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Wal-Mart Is Pushing Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
While we all know from reading the internets that Wal-Mart is irredeemably evil, the world's largest retailer has committed to get compact fluorescent lightbulbs into 100 million homes this year. CFLs are found in only 6% of households today. These energy-saving bulbs use 75% less electricity than incandescents and produce far less greenhouse gas to manufacture and use. Wal-Mart seems determined to use its marketing prowess to do what hasn't successfully been done in the CFL's 25-year history: to convince consumers to pay more upfront for large savings over the product's lifetime.
I'll assume the extra cost vs regular bulbs is just a happy side effect? That said, I buy 'em because they last longer.
They're doing this for the environment. Not because it's a profitable business to sell billions of fluorescent light bulbs.
"While we all know from reading the internets that Wal-Mart is irredeemably evil"
What is that? Sure, the majority of people don't like Wal-Mart, but why do you feel the need to mention it in an article where Wal-Mart is doing something good?
As for the article it's mostly a "duh" thing. It's main points seem to be that Wal-Mart's trying to sell a lot of these bulbs, the people who make money off of incandescents don't like it, and then it goes into the history of the light bulb.
I'm glad Wal-Mart's doing this, too many people refuse to buy them, if Wal-Mart does what they always do (cheap) then their plan should work and power consumption should drop.
((Why do I see myself losing Karma here...?))
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
and i do hate to admit it - but with their buying power this really could actually help drop the cost of these sorts of lights for everyone.
in any case, good for wal-mart. this, along with that $4 RX deal they've started (in some areas? dunno if it's company-wide yet), and we've got a few small steps in the right direction. now if only wal-mart would use it's buying power to get a good deal on gas...
I've found that replacing my 100watt bulbs with the equivalent in CFLs was ok, but light coming from them somehow seemed dimmer due to it being a colder temperature light. What I would like to see is really bright CFLs, like 150W equivalent, which would use about 30W. I think this would encourage people to buy them more because as well as only using 30% of the electricity they also get bulbs that produce 50% more light, not to mention the immediate wow factor of having brighter bulbs. Unfortunately things seem to be going the other way, as at my local store I can now only buy 18W CFLs.
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Selling things for a profit isn't evil.
If you want to complain about Walmart, complain about their shitty service, or how their employees are morons, or the over all low quality of the products they sell, or how they treat their employees like dirt. There's no shortage of reasons why Walmart could be considered "evil", but selling things for a profit isn't one of them.
Everytime you get a paycheck that isn't negative, you've sold your labor for a profit. Get over it.
Maybe not
It's a great move by WalMart. This gets them great press with people calling them "not evil" on Slashdot and everything, and it cost them practically NOTHING.
Go ask - women do not like the light they throw off.
Selling things for a profit isn't evil.
Indeed...
However, I think many people would be upset at a company that pays its employees as if the company never made a profit when it in fact does fairly well...
In Texas, there is a store named "H.E.B" , (Howard Butt). Its prices are similar to walmart, but slightly higher... But the culture inside the store is entirely different. The store is actually clean, the employees not worn out, and the whole thing is a privately owned company!
Profit+Greed = Evil
I've never used them myself, but my local hardware store has had Globe brand dimmable CFLs for almost a year now. They are about twice as expensive, but given that they use 1/4 the power and last 10 times as long as incandescents, it's probably still worth getting a few.
You can buy dimmmer friendly CFLs today.
/ faq_compact.htm#dimmer
http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting/ask_us
They will also have converted about 28% (nearly a third) of their yearly lightbulb sales to somthing that is 8 times as expensive.
Given that profit margins normally work on percentages, that should roughly octuple 28% of their profit margin on lightbulbs.
They should be making 2.96 times as much selling light bulbs, of course they want to push this.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
As long as we're explaining general viewpoints for karma, here's how I see things:
RIAA is evil. They're suing their customers.
Microsoft is evil. They lock people into their products and make my job difficult with obscure licensing requirements and feature omissions.
SCO is evil. Sure, UNIX(r) was great and all, but we got over it years ago.
Wal-Mart? Come on. All they do is sell products that people want, for less money than the competition, and offer correspondingly little in the way of customer service. Just like Newegg, Amazon, or any of most of the other faceless online entities who are struggling to charge as little as possible in an attempt to get ahead. This might hurt the local specialty merchants, but then, so does Newegg limit the market of a brick-and-mortar specialty PC parts store, who stands no chance at all at matching the pricing, availability, or product diversity such a beastly online merchant.
