Posted on 01/02/2007 8:57:15 AM PST by mathprof
As a way to cut energy use, it could not be simpler. Unscrew a light bulb that uses a lot of electricity and replace it with one that uses much less.
While it sounds like a promising idea, it turns out that the long-lasting, swirl-shaped light bulbs known as compact fluorescent lamps are to the nation’s energy problem what vegetables are to its obesity epidemic: a near perfect answer, if only Americans could be persuaded to swallow them.
But now Wal-Mart Stores, the giant discount retailer, is determined to push them into at least 100 million homes. And its ambitions extend even further, spurred by a sweeping commitment from its chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., to reduce energy use across the country, a move that could also improve Wal-Mart’s appeal to the more affluent consumers the chain must win over to keep growing in the United States.
“The environment,” Mr. Scott said, “is begging for the Wal-Mart business model.”
It is the environmental movement’s dream: America’s biggest company, legendary for its salesmanship and influence with suppliers, encouraging 200 million shoppers to save energy.
For all its power in retailing, though, Wal-Mart is meeting plenty of resistance — from light-bulb makers, competitors and consumers....
A compact fluorescent has clear advantages over the widely used incandescent light — it uses 75 percent less electricity, lasts 10 times longer, produces 450 pounds fewer greenhouse gases from power plants and saves consumers $30 over the life of each bulb. But it is eight times as expensive as a traditional bulb, gives off a harsher light and has a peculiar appearance.
As a result, the bulbs have languished on store shelves for a quarter century; only 6 percent of households use the bulbs today.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"You're just being a smartass."
True, but again, I said reduce the number of nightlights by 50%, not 100%. Overlighting areas is a huge waste of resources, not to mention, the enhancement of foreign oil dependence. I am willing to be slightly less secure if it will reduce this dependence.
thanks for the info. I'll be looking for them.
I picked up a lot of rope lights last year at Target in the "After-Christmas" sales, paid about 3 bucks for an 18-foot section.
I use the cold green plate nightlights, they use essentially no power but they grow dim after a while.
I haven't used the rope light for my christmas stuff, this year I lent them to a friend. I got the rope light to light our community pool for a pool party, because I can leave them up for the summer -- I got red, white, and blue to be festive.
I used some rope light to light my lego table, but I found the total light output, even with 36 feet of rope attached to the shelf above the table, wasn't really enough to light it up for working. It would have been fine for a display. (My Lego Table is two 8-foot folding tables stacked on top of each other, so the rope light is installed to the underside of the upper table, which then is a shelf for storing completed models).
Anyway, I'm excited now about getting some of those LED spotlights -- I didn't realise how inexpensive they were getting.
I hope to start replacing my christmas lights with the LED lights in the next 5 years as my current "Energy Saving" lights reach the end of their "useful life" meaning all the bulbs lose their color and turn into shades of clear. The LED lights are still too expensive, but they are getting much cheaper year to year.
I have had a few fail, but I don't think I've even gone through one complete set yet, and I've been using some of the older ones for more than 10 years. I've got over 30 in the house, and I've probably thrown out a total of 10 lights in that time.
LOL
Most department stores have been using overhead florescents for years, and I can't imagine why they would switch to compact florescents which are less efficient and cost more.
There are new department-store-level lighting solutions that will save them a lot of money, but it's not compact florescents. My brother just got into the business selling new efficient lighting solutions to businesses, so next time I see him he should be trained enough I can ask him what they are doing, I'm guessing some LED lighting and some newer florescent and maybe even fiber optic lights.
In an emergency situation, the emergence could well be a power failure, and if I needed lighting hopefully I'd have put in some emergency lighting that would be on already.
But I find I can go up and down my stairs with no lights on at all, except the ambient light through windows, and one of those .08 watt green-glow nightlights.
My kitchen is almost bright enough to read, what with all the clocks glowing all the time (I also can't believe how bright it is in my bedroom with 3 clocks, the lights on the modem, and a couple of bricks with power lights on them.
I taped over my cable box power LED indicator, it was so bright it bothered me. I can still see it through blue masking tape, it was so bright.
I use all the savings from the bulbs to pay for my christmas light display, which burns about 90,000 watts an hour.
But I did switch to "Energy Saving" christmas lights, which use 0.2 amps per 100 lights instead of 0.34 amps per 100 lights.
Have you noticed the flashlight conversion units for LED? They cost about $18 for the Maglights. Seems a bit high to me.
There must be a savings. I don't see the utility companies pushing them!!
I bought two sets of 4 LED flashlights from Target last year in their after-christmas sale. They were one of the "boxed gift" sets, normaly 20 bucks and I got them for 5 bucks each, and the kit came with ALL OF THE BATTERIES NEEDED.
This year I bought two set of three "table led lamps", again for 5 bucks each (so that's $10 for 6 table led lamps), each uses 4 AA batteries (which were not include) and they are pretty bright, would work great for general lighting in a power failure. I am going to put 4 rechargables in them and see how long the burn before the batteries die (hey, sounds like a science experiment).
It's pretty cool some of the stuff you can pick up at 75% off in these after-christmas sales. (BTW, I currently can only find 5 of my 8 flashlights -- the kit was cool the flashlights were 4 different sizes, including a 5-LED light that used D-cells (that's one of the ones I lost).
Will they make my complexion look funny?
The other problem with CF is the warmup time. As opposed to near instantaneous light from an incandescent, they take about a half second to produce useful light, and another minute or so to reach full brightness.
Big difference between "overlighting" and being in the dark. I will certainly agree there are many places where lighting could be cut back with no appreciable loss of security.
You keep mentioning foreign oil. How do you figure using less electricity saves much oil? My power supplier is Duke Energy, one of the largest in the US. They also supply power in South America. They generate electricity from nuclear, coal-fired, oil- and natural gas-fired, and hydroelectric power plants. Cutting off some lights, even across the country, will have only a very tiny impact in oil usage I would think. Energy efficiency of any sort is good, but I think other big changes will need to be made to reduce and/or eliminate foreign oil dependence. The biggest will be drilling for our own oil.
There is no way a CF bulb could possibly be affected by use in a circuit with a 3-way switch, unless that 3-way is also a dimmer. Someone's been blowing smoke up your hiney.
Coming soon (maybe) Silicon
What Silicon Brings to Solid-state Lighting
http://www.groupivsemi.com/technology.html
The energy web spans the globe and when you shut off 500,000 lights for a year the impact is significant. I don't have exact numbers, but generating electricity requires consumption of its share of hydrocarbons that can serve diverse and alternative uses. I live near a small city that uses coal -- coal can also be used to produce diesel fuel and natural gas. Easy and immediate cuts in consumption will allow time to build more nuclear and develop more domestic oil in Alaska, which of course won't happen with the Rats in power.
Anyway, I went searching online for different kinds of CFB's to see if there were any even smaller sizes designed to fit in the small sconces of ceiling fans. Havent found those yet, but did find a section on dimmable CFB's. Here's the link if you're interested.
http://www.1000bulbs.com/products.php?cat=Dimmable-Compact-Fluorescent-Light-Bulbs
I should have pointed out that my experience was with globes, enclosures, that are unventilated which is why my incandescent bulbs crap out after only a couple of weeks.
The hallway units were a gift and the guy helped me put them in; I'd hate to hurt his feelings by taking them down.
Are compact fluorescent incandescents anything like the "smoothbore Kentucky rifles" from this thread?
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