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Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: Proceed with Caution (Think Twice before Discarding Incandescent)
American Thinker ^
| 09/22/2010
| Peter Wilson
Posted on 09/22/2010 6:52:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Cambridge Energy Alliance is going door to door in North Cambridge, Massachusetts next month, handing out free compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) in return for "inefficient incandescent bulbs." Well, they're not actually free. The
Cambridge Energy Alliance is "sponsored by the City of Cambridge," so I guess that Cambridge taxpayers are footing the bill. The event is part of Bill McKibben's 350.org "global work party" on October 10, 2010, which is a really excellent date because you can write it as "10/10/10."
CFLs use around 30% of the energy of an incandescent bulb, and everyone should switch over, so the argument goes. Even if you agree with Bjorn Lomborg's recent judgment in the
Wall Street Journal that "direct carbon cuts [are a] woefully ineffective" means to address global warming, CFLs save you money. Lighting accounts for 10% to 20% of residential electric use, so if your bill is $100 a month, changing every bulb in your house would lead to a savings of as much as $14/month. NSTAR recommends changing 25% of your bulbs, which would amount to a savings of $3.50/month. This assumes you get the bulbs for free; otherwise, you have to subtract the higher cost of the bulbs from your savings. Okay, you will probably spend the $3.50 on a Starbucks mochachino, not a transformative life experience, but why throw away free money?
And yet if CFLs are so great, why does the Cambridge Energy Alliance have to organize volunteers to give them away?
The modern breed of environmentalist tends to have a statist faith in government. Average citizens cannot be trusted with economic decisions that require balancing immediate costs and long-term benefits. Consumers therefore need wise government to mandate the use of CFLs, through legislation like the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 or through taxpayer-funded giveaway programs.
Many people, however, don't like curlicue light bulbs, and not because these people are uninformed, shortsighted, or on the payroll of Big Carbon. The list of objections is long, but here are a few:
- CFL manufacturers claim that a 13-watt CFL emits the same amount of light as a 60-watt incandescent, but it doesn't seem to work that way in the real world. I've been in CFL-lit hotel rooms where I need a flashlight to read my dog-eared copy of The Road to Serfdom.
- Warm-up time: it takes up to 5 minutes for a CFL to reach full strength, which may be related to the point above (why CFLs seem less bright). My friend has installed them in a hallway where illumination is needed only for the thirty seconds it takes to navigate the staircase. Not ideal when Grandma visits and can't see the skateboard on the stairs.
- Few CFLs last for their advertised lifetimes of five years or more. Many people report replacing them after one year, making those return on investment numbers a bit less rosy. Using them in ceiling fixtures, on dimmers or timers, and for less than fifteen minutes per use reduce their life.
- CFLs contain mercury and should be returned to a hazardous waste center for disposal. Studies assume a 25% recycling rate, with the rest going into landfills. (The Westinghouse website recommends recycling only when disposing of "a large quantity" of fluorescent tubes and doesn't mention how to dispose of their CFLs.) According to a 2008 Yale study, burning coal to supply electricity to incandescent bulbs emits more mercury per bulb than a CFL contains, but regions that rely on cleaner fuels like natural gas experience greater mercury contamination with the introduction of CFLs. Why would environmentalists advocate to bring a toxic product into every home?
- Cleaning up a broken CFL doesn't require a haz-mat team, but you have to take significant precautions to avoid mercury contamination of living areas.
- Manufacturing CFLs is labor-intensive. No CFLs are made with expensive U.S. labor; most are made in China, where hundreds of factory workers in CFL plants have been hospitalized for mercury poisoning. The last major light bulb factory in the U.S., a GE plant in Winchester, VA, closed earlier this month.
- CFLs require six times as much energy to manufacture as incandescent bulbs, not to mention -- if you're concerned about such things -- the carbon footprint of shipping them from China.
- CFLs appear to cause migraines and epileptic seizures in a small number of people. Other health risks are being studied.
- CFLs work poorly in cold temperatures -- as a wintertime front porch light, for example. In cold climates, the heat of incandescent bulbs is a useful -- if inefficient -- byproduct.
- CFLs degrade the quality of the electric current (so-called "dirty electricity" with uneven sine waves) on a circuit into which they are plugged, causing problems for other electronic devices and possible health hazards to humans.
Given all these potential drawbacks, it seems questionable to place all our chips on this one solution to more efficient lighting. A new generation of more efficient incandescent bulbs is on the horizon, and LED bulbs show great promise. CFLs make sense for some applications, but at best they will be a transitional product.
The
precautionary principle "states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the
public or to the
environment, in the absence of
scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the
burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action." The compact fluorescent light bulb is a rare case where this principle makes sense.
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cfl; electricity; energy; fluorescent; green; incandescent; lightbulb
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To: SeekAndFind
Use 30% of the energy (to run) ... use 3000% of the energy to produce, last half as long (I know I went through an ENTIRE CASE of these stupid things already)
and they contain MERCURY
how long before we hear the stories of those EVIIIIIIIIL corporations trying to poison us with mercury?