That said, I'm an informed sort of fellow, and I don't really want to pay someone to hold my hand while I make a purchase, anyway. The decisive lack of knowledgeable sales representatives at Wal-Mart and Newegg is, to me, a clear advantage, because I don't have to pay extra for supposedly-clued people to stand around and bullshit me.
Right then. So you say that they only sell stuff made in China. But so do all of the other places where I can actually afford to shop.
And so, at the end of the day: I could either pay less for those cheap Chinese goods, or I could pay more. Obviously, I'd rather pay less. Just like I'd rather get a raise, than continue toiling away undercompensated. Just like I'd rather sit, than stand. And I'd rather lay down, than sit. And so on, and so forth.
So now, they're making a concerted effort to boost CFL lighting, so as to cause people to spend less money on electric lighting instead of more money on more money on electric lighting. A boon for everyone. Cool!
Kid-proof tablet..
Don't know what ones you have, the Philips ones I have been using for over 4 years now (no, I have not replaced a single one) give a wonderful pure white light, not sure about camera tainting, but if you want something that is lit for photography, then, well, buy the old filament type globes.
As a side note, the one light I did not change (the outside porch light) has blown about every 3 months since purchase, after 3 years I eventually changed it for a CF light too.
...
I don't know how often this problem comes up, but I am in a small apartment with a district heating-connected radiator. Right now, I have way too much window area for my own good, and my radiator cannot keep up. Unfortunately, earlier this year, I replaced all the bulbs in my apartment with compact fluorescents to keep from having to replace them all the time. The room is considerably colder. I had no idea that just how wasteful incandescent light bulbs were until I needed their heat. Additionally, because the apartment is so cold now, the CF bulbs take an eternity to get bright.
OMG!
Are you freaking serious? The delay was too long? Have you become so immersed in the current culture of Instant Gratification, that when you weigh the individual bonuses and global bonuses of using these bulbs, against the minor annoyances of how long the bulb takes to achieve brightness and the exact color of "white" light that the bulb throws off (Ok, that wasn't YOU, but I'm replying to other freaks who agreed against the bulbs.. sue me)
Come ON! Let's see.. the bulbs use an incredibly small amount of electricity compared to regular incandescent bulbs.. so you get to save money there. Don't need to save money? I'll give you an address you can throw money at. I'm only one of the MILLIONS of people who could use that money you are throwing away by not switching to CF bulbs.
Don't like a "whiter" light? You prefer the yellowed light from incandescents? Ok, sure it is a "warmer" tone.. that is because it is created by a glowing filament... it is a "white" light born of a red light... you know... red as in infrared, red as in burning, red as in fire and heat.. remember playing with metal and campfires, getting a piece of metal glowing brightly orange, or even white hot (if the fire was hot enough). Seeing a common theme of wasted energy here, thrown off in HEAT that is unnecessary to the process of providing light? I say unnecessary, because if you want heat, use a blanket. Not a light bulb.
You bathe your head in more radiation coming from your cell phone. You are in no danger from your CF light bulb.
I just can't believe people are whining "But it takes soooo long for it to light up. WAH! Mommy! Make the bulb light faster!" It takes longer for a web page to load with broadband, than it takes for the light to come on. Christ, it takes less than a second. Time measured in Microseonds. Why aren't you whining about how seconds it takes your car to start between turning the key and actual ignition? WHy aren't you whining about how long it takes the BIOS to check your drives before booting begins off the harddrive? Why aren't you whining about how long it takes your OS ((Linux or Windows) to boot? My God. Is 30 seconds just way way too long to melt butter for you as well?
As far as the color of the light goes... get a life. There is more variation in the shade of white in the background of this freaking web page, from computer monitor to computer monitor, than there is in the difference between regular bulbs and CF bulbs. And if you are complaining about the color, and you DON'T have a specific color profile set up for your monitor, as well as the exact INF file for your monitor, and programs like Adobe color correction running, AND an accurate, less than 4 month old AFGA color chart nearby to check your monitor color reproduction against.. you have no right to talk about the shade of white.
Stop burning paper money and get with the program. And go buy some damn CF bulbs. At Walmart!
