Xray of compact fluorescent lightbulbs
Posted on 09/27/2007 10:21:01 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
The traditional lightbulb will disappear from shops under a two year timetable announced by Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary.
In a drive toward more energy efficient lighting, Mr Benn said 150 watt bulbs would not be replaced by retailers from January next year.
Then from January 2009, 100 watts bulbs would be unavailable – followed by the disappearance of 40 watt bulbs in 2010.
Earlier this year Tony Blair signed up to EU plans that signalled the death knell across Europe of old style incandescent filament bulbs.
Xray of compact fluorescent lightbulbs
The aim is to switch people as quickly as is feasible to more energy efficient compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), which consume a fifth of the energy used by old-style bulbs.
The Government calculates that if every British household were to replace three 60 or 100 watt light bulbs with CFLs the energy saving would be greater than the power used by the country's entire street lighting network.
But there is a price for consumers because CFLs are more expensive and require more energy to make.
Mr Benn told the Labour Party conference: "The major retailers and energy suppliers are now leading a voluntary initiative, with the strong support of the lighting industry and the Government, to help phase out traditional high-energy light bulbs. We need to turn them off - for good."
Mr Benn said he wanted to see similar cooperation from manufacturers in phasing out energy-wasting televisions.
He pledged to review whether Britain should have a tougher target than its aim reducing emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. By 2010 he wanted Britain to be recycling and composting 40 per cent of waste while within eight years 15 per cent of electricity should come from renewables.
While UK action was essential to prevent "catastrophic" climate change, it had also to be backed by international efforts.
"Every country must play its part, from China to the USA. The biggest economy in the world must take on binding commitments to reduce emissions. Voluntary action isn't enough."
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "This initiative, which will reduce the UK's CO2 emissions and finally begin to consign these hugely energy wasteful bulbs to the history books, is long overdue.
"However, almost all of the retailers involved have already committed to removing these bulbs ahead of 2011 after a campaign by Greenpeace.
"We think the Government needs to go further and introduce tough mandatory efficiency standards rather than relying on weak voluntary initiatives.
"For every year of delay in getting rid of these bulbs, five million tonnes of C02 are emitted into the atmosphere, unnecessarily."
I bought a 3-watt candelabra base bulb which isn't terribly attractive, but is brighter than a 7.5 watt incandescent.
I wonder if there any good alternatives for photoflood lamps when shooting tungsten-balanced reversal movie film indoors? How do halogens compare?
That additional manufacturing energy is still offset by the energy savings to the point of being insignificant over the life of the CFL.
The three biggest issues with CFL’s are quality of light, dimmability and mercury.
Other than that they’re great ;-)
P.S. I’d guess I have about 300 fluorescent bulbs installed in my house... But I still have well over 100 incandescent bulbs still being used... And after all that my electricity costs for lighting are tiny compared to what’s used for all our computers and cooling the house (in the summer).
Not headlights.
OK. I got just a little ahead of the power curve. They are being introduced on lux models. Won’t be long until they dominate the market.
Halogen lamps I believe are generally about 15% more efficient than regular incandescents and have better color balance (more white). Halogens are still tungsten filament.
Thanks for the link.
I suppose they have that purple hue like white LED’s have these days.
So THE GOVERNMENT decides what kind of lightbulb you can make...or buy? What's next? They're going to choose what kind of underwear or deodarent you can make or buy? The governments of "free" nations are telling "free people" that we have no right to decide much of anything for ourselves anymore.
And the frog still doesn't feel the heat.....
I don’t know. I’m curious to see what they look like. The LED tail lights are extremely bright and the LED traffic lights are so bright I’m almost blinded by them. Can’t see the other side of an intersection with them in my face unless it’s very well lit. I think they’re a hazard. The headlights will definitely be bright, maybe too bright for oncoming cars.
Photoflood lamps were tungsten-filament lamps operated at higher temperatures than normal incandescents (in exchange for shorter life); something like Kodachrome 65T is balanced for those. I would expect a halogen lamp at full brightness would probably be even hotter, and thus too bluish, though perhaps the right sort of dimmer could improve things. My current camera lets in enough light that my 2x300W light fixture is overkill, but I don't know what to replace it with that would keep the right color balance.
Invest in mercury futures.
yitbos
I use CFLs outdoors. They are on all night and on/off twice a day.
Some have burned out. They are trash like anything else. I'm not dead yet.
Mercury is mined, like from dirt, so ashes to ashes, mercury from dirt to dirt. Samo samo.
yitbos
Years ago Detroit Edison, electrical utility in Michigan, would take your burnt out bulbs and replace them for free. My father-in-law worked for them. He ‘acquired’ a supply of bulbs. I still have 4 cases-126 to a case-after 35 years.
see #32
True. I switched back to incandescents for several hard to reach fixtures because they last longer than the CFLs.
And those pesky computers with their ability to access truth in a nonosecond ...
Actually more... They add up...
Don’t ask...
This is all going to be very amusing when the history of global warming hysteria is written in the same book that contains the “Population Explosion,” swine flu, and Y2K.
One a day in his lunch pail when he came home every night?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.