Popular as it is here on FR to bash CFLs, this article is BS. The author shows she has no idea what she is talking about when she says “CFL’s operate at high frequency using an electronic switching ballast to chop up the 120 volts — that’s how they are able to use less energy when compared to an old-style incandescent bulb,” which is not even close to describing how they work.
frposty is correct. CFLs are (if you buy the good ones) highly refined and miniaturized versions of the familiar linear fluorescent fixtures we’ve seen in workplaces for decades. In fact, due to the resistance to adoption in the home (some legitimate complaint, some luddite whining), the industry has improved the CFL far beyond what we would accept in a linear fixture.
If you do not like CFLs, you don’t have to buy them. Contrary to popular misinformation, the 2007 EISA legislation does not require the purchase of CFLs. It phases out standard incandescent lamps and requires all lamps sold to meet certain energy targets. Halogen lamps meet the bare minimum of these targets, and function similarly to (and nearly as wastefully as) a regular incandescent lamp.
Perhaps it it inappropriate for the Federal government to enact CAFE standards, EISA standards, etc., but we should not blame the technology for a beef with the Feds. The hyperbole is getting pretty thick. This includes the pre-election grandstanding by the congressman from Texas.
The hyperbole is supported by the left. While it looks like the law of unintended consequences, its really about having the hoi polloi naked and freezing in the dark. Remember how hydropower was good, and now it kills fish and is bad? And how wind power was good, and now it kills birds and is bad? It is the same thing with CFLs. They push new technologies to brand the old ones as evil until it starts to look like the technology might work out. Then, suddenly, the new technology is accepted, and must be rebranded as evil. Just wait until they let out that ARSENIC! is used in the production of LEDs. Suddenly, LEDs will be bad too. It is not the technology that is good or bad. It is just the leftist modus operandi to co-opt natural cycles of innovation to push the agenda of control. Don’t be taken in.
Full Disclosure: I work for lighting manufacturer. Feel free to ask anything you like about the various lighting technologies, and I’ll be glad to help you out.
I don’t think you get it ... it is the damn govt making choices for us that makes us mad
CFL bulbs
You guys taught me some things about CFLs. Do they (or some of them) operate at a higher frequency than 60 Hz? What’s the advantage of that? Also, isn’t the ballast in a conventional fluorescent light just for startup?
I had the impression that a main drawback of CFLs is that in enclosed fixtures they heat up, which shortens their life.