my own experience with "budget" incadescents is that they dont last as long as i would normally expect from an incadescent. while one could argue several budget bulbs is cheaper than (n-1) normal priced ones, i find it annoying having to replace bulbs at all.
and more annoyingly, the budget ones are way more prone to filament audible buzz when dimmed.
-ken
The 'officially' dimmable CFLs that I have will dim to about 6% of full output (= 4 'stops' in photo parlance) as measured by a Zone-VI-modified Pentax spot meter and(or) Nikon D200 spot meter. They exhibit no untoward behavior when the light extinguishes -- it just goes out.
The 'non-dimmable' n:Visions CFLs I measured will dim about 3 stops (12% of original) perfectly normally and usefully and then begin to flicker, first almost imperceptibly, then irritatingly, then on-off like the flash to 100% of an incandescent that is under X-10 dimmer control before it dims. (You know what I mean if you've dimmed X-10 WS-467s.
With a lighting system with a user-definable dimmer curve (eg DMX512), one could simply exclude the 0-15% power range and have a perfectly useful dimmer (with lifetime issues unknown). With _dependable_ preset dim (in my case, DMX512 and INSTEON), you could use them usefully dimmed (again, without addressing the issue of lifetime).
I did let one go over light in a distinctly irritating (to me) flicker and buzz mode (~ 10% INSTEON dim level) with no apparent ill effects to the lamp. Not a very rigorous test, but as they say, one data point is infinitely more than no data points ;-)
4 stops is equivalent to being able to turn on any number between 1 and 16 lamps (1:16). 3 stops is a range of 1:8. I suppose that some folks might feel shorted if the lamps were designed to extinguish to zero at 1/8 power instead of 1:16th.At first blush, the CFLs I tried have a fairly linear ratio of watts consumed :light output. In contrast, incandescent lamps have notoriously low efficacy when dimmed. The perennial CFL basher in this news group has said that he gets years of life from incandescent bulbs because he keeps them dimmed. Saving a few pennies on the lamps costs him many dollars in wasted electricity. With incandescents, if you want less output, the best course from an efficacy standpoint is to replace a the lamp with a lower wattage one.
CFLs come in a much wider array of nominal color temperatures than incandescent lamps. A high CRI (Color Rendition Index) 'daylight' fluorescent is much preferable to any incandescent for critical work involving color evaluation. The n:Vision Compact fluorescent lamps at Home Depot come in daylight (nominal 5500K) , bright white (3500K) and warm (2700K). Geezers may like me may remember that the bluest conventional incandescent photofloods (type A) are 3400K. Conventional high-wattage halogens are
3200-3000 IIRC.Compared to incandescents which change greatly in color temperature when dimmed, CFLs seem to maintain a very constant color. When you dim them they just get dimmer instead of turning a yellow/orange that is undesirable for many purposes -- and desirable or at least expected for others.
HTH ... Marc Marc_F_Hult
Bruce,
They make more sense for you than for most everybody else in the US. Hawaii's electric rates are much higher than the rest of the US. CFLs are
3-4 times as efficient as today's incandescents (I've never said otherwise.) and the more you pay per kWh, the faster you pay back the higher cost. Until recently I had the lowest rate in the country ($0.06/kWh) but after Duke bought out Cinergy, my rates increased. Duke no longer states the rate on my bill but charges/kWh=$0.10 for my latest bill. I think the actual rate is lower but I get hit with a minimum charge for not using "enough" electricity- Cinergy used to state that on my bill. 30% of my lights are fluorescent. If I replaced more with CFLs my "penalty" for not using "enough" electricity would be even bigger. ;)
Anyone using triac dimmers is sacrificing efficiency even at full brightness.
Standard fluorescents (around since 1938) are about twice as efficient as incandescent (about half as efficient as CFLs). There's not likely to be further improvements of any significance. GE's HEI will be competivive with standard fluorescents when introduced and with CFLs when (if) they reach the projected 4X figure. According to an NBC News report last night, the time frame for outlawing incandescents is 2017 so GE has time to prove it's a foolish move.
Your use of incandescents does far less damage to the environment than transcontinental flights whether in a commercial airliner or private plane.
