CFLs
Computers and Technology
| March 28, 2008
| Tim
From a comment on Lileks' (other) blog:
My husband, unbeknownst to me, picked up some flourescent bulbs and installed them around the house.
First impression: What the heck is wrong with the light bulbs?
The light was ghastly, when it finally got going. It was creepy light.
They didn't come on right away - not even dimly. Not very handy for the basement stairs or exterior porch light. Downright dangerous.
They make this awful high-pitched noise. Constantly. I suppose its something men aren't so sensitive to, being in the highest registers of human hearing. But I hear it...and its really unpleasant. Sometimes it's unbearable.
No Warmth! I mean, heat. The incandescent fixtures helped take chill of the basement, and corners of the living room and bedroom, and our pokey little bathrooms (mid century house) with no fancy heaty lamps of their own.
Then, coup de grace - they didn't last any longer than the incandescents.
They died earlier! At least, the ones I switched on for short periods, like in the closets ( the most inconvenient to change) the basement laundry area, and hallways. I was changing bulbs more frequently after giving in to using them even though I disliked them, and noticing the promised benefit of longevity was not panning out.
Then, I read that you are supposed to leave them on for at least 15 minutes at a time to get anywhere near the promised lifetime or efficiency of the CFLs.
Well, then.
And it turns out they are not safe for regular disposal, and toxic mercury vapor is released if they are broken.
AND the upside down use (in so many of my fixtures) is not safe. It requires a special bulb, or there is fire risk at worst, and dramatically shortened bulb life at least.
These bulbs don't live up to the hype of being green or clean, or efficient or long-lasting, and they are annoying as all get out.
Once I would have said all the bad things you could want about fluorescent replacements for "regular" light bulbs. We tried one many years ago, and it did come on slowly (almost useless for the garage where it was -- I was in and out before it was fully on), and the light looked funny. What's more, last year's to Europe, where they are more common, did nothing to change that impression.
Recently, however, I replaced a ceiling fixture with one of the new fluorescent bulbs. (I didn't see any warning about not using it upside down; guess I'd better check that out.) Much to my surprise, it came on immediately, and the light actually looks better than the incandescent light in the next room. My only complaint is that the promised 60W equivalence doesn't look as bright as 60W should be.
That and the disposal problem, of course. Around here, fluorescent bulbs cannot go in with household trash, but must be taken to a hazardous waste facility. I foresee a huge compliance problem here, with resultant further degradation of our groundwater.
I still think banning incandescent bulbs is a dangerous and stupid idea. But the new fluorescents don't seem to be nearly as bad as I had thought.
Any take on using some of the bright white LED lights being offered for home lighting?
I know that heat seriously degrades the life of such bulbs, but is there any other issue?
link
Hey Ryan — There is a good deal of research going into using high powered LEDs for light bulbs. Cree Research has been generously porked up by the state of North Carolina to help productize LEDs for home lighting. They're starting to show up in some smaller fixtures already, but the cost is prohibitive still, unless you 'want to make a political statement', as a friend put it (when speaking about hybrids).
I also had 2 fluorescent bulbs that went out much sooner than any of my incandescent bulbs (none of which I have ever had to replace). Needless to say, I was surprised and disappointed since I expected them to last for a long, long time. Incandescent light is so much more flattering than fluorescent light, something which was very evident when I replaced my white fluorescent light bulb with a power saving incandescent light bulb.
I bought the fluorescents not for any altruistic reason such as saving the earth but because I wanted to save money on my electricity bill. But I've gone back to incandescent bulbs since the other ones don't seem to last.
Thanks so much for the link, Michael (It tries to attach itself to Tim's url for some reason, but I saw it was pointing to www.cree.com, for anyone else who wants to follow it)
I'd be happy to be an early adopter and give my encouragement to a valuable industry. I don't know if that's the same as 'making a political statement.' Maybe an economic statement? And yes, I do use the same excuse for buying expensive new computer equipment. ;-)
I bought the fluorescents not for any altruistic reason such as saving the earth but because I wanted to save money on my electricity bill. But I've gone back to incandescent bulbs since the other ones don't seem to last.
Excellent point here: Pollution is just a form of waste, which costs more economically. After the initial leap forward to a new technology (say, the industrial revolution) without any further governmental intervention, people, businesses, and whole societies usually automatically get "greener" over time because the economics always draw us to waste less money = waste less material and energy.
I use rechargeable batteries, like "rara", not because I deeply care about the environment (though if you asked me, like everyone else I'd prefer less pollution) but because I hate buying regular batteries -- the cost, and the trips to the store, etc. (They estimate on rechargeable replaces several hundred disposable batteries.)
