb up a ladder every 6 months and change them.
No. If everyone replaced 154 traditional light bulbs with these, it would cover 200 million cars. So, if you want to cover your two cars' pollution, you can change all of your lightbulbs, and break into your neighbors homes and change theirs. This is all using your statistics, which I assume you gathered from hours of painstaking research.
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Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
A Wal-Mart guy asked someone how much they could save on electricity by replacing the four incandescent bulbs in the ceiling fan display in each store. The answer given was six million dollars a year!! He didn't believe that number could be correct, so he had it double-checked, and that was the answer.
The most important factoid in this article for me is that the bulbs pay for themselves in energy savings in about five months. I don't live in a particularly frugal fashion, but who doesn't like free money? If it reduces my energy consumption too, that's fine with me.
I'm moving in about 7-8 months, so I'm not going to go on a replacement jag in this house. However, I'll probably buy a couple of CFLs for the bulbs I use the most and slowly use up my most recent multi-pack of incandescents on lamps that I don't use very often.
When I visit my parents next month in their big house, I'll probably replace some of their bulbs too. Their electric bills are astonishingly high.
You still can't put them on a dimmer. For people liking digital lighting conditions that's fine. However, I'm more a fan of analog light controls...
...you can recycle them? anyone know if there's a percentage that can't be recycled?
I have tried to replace the light bulbs in my house with the swirls. In almost every case one of two things happens.
1) They don't fit my fixture.
2) They don't seat in the socket properly, causing arcing and inadequate contact with the socket.
Admittedly I live in an old house and have lots of old lamps and fixtures. But I think I'd have to replace almost all of them to get these damn bulbs to work properly.
First of all, that was a 5000-word sleeping pill that could have been summarized in about a third of the space. Hell, I'm interested in the topic, and I tuned out and stopped reading after the first "page down" in my browser window. Joe Sixpack won't make it past the first paragraph.
Second, one disadvantage of CFL bulbs in the real world is that while they're 10 times more expensive than incandescents, they're just marginally more durable. For ceiling fixtures, that's not a disadvantage, but it gets old in a hurry (and expensive) to keep replacing broken CFL's in desk, table, and floor lamps that occasionally take it in the shorts thanks to the pets/kids.
From TFA "What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people." The article then goes on to say that there are 50 to 100 bulbs in an average house.
Therefore, if everyone bought one, they would displace the sales of 1-2% of the total bulbs.
But, later in the article, "Last year, U.S. consumers spent about $1 billion to buy about 2 billion lightbulbs--5.5 million every day. Just 5%, 100 million, were compact fluorescents."
So, if these numbers are true, then CFLs are already saving enough energy to power a city of 7.5 million people. Isn't this something that could be measured and shown as an overall drop in the average power used per household?
Personally, I only replace bulbs with CFLs, so I do believe in them, but I feel like the assertions in this article should be measureable.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
today is my first day looking at /. after probably two years away.
it's nice to see the jokes haven't changed any.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
From Wiki:
Note that coal power plants are the single largest source of mercury emissions into the environment. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), (when coal power is used) the mercury released from powering an incandescent bulb for five years exceeds the sum of the mercury released by powering a comparably luminous CFL for the same period and the mercury contained in the lamp.
Given that, and that the Incandescents use 4-5 times as much electricity as Flourescents, that meanst that switching to a Flourescent, even though it contains mercury, will actually reduce mercury emmisions, if you get power from coal.
So remember, if you want to reduce mercury, you should first work to eliminate coal power plants.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I don't think that banning standby mode altogether is a good idea; if implemented correctly, the energy consumption should be negligible. I think the easiest way right now to reduce electricity consumption without significant negative side-effects would be manditory energy-use labeling on all electronic devices (including components like video cards and hard drives) sold. These labels should state the maximum energy use (in watts) of the device when in use, idle (on and ready for use, but not actually doing anything), and in standby mode.
A big problem right now is that consumers have no way of comparing products in terms of energy efficiency (save for water heaters and the like, which are already subject to such rules). When consumers aren't educated, bad products prevail.
Well, considering those neighbors would need to be changing their own lightbulbs to get to their mark of 154 lightbulbs, you wouldn't really be able to change theirs.
In NJ, CFL's are often subsidized down to a very cheap price. I remember getting 60W equivilant CFL's for $1.00 a piece at Home Depot. This is the sort of start that is going to get consumers to make the switch. It sure did for me, now most of my lightbulbs are CFL's.
On a side note, I don't understand what people are saying with the white light factor. I thought i remembered hearing that it is better for your eyes to read in white light, vs the yellowish light of an incandecent. I always had a problem with yellow light hurting my eyes.
P.S. A cool thing i discovered about CFLs is that if it is dark and you rub your feet on the ground to build up charge and touch them, you can get them to flicker pretty easily.
...that threw any usable light. I am a big alternative energy proponent, I have certainly ranted enough here on the subject, so I keep buying these things every year thinking maybe now they are good enough and maybe I can use them and nuts! They suck! I wind up replacing them back with normal incandescents. If you want fluorescents, you have to use the normal tube jobs and that's it. The screw in ones bite it except for some sort of dim weird colored ambience light or for a porch light or something.
Now if they can get some affordable LED lights out there where the LEDS are aimed correctly (think shape/angle of the table lampshade for instance) instead of just being "round", then maybe they'll have a winner. But not at the prices they charge or that light wasting shape for the screw-ins I have seen-no thanks again.
I've had my eye on http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/7aa8/ for a while, and have been trying to figure out if it's worth replacing my incandenscents with LEDs.
Anyone know if there's a push for this? If they're better, worse, etc?
Every light in my house (either lamp, or ceiling fan/lamp) is either 60 or 40 watts. Your house must be blinding.
Lightbulbs only put 4-5% of their effect into actual light, the rest is transferred to the room as heat. If you switch all your bulbs for CFLs, you'll lose a sizeable heatsource that'll need replacing. Do you believe their calculations take this into account?
I used to do the CFL bulb in every socket thing. But I later learned there is real scientific evidence that full-spectrum light will put you in a better mood. Since then, I replaced all bulbs in my house with GE Reveal incandesent bulbs. They are extremely expensive for light bulbs, they use a log of energy, but they feel better than the flicker+spotty wavelength of CFLs. It is like sunlight inside (instead of warehouse light with CFLs or ugly yellow light with the old-style bulbs).
I think it is worth the cost to my pocket and the Earth.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
This is news? I thought the article was going to actually tell me that there was some new development. For about a decade, I've used CFL's for every bulb in the house except for the ones on dimmers, so their existance is scarcely news.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
"Executives at Wal-Mart are already imagining a day when the shelf space for lightbulbs is cut by 30% or 40%."
It's sad that Wal-Mart shelf space is the driving force behind their 'green' campaign. Another recent one that comes to mind is the downsizing of video game boxes.
Last I remember, they use 1/20th the energy of a Compact Flourescent Lightbulb (my house has tons of them, get the four or six-packs at Home Depot in the center aisle, last five years, dirt cheap).
So, even if it's better than the current terrorist-fighting one-eigth energy using less-heat-producing compact flourescent lightbulb - which doesn't work too well in areas with lots of vibration (like right next to your washing machine), switching to LEDs, especially the new GE white light LEDs, might be even better for the environment and your energy bill, plus I seem to recall contain even fewer polluting mercury and other materials.
If you're still using "regular" lightbulbs (incandescents), though, I highly recommend switching to at least CF bulbs, you save a lot and Osama won't like it at all.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If you live in a climate where you need to heat your home then do you really save energy? The small amount of thermal energy that you were getting from your incandescent bulbs will now just be replaced by a little bit of extra heat from whatever you are using to heat your home (assuming that your home heating is thermostatically controlled). Of course is you live in a hot climate then you're in a win-win situation since you no longer need to also pay to pump out that extra little bit of heat that your incandescent bulbs were generating.
Its because of scale.
A gov't subsidy of $1/bulb @ 130 million homes would cost (duh) $130 million. However, that still only makes the bulbs ~$5 and therefore *most* people still aren't going to buy them.
A gov't subsidy of $5/bulb @ 130 millions homes would cost $650 million. But that is only a single bulb/home and the costs are starting to get up there.
We'll just guess that the average home (low-balling here) has 15 bulbs. Well there is a cool $9.75 billion right there.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
In terms of "oil not burned"
should read: "countries not invaded"
(Lives in AZ, uses CFLs everywhere)
And doesn't obey daylight savings time at all.
(For those of you not in the know, AZ does not have daylight savings time. They're way too conservative to have to change their VCR clocks twice a year.)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Naah, its easier and cheaper to invade Iraq.
Sorry, but the "better" bulbs on that page tout dimming to 20% of full brightness, while the "best" tout dimming to 10% of full brightness.
:)
Neither of these is acceptable for "architectural" applications, where 2% is the accepted minimum standard.
While 20% or 10% certainly will save electricity, it's not dim enough to be perceived by humans as "dim". Ok, certainly not "seductively dim".
Full dimming is possible, but only with expensive ballasts and special wiring. Such systems are commonly used today in TV studio lighting.
The problem with retrofit CF dimmable bulbs is they basically have to put a complete dimmer in a throw-away bulb. There's only so much they can do at a throw-away price.
Everyone's relating their experience with these bulbs, but only ONE guy has actually named the brand he uses. The other anecdotes were useless.
What brand did he name? Commercial Electric from Home Depot. He said there might be a slight warm up time on those but they seemed to go almost full bright when you turn them on.
So what brand do you use? How close is it to incandescent? Does it look better than incandescent? Is is instant-on, or does it take time to warm up? How expensive is it? Does it hum or flicker? Does it work with dimmer switches?
If I'm gonna buy these bulbs, I want to buy the right ones the first time! I got screwed buying some of those natural-light incandescent bulbs a while back, the bulb was blue, and the light it output was VERY blue and din't look at all like sunlight. I don't want to get screwed buying an expensive flourescent!
While not being sure of whether it is actually worth the cost to the Eart, I am also a big fan of the Receal bulbs, and am not going to switch (back) to high efficiency lighting until it is half as ergonomic as the better incandesent bulbs.
Why don't they at least coat these things to produce a more pleasing wavelength?
I have been an early adopter of CFLs. I use them especially on multi-bulb fixtures. I used to leave one incandescence bulb in the fixture and replace the others with CFLs. That way, some light came on instantly when the switch was flipped while the CFLs were warming up. Nowadays, the warm up takes 1-2 seconds.
One major concern: CFLs are made with a drop of mercury vaporized in the tube's vaccuum. What happens when 110 millions households start throwing away burnt CFLs? Manufacturers like GE should have a dumpster at big stores where these bulbs can be trashed. Better than ending up with mercury poisoning, which isn't a pretty sight.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
"one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads."
would that be 110 millon bulbs?
As I said, torch lamps, they're very much rated for 150-watt. Obviously you wouldn't use those bulbs in an enclosed lamp.
The problem I still see with all the recommended replacements is the "soft white" or "warm" that seems to accompany them all. As to the guy who said "look harder", I guess I should have qualified that I'm looking for something I can buy locally, not off Amazon or elsewhere. I'd like to try to light to see if I like it and return it if not. Home Depot / Lowes, etc. can do this, online cannot. And at those local stores I've yet to see high-wattage replacements.
From Fortune a couple of weeks ago: "If each customer who visited Wal-Mart in a week bought one long-lasting compact fluorescent (CF) light bulb, the company estimates, that would reduce electric bills by $3 billion, conserve 50 billion tons of coal, and keep one billion incandescent light bulbs out of landfills over the life of the bulb."
I've replaced 5 out of 6 of them in my house with either halogen or standard.
I do have many lights on dimmer switches, however. The light bulbs last a LONG time if you never use them full blast.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
You forgot:
Could you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?
I used to be on the board of an HOA for a small 12-unit condominium. The HOA was owner run and we were looking to cut our expenses. One major expense was electricity. In part this was because all the common hallways were lit 24/7/365 by old incandescent flood lights. Replacing about 36 60Watt floodlights with 15Watt CF bulbs saved the HOA over $1200/year. Not to mention that we haven't had to replace a single CF since they were installed in summer 2003. This cost savings meant that we didn't need to raise HOA dues when other condos across town were doing just that. We recup'ed our investment in the bulbs in less than three months.
110 million people x 1 bulb. Let's say that they replace a bulb that was on 5 hours per day (21%) of the time, and that the CF bulb takes 20 W compared to a 60 W incandescent. So we have saved 100x10^6 x 0.21 x 40 = 8.4 x 10^8 W. Supposedly that's the energy consumed by a city of 1.5 million people. Say that's 2 people per household, i.e. 0.75 million households; hence 1100 W per household. 1100 W = 10 thousand kWhr/year, costing (guessing 0.10/kWhr) 1000 per year. Does that look too high? It does to me; my home averages at under 100 W. Maybe this "city of 1.5 million people" has electric heating?
Nah, we just see DST as the waste of time it is.
The real reason, however, is air conditioning. It uses *way* more electricity than lighting, and an "extra hour of daylight" in the evening would cost a fortune in cooling.
Yes, I know thermonuclear means fusion. I was making a joke at the typical hypertechie response (after all, nuclear is the only power source other animals haven't discovered--using something other animals have already done isn't geeky at all!).
I like em and it's the right way to save the world from global warming. They save me money; Align people's economic interest with the environment. Appealing to their better nature is a waste of time on the large scale.
Next... Heat pumps.
Deleted
Fine, sky pilot, where can I send you my lightbulb bill?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
1. Old incandescent bulbs burn out. ...
2. Buy CFL's as replacements.
3.
4. Profit! (on your electric bill)
I've tried to replace the conventional bulbs with CFLs where I could, but I've found that even when the other issues aren't a problem, they don't always last as long as they should.
They seem to not last long at all in enclosed fixtures or hung upside down. I've gone through 2 CFL recessed-lighting bulbs in my office (enough to just switch back). The 75-watt equivilent in the 50s era enclosed fixture on the stairwell died within a week. The 150-watt equivilents I use in our outdoor fixtures have died with 9-12 months (but the cheesy yellow bug light models have lasted through 3 winters...).