What I have repeatedly objected to is the false information and phony statistics being used by the CFIs trying to push CFLs down our throats. The picture is not nearly as pretty as the one the CFL proponents paint.
You've noted some drawbacks, others have noted that premature failure is still an issue (after 30 years experience), they should not be used with motion sensors as they use more energy at startup, some brands/models output noise that requires filters (changing the economics), the color of the light is bothersome to many people, they are a poor choice in can lights because of heat build up leading to early failure, etc., etc., etc. For you, they work outside, in cold climates they never start. And, even if a particular brand of CFL has a good warranty, there are still costs associated with warranty replacement that alter the economics. Of course, when they fail you can always take them to your friendly neighborhood CFL recycling center.
The DOE publishes periodic surveys of energy use in various sectors. There's a nice pie chart I referenced recently in another thread showing these 2001 figures for total electricity use...
Residential 34% Commercial 30% Industry 28% Other 8%
The surveys themselves are...
Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey
They do not break out the others in the same way but I found one for industry from the latest survey published...
ftp://ftp.eia.doe.gov/pub/consumption/industry/taba39a.pdf
It shows 820,286 million kWh used with 51,443 million kWh going to facility lighting. 51,443 / 820,286 = .0627 or 6.25%. And .28 x .0627 = .0175 or
1.75% of total electricity use.I could not find similar figures withinin the tons of reports for commercial use but we can make some conclusions based on the others.
I'm not sure what "Other" is composed of but one possibility is government and other public facilities which probably have lighting profiles that are somewhat similar to commercial buildings. Adding these categories together they represent 38% of total electricity use. If the figure given in the NYT article (22% of total electricity is used for lighting) is accurate then these categories must account for the remainder .22 - .02992 - .0175 = .17258 or 17.25% of the total and .17258 / .38 = .45415 which means that 45% of the electricty used in these categories must go for lighting. I think most everyone will agree that such a figure borders on the preposterous and the numbers being bandied about by CFL proponents are poppycock.
Furthermore, most of the industrial and commercial lighting already uses fluorescents or other high efficiency lighting so the lion's share of any savings from CFLs is likely to have to come from the miniscule amount now used for residential lighting. I doubt it's enough to save even a small asteroid, let alone a planet.
As I've said before, most of our electricity comes from coal and that is certain to increase as it's both cheap and plentiful. To save the planet we need these coal fired plants to improve their conversion efficiency as well as capture and sequester carbon dioxide (and there's proven technology for capturing 90% of the mercury as well). BTW, this has to be done worldwide.
As for beef, ethanol from corn gets a $0.51/gal subsidy while imported ethanol (mostly from sugar cane) has a $0.54/gal tariff (I may have those reversed). Beef will have to be grass-fed and studies have shown there's not enough arable land to grow all the corn and switchgrass, etc. for celluosic ethanol so there won't be any cattle (or humans) around and the problem takes care of itself. :(
BTW, ethanol from corn has low conversion efficiency and worsens the global warming problem but is super efficient at buying votes.
There is one other semi-plausible way to interpret the numbers. If we assume that lighting uses about 1/3 of commercial electricity (still quite high but more reasonable), that takes care of 9% of total electricity leaving 8% to be accounted for by "Other". If all of this is in endoscopes being used to search for the heads of the CFIs pushing CFLs, we've accounted for all of the missing electricity. ;)
This isn't the pie chart I mentioned and it doesn't include the "Other" category but here's a chart for the major categories showing more recent figures for electricity use.
Today's NYT has a timely article on the first large scale test of carbon sequestration.
And Alstom might be able to sell the same generating equipment to China and Australia.
Once again, as always, Dave shirks from actually computing, preferring instead to make vague statements where the simple arithmetic, if presented, shows the bankruptcy of his overall argument.
The actual "higher cost" at the Home Depot near Dave's apartment is about $1.70-0.50 = $1.20
The efficacy (not "efficiency" ) of the n:vision fluorescent lamps I use and cited is about 4.2X (not 3-4x) that of incandescents as per my actual measurement and the manufacturers specs .
