the light bulb police are coming

Regardless what percentage of the total is used for lighting, each incremental step we take to reduce energy usage reduces pollution and reduces our dependence on foreign oil. Since both of those are (IMO) worthwhile objectives I believe it's a good idea to use more efficient lighting. That includes CFLs.

While every little bit does help, does it really make sense to spend $2.50 for a CFL instead of a quarter for a bulb? I use a lot of CFL's but only in locations that are either a PITA to change a bulb or where I want to reduce heat buildup. Some disadvantages of CFL floods is their warm up time. It can take a full minute before the light comes up to a useable intensity. That's fine for the outdoor lights but doesn't cut it for a closet or workshop.

Wrong.

The article does *not* say that _residential_ lighting uses 22% of electricity. Dave simply makes this up.

It is not that "the DOE is incompetent" or that " the people hoping to profit by forcing everyone to switch to CFLs are cutting their figures from whole cloth" but rather that Dave makes stuff up because he painted himself into a corner years ago and is getting even more frantic, and more careless, and more insulting, and more contemptuous of the actual work of others to actually deal with real issues.

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

GE announced their HEI (High Efficiency Incandescent) a few weeks ago but I do not recall seeing anything. Here's a URL with a few details.

I first posted about this a couple of years ago. I wonder whether this is what GE is doing.

While this looks interesting, the article also states that it will be 2010 before they're ready for market and initially it will only be a 2X improvement over current incandescent bulbs. Given the rate of development in LED technology, I wonder if the market will still be there at that time.

Dave

ROTFL ;-) The article describes approaches to "greatly reduce the world's most vexing power problem -- excess electrical generating capacity and costs to homeowners caused by inefficient lighting " .

This is the very assertion that Dave tries endlessly to refute with biased and botched analyses.

IMO, Dave's flat-out misrepresentation of the New York Times article in the original post in this thread and its entirely bogus 'rithmetic is but another in a long series of self-serving misrepresentations and disservice to this newsgroup on this topic.

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

On a trip to my local Home depot, I recently bought some of their new line of n:Vision Compact fluorescent lamps ( CFL ).

The 60-watt equivalents are $1.70 each.

They are available in a about 15 different color temperatures, wattages, and designs (pars. lamp, flood, candelabra, bug,etc) They are available in daylight, white and warm white -- all of which I like for different purposes. I have put up to six on a single INSTEON circuit with no visible/noticeable effect on INSTEON performance. They are not rated for dimming but do dim just fine to at least 12% of output. They are warranted with the 800 number of where to get satisfaction permanently marked on the base. They are significantly smaller in height and diameter than the 60-watt bulb they replace..

Let me repeat:

-- Readily available (not a specialty item)

-- Various styles (floods, pars, bulbs, candelabra, etc)

-- Cheap $1.70 each for 60 watt equivalent

-- INSTEON/PLC friendly

-- Better choice of light color than incandescents (daylight, white, warm)

-- Dimmable (but not to zero and not officially)

-- 800 number on lamp for warranty

-- Smaller than the 60 watt incandescent they replace

What's left to complain about and misrepresent besides hazardous waste (another topic for another day)?

Of *course* there are and will be other improvements to CFLs and other lighting technologies, and of *course* CFLs are not a panacea. but these were available yesterday -- not maybe in 2010.

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

And they don't indicate when they think they will hit the 4X figure.

I think the impetus for this is the plant & equipment that GE (and others) have that can be switched from making today's incandescent to the HEIs in a minimum amount of time and with minimal investment. CFLs (which GE also makes) and LEDs require different methods and will likely require new investment in plant and equipment. Thus, HEIs will probably have a price advantage and will have the same form factor as today's incandescents.

There are indications that future LEDs will be even more efficient than either CFLs or HEIs but they really cost and arm and a leg today. There's a Japanese plant due to come on line this year (?) that promises highly efficient, cheap LEDs but it's not clear whether these lend themselves to residential lighting.

in

Heck. Let's do it now:

Even if disposed of improperly, CFLs reportedly put _less_ mercury in the environment than the mercury in the coal used to make the electricity for equivalent incandescent use. (Burning of coal is by far the largest source of mercury pollution in the Northern Hemisphere.)

(I proposed and designed and lead the first National Research Project on hazardous waste in ground water for the US's leading water resources research agency. I have decades of real experience in this field).

And if CFLs are properly recycled, as ALL fluorescent and other mercury vapor lamps should be -- not jist CFLs -- they effectively contribute *far* less mercury in the environment than incandescent lamps.

So the hazardous waste / mercury 'issue' is but another misrepresentation by folks who have no expertise and even less objectivity.

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

The use of CFL and other fluorescents can and does _reduce_ the amount of mercury released to the environment because they contain less mercury than is in the coal that they save from being burned to light incandescents.

And the mercury that they do contain is far less mobile in the environment even when (improperly) disposed of in landfills than the atmospheric discharge of mercury by coal-fired plants.

That they can _also_ be recycled, reducing the total discharge to near zero is an added environmental _benefit_ not a liability.

Some folks jist don't know how to stop digging their hole.

Read US EPA's authoritative fact sheet here:

I guess it depends on how much you value the future of the planet. While we're on the subject though, where do you get light bulbs for $0.25 and CFLs for $2.50?

Understandable.

We have them in our condo in Brazil. You're right. That's annoying but I'm willing to live with it. The strange thing is the color temperature.

My workbench has conventional fluorescents over it. They were there when I bought the house. I think CFLs would be OK there. I don't mind if it takes a minute or so. Closet lights are on for such a short time that CFLs would be impractical so those will remain conventional for the foreseeable future.

That sounds about right to me...look at the local WalMart or Home Depot

You need to find a purveyor with more selection. Local Home Depot has multiple color temps for both PAR 30 and conventional bulb replacements

Here in Canada we tend not to use oil to create electricity. That said.. I'm more interested in the logevity of CFLs.. I bought a whole house full of them 2 years ago and each and every one of them is now kaput. Different brands, some even from Ikea.

At this rate I'd rather pay a little each month than about $150 every year or so

Beamer Smith

Will do. Home Depot is my favorite boutique. I don't shop at Walmart.

There's no Home Depot in Bahia yet. :^)

Same here, but the less energy we use for one thing the more we have left for others.

That stinks. I wonder how long the LED lamps will last once they become economical to manufacture / purchase. One hopes they'll last a very long time.

The truth is my wife does most of the shopping. She probably knows the best prices. I recall when they first came out CFL's were expensive.

How about if we do both?

be interested in hearing any observed lifespan issues.

dimming may "work", but what does it do to life expectency of either the electronics or the bulb chemistry? any weird RF interference when dimmed?

why wouldn't they advertise dimmable if they were dimmable?

-ken, pretty much waiting for dimmable cfc to appear in local stores