All-in-all I'd say I've maybe broken even cost-wise (savings vs. lamp purchases). The best luck has been, strangely, in ceiling fan applications (ugly as sin, but no dead bulbs) and as lampshade-type lamp replacements.
Personally, I use 'Reveal' incandescent bulbs, they suck up more energy, produce more heat, but their spectrum looks great and in a far more natural way. You can really tell when you're reading, the pages look way better than with standard incandescent bulbs. If, like me, you find that CFL is a little too "industrial" for you, give the 'Reveal' bulbs a try. Come in every about every wattage and are cheap as all hell.
I've been using CFL's for a couple of years now.
The cost isn't a real issue. The fact that they are 3x-10x more expensive to buy is ameliorated by the fact that they last many times longer. That factor alone probably makes them a wash. When you add on the HUGE savings in energy, plus fact that you don't need to mess around with changing lightbulbs so often (saving you labor), then they're an easy win financially.
I don't believe they take any longer than regular light bulbs to warm up. If they do, it's never been an issue for me. There is a short flicker when you fire them up. So what?
I also don't believe they're dim compared to their watt rating. Even if that were true, you could easily solve that by using higher-watt-rated bulbs. The cost savings is still going to be huge.
As for color temperature: "real" lightbulbs have a _horrible_ color! People who are used to them just don't realize it. They put out a strong sickly-yellow hue. Try taking an indoor foto without a flash, and you'll see what I mean. With CFL, you have much more control over the light color. I believe you can choose to match incandescent, if you want. But more likely, you'll want to use one of the natural light colors. Yes, those bulbs may be more expensive (don't know for sure), but again, the cost savings will still be huge.
It's true that they sometimes don't fit, altho I've always been able to solve the problem -- by buying a better-shaped / smaller bulb.
One problem is that I haven't found a reasonable replacement for my spotlights. The CFL versions are way expensive. Maybe they also would pay for themselves, but it's not a slam dunk like it is for regular light bulbs...
I have some in my house and my experience is that they are OK but you can't replace incandescence as the main light source. Even if you don't notice the flickering, it's still there, hurting your eyes. You don't want to read a book with CFL light, no matter how warm they may be.
I'm looking forward to "cheap" LED lightbulbs, they look far more promising than the CFLs.
I also had replaced every bulb I could with a CFL a while back. However, I've been around when 3 of them have failed and it was not a very comforting experience. They started making an electrical snapping sound and let out a lot of the awful "burned electronics" smell and smoke - and that was in the time it took me to find a switch to turn the power off. I imagine they have been throughly tested for saftey, but I'm not sure I'd like the idea of one failing in a ceiling mount while I wasn't around. Anyway I've been slowly replacing them with the GE Reveal incandesent blubs too. I like the quality of the light much more, however my electric bill has definately increased.
- They're sold at Wal-Mart. I don't buy from Wal-Mart; I buy from independent operators when I can.
- Most of the lights in my place are either track lights or recessed lights. I honestly don't think I have a single 60 Watt bulb in the place.
In any case, I thought the article was pretty good. I imagine that most homes in America have a place for these types of light bulbs.This struck me instantly, as I had a recent shopping trip wherein the primary purchase was lightbulbs (I seem only to remember to buy them when my apartment is totally unlit =) ). When I went into the shop, I compared the prices, and noticed the price difference -- not exorbitantly higher to by CFs, and clearly they would pay out IF I paid the utilities in my building. Did this occur to others as well? People who live in apartments (and other arrangements where they're not the owner) cannot always choose fixtures, nor are they always responsible for the electric bills.
Yeah but it doesnt give you the full spectrum.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
There's a circlite that has been in my parents basement for over 20 years now, gets a few hours use a night, but used to be on 5-6 hours a night.
Still servicable, and you can figure out for yourself how many light bulbs this thing has saved, and how much power usage it saves... Something like 25,000 hours this thing has been running
I live in Southern AZ and I run my (real) AC 24/7 during the summer. I have measured the difference between running continuously (on a thermostat, in a well-insulated house with UV-reactive windows and a decent roof), versus leaving it off during the hottest parts of the day and it turns out that due to the latency effect of cooling off a hot house, it's less expensive to maintain an equilibrium temperature.
If I cleaned up the params it probably would make a good exam question for a calc2 final.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Real Americans aren't going to go for this. When we need light (which isn't that often 'cause we're usually out in the woods hunting), we just fire up the Hummer and aim its headlights into the window.
The mistake you make here is replacing like-for-like wattage bulbs. I went through my home and replaced the high usage bulbs with CFLs. And as the low usage ones die I replace them. But I replace them with CFLs of a higher equivalent strength. 60w incandescents get replaced with 75w equivalent CFLs, 75w are replaced with 100w. They only draw about 1/4 the juice of incandescents, so I still save big. But now I have more light in the same area, and the picket fence spectrum problem is reduced. Plus, when I can, I mix Cool White, Warm White and Daylight color temperatures. Looks odd, but only if you look at the fixtures and not the room.
I think it is worth the cost to my pocket and the Earth.
Thank you for consuming more than your share. The rest of us apprciate it.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Which hours?
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Who cares about color temperature? I do. I hate "kitchen and bath" fluorescent lamps because at 4300K they make everything look "red" and they're not bright at all. I finally decided that I liked 6500K "daylight" lamps... the same color temperature I calibrate my TV for. Going to GE's website, I see that their ceiling fan CFL's are 2700K... blech. Is there a brand of 6500K CFLs for my ceiling fans? I don't know.
> 90% of the energy output of a incandescant bulb is heat. Think about how an easy bake oven works.
The A/C costs of COOLING that 90% are another huge energy gain.
--Michael
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
I use the CFL's in the basement, front porch, above-shower, work areas, etc. They really are hugely energy efficient. However, the light they produce is horribly un-ergonomic. Skin takes on a yellow tinge under them so everyone looks like they have hepatitis. The unsteady and specific-wavelength light seems to be harder to read under. They can't dim (if you try they make scary crackling noises). And while they switch on fast these days, they still take a minute or so to reach full brightness. They even seem to fail at about the same rate as normal bulbs, at least in my house.
Energy efficient, yes. But they still have a long way to go.
E pluribus unum
You can "dim" an LED bulb.
Do these have the same problems as most florescent bulbs? I can not stand having the lights on in my office as they give me headaches. I haven't adopted the bulbs for this reason.
Yeah, I feel that way too. I got those big ass 75 watt incandesent bulbs in all my shit too. I used to give a ratts ass about the environment too but realized that I turn 40 real soon. By the time the environment changes so much that I care I'll be dead.
Now excuse me while I go out an price a big ass SUV and I need to pick up some old fashon CFC for my A/C.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
We have about half a dozen in our 20-bulb house (I counted - it's a small house).
I read some, "They whine and buzz" - might have been older versions.
"They're dark" - ditto.
"They have mercury in them" - true, but as TreeHugger.com put it:
"Ironically, compact fluorescent bulbs are responsible for less mercury contamination than the incandescent bulbs they replaced, even though incandescents don't contain any mercury. The highest source of mercury in America's air and water results from the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, at utilities that supply electricity. Since a compact fluorescent bulb uses 75 percent less energy than an incandescent bulb, and lasts at least six times longer, it is responsible for far less mercury pollution in the long run. A coal-burning power plant will emit four times more mercury to produce the electricity for an incandescent bulb than for a compact fluorescent."
But before you take all the wonderful things I've said about them at face value, there is something I learned the hard way: check the color of light the bulb produces.
From the Wikipedia,
* "Warm white" (2,700 K) provides a light extremely similar to that of an incandescent bulb, somewhat yellow in appearance;
* "Soft white" (3,500 K) bulbs produce a yellowish-white light;
* "Cool white" (4,100 K) bulbs emit more of a pure white tone; and
* "Daylight" (6,400 K) is slightly bluish-white.
I accidentally bought "Daylight" bulbs for the bathroom. It made the room a psychotic blue-ish tint (I imagined Jack was going to start chopping through the bathroom door with an axe - "Here's Johnny"). Warm white seems like the color to get. Unfortunately, I bought an 8-pack, but fine for utility lighting, etc.
Most houses have the light bulbs near the ceiling, so any heat you "gain" from using regular bulbs is not going to contribute much to the heat that actually keeps you warm in your house.
Let's keep things in perspective here. A few million homes powered is a drop in the bucket globally. Even within the context of the US it like a percent or so. Maybe nice but no big deal really.
Seastead this.
Cree just announced an LED with an efficiency of 131 luments per watt (compared to incandescent light bulbs at 10 to 20 lumens per watt range, and compact fluorescent lamps range from 50 to 60 lumens per watt).
So they are coming. Then again, Cree seems to have a history of "science by press release", where they announce these amazing specs, then never bring the product to market.
I tried this as well and had interesting results. I live in AZ in a 2100 sq. ft. stucco box that's insulated fairly well (built in 2005). My wife had an argument about putting in the flourescents because she thought they were hard on the eyes, but I didn't think it was a big deal, so I did a test with her. We used Reveal light bulbs (the best I've found) and comparable Home Depot-bought flourescents. Each room has a 2-bulb, 120W light fixture, and the rooms are generally the same paint color brightness. I set one room to 100% incandescent (120W), one room with 50%/50% (1 flour. bulb, 1 inc. bulb - about 72W), and the last room with both flour. bulbs (about 24W). She had to pick out which room was which, and we did the test several times.
After 15-30 seconds of looking, she usually spotted the 100% flourescent room (a little harsher on the eye, minimal), but after several tries (swapping bulbs between rooms), she couldn't tell the difference between the 50%/50% or 100% incan. bulbs. After that test I changed the bulbs out to a 50/50 configuration, which eliminates the flourescent "lag" (can be a real issue - they take up to a minute to light up all the way).
I made the change throughout the house, and I saw an immediate yet modest power bill difference - about $5-$10/month.
There are hitches. The flour. bulbs are fragile to power surges and being flicked on and off. If you have young kids who like to flick lights on and off, the flourescents are doomed within a week or two. Also, if your builder was spartan on the wiring specs (I'm sure my builder maxed out the number of outlets/switches on each breaker/circuit, all on the less expensive 14 gauge wiring), any power usage surge on that circuit with the flourescents (i.e. big CRT monitor going on, etc.) kills the bulbs as well. You can identify the rooms that have problems quickly and forget the flourescents there - you lose too much in replacement costs.
In summary: A 50/50 configuration works best, IMO, as a bridge between the two schools of thought, and you will save a little money while dealing with the quirks.
Side thoughts:
More on topic, I replaced all my lightbulbs with CFLs, and not a single one has failed yet. I've moved four times with them (ah, the life of a student...). They've outlasted three computers. A superb investment by any measure.
The math here is just bogus. If you are in a house that is heated, a regular lightbulb just contributes to the heating of the house.
One watt emitted as heat reduces the needed heat from the heater with one watt as well. So with a thermostat and electrical heating, it does not matter at all how efficient your lamps are. Just get them cheap.
If you run an A/C, you need to look at the luminous efficiency, and an efficient bulb might be better.
I will however guess that for most households most of the time, you need to heat. Than there is no advantage in using a CFL. Only more expensive.
"Fix it"
Is "forever" implied, as long as the bulb remains screwed in place? ... cannot tell what these stats mean.
There was never a people in all of history so interested in shooting themselves in the foot, than the American working class. They waste money on crap that nobody with an ounce of sense would buy. They get gargantuan vehicles that will cost them more money than they will ever have (and then bitch about the cost of fuelling the behemoth in question). They vote for leaders whose openly stated plan is to deprive them of their social safety net, their jobs, and their rights. It's mystifying. The American working class is the best argument for reproduction licenses that require an IQ test to pass.
> everyone looks like they have hepatitis.
I DO have hepatitis, you insensitive clod!
We've been using them for years ... in our native language they are called
"spaarlampen" literally translated as savingsbulbs
One note though although they use a lot less energy and do not get as hot as normal lightbulbs
They are not very suitable for short burns
it takes a while before the bulb is at full charge so to speak and
before that happens it'll seem like the lights are dimmed
These CFLs don't work in the majority of lamps in my house, which mostly have the type of lampshade that clamps on to the glass part of the lightbulb with two u-shaped metal prongs. So, savings don't mean much if I can't use them.
Arizona doesn't have DST, but the Navajo reservation in the northeast corner does. And inside the reservation, you'll find another reservation (Apache? Zuni? can't remember) that does. On one stretch of road, in about 150 miles you can go !DST(AZ)->DST(Navajo)->!DST(Apache?)->DST(Navajo)- >!DST(AZ). Have fun setting your clocks!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
if you have 110 million regular bulbs in your house, I doubt you are gonna worry about changing any of them out for CF.
No, in the context of the summary, it is clear that the correct phrase is "one bulb", since the summary is about everyone in the US swapping out ONE BULB, and that being the equivalent of taking 1.3 mil cars off the road.
Sorry. Every sentence in a paragraph does not need to explain every point of the paragraph. COntext is key.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
I use a number of CFL bulbs in my home, they work especially well for the sconce-type fixtures on either side of my garage door which I leave on all night for security purposes. I have over a dozen recessed can fixtures throughout my home, and I am considering replacing the 100W flood bulbs that are probably costing me a fortune in electricity (~$400 electric bill last month - I live in AZ with a pool and 2 HVAC units), so I am trying to cut utility costs wherever possible. These are a great way to go! I'd recommend anyone give 'em a try!
SLH
"There are none so blind as those who will not see."
Excessive drinking is fine...in moderation.
You're forgetting the China Axiom:
"Every unit of oil you save, will gratefully be burned by the Chinese."
In the end, whether you burn it and dispose what's left into the athmosphere, or the Chinese, it doesn't matter because all oil will be burned eventually.