So used 8 hours/day the n:vision 60watt CFLs pay back their initial higher purchase price in ONE MONTH at $.10/kWh. After one year (~three years before their 'warranty' expires) the consumer will have saved ~$13. With Bruce's rates, the savings are likely to be closer to $30 per year per lamp assuming that they fail after one year at 8 hour/day (but they are warranted for three times that with the 800-number indelibly marked on the base).
Don't let this purpose fully vague comment distract. It is about ~2v/120v
*100% = 1.7% loss. Provision for relay contacts across the solid state relays to eliminate this loss is my design criteria # 11 posted atIf you define "standard fluorescent" as those that have efficacy of twice that of incandescents, this statement is circular and meaningless. If you don't, it is wrong. Pre-1990 "standard fluorescents" were effectively banned in the US by Energy Policy Act of 1992 (more below).
This is a misleading statement that makes the writer -- not those actually working to solve the issues -- look foolish.
New Federal legislation would likely follow similar legislation regulating lighting efficiency that has been in effect in the US since Energy Policy Act of 1992 (Public Law 102-486).
This Act eliminated the manufacturing of then-standard fluorescent lamps that didn't meet new efficacy standards. The approach is to require an efficacy standard to be met, which old fashioned incandescents would not meet but more efficient incandescents or other lamps including CFLs could. So just as new fluorescent replaced old fluorescents, new incandescents could replace old incandescents.
So now we lurch away from personal economics to environmental issues with mind-numbing stupidity? Any one individual's action involving virtually anything is less significant economically and environmentally than collective global actions. Duh.
Straw man alert! Who? Where? When? I for one don't paint no rosy posies. I have repeated posted actual calculations based on actual prices and studies and rates in my house and in Dave's neighbor that refute the generalities that Dave slips and slides on.
The first post in this thread was itself a straw-man premise based on flat-out falsehood and fundamentally flawed premise that the NY Times article claimed that residential lighting uses 22% of total electricity. This was IMO purposeful misstatement. That Dave continues to defend this dishonest post is testament to intellectual bankruptcy.
So cars are a bother because the carburetors foul and the points have to be adjusted every 3000 miles? Just as the cars of thirty years ago are not the cars of today, the CFLs of 30 years ago are not the CFLs of today. Technology moves quickly. .
Misleading statement and bad advice. The combination of occupancy detectors and fluorescent lighting is ubiquitous in industrial lighting. Depends on the duty cycle.
Don't use noisy fluorescent where noise can't be tolerated I have used up to
8 (eight) of the 60-watt-equivalent $1.70 n:vision CFLs on a circuit with an INSTEON switch at each end (one master, one slave) with no apparent effect on INSTEON performance.Chose the right lamp, not the wrong one.
Yet another obsolete comment. The CFLs at the Home Depot near Dave's house come in three _different_ color temperatures. The warm ones are almost indistinguishable from incandescents to my trained and experience eyes.
"They" ? There are now CFLs _designed_ to go into cans. Cans are typically designed to use lamps with built-in reflectors regardless of whether they are standard incandescent, halogen or fluorescent. Don't use lamps that are not designed to go into cans in cans. Duh. CFLs designed for cans are now available at (eg) Home Depot among many other places.
Indeed. Obsolete after misleading after straw-man argument.
More misstatements. The $1.70 n:vision lamps I cite are rated for -20F =/
-29C !
Duh
Of course, when they fail you
As one should all fluorescent lamps.
But even if you throw them in the trash, the amount of mercury mobile in the environment is _less_ that the mercury in the coal spewed out by the coal-fired plants used to power equivalent watt-hours of incandescents and that provide the power for Dave's apartment. Mercury in the environment is the single most common cause for inland fish consumption advisories, so this is an important problem. Reality is that CFLs are another incremental part of the _solution_ to that _different_ environmental problem both from a public awareness and behaviour perspective and by reducing the total amount of mercury mobile in the environment. Don't let ignorant comments from the uninformed mislead you.
Reduce (the amount of electricity) Reuse (1 CFL instead of 5 incandescents) Recycle (instead of landfilling )
[Rest deleted]"The bookful blockhead, ignorantly [Googled], With loads of learned lumber in his head.? -- apologies to Alexander Pope
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
Tried them, wife hated the color. Thus I've got CFLs in the shed, closets and other places less affected by the light color temp. But then I've had flourescents in those sorts of places for ages. Along with making sure the wattage in the other lamps doesn't exceed the amount of useful light needed. No point it putting in 100w when 60w (or even 40w) will suffice.