2
posted on
09/22/2010 6:54:48 AM PDT
by
Mr. K
(PALADINO FOR GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK)
To: SeekAndFind
Too much info there.
Simple rule:
If a liberal recommends it, it’s a scientific and economic disaster.
It’s a simple rule because liberals are simple people.
Very simple.
3
posted on
09/22/2010 6:55:18 AM PDT
by
Da Coyote
To: SeekAndFind
Time to stock-up on incandescents!
4
posted on
09/22/2010 6:55:34 AM PDT
by
hal ogen
(1st amendment or reeducation camp?)
To: SeekAndFind
Foreseeing this idiocy, I have been hoarding the old-fashioned light bulbs—mainly because I detest those horrid-looking, wormy new spiral ones. Another reason is because if the geniuses say I shouldn’t use them anymore, it’s all the more certain I’ll use them until not another single one is available!
To: SeekAndFind
I know people who are buying the old light bulbs dozens at a time and hoarding them.
6
posted on
09/22/2010 6:57:45 AM PDT
by
Ev Reeman
To: SeekAndFind
7
posted on
09/22/2010 6:58:36 AM PDT
by
DJ MacWoW
(If Bam is the answer, the question was stupid.)
To: Mr. K
My son and his wife used in their home and they actually burned. The bottom of the bulb got black and smelly.
To: SeekAndFind
CFLs produce RF interference that degrades AM and short wave radio reception.
9
posted on
09/22/2010 6:58:51 AM PDT
by
Fresh Wind
(King: "I have a dream"...Sharpton: "I want a check")
To: SeekAndFind
I guess I'll buy a second locker and start stuffing it with incandescent bulbs as well.
That should being my hoard to beyond what I can possibly use in my remaining years... then I can bequeath the remaining bulbs to my children.
10
posted on
09/22/2010 7:00:32 AM PDT
by
grobdriver
(Proud Member, Party Of No! No Socialism - No Fascism - Nobama - No Way!)
To: SeekAndFind
Thanks for posting this. A few more facts to understand why I am against CFLs have been added to the list to be sent to my friends.
To: SeekAndFind
Yep, if we didn't have lefties in charge, or we had legislators with a brain, they would let the free market handle it. Outlawing incandescent bulbs is just another example of big government knowing what's good for us because we are too stupid to figure it out.
I hate governments, all types, but I hate small Republican democracies the least of all governments. We need to get back to it, in order that our children and grandchildren don't become slaves to the communist who aspire to be our masters.
12
posted on
09/22/2010 7:01:54 AM PDT
by
calex59
To: Da Coyote
For every “problem” these Einsteins “solve,” they create fifty more. How long will it be when someone gets a few laughs by smashing a bunch of them and then calling the HAZMAT folks?
To: Da Coyote
One thing you can be assured of when a liberal recommends ANY idea -
he hasn’t thought about it beyond the point of
“I feel superior for holding this position on this issue.”
14
posted on
09/22/2010 7:02:23 AM PDT
by
MrB
(The difference between a (de)humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
To: Da Coyote
If a liberal recommends it, its a scientific and economic disaster.
...and inconsistent as well. They're handing them out at the start of the HEATING season in Massachusetts, and incandescents generate light and (hmmm, what was that other thing????)
15
posted on
09/22/2010 7:02:38 AM PDT
by
BikerJoe
To: SeekAndFind
CFLs use around 30% of the energy of an incandescent bulb....but are loaded with mercury. Get read for the land fills to become so poisoned, nothing will ever clean them up. In order to get as much light as we used to, we'd have to use two or three of these nasty things.
If these weenies think I'm going to go out of my way to recycle these things, they'd better think again. It wasn't my idea to use them, so let them clean them up.
Comment #17 Removed by Moderator
To: 1951Boomer
To maximize your “hoarding dollars” -
buy only 100 watt bulbs for now.
There is a “phase out” period, starting in 2012, and starting with the 100 watt bulbs, then working its way down to lower wattage bulbs.
18
posted on
09/22/2010 7:04:00 AM PDT
by
MrB
(The difference between a (de)humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
To: 1951Boomer
We've been over and over this issue many times. The basic points are:
(1) About 99% of the energy advantage available from fluorescent lighting was achieved in the past as all large buildings and systems (factories, stores, schools, ....) were converted by 1952. Household lighting use isn't big enough to worry about.
(2) The Avant Garde are already converting the far more efficient, cooler and better looking LED systems.
(3) China itself, the major manufacturer of CFLs, is leaping ahead to LED systems ~ where we, the USA, have all the patents and manufacturing capacity.
There are no other meaningful points to be made. If you want to keep futzing around with incandescents, go to it. I don't care.
19
posted on
09/22/2010 7:04:42 AM PDT
by
muawiyah
To: Fresh Wind
CFLs produce RF interference that degrades AM and short wave radio reception.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And audible noise!
20
posted on
09/22/2010 7:05:39 AM PDT
by
loungitude
( The truth hurts.)
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