Posted on 01/14/2012 8:08:34 PM PST by Robert A Cook PE
By Kirk Myers, Seminole County Environmental News Examiner
This article, the second in a series, focuses on the misleading performance claims surrounding the “more energy efficient” compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs now replacing traditional incandescent bulbs. These potentially harmful mercury-filled lamps (see my previous column describing the dangers) are being forced on consumers by the U.S. congress with support from the Green Lobby and light-bulb manufacturers like GE, Sylvania and Phillips. These and other manufacturers stand to make huge profits selling the more expensive CFLs (more on that issue in my next column).
There is a growing body of evidence undermining claims of the EPA, environmental lobby and light bulb manufacturers touting the performance advantages of mercury-laced CFL bulbs.
Exaggerated lifespan
Real-world reports from the home front show that the claimed extended lifespan of CFLs is often greatly exaggerated. There is ample data indicating that the frequent switching on and off of CFLs greatly shortens their life. A study by H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and co-author Amanda Berg concludes
“Unfortunately, except under a fairly narrow range of circumstances, CFLs are less efficient than advertised. Manufacturers claim the average life span of a CFL bulb is 10,000 hours. However, in many applications the life and energy savings of a CFL are significantly lower. Applications in which lighting is used only briefly (such as closets, bathrooms, motion detectors and so forth) will cause CFL bulbs to burn out as quickly as regular incandescent bulbs . . . When initially switched on, CFLs may provide as little as 50 percent to 80 percent of their rated light output and can take up to three minutes to reach full brightness.”
According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, Pacific Gas & Electric originally estimated the useful life of CFL bulbs at 9.4 years. But based on real-world results, the company was forced to lower its estimate to 6.3 years, meaning that it had overstated bulb life by 49 percent. “The early burn-out rate, along with several other factors, meant that the actual energy savings were 73 percent less than the 1.7 billion kilowatt hours projected by PG&E,” the Journal reported.
Less bright, more dim with age
As many consumers have noticed, CFL bulbs grow dimmer as they age. In a 2003-2004 study, the U.S. Department of Energy reported that one-fourth of CFLs, after only 40 percent of their rated service life, no longer produced at their rated output.
And according to Wikipedia: “CFLs produce less light later in their lives than when they are new. The light output decay is exponential, with the fastest losses being soon after the lamp is first used. By the end of their lives, CFLs can be expected to produce 70-80% of their original light output.”
After conducting its own tests on bulbs from several manufacturers, The Sunday Telegraph in London “found that under normal conditions, using a single lamp to light a room, an 11W low-energy CFL produced only 58 percent of the illumination of an ‘equivalent’ 60W bulb - even after a 10-minute ‘warm-up.’”
The European Commission, which led the effort to ban incandescent bulbs in Europe, said that claims by manufacturers that CFL’s shine as brightly as old-fashioned bulbs are “not true.”
Posted on its website for consumers was the warning that “exaggerated claims are often made on the packaging about the light output of compact fluorescent lamps.”
Higher heating bills
Go-Green advocates like to complain about the fact that 90 percent of the energy from incandescent lights is given off as heat, with only 10 percent providing illumination. But they ignore one important fact: The extra heat given off during the winter months can actually lower energy bills.
According to a study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, “The heat of incandescent lights - more than 341 Btu per bulb per hour - can help to warm a room. Therefore, if the cost of electricity is low relative to the cost of home heating fuel, there may be an economic case for changing to incandescent bulbs in colder seasons.”
In other words, on a cold day when you’re running your electric heater, it makes sense to flip on all those incandescent heat sources. Of course, the contribution of incandescent bulbs to lower heating bills is conveniently missing from pro-CFL literature.
Unsuitable for outdoor lighting
What about the use of CFLs for outdoor lighting? Forget it. Most do not operate well in low temperatures, a performance shortfall that makes them virtually useless for home-security lighting, including as lights in motion detectors. By signing the incandescent bulb’s death warrant, congress has effectively rendered useless outdoor lighting systems that keep away intruders and discourage home break-ins.
Myth of mercury reduction
One of the most misleading arguments advanced in defense of CFLs is the assertion that they reduce harmful mercury levels (a dubious proposition given that the bulbs themselves are laced with mercury).
Case in point: In a letter to the Wall Street Journal in December, CFL advocate Nicole Lederer claimed that “coal-fired power plants produce about half of all mercury.”
In his Jan. 5 response, Charles Battig of Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment-Virginia called the statement “scientifically vacuous and misleading.”