Yes, but *every* little bit helps. It's not a matter of ignoring the small stuff because there's bigger stuff making a larger mess. That's why you find such argument against your positions Dave.
The claim and premise of this post that the cited New York Times article says that "residential lighting uses [22%] of total electricity" is utterly and patently false.
It says nothing of the sort. Just more self-serving pollution of the newsgroup for others to clean up.
And talk about "old news"! ;-)
"[T]he light bulb police are[n't] coming" -- they have been here since 1992 with the passage of the US Energy Policy Act (Public Law 102-486) that ended the production of the very fluorescent lamps that the OP thinks are still the standard.
Whatta hoot!
Reminds me of the SLN skits featuring "the crotchety news commentator Emily Litella"
"Never mind ... " ;-)
...Marc Marc_F_Hult
Did you know that the Home Depot n:vision lamps cited are on the shelves and available in Daylight (5700K) Bright White (3500K) and Warm (2700K)? What color does your wife like? Bug lamps? Black lamps? Grow lamps ? There aren't many choices much left ;-)
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
in
Here's what I read (and copied, pursuant to common law fair use doctrine!):
"Replacing incandescent lamps could slow the growth in greenhouse-gas emissions, but not radically. About 22 percent of electricity is used for lighting, and about 42 percent of that is now generated by incandescent bulbs, according to the organizers. That means that a little over 9 percent of all electricity is used in incandescent bulbs. If that figure were cut by half, it would be equivalent to two or three years of growth in electric demand. Replacing older fluorescent lamps with newer, more efficient ones would help, too."
Bear in mind those statistics are attributed to Noah Horowitz, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, not quite as neutral-sounding organization as the DOE in this particular debate. It wouldn't be the first time the NYTimes published numbers that were in error, either. It's also not clear from the context, since they started out talking about residential consumers only, whether that number only applies to them or to the entire universe of electric customers.
The last time I called a reporter to correct some statistics I knew to be feloniously in error, she shrugged it off, saying "that's what they told me" as if it absolved her from looking any further into the matter. The problem I see is that now 1,000's of readers disassociated the quote from its dubious source and believe the number to be true since it appeared in a newspaper article. Sort of a credibility transfer.
So what IS the portion of the yearly average US electrical consumption devoted to residential lighting? Do we also figure in that some commericial and industrial establishments also use incandescents? Are the DOE figures correct? The Federal government is now nearly totally outsourced and is being run by the lowest bid independent contractors they could find, so I have about as much reason to trust their numbers as I do the NYTimes. (-:
-- Bobby G.
Incandescent, soft whites. In the scheme of things I've got better things to argue about than light bulbs. But this only ends up being in a couple of places. Everywhere else already has CFLs
Heh, with tinfoil on the windows man!
How recently have these been carried there? I've completely forgotten which ones I tried but it was sometime around last August.
I'll say this, however, I picked up an outdoor spotlight CFL and it does a fine job. Much better than I expected. I tried using the same thing in a can above the kitchen sink (where there's an incandescent) and it just didn't cut it.
But if those n:vision are new then I'll have to pickup a few and give them a try.
-Bill
But does it really matter anyway?
There's an opportunity to use CFLs as a way to consume less electricity. That it's not some humongous percentage really doesn't matter. As my grandmother used to say "take care of your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves". So it only kicks the "numbers" down by some small percentage, that's better than nothing. Yeah, there's always larger consequences and I'm sure someone can dredge up all sorts of reasons it's "better" to continue using the simpler, but more wasteful, incandescent. Penny-wise, pound-foolish more likely.
There's always issues of payback cycle, trust me when I say I'm familiar with the concept. I'd much rather have diesels in my boat but not at the SIXTY THOUSAND dollar premium they gouge for them. A 17yr payback cycle just makes no economic sense.
Apropos of nothing, this reminded me of the old joke about running stop signs. When the motorist responds "I slowed down and looked, what's the difference?". So the cop pulls him outta the car and starts beating him mercilessly. In the process saying, would you prefer I stop or just "slow down"?
