Posted on 05/05/2007 11:18:00 AM PDT by John Jorsett
We've been looking in to compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) to reduce energy consumption for lighting. Here's what we've learned so far.
Manufacturers say that a 13-18 watt CFL produces light equivalent to a 60w incandescent bulb, an 18-22w CFL is the equivalent of a 75w bulb, and a 23-28w CFL is the equivalent of a 100w bulb. This is based on the "lumens" rating on the side of the box.
In real life, CFL equivalent replacements do not seem quite as bright as incandescents, so you might end up replacing a 60w equivalent with a 75w equivalent and so forth. (The "swirled" designs seem to give off brighter light than the CFLs with a traditional "bulb" design.) But overall, CFLs reduce energy use for lighting by 60%-70%.
Color temperature makes a big difference. The lower the color temperature, the more the light resembles the "warmth" of incandescent bulbs we are all used to (that may sound backwards, but that's how it works). Not all CFLs list the color temperature. The GE "Soft White" has a pleasing, almost incandescent look, while the similarly named Sylvania "Soft White" has a cooler, harsher "fluorescent" look (although some might prefer it for truer color rendering or easier reading).
We found some Sylvania "Warm White" 13w (60w replacement) CFLs at Lowes that have very pleasing light, and their small size allows them to fit most fixtures. The color temperature is listed as 2700K (as compared to their "Daylight" CFL which is listed at 6500K and seems much "harsher".) The 13w "Warm White" CFLs came in a contractor's box of 12 for $27, which is a pretty good deal. They are rated at 800 lumens with a lifetime of 10,000 hours, as compared to a standard GE "Soft White" 60w incandescent, which is rated at 840 lumens with a life of 1000 hours.
Because of their long life and lower energy consumption, CFLs can result in significant savings over the lifetime of the bulb relative to its cost. Manufacturers are quick to point this out, with claims on the packaging of $36+ in energy savings over the life of a 14w (60w equivalent) up to $61 for a 23w (100w equivalent). Your mileage will probably vary.
Most CFLs do not work with dimmers. Manufacturers say it will shorten the bulb life and it voids the warranty. There are special bulbs that work with dimmers, but they are not widely available. If the package does not say the bulb is compatible with dimmers, it probably isn't. (Look at the fine print on the base of the bulb.) We are still looking for a local source for "dimmable" CFLs, as most of our fixtures have dimmers. CFLs are also not intended for use with most photocells and timers.
One thing that is not talked about much is that CFLs emit more ultraviolet (UV) light than an incandescent bulb, which produces virtually none. Light in a CFL starts out as UV from excited gases, and is made visible by phosphors coating the inside of the tube/bulb. Incandescent light is mostly infrared emitted by heating the filament to super high temperatures (leading some to call them "heat bulbs" instead of "light bulbs"). Most of the UV from a CFL is filtered out in the conversion, but there is still some.
Manufacturers say, however, that there is no health risk and that eight hours of exposure to CFL UV is about the same as one minute in full sunlight. But, photographs, artwork, some fabrics, and some photoreactive chemicals used in furniture finishes are susceptible to degradation from any increased levels of UV over time. So this is something to consider.
The Mercury Problem
Finally, CFL critics are quick to point out that CFL bulbs contain mercury, a highly toxic pollutant. This is true. The typical CFL bulb contains approx. 5mg of mercury. (Manufacturers are working to reduce this. Phillips is said to have developed a bulb that only has 1.5mg of mercury.) If the bulb is broken, special care must be taken to properly clean up and dispose of the remnants to prevent health risks. Further, CFLs must be recycled or properly disposed of to prevent the mercury from entering the environment. Here are the federal government guidelines for CFL disposal and cleanup.
What the critics forget to mention, however, is that coal-fired power plants are a major source of mercury pollution. Further, most of this mercury is emitted into the air, and is thus not contained or containable. Mercury in a CFL is already contained unless it is broken, and if properly recycled is fully containable.
We did some rough calculations to determine the mercury pollution impact of CFL v. incandescent bulbs. We used TVA's Kingston plant as an example. It generated 10,161,530 gross megawatts in 2005, and released 643 pounds of mercury into the environment. If our math is correct, this works out to about 0.000028702 milligrams of mercury pollution per watt of electricity generated.