What can be said is, if you got the money, please burn away because you probably burn it more efficiently in a less poluting way than the Chinese are currently doing with their factories and cars.
Except that they don't last 10 years. I've been using CFLs for at least 5 years (back when they used to cost 10 or 15$ each). I've yet to have one last more than two years, and I'd say most don't last more than one.
Reminds me of CDs... back in the day they were touted as nearly indestructable, I still smirk when I think of that as I see someone handling one like precious breakables.
You can't take the sky from me...
If you live under the domain of a more enlightened electric utility company (or, if you prefer, a more regulated utility), there may be subsidized bulbs or rebates available for your CFL lamp and fixture needs. http://www.efi.org/ offers limited quantities at subsidized prices, primarily in the New England area. Even if you're not covered by the subsidy, EFI offers retail pricing and honors manufacturers' warrantees -- if your 10,000 hour CFL goes out a few years too soon, it will be replaced with minimal hassle.
Brand can be king and you get what you pay for. If you've had a bad experience with a particular brand but like the concept of CFLs, try another. There are some really shitty CFL manufacturers, to be sure. If you don't like the light it gives off, try a different color temperature (higher is whiter/"bluer", 2700k is "standard," about as close as they get to an incandescent temp) and wattage.
Mercury content is fairly negligible and is offset by reduction in coal-burning plant pollution. They can be recycled with many local recycling programs. Magnetic ballasts in CFL fixtures have been replaced by more efficient electronic ballasts that cut down on intereference, hum, and slow start times.
In addition to CFL subsidies, rebates are offered on Energy Star appliances. Check http://www.energystar.gov/ if you're in the market and take the time to do the math in terms of overall price and energy payback.
Call your utilities and see what else they might have to offer. There are low-interest loan programs out there for more efficient heating/cooling equipment. Replace your windows. Get an energy audit. Take advantage of federal tax credits. Learn how to regulate solar heat gain. There are any number of ways to cut costs and bring energy demand down regardless, if CFLs aren't your bag.
Yeah, I guess it sounds a lot better to put it that way than to say "A 0.5% reduction in electricity usage"
Gee... what a nice example of right wing political propaganda of the simplistic variety. Sure, if you consider the example of these CFL bulbs in isolation it doesn't look all that impressive. If you, however, also consider what effect it would have to improve the energy efficiency of most common household appliances, refrigerators, stoves, computers, stereos, TVs.... the list goes on...... and alluvasudden you realize what kind of a dent that would make in energy consumption. It's easy to focus on a small part of a big picture and condemn the whole principle of energy efficiency as complete crap based on that narrow minded approach but the ease with which it can be done doesn't make it any less foolish.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
None of these effects is pronounced, but the ripple spreads out. And that's just one of the things you have to accept with the quest to reduce oil-dependence: it will be thousands and thousands of little things that win the war. A few E85 SUVs here, a few electric cars there, some scooters and motorcycles for the cool kids. CFLs all over the place. Industry starts taking conservation seriously and revamps their processes (you can find hundreds of success stories of manufacturers bringing their power usage way down while simultaneously making their entire operation faster and more efficient). A smarter chemical industry. Old houses being replaced by better houses. Nothing can solve the problem in and of itself, but it all adds up.
I've been using CFs for YEARS and I love them. I have not replace a regular bulb with another regular bulb in many years.
Same here. For more than 10 years I've only bought CFLs, and the last tyme was a few years ago. Now I'm just waiting until they get LEDs perfected. CFLs use only 20% to 25% energy compared to incandescent light bulbs. But LEDs use only 10% of the energy. However they are only good for spot lighting close at hand, like right over your shoulder for reading a book or newspaper.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That's odd. I have ancient discount CFLs that have been operating reliably for four years and three different homes (ah, the life of a student...).
Please look again at your choices of bulbs. Home Despot now has a wide variety of CFL's at varying powers.
The trick is to compare the luminosity of the CFL's to a standard bulb. Most 14W CFL's actually have a slightly higher lumen count than a 60W bulb, so those two are comparable. I think 150W bulbs put out around 2500 lumens, and I have seen certain CFL's that easily put out that amount or real close. Plus certain brands allow you to choose the light temperature (color) as well to get soft light(yellowish), to bright white, to daylight(blueish).
As for outdoor floodlights, they have those in CFL's as well with comparable power output. Same goes for indoor can lights. I replaced all of our kitchen can bulbs with CFL's. They weren't as bright, but I replaced the interior surface of the can (which was black) to a highly reflective silver. This ended up making the CFL's brighter than the bulbs they replaced.
Shop around, do not stick to one store. There are many brands of CFL's and one brand may offer what you need over another.
As for someone stating earlier about governments subsidizing the sales of these bulbs. They did that in my town. The city gave Home Despot a deal in order to sell 6 packs of 14W and 4 packs of 25W CFL's for about $8 each. For the standard 14W CFL it was just over $1 per bulb...not bad considering they starting selling the CFL's individually for about $5 bulb.
Things to think about..
-AC
You may want to have your home's electrical system checked. Sometimes these kinds of things are indicative of a more serious fault in the building's wiring. I had a place where just the opposite happened -- incandescents would burn out in a matter of days. Fluorescents worked fine. In that case we KNEW it was bad wiring, since a) everything about the house was bad, b) a testing device told us so, and c) we were all students, and no one rents a building with anything even remotely intact to students, since students by definition exist solely to be bilked and robbed blind by landlords.
Personally, if I wanted the amount of light given off by a 40-watt bulb, I'd probably buy a couple of candles and have something nice to look at...
I live in an apartment with slightly shoddy wiring. My incandescents burn out on a rate of about 1 per week, at random, but usually when I flip a switch or turn on an appliance.
Could these new bulbs be resistant to what is apparantly a number of small electrical surges that are killing my normal bulbs?
If so, sign me up...
Okay, I'm all for throwing out the old schol bulbs and going with the "new hotness"... but I've got quite a bone to pick with the quote form the article:
...I have no idea! I can't visualize the significance of this impact! A good comparison would be to tell me the monetary value that you'd save off the electric bill (the average home saves X dollars per year on their electrib bill for each 60 watt bulb exchanged). Or the ACTUAL reduction in gallons / barrels of oil burned. That makes sense to Mr. Average Joe... 1.3 million cars makes me think of rush hour, not environmentalism.
"if every one of 110 million American households bought just one [CFL], took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads."
First of all the comparisons just don't make sense, there's no time period on anything. Say instead you compare the power saved by replacing 1 light bulb over the course of a million years and it could power a city of 10,000 for a day. Take away our time periods and suddenly we have one light bulb saving enough energy to power a city of 10,000! If you want to convince me of the evironmental / economic benefits of something, don't just throw out random numbers!
On top of that comparisons are supposed to make things easy to understand (because people can't comprehend how much is in a ton of co2?). Just how much greenhouse gas comes from 1.3 million cars?
To summarize:
1. USA mfg jobs ---> China
2. CFLs will not significantly change oil import/export patterns
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I checked my 2x1.8GHz G5 workstation the other day. The whole thing (UPS, G5, 17" LCD, WAP) pulled 200W idle, 350W running two folding-at-home threads, 400W when I added in Google Earth.
But I later learned there is real scientific evidence that full-spectrum light will put you in a better mood
There are full spectrum CFLs, check here: TrueSun.com
FalconShould there be a Law?
Flourescents have a small amount of mercury in them.
l amp#Environmental_issues
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_
LED lights last up to 11 yrs with continuous use.
And use 1/30th the power of a regular light bulb, vs. 1/4 with a CFL.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/clearance/7aa8/
Only thing really holding it back right now is price and the fact they
wouldnt sell many to repeat customers with an 11 year always on lifespan, lol.
The ones featured here on thinkgeek don't put off quite as much light,
but with 2 lights vs. one you can get there.
The price is the only real thing hindering it, but if you consider long term
energy savings, its awesome.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I don't know, in my 2-bedroom apartment I can think of at least 30 normal bulbs off the top of my head (not including a couple halogens and a few other odds and ends), and it isn't exactly a large place - a little under 1000 square feet. In a normal 3 bedroom house I could easily see at least 50 or more bulbs. 100 per household might be a little excessive, though.
"if every one of 110 million American households bought just one [CFL], took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. ..."
Ok, so if 110 million of these were installed it'd free up enough energy to power hundreds of lightbulbs for 1.5 million people... meaning 110 million of these equals several hundred million regular lightbulbs... and one of these equals about a few hundred? That makes this little bad boys more than 7:1 ratio better... ???
"... One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads."
And this has no quantitative value. Cars exhaust output impact can not be empirically measured due to conditions of the vehicle, how hard its driven, fuel quality, air quality, etc. These sorts of figures are "best guess" efforts to use the "scare tactics" of the global warming threat of impending doom to us all to force us to panic and think we NEED to adopt this new technology in order to try and save ourselves. Not likely that a lightbulb will do that much in the long run to save the world.
But then, maybe I am just being cynical... Perhaps I should go buy a few and not be "in the dark" and at least "play it safe" eh?
-- "You must be the change you desire to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi --
How many light bulbs does it take to change the world? No wait, that's not right...
The problem is people use these little efficient doodads to feel good about doing something green. Then they go out and buy a power-sucking plasma TV.
Electrical use is way up since the 80's. Possibly because we all have tonnes more electronics bits to plug in and nearly everyone has a PC which adds a certain minimum for the hours its on. If you had a few lamps burning around the house which added up to the energy consumption of most desktop PCs you'd notice it right away and wonder why it's necessary. Alas, we sit at our keyboards and type merrily away (there's that batsard, ackthpt again, oi if only I had the mod points to bury him.) oblivious to the power consumption of our tin box full of CPU, DDR-RAM, HD, Whizzo Video Card De-Luxe, etc. Quite possibly we even have a reading lamp going beside us in the evening (I don't know about you, but at my age I get a headache looking at a glowing screen in the dark.) Plus there's all these little black plastic cubes and rectangles to run all manner of gizmo, which all add up.
On another thought. I've got these wicked little LED flashlights which run for 130 hours on a battery the size of an aspirin. When will I see these in my house, rather than a fluorescent lamp?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
they're dim - dimmer than the advertised incandescent wattage they're supposed to replace. they have a variety of ratings for color and brightness that aren't standardized. every 5th bulb gives off a grating high pitched hum. they have delicate tubes and break under pressure that standard bulbs can take on being installed in and removed from sockets. they are a disposal hazard (mercury) but no one bothers to dispose of them correctly because there's no easy collection bucket for mercury. feh. where's my LED incandescent replacement?
at least in the US, it's much cheaper to burn natural gas (and sometimes heating oil) than convert electricity into heat. All forms of heat may be 100% efficient, but the monetary cost varies widely. I don't know what natural gas prices are like in Europe, but for USians, shifting the heating load toward furnaces (and heat pumps) is not a downside.
And at present, CFLs have LEDs beat when it comes to light/watt. This may change, but until then.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
>Everyone lloks like they have Hepatitis
>you have Hepatitis
Therefore everyone looks like you! (under cfl light)
Do you happen to look like Kirsten Dunst......?
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
What are you, blind? I don't think I've ever used any bulb over 100-watt in my entire life! And at the moment, I don't think we have anything in the house over 60W (or 60W-equivalent CF). Yes, the house is dimmer at night than during the day, but it's plenty bright enough to read or engage in other normal activities. I find that having less light at night helps me calm down and relax. I've also found that the bluer light of the CFs makes it easier to see with less light, even with my aging eyes. And the lower power bills are definitely a sight for sore eyes! :)
One thing that I have never seen advertised about CFF's is that they are much more robust and can handle larger voltage swings.
... So once you buy them you are stuck with them for a long time. Next time I need a bunch I'll test one _in the store_ before I bring it home. It will be hard to tell color with all the other lighting, but at least the other issues can be discovered.
I live in a rural area and it is not umcommon for the 120V to get to 130V. In our first 6 months living here we had to replace every light that was originally in the house (they were all incadenscent). Since I've replaced all that I can with CFL's I haven't had to change one.
The down side is that not all CFL's are the same. Some suck in terms of warm up, flickering on powerup, noise,
Heat doesn't rise. Hot air rises.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Has anybody found bulb-sized full-spectrum CFLs for closer to $5 a pop?
I use the CFL's in the basement, front porch, above-shower, work areas, etc. They really are hugely energy efficient. However, the light they produce is horribly un-ergonomic. Skin takes on a yellow tinge under them so everyone looks like they have hepatitis. The unsteady and specific-wavelength light seems to be harder to read under. They can't dim (if you try they make scary crackling noises). And while they switch on fast these days, they still take a minute or so to reach full brightness. They even seem to fail at about the same rate as normal bulbs, at least in my house.
You must be using the wrong bulbs. The only light bulbs I've used, er bought, for more than 10 years are CFLs. At first there was a problem with the lighting spectrum and flickering but now you can get bulbs that are a lot better. I've never had problems with the quality of light though I admit I'd prefer bulbs that are cooler, about 7000 maybe 7200 degrees k or slightly blue in tint.
FalconShould there be a Law?
That's like 1.5 million bacon double cheeseburgers from Wendy's!
I wonder if using good, full-spectrum light bulbs could have a positive effect on the selling price of a house. That may also help offset the cost.
Also, aren't there full-spectrum flourescent lights out there?
For instance, http://www.ottlite.com/
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I changed all of my bulbs to CFL's, but not for the "enviroment".....I HATE changing burned out bulbs, which, as we all know, go out at the worst time. I changed them so I don't have to change them for a LONGGGGGGGGGGGGG time. Global warming is a bunch of hogwash anyway. Data from so called "experts" is only 50 years worth, AT BEST.....which is what in the grand scheme of things? A BLINK in the history of the earth! Plus, the OUTPUT from the sun has been on the increase for years.......hello? hotter sun = hotter earth? Everyone crying about the icecaps melting which will cause the sea level to rise. Well, try this trick. Fill a glass with water with ice cubes. Fill it RIGHT TO the edge. Now, let the ice melt and see if the water runs over the top of the glass.......buzzzzz....it won't! The melting ice will displace the volume and weight of the solid when it becomes a liquid. Once again, more scare tactics of the looney left anti-capitalist, anti-western, anti-American idiots. I know, socialism will really really work, it just hasn't been tried by the right people yet........LOL!
