Slashdot Mirror
Incandescent Bulbs Return To the Cutting Edge
lee1 writes "A law in the US that is due to take effect in 2012 mandates such tough efficiency
standards for lightbulbs that it has been assumed, until recently, that
it would kill off the incandescent bulb. Instead, the law has become a
case study of the way government regulation can inspire technical
innovation. For example, new incandescent technology from Philips that
seals the traditional filament inside a small capsule (which itself is
contained within the familiar bulb). The capsule has a coating that
reflects heat back to the filament, where it is partially converted to
light. The sophisticated ($5.00) bulbs are about 30% more efficient than the
old-fashioned ($0.25) kind, and should last about three times as long.
So they are less economical than compact fluorescents, but should emit a
more pleasing spectrum, not contain mercury, and, one supposes, present
the utility company with a more desirable power factor."
Uh.. you can't just stick the bulb in the recycle bin. You have to dispose of it in the proper recycle bin. (and live in a community that has a proper recycle bin for mercury containing bulbs. Mine has a "special dispensation" for CFLs, so if I want my bulbs recycled I have to go out of my way to make sure it happens. Way out of my way. either a 30 minute drive to home depot which I think might work, or an hour and a half drive to the recycle company. by appointment. on specific days only.)
The moment I find these in stores I am IMMEDIATELY buying a few and replacing every bulb attached to a dimmer switch in my house. Ask anyone with a light dimmer who switched to CFL's, and this'll immediately be their biggest caveat with the tech.
The 'dimmer' cfls actually work pretty well, and the ones I have, have a better color temperature when dimmed than when full-on. Dimmed incandescents do very poorly when dimmed, shifting a lot of the energy into infra-red that you just can't see. Sure, you could save 25% of the power by getting 50% of the usable light*, but is that really efficiency?
*actually, I suspect it might be worse than that. That's just my first guess without doing any calculus.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I'm sorry but this so called new technology is a farce. 30% improvement in efficiency over 5% efficiency is still just 8% overall. At $5 apiece, which is way more then a CFL, which goes around $2.5 to $3.3 apiece, and it's 75% efficiency, I'm going for CFL.
Gotta tell ya, I replaced all the lights in my house with the newer fluorescent bulbs, both white and warm, over a year ago and I can now no longer stand the light output of the incandescent bulbs; it seems too harsh. Go figure. I guess humans just adapt.
The white light works very well in rooms like the bathroom, toilet, shed and kitchen. The warmer lights almost everywhere else. People really need to stop throwing tantrums.
.
My answer: Who cares? If you're implying that the federal govt. cleans up after current power plants, I'd say that was none of their business either. Where exactly in the constitution is that a mandated power of the federal govt?
If they were interested in cleaner power, then why not relax laws and restrictions put in place back in the Carter administration and allow nuclear tech to proliferate, along with them being able to legally reprocess the fuel so it can be 'burned' more completely. Why kill the consumer end of things?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I agree. The bulbe in my garrage are 150w equiv CFs. I can notice the warm up time, but it's about 15 seconds... on bitter cold days, maybe it's 30 seconds and sometimes they flicker to come on for a couple of seconds. The CFs in my other rooms produce quality light and I don't even notice their spin up time (aside from a half second delay after I throw the switch).
Getting quality light is all about buying the right color spectrum. Cheap bulb, cheap light. The SAME is true of incandescent, accepting that a cheap incandescent is a fraction of the price (up front cost), but can actually cost significantly more over an equivalent life (multiple replacements, plus energy costs).
LEDs still are not there yet (coming strong though). When LED can produce equivalent lumenns in acceptible color ranges for under $5 a bulb (maybe 5 years?) we'll see them starting to replace CF.
The mercury content in CF has also been not only dramatically reduced, but is actually not really a concern. It's not liquid mercury, it's a compund, and contamination is extreemely easy to remove with a simple vaccum. Also, placing them in landfill sis completely safe. There has NEVER been a single proven leak of mercury for any landfill. Though i agree they should be recylcled, same with all glass and all metal, and some plastics (and that's about it!) it's not a major issue.
I'm still working on replacing all my bulbs (there are over 90 in my current home, and another 16 outside, and I've only been there 6 months, give me time...), but I'm completely content buying good quality CFs. Actually, for 1 light, I'm completely happy using a pair of LED lights, even considering the cost, as it's 20 feet off the floor and in a bad spot for a ladder... I'll get to that one only after the current lights blow out...
i had about 40 CFs in my last home. The only sockets that did not have CFs were a few halogents outside, and a few rooms i used dimmers in (which there are now dimmable CFs...)
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
I agree.
Sometimes people try just a little bit too hard. CFL are, indeed, useful in 90% of the cases, but that does not mean they should be used 100% of the time.
Like you pointed out, they suck for outside in cold temperatures, especially on automated systems. Likewise, in places where the color is actually fairly important, like a bathroom mirror used to apply makeup, incandescents are better. And reading lamps that you sit and read under for hours probably should still be incandescent. Over my grandmother's dining table, I put in two CFL and left one incandescent to fix the color of the food, which indeed was noticeably blue with all CFLs.
Right now, I've got a stack of CFLs, and I'm replacing lightbulbs as they burn out. Sometimes something I want to keep incandescent will burn out, and I'll replace something else and put that bulb in what burned out, but the option to purchase new incadescents must exist. (I have absolutely no objection to requiring manufacturers to decrease energy usage, though, as long as it's done slowly enough that the price does not increase a lot. Like cars should have been required to do for the last few decades, but mysteriously weren't.)
The people who insist that CFLs must be used 100% of the time are starting to piss off people like me and you who thinks they're only appropriate 90% of the time. I swear, sometimes the environmental movement is hurt more by people on its side than people on the other side.
Household lighting usage is such a tiny fraction of the total energy usage in this country anyway...if people want to bitch and whine about how much power we use, perhaps they could bitch and whine about industrial manufacturers who waste much more electricity than we ever do. And most of the electricity we waste is because of poorly-designed products, sold to us without any indication of how much electricity they waste.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?