Posted on 05/05/2007 4:44:24 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Turn on common sense Americans' dogged dislike of compact fluorescent bulbs defies reason Saturday, May 5, 2007 3:33 AM
It has the makings of a titanic clash: the marketing muscle of Wal-Mart vs. the entrenched views of the American consumer, particularly the female sort.
The company has vowed to convert at least 100 million households to compact fluorescent light bulbs, which benefit their users by consuming 75 percent less electricity, lasting 10 times longer than traditional incandescent bulbs and saving $30 over the life of each bulb.
The big picture is just as impressive: Over its lifetime, one bulb generates 450 fewer pounds of greenhouse gases from power plants than the number of incandescent bulbs needed for that same fixture would consume in that same period.
The U.S. government's Energy Star program estimates that if every U.S. household permanently replaced just one conventional light bulb with a CF the energy saved could light 2.5 million homes per year and the greenhouse gases avoided would be equal to those produced by 800,000 cars.
CF bulbs have dropped precipitously in price in recent years, with some going for less than $2 each in big-box stores, including Wal-Mart.
What's not to like?
Well, to many Americans, CFs look different and that's a drawback. Most are shaped as spirals, and finding CFs in specialty bulbs, such as marquee globes and chandelier-style lights, is difficult.
Their light is different, too: whiter and less warm than that given off by incandescent bulbs.
Plenty of Americans apparently think of modern-day CFs as another version of the admittedly awful earliest fluorescent tubes, which took a long time to light up, hummed annoyingly, and cast a ghastly glare that made legions of office workers look like mortuary escapees.
The fact that the hum is gone, the delay is minimal and the color has improved significantly seems to be lost on many people.
Surveys by The Washington Post-ABC News and the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance show that women, in particular, resist buying CF bulbs, even though they profess an interest in reducing carbon emissions to fight global warming.
Home-improvement stores, where men shop the most, sell CFs at a far greater rate than groceries and drugstores, where women shoppers predominate.
The Dispatch won't point a finger at either gender, but it's time for Americans to get over this. In Japan, 80 percent of light bulbs sold are CFs; in Germany, it's 50 percent; 20 percent in Great Britain. Australia plans to ban hot-burning bulbs by 2009, for Pete's sake. Ontario, Canada, aims to ban incandescent bulbs by 2012. Meanwhile, in the United States, CF use lags, amounting to only 6 percent of bulbs in use.
With each one directly benefiting its buyer as well as the environment, CF bulbs are too efficient a global-warming solution to pass up.
That Algore and his minions want to force us to do it. That's enough for me.
How come the only place they can be made are third world poluted hell holes? How well do you think a CF plant on Martha’s Vinyard would go over?
Men see the long term savings, women see the cheaper standard priced light bulbs.
Jack
ducking for cover!!
What about the “mercury” thing?
You have it, Men buy; women shop.
We’ve been using them here and there, but there are 2 problems. One is that they don’t fit in all light fixtures. The other is that they contain mercury and must be disposed of separately. Disposal is not accepted everywhere.
bttt
Not in my family. I hate shopping.
Steven Milloy , Financial Post, Saturday, April 28, 2007
How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour -- unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about $2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.
Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).
According to an April 12 article in The Ellsworth American, Bridges had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her daughter's bedroom: It dropped and shattered on the carpeted floor.
Aware that CFLs contain potentially hazardous substances, Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. The store told her that the CFL contained mercury and that she should call the Poison Control hotline, which in turn directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
The DEP sent a specialist to Bridges' house to test for mercury contamination. The specialist found mercury levels in the bedroom in excess of six times the state's "safe" level for mercury contamination of 300 billionths of a gram per cubic meter. The DEP specialist recommended that Bridges call an environmental cleanup firm, which reportedly gave her a "low-ball" estimate of US$2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began "gathering finances" to pay for the US$2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn't cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.
Given that the replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFLs in the average U.S. household is touted as saving as much as US$180 annually in energy costs -- and assuming that Bridges doesn't break any more CFLs -- it will take her more than 11 years to recoup the cleanup costs in the form of energy savings.
Not only are CFLs much more expensive than incandescent bulbs and emit light that many regard as inferior to incandescent bulbs, they pose a nightmare if they break and require special disposal procedures. Yet governments (egged on by environmentalists and the Wal-Marts of the world) are imposing on us such higher costs, denial of lighting choice, disposal hassles and breakage risks in the name of saving a few dollars every year on the electric bill?
One word.
Mercury.
“The other is that they contain mercury and must be disposed of separately. Disposal is not accepted everywhere.”
Do they search every garbage bag where you live looking for them?
I started using those cf’s about ten years ago and stopped. Tried again and will stop again... they give off a terrible light, not good for reading .. and what about the mercury? This editorial board is pretty condescending.
I look at the pictures of devistation in Kansas today and wonder how much worse the clean up would be if every light bulb in town had mercury in it.
The cost of cleaning up would go through the roof if the EPA delclares it a toxic waste site due to mercury contamination.
One of those "inconvenient truths." It's on my list of things to do - calculate the extra 1000s of tons of mercury that will be added to the landfills when cf bulbs are discarded.
It can't possibly be the case that in preferring a warmer light that costs a little more per time to operate to a colder light that costs a little less, people are expressing a rational preference.
The problems are that CFLs have to be disposed of as hazardous waste (here, a trip to the dump on a hazardous waste disposal day, one Saturday every month or two) and if they break they let loose mercury in the house. (Admittedly a small amount by the standards of those of us who as kids took apart mercury batteries to get mercury to play with. But by today’s standards...)
I wonder if the Gore-on has fluorescents in his mansions?
‘That they want to force us to do it’ is EXACTLY the reason I will NEVER do it. Gore’s an idiot, his reasoning is fallacious, I’m taking a stand and drawing a line.
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