Has anyone used both LED's and a CFL lamp? Does anyone happen to know what the qualitative difference is? Are either one worth it?
Thank you for consuming more than your share. The rest of us apprciate it.
How do you define "fair share"? is this some sort of socialist thing, where only idiots get to define what is fair?
He pays for any extra electricity that he uses, so it's not like he is using electricity that someone else is paying for.
Oh, and I agree with the people who prefer not to use CFLs because of their terrible visual ergonomics. What's the point of saving money and the environment if we are too miserable to enjoy it?
Arizona doesn't have DST, but the Navajo reservation in the northeast corner does. And inside the reservation, you'll find another reservation (Apache? Zuni? can't remember) that does. On one stretch of road, in about 150 miles you can go !DST(AZ)->DST(Navajo)->!DST(Apache?)->DST(Navajo)- >!DST(AZ). Have fun setting your clocks!
Is it Black Mesa? If so it's Hopi.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I personally use the "spiral" shaped lights the article was criticising, as well as the straight ones (th compact ones that have 4 tupes and are like 15cm long) and i am pretty happy with them at most places.
....
First of all they provide enough light if you place them well, and if you use them with a lamp with a reflection surface.
Their light is not that horrible colour: yep, the standard ones are very cold, but you can use a colored (partly) reflector, and you have several heat options (talking colour heat), as well as coloured bulbs, such as my favourite: the yellow one that does not bring all the bugs inside.
They are prone to failure: I live in Costa Rica, and an ordinary bulb is dead in a few days, unless you provide surge protection to all the lights (which I cannot do). Electricity is pretty crappy here, and my ups clickity-clicks a lot, and the bulbs died often before I switched to these puppies.
Easy on the purse: I do not pay for electricity, so I do not know how much I am saving, but I know from the numbers, that it must be a lot. (hey I am nice enough to spare even if it is free, call me a treehugger, I do not care)
Reading: now here comes the low power halogen into play: I hate to read with these, I just hate it. For that I use a low power hallogen bulb with a 12v transformer.
I am happily willing to switch all my halogens and long fluorescent tubes over with time, whether they improve it more or not
Unfortunately, the mercury content means that, starting a couple months ago in my town, I can't discard the CFL in the trash. It has to go to the toxic waste disposal site.
Any guesses about whether the gasoline for the trip to dispose of them - even if I stored several and dumped 'em all at once - exceeds the savings in energy vs. incandescants?
Or in dollar cost?
(Not to mention the cost of my TIME, in fractions-of-a-life.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
We on Slashdot have a fetish with saving the enviroment but don't have a problem building our own 30 KW petabyte TIVO servers?
... :):):)
Yes, I'm definitely going to replace all those evil incandescents with enviroment-friendly CFLs while building a second rail line to my own coal-powered electrical plant just so I can watch Captain Planet whenever I like
What bugs me is that the darned things burn out in a year or so.
This is NUTS for a fluorescent with an inverter - including a high-frequency transformer - built in.
It's perfectly possible to drive a fluorescent with a cold cathode which would have a life measured in decades, using electronics that also won't fry in a similar period.
If they did THAT there wouldn't be such an issue with disposing of the tubes.
(Of course there would be the issue of lowered repeat sales...)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The problem is people use these little efficient doodads to feel good about doing something green. Then they go out and buy a power-sucking plasma TV.
I don't think I see your point or what you consider a problem. Every little bit helps. The person with the power sucking plasma would still be using less energy by switching out some lights to the CF type.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
But AZ doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time, does it?
(the same for Hawaii)
Here in Indiana, we a few months into our first bout.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
>>>everyone looks like they have hepatitis.
Hepatitis has some symptoms we should learn to recognize...
Like your eyes sometimes get yellow and they only should be white
Wash your hands after going to the bathroom!
Wash your hands after changing baby too...
'cause we don't want to get hepatitis,
And we don't want hepatitis to get you, who? YOU!!!
Maybe the cheap ones do (the ones that take a long time to turn on or hum)
But the newer, "fast on", fit-in-a-ceiling-fan ones don't have that problem. Especially if they are dimmable. They use a solid state transformer that operates at a much higher frequency than 60Hz so you won't notice the flicker. (They need to be solid-state to dim; they use something like pulse width modulation to emulate the dimming effect, and you need a fast base frequency in that ballast in order to fake that effect convincingly).
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Fully paid for? When do I get my share of the compensation payment for the environmental damage?
Everyone crying about the icecaps melting which will cause the sea level to rise. Well, try this trick. Fill a glass with water with ice cubes. Fill it RIGHT TO the edge. Now, let the ice melt and see if the water runs over the top of the glass.......buzzzzz....it won't! The melting ice will displace the volume and weight of the solid when it becomes a liquid. Once again, more scare tactics of the looney left anti-capitalist, anti-western, anti-American idiots. I know, socialism will really really work, it just hasn't been tried by the right people yet........LOL!
You left out two variables in your calculation. One is that there is much ice on land. While the Artic has water under the ice, the Antartic ice is on land, Also there are the glaciers on land, such as in the Himalayas, on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, and in the Andes in South America. In all three of these places people depend on seasonal melting of ice for fresh water, when those glaciers are gone so is their fresh water. The glacier in Glacier National Park are melting and soon there won't be glaciers there. Oh and the ice on Iceland? That is all on land, not over water. Scientists are finding ouit it is rapidly melting. And there is enough ice there that if it all melted it could raise the ocean levels up to 50 feet or more. The second variable you left out is thermal expansion. Sure water expands as it freezes but it also expands as it warms up. Take that same glass with water in and seal it then put it on a hotplate with it turned on and watch what happens. From the wiki page:
"Heat-induced expansion has to be taken into account for many structures such railways and bridges, without the use of expansion joints the structures may buckle. Similar techniques are applied in buildings, water pipes, and road construction."
FalconShould there be a Law?
Fivelimes.com, a new environementally oriented web 2.0 startup, has a calculator on their landing page which helps visualize the benefits of using CFL and other altnerate ecofriendly products and services.
My math isn't perfect, but I'm pretty sure that all those spectacular savings they are talking about have to do with EVERYONE taking one bulb home. That isn't one bulb, thats 260 million bulbs. Also, first they say that if everyone replaced one bulb, they could power a city of 1.5 million people, then they say that if everyone replaced one bulb, you could power both Rhode Island and Delaware, thats a lot more than 1.5 Million people. This press release sucks.
... at $20 a pop it would cost me $160 just to fill up the main fixture in my living room!
Easy - replace the light fixture.
I was dubious about CFLs (cost vs. life etc.) but the first one to replace the light I use most is still going over a year later. It hasn't started showing any signs of death flicker, but is a little dimmer when I first switch it on (they brighten once they've warmed up.) I have a four-pack of (cool white) CFLs waiting to be install as soon as it or the remaining incandescent bulbs. Much more convenient that bulbs that will go "pop" without warning (even when new straight out of the box.)
I have 600W of olde-fashioned Edison-style lights in my kitchen and I love the way it looks. Full spectrum though, I despise yellow bulbs.
Of course, unless I need all that light for working in there I keep it dimmer. I have dimmers all over the house and by default when I turn a light on it is well below full blast.
I have never cared for the way CF lights look. Can't put my finger on it.
How many people at home really know or care about "color temperature"?
Admittedly I am in the minority but I care. I wish CFLs had lower temps, say maybe 7000 degrees k. I prefer the cooler blue. Then again one reason I know of this is because of photography, though an amateur I love photography and am hoping to start getting paid for my photography.
FalconShould there be a Law?
There are a couple of other problems. Note that the page says "These bulbs are generally not intended as a complete replacement for incandescents - these bulbs are lower output but more focused". One issue is that LEDs emit light in a very narrow spectrum, nothing like the broad spectrums of either incandescent or compact fluorescent. This tends to make LED lamp light appear harsh. Of course, manufacturers try to compensate for this, but I'm not aware of any that come close to providing the kind of broad spectrum distribution of the other bulb types.
Also, from a cost perspective, compact fluorescents are a cheaper upfront cost, even if LEDs are cheaper in the long run.
Be careful. There is no official scientific definition for the phrase "full spectrum," so marketers are free to use this term how they choose. If you're interested, I came across a website with graphs of spectral distribution for a number of light sources.
that light bulb is heating the house most of the year. if you replaced it you would turn up the heat. This would in turn burn more heating oil, propane, wood, coal. the energy savings might occur in summer or in a few parts of the US. But mainly it would have no effect. It might even be net negative, since the light is heating an occupied room directly whereas heating a whole house just to heat one occupied room is less efficient. The oil companies will thus love this because the net effect is to use less nuclear and hydro electric power (for the electricity) and more oil and gas
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I love and use them too, but there are problems. 1) can't use them on with dimmers 2) some sockets can not use them because of the fat width right above the metal screw part
1. There are three-way compact flourescents. Actually, it's really a combined one, but then that's what a three-way bulb is, two filaments (say 300 is a 200 watt plus a 100 watt, each switch position gets you 100 watt (200 is off), 200 watt (100 is off), 300 watt (both on)) or in this case two tubes stuck together.
I don't recommend using compact flourescents in ceiling fans, even though they exist (usually fat short bulbs), as the vibration cuts down dramatically on their lifespans.
2. There are a lot more shapes and sizes of bulbs now. Go to Home Depot - you'd be amazed.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
i look at it this way.. i am only awake at home about 3-4 hours a day and i only use 1-2 rooms at a time.. at max that is 4 x 60watts x 4hours = .96 kwh.. and local price are 9.5 cents per kwh so like 2.75$ a month for light.. i would save something like 2$ a month if i used cpfl which cost 5$ a pop.. so if i had more than 4-5 die a year i wouldn't be saving anything
Ah but CFLs last much longer than incandescents. The longest lasting incandescents I've seen are only rated for up to 1000 hours however the shortest I've seen CFLs rated for are 7000 hours. The shortest lived CFL lasts 7 tymes longer than the longest lived incandscent. I've been buying CFLs for more than 10 years and I've only ever had one burnout. I have had some "disappear" but that's it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
at least one.. I always try to find the GE Reveal bulbs.. the cfls are still like $25.
Man I think you're getting ripped off. The last tyme I bought light bulbs, I've been buying only CFLs for more than 10 years, I only paid $8 for a pack of three and that was abour four years ago.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Wouldn't that come out to around 4 or 5 lightbulbs?
All compact fluorescents contain trace amounts of mercury. But don't worry. First of all, there is far less mercury in CFLs than in other items knocking about the house: CFLs (4 mg), thermometers (500 mg), older thermostats (3,000 mg). Plus, using CFLs actually prevents mercury from being released into the air thanks to their huge energy savings. A power plant, for instance, emits about 10 mg of mercury to produce the electricity to run an incandescent bulb compared to only 2.4 mg of mercury to run a CFL for the same amount of time
Which is great news, if true. Burning coal puts mercury in the air and that makes it so that pregnant women can't eat fish. The wrong decisions will make things worse, the right ones will start the long process of recovery. If Wal-Mart wants to be green they will have to have some kind of return policy. Done right, the return will pay for itself.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Chart
Note that the max for current LED's is the midrange for CF - and the low end is not much better than a 100W incandescant.
I am looking at power use only, not lifetime or cost/lifetime etc.
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3585_300
Wimp. I'm replacing all the bulbs in my house with High Pressure Sodium lamps.
my 2-bedroom apartment I can think of at least 30 normal bulbs off the top of my head
Jesus Christ! Do you get sunburnt when you fall asleep with the lights on?
I've a 3 bedroom house here, number of bulbs - 14. Mostly compact fluoros - except for the bathroom.
And I've a bone to pick with designers. Having a room with 8 x 50W recessed halogen lights to light it does not give a 'good mood'. It reeks of over-consumption and poor efficiency. Get some decent light fittings and even without compact fluoro's you could halve the power used to light a room.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
I get them for $4.99 at Fred Meyer. DuraBright brand, manufactured by TCP. They have 5 distinct colors in the spectrum, better than the standard 3 but not as good as the balanced 7 you get from more expensive CFLs. I think they look better than incandescents anyway.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
Given:
- In order to use as much energy as all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island for one day, I would have to run everything in my house for several hundred years.
- It is not possible for me to use negative energy.
Ergo:- It is not possible, within an equal amount of time, for me to use as much energy as the states; therefore I can not save as much as them.
- Assuming I, before the switch, use as much power as a home in one of the states, I would need to use (-(2000+2000)+1 = -3999) times the power I use now. (2000 is the approximate population of each state on Wikipedia.)
- If I cannot use negative energy, that is impossible.
Q.E.D. Am I missing something?I too wandered down the road of the GE Reveal bulbs. In short, they suck. They're twice as expensive as regular bulbs and last half as long. So if your "good mood" is that important to you fine, but a raging ecstacy addiction might be cheaper.
When they consider however many households changing one bulb to a CFL, did they consider the cost to produce all those bulbs, or just the energy savings they would being over several years?
So I stocked up on enough bulbs for my entire apartment (17 total), and at least a few for later replacements. Cost me a whopping $5 total to retrofit every incandescent socket. The lights are good, take little time to warm up, with no noise or flicker. Not bad, $5 spent on the bulbs, with roughly $5 a month saved on lighting bills.
I don't know if they still have the special on the CFLs, Puget Sound Energy issued the stores instant rebate coupons in order to reduce the price to 19 cents. Needless to say, the bulbs literally flew out the door.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
GE understands that it's smarter to make money selling what people want to buy than trying to force people to buy what they don't want. Now if someone could tell the RIAA/MPAA and other Luddite organizations...