Battig cited data from an op-ed ("The Myth of Killer Mercury” by Willie Soon and Paul Driessen) that broke down mercury contributions as follows: �U.S. coal-fired plants, about 41-48 tons per year; forest fires, about 44 tons per year; Chinese power plants, 400 tons per year, while recurring geological events such as volcanoes and geysers emit 9,000-10,000 tons per year.�
“With these missing pieces of information, wrote Battig, the U.S. power plant contribution of mercury is closer to a 0.5% value than the “half of all mercury” claim by Ms. Lederer.”
Battig then offered this advice:
“Would that Ms. Lederer and the Environmental Entrepreneurs expend an equal amount of environmental anguish over placing compact fluorescent lamp bulbs indoors in homes, schools and factories. These mercury-containing, stealth-pollution bulbs bring the mercury threat right into your living room and nursery.”
No good reason for switchover
The fact is there is no good reason for consumers - even energy-conscious go-green enthusiasts - to replace their old incandescent bulbs with the much-overhyped and potentially dangerous CFL lamps. The sole beneficiaries of the forced switchover are light bulb manufacturers who stand to make huge profits selling CFL bulbs whose shelf price has been artificially lowered (but still is higher than incandescent bulbs) through hefty subsidies paid to them by taxpayers.
In light of the facts, the switchover to CFL bulbs has become a real consumer turn-off.
Not sure what you mean. Am I not normal because I recognize that CFL's have actually been a benefit for me? Or, do you think that I agree the govt. should mandate CFL's.
Before you answer the second one you should have realized by now that I have been using CFL's by choice for at least the last six years.
you should realize, I bought the hype and replaced every light in my home, it is a scam.
the government is mandating these bulbs.
There are specific fixtures where cfls make sense, but if I had accurate information I wouldn’t have replaced every light in my house.
CFLs benefit you in specific applications, if you believe they are benefiting you in every application in your home, you are fooling yourself.
this is a light bulb thread, the light bulb goes off when you close the door on a fridge
Some of it might have to do with their utilities voltage going into their home. At 115 volts yea they might last many years but an incandescent will last considerably longer as well. At nearly 130 volts {what many utilities are trying to put out now} I would say they will blow rather fast unless you use surge suppression. Even at that I would not expect more than a year or two use at that voltage with the best of bulb.
I have 4-48 inch tubes in my kitchen the only place I use florsesents. I replace them about every 4-5 years. The fixture itself is a transformer ballast rather than electronic and my house voltage is 115/230 volts.
LOL are you real sure? :>}
Other than cost (which I've already proved they save me money) what else would you consider detrimental about having them in my home?
“leave burning all day” lights....CFL’s work ok.
“Frequent On/Off” lights....CFL’s burn out as fast if not faster than incandescents I have found.
But the high health risk CFL’s are not really suitable for homes with children or the elderly. Health risks via accidental CFL breakage is too high to gamble health about, even though political types say otherwise.
But political folks NEVER deceive, right?
if you call your statement that you saved 50 dollars in the first month proof.....not impressed
Your savings is more than my average electric bill and I live in a 5 bedroom house with 3000 sqft, what are you living in?
If I was to extrapolate your savings vs the mfg calculator, your house would have to be 8571 sqft.
Doesn’t compute ..... not even close
well, if you are paranoid, you can completely remove the bulb and your food still will stay cold.
Only while the compressor is actively pumping. Which occurs infrequently in an already cooled down fridge. In fact, modern refrigerators are quite efficient.
Do the math, if a fridge were consuming 900 watts of power constantly, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year, that would work out too about 7889 KiloWatt Hours. Refrigerators these days actually use about 350-800 KWH, depending on ice maker usage.
What are you using as a rate per kW?
on my bills, the electric company gives you a certain amount of power at the lowest price, then it tiers from there.
http://www.pacificpower.net/bus/ayu/uyec.html
I just removed all the taxes and fees off the bill and compared June to July.
My savings was undetectable. If there was any, it was less than 4 dollars but I wrote this off that July is considerably brighter where I live.
OK with people at home especially with kids {teenagers} the door on the fridge is going to be opened quite frequently. From the time they get home till bed time the fridge may not ever shut off. That means longer pull down time. With people out of the house? Yea it will not run as much.
Realistically you need to get the temps too 38 or lower in the fresh food section and zero in the freezer compartment of it. Food last much longer and chances of spoilage and food poison greatly reduced.
In the same respect your lights in your home are not working 24/7 like the fridge is not running 24/7. Daytime you might have 4-6 lights on in the house. Evening 12-15 would be about right for a family. That would be what maybe 6 hours per night maximum for most then you drop down to maybe 3 or so at bedtime?
