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CFLs Causing Utility Woes
dacut writes "We've seen compact fluorescent lamps start to take over shelf space at the local hardware store. Replacing a 60 watt incandescent with a 13 watt CFL seems like a great savings, though many consumers are disappointed with the slow warm-up times, lower-than-advertised lifetimes, and hassles of disposing the mercury-containing bulbs. Now EDN reports they may use more energy than claimed due to their poor power factor. Mike Grather, of Lumenaire Testing Laboratory, 'checked the power factor for the CFLs and found they ranged from .45 to .50. Their "real" load was about twice that implied by their wattage.' The good news: you're only billed for the 13 watts of real power used. The bad news: the utilities have to generate the equivalent of 28 watts (that is, 28 VA of apparent power for you EEs out there) to light that bulb. Until they fix these issues, I'll hold on to my incandescents and carbon arc lamps, thanks."
Since I have switched to CFL... none of my light bulbs has ever burned out yet for 9+ months. With incandescents, I was changing 5-6 light-bulbs a month (I live in an older house, the electric grid and the wiring in the place I live is not always ideal for traditional light bulbs)
28 60, so still a good power savings. Plus, all of the CFL's I've bought in the last year don't have the same warmup problems that most of the early models had. They're not quite instant-on, but that's ok with me; I like that my bedside light comes on slowly in the morning, it's less of a shock to my eyes.
While a little more expensive they last even longer (20 years?). They really aren't available much greater than 40 watt replacements but I've been happy with the performance. Not effected by cold and come on instantly.
Using red/yellow fire and living under a yellow sun, that is.
The problem lies in many things; with the environmental factor, for which a lot of people will run screaming for, while a lot of people just throw the CFLs in the garbage; with the much less than advertised life span, for which many people will run crying fool (I've had some 15$ bulbs put alongside a third normal one, both blew up in less than 3 months and the normal one lasted more than a year!); from the power company, which are subsidizing your usage of them because of the power factor; from the artist, which start crying when subjected to the bad white balances put off by CLDs; by those of us who lives in areas where the extra heat dissipated by the light bulbs just reduce the heating required from the central system; and I guess by many other people I can't think off.
Anyway, have fun adding more reasons :)
My mother inlaw bought 2 CFL to use in her kitchen. They are still going strong and they are probably the most used lights in her house. She paid a fair bit for them back in 94, but I'd say 15 years of consistent power savings has long since balanced out ;)
I've replaced all of the lights in my house with CFLs over the last 5 years. The only ones that have a slow light time are the super compact ones I got to fit in a specific light fixture. And the only 2 that have "burnt out" were due to excessive vibration (one in the garage) and another that I caught with a chunk of sheet rock while remodeling.
And most of them are from the elcheapo 5-packs that I paid under $15 for.
I've had no issues with flickering, the color quality is quite warm (I actually have to bring in a colder light when I'm painting, but for room lighting they are great). So even if they are sucking up 28 watts instead of 14, that's still 1/2-1/4 what I would be sucking up using 60-100watt bulbs.
-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
Fluorescent bulbs don't have color temperatures defined.
Yes, they do. Look at the box.
Fluorescent bulbs are very much band-limited, unlike broad band black body radiators.
And the color temperature rating for fluorescents is based on the weighted average of where its power output lies.
Heck, they do an okay job of offsetting your heating bill, in the winter.
Electric heat is inefficient. And electric heat in the summer means more AC. Adding extra heat to your house is overall definitely not a good thing.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
And when a user drops a CFL, the problem is right there in their house, not miles away.
A CFL typically contains 3mg of mercury. A tuna steak is likely to contain as much as 1mg. If you eat fish three times and break a CFL once (and snort the mercury rather than disposing of it safely), you'll take in as much mercury from the fish as the broken lamp.
Ok, here we go - someone check the math.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs095-01/
Tells me the mean amount of mercury in US coal is 0.17ppm.
We will assume 100% of said mercury enters the air.
We will also talk about 100 watt incandescent bulbs to make the math easier.
450 grams of coal are burned to deliver 1 KWh to your outlet.
http://www.amazon.com/Incandescent-Light-Shape-Frosted-100A19/dp/B000273TEA
100 Watt bulb, 20,000 hours.
2,000 KWh in its lifetime.
900,000 grams of coal burned for this light bulb over its 20,000 hour lifetime.
153mg of mercury in said coal.
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf
tells me the average CFL has 4mg of mercury in it.
I was going to work out a full hour-by-hour comparison - but there is not need. I the case is B/W enough, unless someone can convince me less than 4% of mercury makes it up the stack.