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
I had the same problem when I used "eco" light bulbs. Another problem was that they would take forever to get bright enough, whereas old-style bulbs would reach their maximum brightness level almost instantly. Any ideas as to whether state-of-the-art CFL bulbs show similar effects?
Also because they:
I don't have any experience with home automation so I can't say anything about this. But as for the second item, in more than 10 years of using CFLs I've never had a problem with noise. On the third item I've never broke any CFLs and they are no more a hassle to replace than regular incandescent bulbs. Actually it as they burntout that I replaced them with CFLs, I didn't just one day decide to replace all my incandscent bulbs with CFLs all at once.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The important thing to remember is that CFLs need to be disposed of properly. Here are some links to help you out before you discard your next CFL:
...because they don't burn out. Or it seems like they don't, I know they do eventually, but I've been replacing every normal bulb that has burned out in the house with a florecent and they just keep shining. It's a better value. Plus if it makes the power bill cheaper that's even better.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
If everybody in America turned off that 60 watt bulb, we would save a billion acres of rainforest and a thousand humpback whales. Isn't it just easier to turn off the freaking lights where you aren't using them?
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
...is people remembering to turn off the light when they leave a room. And you know who you are.
Perhaps life really is full of possibilities.
They have mercury in them, which actually makes them suck much worse if they do break. That said, they save a ton of energy, and while they don't work well (read: at all) with dimmers, good ones are intensely bright. I have them everypace in my house that they fit (maybe 50% of possible locations).
Most CFLs are not designed to be used with dimmer switches. Special adaptors are available for larger bulbs and General Electric make Soft White dimmables which are available in the US but not the EU. LEDs might be the best bet if this issue affects you...
FalconShould there be a Law?
The smell was probably ozone gas. Now you, too, can be an arrogant know-it-all the next time it happens. ;)
For $5 maybe I will get one for the garage and then see if I want to use them everywhere.
"I used to do the CFL bulb in every socket thing. But I later learned there is real scientific evidence that full-spectrum light will put you in a better mood. Since then, I replaced all bulbs in my house with GE Reveal incandesent bulbs."
Oh help.
A certain component of sunlight in the near-UV region has been shown to affect seasonal depression. There are receptors in the top of your head that when near-uv hits it are stimulated to synthesize serotonin. That's whay you feel better when you go outside into the blue room and get some sunlight and why many people get depressed in mid winter (which is also why we have "march break").
You are NOT going to create this near-UV from an incandescent bulb, period. What you're getting with the GE bulb is a more bluish, less yellowish light. It has zero effect on your mood.
Vita-Lite (tm) is a full spectrum tube that does have this important UV component. Flourescent tubes work by creating UV when an arc excites mercury vapour. This UV then zaps the phosphour coating on the inside of the tube which converts it to visable light and the makup of the phosphour is what determines what kind of visible light the tube emits.
GE Chroma 50 and GE Chroma 75 are a (much!) cheaper replacement for Vita-Lite full spectrum tubes. The GE tubes will be marked "C50" or "C75" respectivly and are marketing these days in stores as "super sunshine" or something like that. Philips Colortone 50 is also equivalent. I think Osram/Sylvania makes one too but the name escapes me. These are the "big three" in fluorescent tube makers are make tubes for other companies to resell. Some of the Asian companies that make CFL's do such a poor job there was a recall on them as they were a fire hazard and I've watched ones not subject to the recall burst into flame. Stick with the "big three". They work.
Vita-lite makes one in a CFL. Not cheap (like all vita-lite products). The other GE/Philips/Sylvaina ones are available as 4' fluorescents pretty easily in stores. They do make them in other (smaller) sizes but they're special order, hard to come by and not cheap - 90% of all tubes are 4' and there's economy of scale.
Need Mercedes parts ?
so... do you have kits (or better yet, plans) for your "bulbs"?
I'd love to build some...
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
Wanna know why I don't use cfl more often?
Hah, I'll tell you anyway.
1) Not dimmable. Fuck you, I know there are dimmable ones, very few and very expensive.
2) I can't try them, which would be hassle enough. So I pay $5 for something that last for 7 years and I'm stuck with it and what if I don't like it?
didn't make a huge difference in the quality of lightning,
You had some high expectations there didn't you?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Now wait a fuckin minute man, who the hell do you th-- *gasp*
Lord Apathy! My liege! I ... I had no idea, I... please, my apologies... [scurries away]
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Actually, if he's paying for it, he's using exactly his share. No more, no less.
:-p
Unless, of course, he's stealing from your share. Do you see any of those lamps running from an extension cord hanging out one of your windows or something?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I'm glad to see a few people recommending Home Depot's CFL's here. I just bought a few of those to try out, a few weeks ago. For the last couple years, I've really tried to like CFL's and use them around my house. I have a small place built in the 1950's that has a small fuse panel still (no breaker box) and the electrical service is one of the smaller capacities the electric company puts in homes. I used to have a lot of problems of blowing fuses if too many things were turned on at the same time and the microwave or a vacuum cleaner was started up.
... and others just started coming on intermittently or suddenly died after just under a year of occasional use. All of them I've used came on instantly when working right - but the light doesn't feel "white" enough until you leave them on for a few minutes.
Since going to CFL's in the bedrooms and basement, I've not blown a single fuse. So that alone has made them worthwhile for me.
That said though, I wasn't impressed with the CFL's I bought, to date. I think I have a few GE's and some Sylvanias, and like someone else said - the electronics seem to go bad first on them. They're very intolerant of heat build-up, so they died in just 1-2 months when I experimented with putting them in enclosed glass fixtures in my kitchen
I haven't really felt like they're saving me anything on my electric bill, but I suppose they do.
seriously though..
XX years ago, you paid 2k for a computer, end of line..
mebber another 500-100 for a printer (anyone remember the printers that used the same balls as selectric typewriters?)
now you pay 1k for the computer, and a few hundred for all your usb gadgetry, broadband connection (didja have broadband with your PC? no? is it costing you $500 per year?) and other add-ons that your 2k PC just didn't have as an option
$300 SPEAKERS? on a PC-AT? riiiight.....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
YOU
I bought a pack of these a few months ago. They don't work in all standard bulb sockets. They seem to work somewhat ok in my hardwired light fixtures, although they don't always come on. I have one in my loft and sometimes it just doesn't turn on. They don't work at all in any of my stand-alone floor lamps.
They worked in my garage door opener, but burned out in a week.
"Skin takes on a yellow tinge under them so everyone looks like they have hepatitis."
First, use good tubes - GE/Philips/Osram-Sylvania. I've seen cheap Asian ones vary quite a bit even in the same batch - yellowis, quite pink, you name it.
Second, there are daylight CFLs that are not yellowish (2700 Kelvin "warm white") but instead they're bluish (5000K "daylight"). I know at least Philips makes them in 18 and 26 watts as I use them here in some places.
I haven't had an incandescent bulb in the house in years - that's a lie I have a stupid bathroom fixture that uses mini-base incandescents. I have a replacement fixture here and RSN there won't be an incandescent bulb in the house.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Those are marketing hype.
I get a box of 7 CFLs or so CFLs at costco for $15. They look fine.
Bite me. Dear tiger4, would prefer the parent poster to go postal from SAD. Somebody shooting up a business is whole lot more expensive than using pleasant light bulbs.
I like old-fashioned incandescent. Its light is like candlelight or firelight. I like that color for indoors, it's comforting somehow. The color of sunlight is for the daytime and it comes through windows. All psychological I guess, I'm a torch-wielding caveman in my soul.
for real, if they will grow pot - you know they work.
As I recall from my high school science courses (and which is supported by anecdotal experience...and wikipedia), about 95% of the energy output of an incandescent bulb is heat, and only 5% is light.
Ironic as it may be for a Canadian such as myself to complain about air conditioning costs, but if you have a bunch of these going on in hour house, they're putting out a noticable amount of heat. If on top of this you are air conditioning your house (presumably in the summer), then you're paying to cool the air that your light is heating.
CFLs (BTW, CFL in Canada stands for Canadian Football League...please co-opt this acronym) use less energy to produce the same amount of light, so I can only assume that the energy difference is in heat savings. Add to this the savings from not having to re-cool that air, and you are then saving double in the summer.
Quite a clever investment!
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I bought a package of fifteen of these swirly bulbs about a year ago, and over the course of a few months used them all in various places in my house.
I went around and looked today, and I've replaced every one of them already.
"Ten-year life?" I wonder who cooked up that statistic.
As far as being more energy-efficient, I don't doubt it. They took a second longer to turn on (every bit counts), but otherwise I think they save by being obviously dimmer than other 60 watt bulbs. Various parts of my house felt just like it does at Walmart.
Why should I ever buy these again?
Wow, you're a real retard. I'm sorry I wasted my modpoints earlier today. I should have saved one for you...
Capitalism isn't about embarassing others into doing what you want them to.
If he consumes more, he has to pay more to do it. Part of his money will go into developing cleaner energy sources, and basically helping to solve the problem you're so worried about.
If electricity doesn't work on standard economic theory, it shouldn't be sold as it is.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
You leave out one other point:
The incandescent bulb's "wasted" 70-80% of energy is only truly wasted in seasons when (and places where) you aren't heating your house. In heating seasons, they are 100% efficient: 20-30% light output, 70-80% heat, thus reducing the use of your heating system.
Think of them as small space heaters with the added feature of lighting your house.
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
Don't forget to add that they can interfer with IR communicatons, and can randomly send signals to your electronics. I don't know if it is only some brands, but I have found that there are times that CF bulb wreck havoc with my remotes.
And where does the other 10% go?
Even with CFLs, 100% of the electricity is turned into heat (eventually)**, it's just that they can generate as much LIGHT as incandescants, with 1/4th the input power (so 1/4th as much heat, but still as much light).
**Actually that's over simplifying. CFLs use simple switching power supplies, with a low Power Factor (~0.4), which means more load per-watt on the utility grid than fully-resistive load (PF 1.0).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Oooh, cool.. Wake me up when they have ones that can output something in the region of 1000 lumens. A 131 lumens per watt LED is nice but not very practical if 1 LED outputs 8 lumens.
- Raynet --> .
I've replaced most of the bulbs in my house too, but what I don't see this article addressing is the total bulb lifecycle. These things have mercury in them, which will probably mean people screaming about disposal when they DO have to be replaced. Are there recycling programs in place? What's the environmental impact of making them in the first place, compared to incadescents?
That is something I've wondered about too, I'd like to see a lifecycle analysis to see for instance what the energy needed to make one is compared to incandescent lights. The energy could be 3 tymes that of incandscent and CFLs will still save energy.
FalconShould there be a Law?
GE, too, has launched a green business initiative: ecomagination, an effort to make environmentally sustainable technologies an ever-larger part of GE's business. Swirls fit well, despite the inevitable cannibalization. "The real issue is, if we don't do it, someone else will," says GE's ecomagination vice president, Lorraine Bolsinger, of Wal-Mart's effort to push CFLs. "It's old thinking to imagine that you can hold on to a business model and outsmart the consumer. You can't."
I figured I'd calc out that 1.3 million autos figure - based on gas use I can see it - with the caveat that 22.5 MPG seems pretty good as an average , but it gives me a nice divisor:
Average distance per vehicle per week in the US is 225 miles per EPA. Lets be generous and assume 22.5 MPG so the average car uses 10 Gallons/week of gas = 520 per year.
1.3*10^8 Joules per gallon gas / 3.611*10^6 J/KWH gives about 36 KWH/Gal * 520 = 18720 KWH/year * 1.3 Mil = 24336 GWH / yr
which is feasible.
Now we take 110 Mil bulbs * 50W efficiency increase * 6 Hrs/day * 365 days = 12045 Gigawatt-hours
So at least it is within half with a 6 hours a day lit bulb being used.
Seems a bit off - but wait I guess if you only assume 50% eff in the conversion to electricilty you would get the numbers. Interesting that it does come out. You can play with the assumptions of hours lit and efficiency and such but close enough for me.
I'm waiting for LED lights too. The reasonably priced ones available now aren't good for whole room lighting. They are only good for spot lighting, but I heard some are available for whole lighting but those are expensive.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Most electric companies have rebate and subsidy programs for energy efficient lighting and appliances.
Or, are you just whining because a price drop of 80% in the past 10 years isn't good enough for you?
Clear, Dark Skies
Q: How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Two, but I don't know how they got in there...
That gives me some perspective. I think our house might have 8 normal light sockets, plus a twin bar flourescent (in the kitchen). None of these are over 60 watts. There are compact flourescents (15w/60W equivalent) in any socket it was possible (some of the light fittings were obviously designed without that in mind). We probably never have more than two or three lights on at a time, and even if we had all the lights in the house on we'd likely come in at under 450 watts...... I was getting frustrated by not being able to change the other fittings to compact flourescents, seems pointless when someone has a 2500W kitchen.....
All of my home lighting is LED using the luxeon 3 and 5 watt models. I use about 1/20th the energy that I used when I was using CFs. Granted, I had to build nearly all the fixtures and powersupplies myself, but the 5 watt units only cost about 7 $US and put out light equal to an 80 watt tungsten. They cost far less and use way less energy that CFs, I don't know why they haven't caught on
Are the LED lights you have any good for whole room lighting? Last I heard the LED light good for whole room lighting are expensive. A few months ago I saw one for more than $50. That's way too much for me, I'd pay $10 but not $50.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Mod parent "+1, Illuminating"
Heh.
Have you read my journal today?
GE, too, has launched a green business initiative: ecomagination, an effort to make environmentally sustainable technologies an ever-larger part of GE's business. Swirls fit well, despite the inevitable cannibalization. "The real issue is, if we don't do it, someone else will," says GE's ecomagination vice president, Lorraine Bolsinger, of Wal-Mart's effort to push CFLs. "It's old thinking to imagine that you can hold on to a business model and outsmart the consumer. You can't."
Why can't the RIAA and MPAA see that as well???
http://www.club977.com/ - The 80's Channel!
Your source for commercial free 80's music!