I go by amperage and Ohms Law formula for actual power used meaning Voltage times Amps equal watts. It is about as precise and you can get and isn't some groups estimate on cost etc. Energy Star ratings and estimates of cost to operate are just that estimates. Every few years they come out with a new catch phrase. Ohms Law has not changed.
BTW how many people do you know with refrigerators under 10 years old? It is a replace as needed appliance when economics says it can't be fixed for most persons including myself and I used to do refrigeration and HVAC work as well as electrical. IOW I won't go pay $600-$900 just to go save a buck on my electric bill if the appliance still works OK.
Lighting is among the lowest factors of an electric bill and the most Hyped. 25 lights on at once at 60 watts would be about 2900 watts. I have never had 25 lights on at once. Your electric hot water heater likely draws 4500-5500 watts at 230 volts.
In a typical all electric home you have in order of most to least items that consume the most power. A furnace or heat pump would be number one. Next would be the hot water heater, range and oven, and Dryer. Most of these will be at 230 volts 5000 or more watts operational the furnace a lot more. A Microwave oven is 1000 plus for most families. It's not the lighting in your home that can add notable cost it's the lighting outside especially if you use Halogen PAR 38 Floods. I have 1200-1500 watts going from dusk till dawn on my outside lighting. I use a maximum 800 at night for lights inside the house. But I consider the outside lights good security and has kept me from stepping on Copperheads in the warmer months as well.
A freezer {medium size} is about 5.5 amps running or 632 watts. Now it will be off a lot more than the fridge obviously. The large users of electricity are the things I mentioned that most don't think about. If you have an electric hot water heater and a family of 4 it will consume a lot of electricity.
CORRECTION: 25 lights at 60 wats per light would be 1500 watts total for 25 lights. Now compare to other devices listed above.
Have you tried using 130 volt bulbs on 120 volt circuits? The 130 volt bulbs we buy supposedly get 14,000 hours life when run at 120 volts. At 120 volts, they give about 75 to 80 percent of the lumens they give if run at 130 volts. A 100-watt 130-volt bulb takes 88 watts to run at 120 volts.
The firm who built our house installed 130 volt bulbs everywhere, maybe about one hundred of them (big house). I've only had three of them die after five years of use, and one of those was an infant failure. I have 11-foot ceilings, so I join you in being glad I don't have to change bulbs frequently.
I use CFLs in a few places where I want more light in fixtures that have restrictions on maximum voltage. Three rooms seemed dim with the 130 volt bulbs in their ceiling light fixture, so I use CFLs in those rooms to boost the lumens.
Well, I’d say it’s like anything else. They serve a purpose, and do it pretty well. If you want that purpose and have the right conditions to do it safely, you’re set.
Someone upthread mentioned the slower max brightness in the bathroom to avoid being blinded...honestly even if that does end up a higher cost, that’s still a good option. I don’t think I consciously thought about that before, but I’ve certainly benefitted from it!
All of this aside, I think if a politician’s mouth is moving they’re lying, but CFLs do have uses in which they excel.
If you want to talk about safety, there are quite a lot of things that can be encountered day to day that would be unsafe if misused. Oven cleaner, drain cleaner, bleach and ammonia, automotive antifreeze...should they be banned?
You may want to check out my comment in post 50.
http://www.pacificpower.net/bus/ayu/uyec.html
I am not a customer so I can’t log in. What is your rate per kW/hour?
I know Ohms too, but the fact is, most refrigerators, use only a fraction of their maximum over a year. That said, you are right, these days lighting is not that big of a consumer of electricity. Electric dryer, HVAC and Electric water heater consume much more. I just wanted to clear up the misconception that a refrigerator uses anywhere near 8000 KWH of electricity per year.
We started replacing the standard bulbs about this time last year.
I have 1 dozen of the new so called long life bulbs which have since burnt out. I can’t throw them in the regular trash and have to take them to a store where we don’t shop.
The latest package had two bulbs out of six that didn’t work out of the box.
One of the original new bulbs last year blew out when I turned on the power after putting it in the lamp. It was to be a replacement bulb for one of its ilk put in during early spring.
I have two of the new bug proof lights in dusk to dawn fixtures outside. These bulbs are expensive and over about 5-6 months, they have slowly lost their original lightening ability. I estimate a loss of about 10% lumination each month. These bulbs supposedly last for 6000 hours, and should last about 2 years. Both went basically DOA about a month after Thanksgiving, and they were installed in early spring.
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