Based on this, a 100w incandescent bulb operated for 8 hours per day 365 days per year causes 8.4mg of mercury pollution. An equivalent 23w CFL bulb will cause 1.9mg of mercury pollution. Assuming a five year life of the bulb, and assuming the bulb is crushed and dumped in a landfill releasing its 5mg of mercury into the environment, the CFL will cause 14mg of mercury pollution over its lifetime as compared to 42mg of mercury pollution for an equivalent number of incandescent bulbs, a reduction of 28mg or 66%.
66% sounds like a lot. But according to DOE estimates, residential power usage is about 35% of the total, and lighting in the average home accounts for about 9.4% of the energy used. Considering that about 64% of TVA power is generated from coal v. hydro and nuclear, the net reduction of mercury emissions if every TVA customer switched to CFL bulbs would only be 4.6 pounds at the Kingston plant, a 0.7% reduction. System-wide, this would be a reduction of nearly 39 pounds annually.
39 pounds doesn't sound like much mercury (even though it's thousands of lethal doses) but it's something. And multiply that for every power system in the U.S. and it adds up.
Plus, we should take pollution controls wherever we can get them. If you figure a 0.7% reduction in coal-fired household energy use and related emissions across the board, system-wide TVA emissions of NOx (nitrogen oxides that cause ozone and smog) could be reduced by 1337 tons, SO2 (sulfur dioxide that causes acid rain and harms plants and stream ecology) by 3220 tons, and CO2 (a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming) by 735,000 tons (2005 figures). Increased commercial usage of CFL would result in even more reductions.
So CFLs won't save the planet, but they might put off its demise for a month or two.
Back to the CFL mercury problem, a couple of things need to happen right away:
• Consumers need to be educated on proper disposal and cleanup. The packages we purchased do not mention this prominently or at all. One directs you to a website. There should be prominent warnings about health risks and instructions for proper disposal and cleanup on all CFL packaging.
• Local public works officials need to incorporate CFL collection, recycling and/or disposal into their waste management programs.
• Big-box retailers who sell more than 100 CFLs per year (or some other arbitrary figure) should be required to provide on-site recycling centers.
See? This is where I’m getting confused, either they are dangerous and you have to take special care when disposing of them, or they aren’t dangerous and you can just put them out in the trash. Which is it?
The proponents of these bulbs say they convert more energy to light than heat as opposed to incandescent, but I wonder if that includes all the heat put out by the transformer in the base of these things?
It’s hard for me to believe there is really a positive energy balance in the equation if a person were really to take the total production and life cycle costs into account of C,F,B compared to incandescent.
It’s in the larger lighting situations (the long tubes we are familiar with) where the fluorescents show their efficiency. But that is because they don’t require the transformers to be replaced every time a bulb is.
My biggest objection to these bulbs, though, is they put out radio-interference which made it hard for me to hear my favorite AM radio talk shows!
Maybe it’s a conspiracy!
I’ve been trying to have this same conversation with this guy, Chuck Hall.
Unfortunately, one shouldn't have to go a government website to figure out what kind of bulb to buy. The information about usage included on the packaging is less than desired in many cases. As you can tell from a few of the posts, people get gun shy if they buy a crappy bulb or it isn't rated for what they want to do.
That's not quite true. In fact, the energy input is converted 100% to heat, resulting in the relaese of photons (it's a little more complicated, but all the energy in is heat out).
Anyway, you produce 3412 BTU's (of heat) per kilowatt, so a sixty watt lamp (0.06kW) X 3412 = ~ 205 BTU's, a 20 W CF approximately 1/3 of that. That's why when scaling HVAC for new commercial space, you have to take into account the heat generated by the lights. Since fluorescents have ballasts, they use some of that energy and produce some of the BTU's in running the transformers, but the fluorescent lamp has a much higher lumens per watt output than the incandescent.
For wxample, low pressure sodium lamps have an extremely high lumens per watt rating, but their light is monochromatic (I think they emit light at around a wavelenght of 800 nm or so, but it's been a long time since I looked it up and I'm too lazy to go up to the office.
Since LED's use almost no energy, they are used in museum cases where heat buildup is a problem and using fiber optics is impossible.
btt
Is the product THAT PATHETICALLY BAD that the Drive By media has to try and prop it up?