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
You're absolutely right that warm light is overrated. After all, typical 60-100 watt bulbs use light in these proportions:
50% red
33% green
17% blue
That's almost 3 times as much red light as blue! See here or here for details.
Basically, we're not getting the full range of colours we would otherwise because of the heavy bias towards orange. It's a pain, and I hate it. I also wish they'd make these flourescent bulbs in 40 watt (200 watt equivalent), so we get more light. You'd think that'd be the first thing they'd do now that the power consumption has gone down.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
There are some simple changes that some corporations are in a position to make which have great environmental impact, like when Google started pushing the PC industry to make simple 12 volt power supplies instead of inefficient ones with multiple voltage outputs. People assume that pro-environment means "expensive" but that's not necessarily the case. More and more companies are realizing that this sort of thing can be a cheap, painless way to generate good press for your organization. And after all, Wal-Mart is not really an evil company, just a money-grubbing company that deservedly gets a lot of press for doing evil things.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Then you must not be looking hard enough. Perhaps they haven't any problems hiring people, but getting people to stay there is another story. Walmart's turnover rate hovers at around 50% (in 1999 it was 65%). Industry average is around 15%.
The turnover is precisely because walmart is so terrible to it's employees. The high turnover works out well for walmart since employees only receive healthcare coverage after 6 months (2 years for part time).
Ah, Color Kinetics, the folks who patented pulse-width-modulation for varying LED colours so other LED manufacturers can't do it or have to pay through the nose. I wouldn't mind, but it's such an obvious technique.
I know you were joking, AC, but it would have been better if you hadn't.
It's very, very unfortunate, but in perhaps 7 years, Slashdot editors have not learned how to be editors. kdawson, the Slashdot editor for this story, chose a title that makes it sound like Wal-Mart is a drug pusher: "Wal-Mart Is Pushing Compact Fluorescent Bulbs".
That set the tone. A lot of ignorant people commented on the story, ruining the discussion. People began talking about mercury, showing amazing ignorance. See my comment below about mercury: "[Oregon's] largest mercury contributor is the Ash Grove Cement Co. in Durkee, which emitted an estimated 1,538 pounds in 2005."
Wal-Mart is selling compact fluorescent bulbs in this area for 99 cents each. They are excellent.
Others have already posted all these points, but since you replied to me, I'll respond.
The thing I don't like about it is that I have some fixtures that CFLs will not fit into.
Once true, but not anymore. Granted, you can't get high-wattage CFLs for all fixtures, but you can now get the 60W-equivalent CFLs that take up less space, at every point (including the stem), than an incandescent. My hallways, which have recessed fixtures with the bulb at an odd angle, currently contain exactly such bulbs.
If anyone doesn't believe that there is still a delay, then put a regular bulb in a socket next to a CFL bulb on the same switch. You'll see the delay.
If you need to do a side-by-side comparison to notice the delay, your objection has nothing to do with the delay itself... You have a preconceived idea of how lightbulbs "should" behave, and dislike anything contrary to that belief. Not a "bad" or "good" thing, per se, but it does cost you money to hold that belief.
At $0.17/KWh (my current rate, including all the various fees that basically double your "official" rate), switching one light kept on for roughly a third of the day, from a 60W incandescent to a 14W CF, saves $1.92 per month. Even if CFLs had the same lifespan as incandescents, the electricity alone would make them a pretty significant savings. And the longer you use a given light (foyer? Living room? Kitchen? Many people keep at least one of those turned on almost 24/7), the better the savings. Of course, I'd think about just turning it off in the middle of the day and while asleep, but some people dislike change, however beneficial.
I used to use only fluorescent bulbs, both traditional and compact in my house, until I started recording my music again. I don't remember if the early CFL's were any better (the $20 ones made by the bigs, like Philips, rather than the cheap-ass ones made by the off-brands they sell at Lowe's and HD), but I got so much interference in my systems because of them, that I had to turn off all the lights in the house just to get anything done. This did not well please She Who Must Be Obeyed. So, I replaced all the CFL's with regular incandescents, and I'm back in business. The regular big fluo's I can live without, but they're noisy, too.
As an aside, as an Amateur Radio operator, I can tell you that many, many, household appliances are guilty of severe RFI these days. I really don't think that I should have to run around putting chokes and such on devices I paid several hundred dollars to own.
Now, where's that FCC when you need them?