I find it intersting that many people are complaining about the colour temperature of CFLs. I don't know if it is the case in other countries, but here in Australia, we have the choice of at least three, sold as 'warm white', 'white' and 'daylight'. Personally, I much prefer the slightly blue tone of daylight, find white acceptable, and 'warm white' is more a horrid, dull orange.
Can you get a range of colour temperatures in other countries?
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I'll tell you why I cling to incadescent bulbs: I live in an apartment, and my typical apartment stay is no more than ~2 years. I think this is the case for many people in the college/post-college age-range. Why should I install a bulb that's several times more expensive when it won't recoup the costs during my relatively short stay at that particular apartment?
If you own a home, fine, you'll probably be there for a while, so it makes sense to upgrade all your lights to CFs. But for those who are constantly moving around, there's little reason to switch.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
"Part of his money will go into developing cleaner energy sources"
Yeah, but that doesn't happen. Let me introduce you to the basic economic principle known as an external diseconomy. Basically, the idea is that when someone pollutes but isn't forced to clean up 100% of the pollution, society becomes the victim of an external diseconomy. So society as a whole has to foot the bill to clean up that pollution or society has to live with the pollution. And if you know anything about pollution you should know this, it's relatively easy to clean up the majority of it, but infinitely expensive to clean up 100% of it. Right around the 90% level it starts getting extremely expensive, so it's basically economically impossible. Once the cat's out of the bag there's no getting it back.
That's the whole problem any time you hear a comparison of the cost of a renewable energy source like wind or solar, versus coal, oil, and natural gas. I've not seen one comparison where they take into account the cost of cleaning up 100% of the pollution caused by the non-renewable sources. That cost is quietly brushed under the carpet rather than prominently featuring in the calculation as it should.
"Has anybody found bulb-sized full-spectrum CFLs for closer to $5 a pop?"
There aren't any. But you can use 50/50 (4 daylight CFLs and 4 warm white ("regular") in your case) CFLs to get the same effect.
Looks right decorative in a geeky sorta way. My parents have this going in their kitchen. It actually works.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Color Temperature
Do you mind looking like a blue-veined freak in one room but not another?
Color Rendering Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Color-r
And once you understand CRI, then you learn that Are they compatible with your dimmer switches?
Probably not.
Are they compatible with your electronically programmable switches?
Maybe not, due to low levels of current leaking to the bulb in those switches.
Are they mountable in your enclosed fixtures without compromising bulb life?
Probably not, but don't count on GE to tell you that.
scotopic/photopic ratio
http://www.auroraballast.com/resources.php?s=2#sc
Do your surviving candidate bulbs go full blast the moment you turn them on?
I only know one manufacturer that achieves this (TCP) and their CRI ratings are disappointing.
I have seven CFL bulbs in various places in my house. None are home runs in all the ways that incandescent bulbs always are. I wish they were better, and I wish I had the answers.
Tastes Like Chicken
Just like dumping sewage in the ocean everyone denies that there is mercury in these bulbs.
Everybody has their heads up their ass...
Are you that fucking stupid? the entire mercury aspect of this has already been explained in full. You're a moron and a cunt and I hope you fucking die for being an asshat.
Electrical use is way up since the 80's. Possibly because we all have tonnes more electronics bits to plug in
And some of this stuff you can't turn off without unplugging or turning the power off. I have my stereo, tv, and dvd player on a power strip with an on/off switch because even when they are turned off they still draw power. The same with my scanner.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I've started converting over (as part of a plan to cut my ludicrous electric bill in half) and so far, I'm incredibly unimpressed by the GE branded bulbs. My first bulbs were Commercial Electric (manufactured by TCP, also sold under the Durabright brand name) and I'm very happ'y with those - they come on instantly at near full brightness.
I was in Target over the weekend and grabbed a pack of GE bulbs for the next batch. Utter crap by comparison. I would never planned on switching out the entire house. They take about a second to snap on and are noticeably dim for at least a minute.
I'll be tossing these ones into the attic and basement probably, and buy the last block at Home Depot again.
Let's see... In the living room, I've got no overhead light, but one five-bulbed light stand (plus a halogen torch, but I try not to use it much). Kitchen, four bulbs in the fan/fixture, plus two over the stove. One in the closet under the stairs. Two each in the lower and upper stairwell (4), plus two in each of the two fixtures in the upstairs hallway (another 4). In the bathroom, one in the overhead fixture, plus four over the mirror. Bedroom - three in the overhead fan/fixture, plus another one of those 5-way light stands (I use it for reading light - usually only two or three of the bulbs are on). Two more in the office overhead fixture. Oh yeah, plus one outside light. That adds up to 36 bulbs for my little apartment (not including the halogens - I forgot about the desktop halogens in the office, in addition to the torchiere downstairs).
I'll grant you the lights in the bedroom are a little overkill, but that's because I like reading in bed and so I rarely use the overhead lights (because then I'd actually have to drag myself all the way out of bed to turn the lights off; that, and even three 60 watt bulbs in an overhead fixture don't really provide comfortable reading light when I'm leaning against a wall). Also, because my apartment is a little old, every fixture in the place is designed for regular light bulbs - a more modern place might make more use of other types of light fixtures (no flouresecent tubes or halogen fixtures for me). The point is, light bulbs add up surprisingly quickly - before actually counting them up I would have guessed we only had fifteen or so in the apartment.
On a side note, the two 5-bulb lamps are both filled with 14 or 15 watt CFLs. Haven't had to replace any of them in 2 years. Of the other 26 bulbs in the place, I don't think I've replaced more than three or four bulbs in the same period.
If you look at something small like a one watt flashlight, there are no 1 watt CF bulbs, so LEDs are best.
CF's would make a lousy flashlight bulb for the simple reason they are also not used in spotlights. They are not a point source light that can be focused into a beam. A 1 watt LED makes a great flashlight. I have one.
The truth shall set you free!
You might be interested in reading the results of the RPI Lighting Research Center's study on "Full Spectrum" lighting, it's pretty interesting.
That being said, I think that most of your problems with CFL's probably have to do with low color rendering index - older/cheaper CFL's have pretty miserable CRIs (50-60s). (why colors look like crap)
You can commonly get good CFLs in the 80s, and like someone mentions later on in the thread, you can even get one with a CRI of 96 (the cheapest I've seen that bulb is $16/bulb), but over the lifetime of the bulb you should still save money (w/ at my current kWH rate you would save about $100/bulb in electricity over the bulb lifetime).
Those Lumiram Ecolumes, besides having a 96 CRI are at 5000K ("daylight") and put out a pretty impressive 1300 Lumens and might be worth giving a try. (they also claim to be "full spectrum," but from the charts of the studies, it looks like nothing, not your GE Reveals or Flourescent FSI puts out anything close to resembling D65).
What you may not be taking into account is the effect artifical light has on the brain if seen after sunset. Reasearch into sleep is revealing that some human brains are kept up with insomnia due to artifical lighting, which makes the brain think it's still sunlight out. It could be the leading cause of insomnia and thus also sleep related accidents in the world.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Wow, I had no idea how many light bulb geeks it takes to comment on a ./ story. I'm impressed, and yet some how a bit scared.
I'm surprised that no one else has commented on the politics of this for Wal-Mart.
NOTE: I am not taking a position on Wal-Mart with this comment.
I'm merely observing that this is smart politics for a company that comes under such fire from the left. The CFL strategy is one the left would appear to love. I'm sure Wal-Mart haters will spin this in a way that somehow still makes Wal-Mart the Evil Empire, but even that will take attention away from unionization and the displacement of "mom and pop" stores. Again, I'm not taking a position on those things in this comment, just saying that I think Wal-Mart's strategy is politically clever.
Be careful. There is no official scientific definition for the phrase "full spectrum," so marketers are free to use this term how they choose.
No kidding. I had to take some bulbs back because they weren't emitting nearly enough gamma radiation for my liking.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Capitalism isn't about embarassing others into doing what you want them to.
Well no, it's not about that. But social pressure is certainly an aspect of a free market.
Here's an experiment. Go to a small town in the midwest, buy all the fresh vegetables from every supermarket in town, then hold a big bonfire on your lawn where everyone can see you destroying all the food. Now wait for the mob to start congregating on the street in front of the house as they realize no one can get their hands on some brocoli without driving 30 miles to the next town to get it just because some wingnut wanted to burn it. Then wait as the angry mob begins to steal it all and perhaps proceed to beat you to a pulp all as the local police are conveniently on patrol on the otherside of town.
He can buy as many bulbs as he wants. But when someone wastes a resource it drives the prices up for everyone. Then there's the space in the landfills where he's using up more than anyone else and the air and water pollution he's creating more of than anyone else.
Imagine if Bill Gates started buying up oil wells and torching them. You think there wouldn't be social pressure for him to stop??? There would probably be a war.
I WILL NEVER LET ANY CRAP LIGHT THAT FLICKERS/SYNCS TO ELECTRICAL REFRESH RATE GET IN ANY BUILDING I OWN, OPERATE OR HAVE TO SUFFER INSIDE OF ON A DAILY BASIS.
I know I'm not the only one that is driven mad by more than an hour or two of any stupid flicker torture light aka "fluorescent".
LEDs or whatever else like them needs to hurry the hell up into mass market bulb replacements, they have no flicker at all.
I have an 18 watt Philips CFL in the kitchen that has been used daily since 18th August 1995. It cost me AUD$25 IIRC. I always write the date on the base with a felt tipped pen. Anyway, the important thing is the reason this lamp has lasted so long is that the filaments in the tube are preheated before the tube strikes. There is about a 0.5 second delay from switch-on to appearance of light. I have bought a number of cheap $2 lamps and without exception they come on instantly and in the process gradually rip the cathode coating off the still-cold filaments and deposit it on the inside walls of the tube, leading to the characteristic blackening of the tube at each end. Finally, as less and less of the emissive material remains, a current crowding effect occurs leading to localised overheating and failing of the filament. This occurs in about 18 months. A place I worked at a while back was developing a 12 volt dc fluorescent tube ballast and we found that if we preheated the filaments we could get >300,000 starts (we gave up the test after 6 weeks) but if we started from virtually cold filament it would only go several thousand starts and then fail. If designers of cheapo CFLs would only make them start properly their typical 18 month liftetime would be so much longer.
Strobing lights lull the brain into a light hypnotic state. This is why activity in your brain drops to a near alpha state when you are watching television which makes it hard to remember what commercial just played ten seconds ago. It's one of the reasons you feel weird and blotchy when in a building lit with fluorescent light. It's deliberate mind-control, plain and simple.
In combination with audio promptings from other devices, people take the suggestions thrown at them and let them sink deep.
Now, why exactly would weapons manufacturer, GE, want to put strobing lights into every household in America?
What are they trying to suggest?
-FL
Serious question - was telling my wife about these, and she mentioned how they still hum (which I'm sensitive to), they cause/worsen her migraines, and that some people (not us) are sensitive to flicker.
Are these better now?
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
If you could focus the light from a typical 32W T8 3000-lumen bulb on a square foot of space, that would be 3000 foot-candles and a bright sunny day is about 10000 foot-candles. So there's no hope of matching the intensity of sunlight but after a certain point you can trick your psychovisual system into thinking it's close. I use 6 3000-lumen bulbs in a small room and it seems nice and bright. And the quality of the light is much better than incandescent, which looks yellow and sickly to me now.
I also toyed with the idea of getting Solux bulbs which have a reflector that transmits some of the light to make the reflected light close to 5500K (the visible spectrum is also very similar to true sunlight, unlike fluorescent, obviously). But it would take approximately 5x more wattage to equal the light level I have now with fluorescent, which equals a lot of heat.
"if every one of 110 million American households bought just one [CFL], took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads."
...energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people." - How long would it power this city... would this calculation include the fact that they converted to these lightbulbs or is this using the current consumption of people with 60 watt or higher light bulbs? Would these people be able to leave their computers running all day? Would this city have no commercial properties? How long would every person have to use these new light bulbs to have this much power?
This sounds absolutely incredible, but without timespans on them it really holds no merrit.
"One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island." - Again... how long would this one bulb have to be swapped out for this much power to be saved? How long would it power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island?
"In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads." - Again I ask the question... how long would this bulb be running for it to be equivalent to this many cars? What data was used to gather this 1.3 million car estimate? If everyone was smart enough to be energy efficient and use these light bulbs, would we also be driving electric cars at that point? How many electric cars would this power? For how long? How many miles would these 1.3 million cars be able to drive?
I think I made my point... it does sound like a great technology... but I hate when they use these numbers that have absolutely no meaning without further information. Maybe I just look into things too much...
http://www.denialofreality.com/
but I'm not sure I'd like the idea of one failing in a ceiling mount while I wasn't around.
:-)
So turn the lights out when you leave the room.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Flourescent lights blink rapidly and give me a headache. They make me I feel like I'm in a WalMart or a hospital. Everyone in China uses them and they drive me f'ing CRAZY. When I remodelled a place there they kept trying to push them on me - NO WAY! Future of humanity be damned, I'll stick with incandescent, halogen, and my sanity.
I'm not sure if everyone can notice or not, but these lights blink like a TV and cause your cerebral cortex to resonate and melt. It's a fact. Look it up.
Since they are excellent UV emitters, they are not a good choice for a person who has lupus.
My computer uses about 25 W/h. Two lightbulbs are on in my room: one uses 20 W/h, the other one is 12 W/h. So far 57 W/h
Your computer uses about 25 W. Not Watts per hour - there is no such unit. If you are using 57W for 1 hour then it is 57 Watt.hours of energy used (about 205kJ or 194BTU according to Google). Which is probably around 0.855 cents per hour (assuming 15c/kWh).
FWIW My laptop has a 65W PSU, I haven't found a Linux program to monitor how much power it's actually using (I remember seeing one in Windows but I haven't been there in a while).