(the bill Clinton of light bulbs)
USE EARTH FRIENDLY ORGANIC INCANDECENT LIGHT BULBS!!
I just don’t like the hassle of buying an inferior product then they say I can get a refund or a replacement but I have to waste time standing in line somewhere.
I think I will look on the package and send them a nasty email later and then I’ll feel better.
Probably the reason they lie and cheat people is because they have gone mad from mercury poisoning?
not counting the electricity, it is cheeper to use a regular light than a more expensive CF light. Hard to beat less than 25 CENTS a long life bulb.
CFL’s are like the linux of lightbulbs, I guess, overhyped, breakdown fast, and hard to get rid of, instead of being hard to use.
Well, no analogy is perfect. Fewer still are prefect.
I have noticed the bases of CFB getting very hot, scary hot. I have used a few of these bulbs. They didn’t last all that long, they took some time to reach full brightness when flip switch, and they dont work very well in cold locations such as porch lights (stay fairly dim). My problem is that I have reptiles that need heat producing bulbs i.e. incandescent type (heat lamps).
I have a 48” 2 tube shop type full spectrum fluor. light in office/bedroom. I light this light for reading. But it produces so much interference that I have to turn it off to talk on phone or log on to internet. For some reason, the light makes my phone line appear “busy” and can’t connect to dial-up service. And I can’t help but wonder if the Algore bunch doesn’t have stock in these CFB as well as Haz-mat, recycling companies. Get their bread buttered on both sides. And of course China keeps figuring in to everything, poisoned pet food, poison bulbs, what next?
Did I say I believed it?
But before I paid “experts” $2,000 to clean up a broken light bulb which was what the thread was about, it would be worth a try. But then I have more time to do that because I don’t spend as much of mine popping off on FR.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/
I have some of their products.
Also look at www.ledtronics.com
And there are loads of LED lights on Ebay- I just got a weatherproof strip of 50 LEDs that plugs into a 110 socket. Not sure yet where it will go, maybe a closet?
What I meant was, it has been 5 years since I gave up on them, as well as the halogens.
The spirals wouldn’t fit inside my fixtures, because they got too fat, too quick, at the bottom; they wouldn’t last installed base-up; the ceiling fans shook them too much.
The halogens would fit, but also couldn’t go base-up; they ran way too hot; and when they blew, they couldn’t be unscrewed with the bulb-pole. That meant renting a 14’ step ladder and setting it up in the middle of the living room. it was all a big PITA.
Also, our chandeliers & sconces took candelabra base decorative bulbs.
Sold that house, and retrofitted the powerless, plumbingless 100 YO ranch house we bought mainly with 4’ flourescent fixtures.
Wow, you hit a nerve. Narrow-minded people are easily offended by factual information that doesn’t support their beliefs or ideology. I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about using cfls, but there is no way that all of these bulbs will be disposed of properly... Remember the baffling butterfly ballot in Florida?
Each to their own I guess. Personally, I wouldn't mix compounds with toxic materials because someone I didn't know said it would help, nor would I recommend it to others. I would suggest a better source of information:
Information on Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) and Mercury
Energy Star (EPA & DOE)
www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf
I suspect the Gold Bond is an urban legend just like the $2,000 clean up. But it also could have come from the same type of person who would recommend using vinegar to clean up baking soda spills.
No,the conservative thing is to fully evaluate claims.And the impact in energy saving is so small that efforts ought be spent elsewhere.
For example,in insulating one's home with a given ,and finite,amount of money, first deal with the biggest losses.Therefore insulating the ceiling is the most effective ,because heat rises.
Similarly,we should look at what activities or devices use the most energy,and then improve those first.Residential lighting is almost an incidental consumer of power.Heating and cooling the home ,followed by providing hot water usually account for the majority of energy use at home.Retailers ,factories,and offices use much more energy for lighting and they are now having to pay extra for dispoasl of old flourescent tubes.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mercury+cleanup+zinc&btnG=Search
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp
We have CF bulbs in near constant use doing fine after three years.
Based on the imperfect nature of residential CF lights, we really need to follow the money.
Also the hysteria over CF ignores developing technologies in the form of LED’s.
They even sell retrofit bulb assemblies for expensive flashlights now.
I think the people howling like a banshee for CF lights have no concept of the free market’s ability to refine a product.
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