In my experience, the 99 cent or $1 ones in single-packs account for a lot of CFL problems, while being unreturnable - also in my experience, disproportionately lacking UL "listing" for "self ballasted lamp", the "FCC ID" usually required of line-voltage-powered self-ballasted lamp having electronic ballast, or even usually the FTC-required statement of light output in lumens (and in my experience falling short significantly in the few cases they do). Along with in my experience above-average rates of DOA, early failure, spectacular early failure, and notable malfunctions.
These problems in my experience are from CFLs of "dollar store brands", not so much a problem of ones with "Energy Star" logo or of "Big 3 brands" (GE, Sylvania, Philips).
But typical home lighting is at a couple hundred to a few hundred lux ballpark, give-or-take, while direct sunlight is upper 10,000's to around
100,000 lux. The typical home CFL lighting has intensity a couple orders of magnitude less than that of direct sunlight, along with a less harmful spectrum in this area.
Please keep in mind the known and suspected photoreceptors!
Probably removing dust from elsewhere!
In my heavy Usenet experience with a CRT monitor, this is news to me! Can you post a cite?
The UVC that is the main UV emission by low pressure mercury vapor arc
- is reliably mostly absorbed by the coating - that is necessary for the phosphor to produce visible light with good efficiency.
UVC is also very highly blocked by the glass tubing unless the glass tubing is made of an expensive specialty glass to pass it.
UVB is also mostly blocked by glass not specifically designed to pass it at extra cost, and low pressure mercury vapor only weakly produces UVB and UVA.
That little bit of UVA gets through glass well - but it is "blacklight-range" rather than "tanning range" UVA. It is mainly 365-366 nm wavelength.
CFLs with color rendering index around 82 and color temperature at least
3500 K even have a phosphor component absorbing and making use of some of this UVA.
LEDs are just now barely hitting mainstream for home lighting, maybe comparable to CFLs as of 1989 or so. Subsidizing a couple or 3 dollars can easily take away a majority of the retal cost of a CFL. (Heck, I see promo packs of CFLs worth having at big-name home centers at less than $2 per CFL even without utility subsidy!)
Bought one or two *what*? LED "bulb"? CFL? Dollar-store stool specimen CFL?
I saw those at Home Depot, with energy efficiency about 2/3 of CFL and cost 7-10 times that of CFL, though with life expectancy 5-7 times that of CFL.
The bulbs with mercury in them on average still actually reduce mercury pollution in comparison to incandescents. So far, they still have significantly better energy efficiency and much better cost-effectiveness in all areas than the latest warm-color LED ones that I saw at Home Depot, though I am impressed by how far LEDs have advanced so far.
Except these bulbs have an impressively high rate of keeping their mercury within themselves.
How do you think that CFLs emit mercury within homes? I would think that the over-99.6% that leave their homes unshattered do not do so at all, and the small fraction of a percent otherwise emit little as far as mercury goes.
Or the sounder ones that I have cited in my postings within the past few years?
Google does archive those, anhd my authorshyip is snipped-for-privacy@manx.misty.com.
Based on CFL-vs-incandescent power requirement, and based on USA nationwide average mercury emissions per KWH from the USA-nationwide fraction of power generation being achieved by burning coal.
Looks like I gotta cite along lines of what I have cited before:
Not that this one is one I cited before, but I think it tells the story somewhattruthfully:
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How about slowing the construction schedule for new coal plants?
No, if and when we accept a significant cost increase for electricity for the scrubbing you advocate (which increases attractiveness of CFLs), we still have the 4-foot fluorescents in most of USA's lighting since
1960's!
I did say nationwide, as-a-whole, or along such lines. And the hydropower-supplied regions of northeastern USA and nearby parts of Canada are shortly downwind of a lot of coal-fired power plants!
Except that so far, CFLs on a whole get to reduce it.
Snipped from here is that changing from incandescent to CFL reduces mercury pollution even if the recyclingrate is zero.
However, even if the recycling rate of expired CFLs is zero, switching from incandescents to CFLs will reduce mercury pollution of our trout.
By adding less than subtracting!
How about those who eat trout?
I don't stock up on CFLs for usual home use to have on hand beyond a $10 6-pack. (I have many other CFLs that I purchased for testing purposes to extent beyond that of typical Americans, and the ones I like I will make use of until LED lighting with nice warm color and CRI at least 82 gets more cost-effective than CFLs were in 1990. I hear that incandescents are what my fellow Americans are stocking up on.)
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