--
no sig for you. come back one year.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has found that it's politically useful to promote anti-tree-hugger-ism, partly because big lumber interests support them, but partly because anti-environmentalism sells well not only in the Red States but in the lumbering parts of Blue States like Washington and Oregon, and the Bush political forces need the votes as well as needing the political support for oil drilling and other environmentally risky industrial businesses. And it's much more visible and obvious that a lumberjack is out of work because the Feds won't let his company cut down a chunk of forest than it is that a fisherman is out of work because the salmon he used to catch used to spawn in streams that a lumber company messed up.
US Federal forestry policies have also been bad economics - traditionally the Forest Service has spent about 10 times as much money building logging roads for the logging companies than they receive in timber revenues from the areas they build roads in, so effectively they're paying the logging companies to cut down our forests.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
13 watt "loop" cfl (if it's not wound together is it still a cfl?) the only light in the room. Would even go with something weaker - it's pointed at the wall and the light bounces off, but I really can't find lamps that take less power and still plug into the wall... ;)
Then again, there is that 400w amp and the 6 external drives... hmm.. maybe you have a point
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
I still see many cfl's that burn up quickly (1-2 years - though they use electronic balast, they still have filaments for preheating which give up) and/or have that white-blueish light that is _very_ annoying. Those with white-yellowish light need still hunting, if you are lucky you can find a demo stand.
I bought my home new in 1997. It was outfitted exclusively with incandescent bulbs.
About four years ago (or was it five?) I bought some compact flourescent bulbs, enamored with the idea of reducing my electric load. At that time, CFL bulbs were expensive, nearly $10 per bulb compared to less than $1 for incandescent bulbs.
CFLs supposedly last longer on average than incandescents. NOT TRUE!
More than half have burned out and had to be replaced (at least six CFL bulbs). However, of the incandescent bulbs remaining in my home, I've only had to replace one in the same period of time (since I bought the CFLs and installed them). Most of the incandescent bulbs in my home (most of them 9 years old now) are original and still working.
It's nice that CFLs have improved in price. And supposedly in color too (but I have my doubts). Until they can be as rugged as incandescent bulbs, however, I'll be an energy hog and stick with incandescents.
Almost 5 a pop. Start with "full spectrum" CFLs by Lights of America, available at Walmart in several wattages. Lower powered ones are about $6 for a 2-pack. Bigger ones are around $8 for a 2-pack.
The bigger ones could pass for plain old incandesant. It's slightly blue but it's very close. So this is a starting point.
You now have two of these bulbs, 8 bucks spent.
Then go grab some Sylvania "full daylight" CFLs. I found them at Lowes. Again in a couple different sizes and the color varies from size to size. I believe these are about 3 bucks each. So get two. Slightly red/yellow tint.
For each fixture, mix and match and put one Sylvania and one Walmart and you end up with really good light for cheap. I use this in my bathroom light which produces wonderful light and far less heat. We're also using CFL in the kitchen, hallways, bedrooms, nearly every fixture in the house.
What does it mean in terms of energy savings? Compared to last summer, our electric bill is down by about $90 a month and we've actually used more air conditioning this summer. We were completely surprised. The only thing we've done to save energy was switch to CFL.
We are also happy we haven't needed to buy lightbulbs all the time. We were going through a 4-pack a week.
So, we're sold.
I decided to do my bit to save the environment, so I popped down to the supermarket and bought a packet of these things. I can't remember the wattage, but it was the same as the wattage of my existing incandescent bulbs. The new bulbs light up the room about the same as if it was a bright sunny day outside but the curtains were shut. It's a dull, cold light, so I switched them all back except for the one in the bathroom. The bulbs came in a packet of four, so I estimate that by about 2045 I'll have emptied the packet.
I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Uh, yes, there is.
However, it means that his energy usage is accelerating. After a year, at 25W/h, he'd be up to 200kW. Scary.
"Capitalism isn't about embarassing others into doing what you want them to."
No, and not everything is about capitalism.
"If he consumes more, he has to pay more to do it. Part of his money will go into developing cleaner energy sources, and basically helping to solve the problem you're so worried about."
That only works if the higher consumption used by people like him actually provide money for developing cleaner energy sources. That requires two things:
* That it costs enough
* That the money is not just going to the shareholders
Pure capitalism is lousy for environmental purposes, and the only thing that is going to work is government interference. For instance emission quotas and environmental taxes earmarked for developing cleaner energy sources. Oh, and economic theory is not the answer to everything although some people use it as if it was.
I have a bunch of LED lights at home. For more than 10 times the price of a CFL, you get something that gives you a tiny fraction of the light and has an unnatural color. Even at that limited performance, they are larger than a standard lightbulb.
LED lights will happen in another 10-20 years. Right now, they are not a feasible lighting choice. CFL's, on the other hand, work like a charm; I use them everywhere, except where I need something dimmable.
I had some CF spotlights in a reflector housing. They sucked. Took a long time to warm up and didn't produce nearly as much light as a normal bulb did.
Even if you wanted a 1 watt night-light, there are no 1W CF bulbs because a 1W CF bulb would be terrible. There also aren't any 500 watt flourescent bulbs, because at that power level sodium vapor lights are much more efficient.
Another problem with LEDs is that they are much more sensitive to heat. Even just 5 watt LEDs need major effort to heat sink.
Initially I thought the math must be out to lunch and I figured I'd follow the story and see if someone actually does the math. I'm too lazy - and it does seem to be out by up to an order of magnitude.
Nevertheless, I've used these in my office at home for over a decade now.
I have 3x13watt compacts in a nice fan/ceiling fixture. They give an excellent spectrum. These bulbs are rated for something like 10,000 hours.
1) The ratings are worng. I get over 5 years use from them and I run them 24x7. Do the math.
2) Since I'm in and out of my office 16 hours a day - the other 8 hours is no big deal. At 10c per KWatt-hr I burn about 10 cents / day or $3 bux per month. (confirm: 24x40=1000= 1Kwatt-hr=10 cents) Instead of turning them on and off I elect to spend the extra dollar per month.
3) by leaving them on (my computers are on 24x7 also) there is no thermal wear and tear except when the power goes off - which is maybe 2x a year and I have UPS"s but not on the lites. They need so little power I should use the UPS and back them up too. (Hmmm next project)
4) I know I get 5 years out of the bulbs because I know when I bought the 1st set was when I remodled my house 15 years ago and the 2nd set is still running and that was put in when I built my garage in 1999. I hired the same electrician to help me with the wiring and he did an excellent job! Hey Thanks Dave! I've had a lot of trades let me down but not Dave!
The power savings are considerable. The hardware savings are also considerable. However I run standard filiment bulbs everywhere else because I use the bulbs so infrequently that a package of 4 bulbs will last me 4 years for replacements.
Whether the artical's math is right or worng is not an issue. These are an excellent investment in the right areas...
Also - I'm not really conserned about the electricity usage because I live in Canada and my house needs to be heated. Unfortunately it needs to be heated and this is because the guys who built it decided to save me money on insulation! No kidding. Just like the same guys who decided that natural gas was a waste product and flared the Turner Valley oil field... they burned the gas cap off and left 90% of the oil almost unrecoverable.
Thanks guys! Next life learn some physics. Maybe the worng people rule the world.
Since my house needs to be heated unless I tear it apart and build it properly - any waste heat from the light bulbs cuts down on my use of natural gas.
Short answer is that these bulbs are pretty good. I recomend them to anyone. Find the ordinary looking bulbs not the pig tail (haha - if you were a farm boy!!!) style.
Also - many fixtures - especially mine with the fan above - will create a flikering effect. This is easily solved by buying a small bottle of glass paint and painting the top of the lense white. Just paint the upper 50%. It will look perfectly normal and fixes all problems of flicker as well as directing the light where you need it.
Next lecture! How to have fun and make profit by rebuilding your house!
onon.
>> Thank you for consuming more than your share. The rest of us apprciate it.
I've made a conscious decision to never have children. My impact on the planet will end far far sooner than anybody that has children.
Choose condoms, the pill and abortion, if you're really serious about reducing human impact on the planet.
Lord Apathy? Pfh, who cares?
If anybody from HBO is out there, I'd appreciate it if you could load up a generic MP3 file too. After all, if you are distributing it for free, and you also want to distribute it widely, it's best to distribute it in the most common format possible. Not everybody has iTunes.
Sorry...now I can't save the world...
There also aren't any 500 watt flourescent bulbs, because at that power level sodium vapor lights are much more efficient.
Just an aside: there are also comparatively cheap mercury vapour lights which give a better coloured light.
W/h is not the unit you're looking for. W already means J/s (or energy per time).
One Wh (Watt-hour) is what's used in an hour, so you could say a 50 W bulb uses 50 Wh/h, but that's silly. It's simply a 50 W bulb.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Would a 32 LED flashlight be better or worse overall compared to a regular flashlight?
from tfa:
/.ers buy one of these bulbs, and I'll just keep driving my large American SUV, 'k??
In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.
sorry, lost it there.
how about just a few of you
Interesting idea, but by now you can buy LED-bulbs.
They fit into the normal light socket, they use a *lot* less power, and they last for a looooong time.
And you can get LEDs with a pleasent light, not ultra-white but softer, like a standard glow-bulb. They even (nearly) look like a normal bulb.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
But what if the increased manufacturing costs are equivalent to 1.300001 million cars?
So, what are the manufacturing costs?
What if we don't replace the bulb at all. A dead bulb would save lots of energy!
It uses 25 W/h every 15 minutes.
if they go so quickly and reliably, KEEP the bloody packaging next time.
And it is the seller that has to give you a new one, since they are the one you have the contractual relationship with. They then go back to the supplier and get recompense from them.
Here in Sydney, every now and then there's a promiotion by some energy company where they give away for free a 6 pack of CFLs for free.
All it usually takes is a promotional form to be filled in. Obviously a marketing ploy, but hey, the CFL are free, and the worst they can do is send you paper advertising their services.
I replaced almost all the light bulbs at home for free. Not looking back.
Same thing with dimmables. I bought one to see how it performs and ran it thru my "kill-a-watt" http://www.fadfusion.com/selection.php?product_ite m_number=30183200136&gclid=CMbYwsKph4cCFRskUAod1DU eZQ meter. At max, the bulb draws 25 watts; at min 10 watts. Perceptually it's just not that dim at its minimum setting. Now try finding a dimmable CFL in a candelabra base -- can't be done! I'd like to put more swirls in the house, but many of our most frequently used lights are dimmable and/or candelabra.
By the way: a fun bulb for halloween is this: http://www.bulbman.com/index.php?main_page=product _bulb_info&cPath=4595_8457&products_id=13846. You can be in ultraviolet heaven for much lower prices thanx to these kinds of black light (ultraviolet) bulbs. Makes me wonder: is the black light niche market bigger than the dimmable candelabra niche?
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
The market for flat screen TVs is about 50/50 Plasma/LCD. Plasma screens may use more energy on average than a CRT (I really don't know to comment), but I do know that an LCD, even one of far greater size, uses far less.
So it pretty much evens out overall I would wager.
1.3 million cars per year? I don't drive anything powered and need some units I can understand. How many grapefruit-fed bicyclists per fortnight is 1.3 million cars per year?
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads."
Sounds more like 110 million bulbs are equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
Emitts a single frequencies to simulate white light - not good for people.
Noisy EM interferance. Not worth it.
"if every one of 110 million American households bought just one [CFL], took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. ..."
Power the city/state FOR HOW LONG??????? Statements like this are meaningless without a time frame. If I replaced one single bulb in my one single apartment, it would save enough energy to power the entire planet . . . for a few hundred billionths of a nanosecond.
Give us a time frame or don't even start.
No, I don't remember your name. But the memory mapped screen on a TRS80 from 1977 is from 15360 to 16383 if that helps.
Real nerds don't use lightbulbs, they use Blinkenlights!
I'm Canadian so I'll let my socialist side do some talking: I have begun thinking that the government should consider legislating the light bulb industry, much the same way that the automobile industry is, by setting a standard of lumens/watt, and setting up a proper displosal program. Of course, the lumens/watt standard would be such that it would effectively ban the sale of incandescents for home use.
The amount of energy saved as all the old bulbs burned out would be enormous. While many groups kick and scream at the thought of any standards, the auto industry is a good example of how strict standards, when combined with an open market, produce hugely improved products.
EPAFactSheet - CFL [PDF]
For the lazy:
Note: The NEMA website clearly states, "NEMA is the leading trade association in the U.S. representing the interests of electroindustry manufacturers of products used in the generation, transmission and distribution, control, and end-use of electricity."
i also have a two bedroom apartment :
2 bulbs in the kitchen (one under-the-cabinet light, one in the two-bulb fixture)
1 halogen torch in the frontroom
1 bulb in the extra bedroom
3 tiny bulbs in the bathroom
2 in my bedroom, 1 lamp and 1 reading light (1 bulb each)
--
9 total
it sounds like a big part of the difference is multi-bulb fixtures and lights in closets and hallways (i have neither)
These types of CF bulbs have been availabe for 99 cents each at hardware stores for at least three years, further and laugahably, two weeks before the article came out I was buying CF bulbs in Wal-Mart for 74 cents each. Not $2 - $3 apiece.
As a final note - LED lights sources are being refined for mass production right now. The most efficient form of these will be "multi-LED" "Light sources" They will be called LED bulbs, but they will contain multiple LED's within the same "bulb". The reason for this is that lower power LEDs are more efficient in terms of power use. Since cost of operation will be the chief reason for switching to LED bulbs they must provide an advantage over CF bulbs in order to succeed in the market. This will push the LED manufactuers into the Multi-LED configuration.
PS - Don't buy the fancy "K2" style LED bulbs- your paying for packaging. Wait until some enterprising far east importer ships in a few 40 foot container of pre-assembled LED bulbs and starts selling them for 50 cents each.
A better comparison to CFL's would be LED's that emit warm light, or at least comparable to CFL phosphors, and with diffusion, so you can stand to use them in the typical home.
And LED's have to come way down in price, like at least a factor of ten, before they're economically viable.