ROTFL And therefore it was. Because Dave said so ;_)
This is profoundly pertinent to comp.home automation?
One of the joys of watching kids grow up is experiencing their naïveté and wonderment, and thinking that they are the first to discover things.
In the mid 1970's we mused about using plate tectonics to sequester carbon in order to reduce CO2 accumulation.
And good scientists, including those from the OP's home state, of the sort that the OP slanders with glee, have been earnestly working on this area of earth science for decades. Indeed, they were greatly disappointed last year IIRC when their strong proposal for a national geologic sequestration demonstration project didn't make it.
Here's what I wrote about four years ago in sci.engr.lighting:
So "sequestration" is not an obscure or rare process. Natural "sequestration" is what has kept the earth from 'overheating' for the last billion years or so.
In an ideal 'hydrogen economy' folks what insisted on disturbing naturally'sequestered" hydrocarbons (HC's) would return the unwanted C to a comparably isolated part of the crust or form and use the H ad libitum.
Smart folks will omit this unnecessary step and use solar radiation\\ directly to make H2 from H20 knowing that if they don't change the earth's albedo in the process, at least this part of their activity will not contribute to global energy imbalance (AKA "global warming").
(Is it possible to get more off topic for s.e.l. ? "
IMO, it is even more off-topic for a comp.* newsgroup than a sci[ence].* newsgroup !
... Marc Marc_F_Hult
Is sniping profoundly pertinent to comp.home automation?
Here's a really radical thought; let's pick one day - just one day - where nobody denigrates anyone else, regardless of how much they might disagree with that person and we simply focus on home automation issues. If it works, we could even extend it for another day. My God, who knows where it could go from there? My $0.02.
Marc does the newsgroup a service by pointing out deliberate misrepresentations on the part of this poster.
How about those that post disparaging remarks about you, as you are also a frequent target? Are they also doing the newsgroup a service? My point is that there will always be diasgreements but they can be handled in a much more civil manner than allowing postings to degenerate into personal attacks on individuals. I see what I feel is a disturbing trend; many people seem quite willing to say something in a post that they would be reluctant to say face to face. It's seems similar to the way that climbing behind the wheel of a car seems to bring out the worst in some people. Regardless of whether we sign our postings with our name or not, newsgroups bring a level of anonymity since most posters likely have not, and never will, meet each other. That is hardly justification to suspend politeness and respect for the views of others, whether you happen to agree with them or not.
Dave Harper
Dave, Thank you for you helpful comments.
My home is often open to the public, and y'all are welcome to my living room to hear me say this in person.
Although I dislike the "sniping" metaphor, because it has been already introduced in this thread, let me use it by stating that the intention is to shoot bad ideas humanely through the head, and not the messenger through the heart.
Some folks in this newsgroup have apparently declared open season on public servants, elected officials, scientists, academicians, researchers, and environmental activists. (I wear or have worn all of those hats.) In my opinion and experience, they do it in a way that is not only cowardly but "unuseful" because they make false statements for their own self-gratification knowing that they are protected from real repercussions.
And hypocritically, some (not you, Dave) decry the newsgroup demeanor while cavalierly smearing whole segments of society that have invested their lives to address real problem that they now dabble with and babble about. (My opinion, but firmly held.) Under erstwhile circumstances, these folks would have been inconsequential. Unfortunately the internet gives these folks an audience that they didn't have previously.
Trying to change the _behavior_ of such folks is usually a fool's errand in my experience. The best that can be hoped for in most cases is to shoot the bad _idea_ down cleanly.
I Hope This Helps ... Marc Marc_F_Hult
There's a difference between personal attacks (of which Mr. Houston is also guilty) and correcting misrepresentations. Marc may not partiuclarly care for Dave but he is careful to be accurate in his posts.
True. I feel that Marc's input has been civil (though certainly not warm). Dave's comments about me and several others have included outright lies. His comments about products and technology often include deliberate misrepresentations. Marc has for the most part ignored Dave's attacks but he is right to correct errors and misleading statements.
I really don't want to get into a flame war so I think I'll drop this thread now.
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