I've been using these bulbs for almost 3 years now. At first I'd buy one or two a month at about $5-6 each, replacing the bulbs that I used most of the time. Over a few months time, all the bulbs in my apartment had been replaced. It helped me keep my electric bill under $10 per month (gas heat, and I didn't live there during air conditioning season).
Nowadays these bulbs are much more affordable - 5-6 for $12-15 at Sam's Club (depending on 60W vs. 100W equivalent). Singles have dropped to $4-5.
I've had a couple fail during 3 years, and today I probably have 20 or so throughout my house. They take a second or two to start, and it takes a little while for them to reach full brightness, but they last a long time and significantly cut electric use and your electric bill.
Highly recommended, but be aware that they won't fit all fixtures.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I had decided to take the plunge and swap out all my lights with CFLs, only to find that it was a huge mistake. While normal light bulbs were lasting about 2 years, the CFLs (though rated for 6 years) from 3 different name brands all lasted between 1-3 months. I assume it has to do with the electrical in the house being old, but... At that rate, they are MUCH more expensive. Definitely hasn't been worth my money.
I am trying a couple of the LED-ones now. They are extremely expensive in comparison, and not nearly as bright, though I do like the color of the light. I am not sure how long they will last yet.
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
If everyone who owns a home used solar panels for the sole purpose of powering their air conditioning systems?
Heat peaks when the Sun hits the hardest.
For good color, forget mecury vapour. Get a Metal Halide.
The truth shall set you free!
This thread is a bit old, but I still want to post because damnit, I need to.
I was born and raised in the great U.S. of A. Currently, in my early 30s, I am living in a European country and since electricity prices are such a contast to CF light bulb prices, I use CF for every single light we use.
GE and Philips suck ass. Let me say that right now. When I first came here these were the brands I knew and trusted and I thought they were the best. I mean come on!? GE??? The lighting company? Philips?! The company on the cusp of tech? They had to know what they are doing...
No. they don't. And after a few years of using and trusting these light manufacturers, I learned something. Sometimes the biggest and the smartest really isn't. They have no idea how to make lights. And it shows in everything that is made in this market from them. I go home every 6 to 12 months. Back to the USA.
I go back and I try to find good CF lights. THERE ARE NONE... PERIOD. they suck. They suck hard. They are medium priced, but their performance is second to shit. There is a huge marget gap in America. HUGE... I live in TURKEY for christs sake. A country that is still considered third world by a lot of people. The CF lights that are here I would replace in a heartbeat if I had access to them in the states. Instantly. I only buy 120 equivelent bulbs for my home. oh yeah. OSRAM. German brand. Fucking Awesome. There is no warm up time and you get 120 watts equivilent instantly. running 23 watts of power. Yeah, it's bigger, but for 23 watts it kicks out a hell of a lot of light.
People complain because they have no options. there is a market gap in what there is in America and other countries. There are great technologies out there if you can find it. American is great, but it is not the end all be all of tech. Oh, and by the way, here in Istanbul, the cheap lights are the OSRAM lights. The best. The GE and philips? Expensive as hell. They last a year. Then they BURN OUT. I have an Osram light that has never wavered in my office. Same light, instant on, and I hit it sometimes when I dust. OSRAM is a sturdy brand. Look around. Search. In this world we as apeople are being held back by politics and marketing. Nothing more.
Find out.
Pete
Try pricing high-end IBM or Unisys servers. You'll still get to spend 6-7 digits for the hardware, and then there's the software licensing fees. :-)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
When all the incadescents have been replaced with CFLs, and all other machinery in our lives are hyper-efficient, how can we respond to the next energy crisis? There will be nothing left to make more efficient. At that point the cuts are really going to hurt. CFLs aren't the answer -- they only buy us a little extra time.
If only you turned 80 soon, the sooner your attitude leaves this world, the better off humanity will be.
I hate printers.
Fluorescents only light up when the voltage driving them exceeds a certain level. AC current means a large portion of the time the voltage is below that level. This is what causes fluorescent lights to flicker. To keep the voltage above this threshold for a longer period of time, they use ballasts to alter the AC sine wave. The old fluorescents used magnetic ballasts. These were what caused the hum and flicker at 60 or 120 Hz.
Compact fluorescents use an electronic ballast (the magnetic ballasts are too big to let you screw them into a single lightbulb socket anyway). These operate at around 30-40 kHz. So yes they still do flicker and still do hum, but at around 30-40 kHz. Since the threshold of human hearing is around 22 kHz for young people, and the threshold for human peripheral vision is about 60-100 Hz, neither hum nor flicker are a problem with CFLs if you're human.
hum
Not that I can tell and I have decent hearing.
migraines
Not for me or anyone else I know that has them. Ask your dentist or orthodontist for a better solution to that issue.
flicker
I barely noticed some flicker the first time I turned one on. After that I never noticed anything.
YMMV, so buy one and find out. They're only a couple dollars. If you don't like CFLs switch it out. ;)
Speak truth to power.
Not only AM radio. It also affects amateur radio (ham radio, which uses AM, otherwise known as Double Side Band (DSB), Single Side Band (SSB), FM and digital), and thousands of industrial/commercial radio links, like SCADA links for controlling oil and gas pipelines. But CFLs, while noisy, aren't the biggest offender. Those cheap little wall warts (DC power supplies) and older PC switching power supplies are notorious and prodigious producers of RF noise.
And you know what was the worst offender in my house? A Linksys wireless router! Second worse was a Linksys 5-port switch. Killed my ham radio reception from 40 meters up to 10 meters. Kinda makes running a software defined radio (SDR) on a PC an oxymoron...
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
On another thought. I've got these wicked little LED flashlights which run for 130 hours on a battery the size of an aspirin. When will I see these in my house, rather than a fluorescent lamp?
As soon as they produce more light for the same amount of electricity as the flourescents.
Your LED can run that long on such a small battery because it doesn't emit very much light at all.
I was talking with my dad and sister not to long ago about these bulbs.
All us have been switching over and have saved quite a bit. My Dad says he saves $6 a month with just 2 bulbs. I proposed a tax on incandecant bulbs, $1 bulb. The proceeds of the Tax go to lowering the price of energy efficiant bulbs and R&D for other energy saving tech like solar, wind, tidal and others.
The problem now is people aren't informed or just buy whatever is cheapest when they need it. If the energy efficiant bulbs cost less then the old bulbs, people would buy the more efficiant bulbs just to save the money at the register.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
For the first 10 paragraphs, the story is about CFL bulbs. Then, it switches into a big greenwashing campaign for Wal-Mart and GE. There's a tiny section in the middle that explains how a CFL works, but nothing about how they've improved over the last 10 years. Then it swtiches back to GE and "ecomagination". Obviously, there are other bulb manufacturers and other retailers that sell bulbs, but you'd never guess that from the article. Congratulations to the PR and marketing departments that got a free multi-page ad in FastCompany.
Turning it on and off to much is probably what caused it. If you are going to come back to that room any time in the next few hours its probably worth just leaving it on.
Metal Halide has the highest (best) efficacy (lumens/watt) of all of the bulb types (something like 100-110). If they can be made with quiet ballasts, and so that the warm up time is shortened they could be the best solution in terms of energy. I don't know about the toxicity of the materials at the end of life . . .
wtf?
This is extremely old news, guys. If CFL bulbs are a rarity in the States, or something not very well known, then I'm completely amazed (*).
In Europe where I live (Greece, if you have to know) they're very common and their use, afaik, is quite widespread. At home we've long stopped using classic lightbulbs.
I do sincerely hope, though, that this CFL thing isn't really something most americans are just becoming aware of.
(*) I don't mean to be flamebait but... it struck me afterwards. The States isn't exactly well known for its energy-conservation awareness (think big SUVs, engine technology that's lightyears behind european / japanese manufacturers in terms of efficiency). This is the only way it could make sense to me that over there you guys don't know about CFLs a lot.
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
I think you mean: "Lord Apathy. Whatever. Like I care."
I assume you're talking about the 150 watt torchiere halogen lamps? If so, you should consider replacing them anyway, as they can be dangerous. There are alternatives that could save you 75 to 85 percent, and since you said you use these lamps the most, I would look at those before anything else.
We also have white walls which makes a huge difference on overall room brightness - our one "cream" room is noticably dimmer.
Anyhow, the upshot is that after a month we decided that the bulbs were quite livable and have since pretty much installed them everywhere. The small sprials are very nice for desk lamps - they give lots of light but do not heat up the lamp itself.
If everyone is so concerned about saving energy, why not consider some do-it-yourself solar projects? Here are some projects with 1-year paybacks: http://builditsolar.com/TopTen/tenoneyearpb.htm
Super! Problem is, people who make such concientious decisions exert selection pressure against their own genes and memes. You'll be evolved out of the human race, while the selfish will just keep on going.
It's like the Onion headline: "Uneducated outbreeding intelligentsia 2 to 1."
Whoo got a couple of liberal hippies feathers in a ruffle. I doubt that you two would recognize sarcasm if it beat you over the head with it. Some where out there a couple of villages are missing their idiots. Why don't you two hippies go back to your day jobs?
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Electrical use is way up since the 80's. Possibly because we all have tonnes more electronics bits to plug in and nearly everyone has a PC which adds a certain minimum for the hours its on. If you had a few lamps burning around the house which added up to the energy consumption of most desktop PCs you'd notice it right away and wonder why it's necessary. Alas, we sit at our keyboards and type merrily away (there's that batsard, ackthpt again, oi if only I had the mod points to bury him.) oblivious to the power consumption of our tin box full of CPU, DDR-RAM, HD, Whizzo Video Card De-Luxe, etc. Quite possibly we even have a reading lamp going beside us in the evening (I don't know about you, but at my age I get a headache looking at a glowing screen in the dark.) Plus there's all these little black plastic cubes and rectangles to run all manner of gizmo, which all add up.
Well, obviously I can't speak for everyone, but: every computer in my house is either a notebook, or a mini-ITX box, that draws less than 100W (when they're on, that is - the only one that's continuously on is a mini-ITX box that runs on a 60W brick). Every screen in my house is an LCD. And most (not yet all, I'm lazy, OK?) of the light bulbs are CFLs. There are couple of places where I would have CFLs, but because they're slightly larger than incandescents (and they don't come in specialty sizes yet) they don't fit everywhere.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Osram Sylvania does sells lamps in the United States. They're one of the top three lamp sellers alongside GE and Phillips.
I rewired our flat last summer and put CFL's in almost every socket. All of them were known brands. I've replaced several of them, and, in the lights that get the most use, I've replaced them twice. They last longer than filament bulbs, but they don't last anything like the ten years in TFA.
Most of my bulbs are in enclosed fittings, which I gather from discussion here has some effect (why?), but I suspect the main problem is that they don't like power surges (of which we get quite a lot).
In the last month I've been experimenting with LED lights, which are cute, but sourcing replacements for 100w bulbs with LEDs is a problem: the ones that arrived today feel like they are equivalent to 15w tungstens. LED spots are better.
Virtually serving coffee
I'd just like to say that, in my experience, these long life claims are bullshit.
In one 3-pack of Sylvania CFL's, two died within a month. One, when it died, poured white dust onto my carpet.
Other brands I've used die within 6 months also. No white dust - the bulb just turns grey near where it meets the base and no light.
Not only wrong, but rather the opposite. SAD is caused by insufficient light, both duration and intensity. As I CLEARLY STATED in my previous message, I advocate increasing the output of the new CFL over the bulbs that were originally there. But since this whole debate is just one of troglodyte resistance to change ("Ugh! Me like warm fuzzy glow"), I doubt an AC such as yourself would notice the subtlety involved.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Well, the bike lights are erring towards five normal LEDs. But they are starting to put out units with 2 or 3 luxeon stars in the 5W variety. The problem with these configurations is that they are just as expensive as HID but put out far less light per watt.
LEDs BIG unassailable virtue is that they are super-sturdy solid state. Incandescent, HID and Compact flouresent all break fairly readily. They are all hollow vessels. An LED is enclosed inside a solid bulb. They're far harder to damage and they do not burn out. Persons who absoluetly NEED their lights to work no matter what in rough conditions (like cavers) would probably choose LED over HID.
For the home, I think you'll probably see lots of LED night lights and LED spots. For colored bulbs I could see LED having niche because they do not depend on a filter. Rather, the LED can be tuned to precisely emit the desired frequencies.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
I would imagine it would be useful to design one's hallway with LEDs at floor level to give a little bit of light to see. These would be motion activated and photo sensitive to turn on.
You didn't use tags! How the hell do you expect your document to parse correctly if you don't adhere to the standards of Web2.0 ?!
I hate printers.
Based on your rec, I ordered two $12 bulbs as a test. Cool, I thought, only $1.98 in shipping. How civilized. Wrong. That was tax. Oh, but the next day I get an invoice. Apparently 1000bulb.com let's you go through the order process like every other online merchant, but just to get your credit card number. You'll find out later how much they want to charge you. The tax increased to $2.76, and they added $9.50 for shipping. So after I hit Submit thinking I had placed a $26 order, they turned it into a $36 order behind my back. Nice, really nice. Thanks for the rec.
Yes, it would be nice to know the shipping up front.
However, their website is clear that shipping is calculated afterwards based on where it's going. Next time, read.
I think $9.50 is reasonable for shipping + handling + packaging costs, anyway.
Still, I hope you enjoy the bulbs.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Thanks, yes I should indeed have read the complete article first (that's what happens when you read ./ and have a gdb session at the same time). And welcome back here after your 4-year break from slashdot!
The problems with "If everyone just..." arguments are first, everyone won't, and second, if everyone "just" did do any one thing it would have a huge total effect, but not really a meaningful one.
I bought 7 CFL's at around $15 (AU) each 5 or 6 years ago and they are all still going great. A friend of mine told me (about 7 years ago) he has had Philips CFL's for more than 8 years in his home, with none failed.
Now in Sydney Australia, local councils and Energy Australia (through post offices) are giving boxes of CFL's (6) away for free.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?