Rara's switch back was just as valuable: her experience showed her that the bulbs DIDN'T really save over incandescent (hope you don't mind my using you as an example this way, "rara"): She noticed that the cost and smaller lifespan didn't result in the desired money savings.
But in "green" terms, what this mean was that the added cost of material and burned fuel to make the CFLs (which she perceived as cost of the product) and disposal (represented by the cost of the landfill trip and fees) wasn't paid for. I suspect her experience reflects a larger truth that we haven't yet verified: that CFLs actually will work out to be more costly to the environment, at least in the present, than incandescent bulbs.
(Sort of the way a Hummer turns out to use a lot less energy, over it's lifespan, than a hybrid.)
Aesthetics is another matter, of course. :-)
The link didn't work because it didn't begin with an "http:", so your browser thinks it's a relative URI.
... Continuing: The problem, then, is that misguided government incentives can distort the true costs of various things -- and thus lead people to do thing which harm the environment more than other options.
One way governments can hide costs is by suppressing free speech and labor (as China does):
I was contacted by someone from a European lighting manufacturer with some scary information (I don't want to be too specific about his job function lest he lose his job for speaking out).
He has visited Chinese factories where CFLs are made, and tells me that mercury spillage is common during the manufacturing process, and that the workers have zero protective clothing, masks or anything else to safeguard their health. This means (as many could easily have predicted) that while our environment may benefit by using CFLs, the Chinese environment and factory workers most certainly do not.
In years to come, there will be massive clean-up bills to decontaminate factories and surrounding areas where CFLs were made, and with spillages happening regularly the long term health of the workers is certainly at risk. This is not confined to just one factory either - the same thing has been seen in several facilities visited by my corespondent.
A few years ago, a certain President decided to do lots of trade with China, despite their absence of free speech and labor rights. If those workers knew they were being poisoned, they would demand higher salaries to compensate -- thus reflecting the environmental damage caused by the bulbs. But if they are compelled to labor (they're prisoners, as China uses) or if investigative journalism is suppressed (probably also true) they can be kept in the dark about the true costs and work for less than they would otherwise demand.
Likewise, China has no basic environmental laws, (and state-run plants are notoriously careless about pollution, because they don't care about property values) so more costs are being hidden in that fashion.
And there's yet another hidden environmental cost: something called "power factor":
This simply means that current is only drawn at the peak of the waveform... each CFL in use requires almost double its rated power, because of the poor power factor. Therefore, rather than talking about a 15W CFL, we should be thinking in terms of a 30VA CFL. Just because we don't have to pay for the power doesn't mean that coal, uranium or some other fossil or non-renewable fuel isn't being used up to cover the total RMS voltage and current distribution losses caused by each and every load.
In other words, given that we use an alternating current, the CFLs mess up the waveform, requiring more power generation. Even though your meter won't directly measure the increased cost, it means that the power company may have to use more equipment and fuel to compensate, resulting in higher energy costs per Watt.
Elliott suggests that because fluorescent lighting is so often left on continuously (partly because of the belief that it will last longer if not switched on-and-off), in conjunction with the power factor issue, mass adoption of CFLs may actually increase the electricity used. [ref]
Oh, and then there's this little detail: Apparently, it's extremely dangerous to use CFLs in circuits with dimmers, touch lamps, or some kinds of home automation systems. (I use a lot of X-10, for example.) They'll work, and even look fine, but they could use at much as five times as much energy, have a very short life, and an increased risk of ... fire.
And if the dimmer or home automation system is built in, and incandescent bulbs are banned, the safest option will be to completely replace the affected circuits or switches.
Oh joy.
Perhaps there is some error here I'm not seeing, but the more I look into this, the more it appears that CFLs may be worse for the environment, per bulb, than incandescent. So the government ban on incandescent bulbs may indeed help enrich GE and Sylvania, but it may do so at considerable cost to the environment and also to your average consumer.
Hey, but it feels good -- right?
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Once I would have said all the bad things you could want about fluorescent replacements for "regular" light bulbs. We tried one many years ago, and it did come on slowly (almost useless for the garage where it was -- I was in and out before it was fully on), and the light looked funny. What's more, last year's to Europe, where they are more common, did nothing to change that impression.
Recently, however, I replaced a ceiling fixture with one of the new fluorescent bulbs. (I didn't see any warning about not using it upside down; guess I'd better check that out.) Much to my surprise, it came on immediately, and the light actually looks better than the incandescent light in the next room. My only complaint is that the promised 60W equivalence doesn't look as bright as 60W should be.
That and the disposal problem, of course. Around here, fluorescent bulbs cannot go in with household trash, but must be taken to a hazardous waste facility. I foresee a huge compliance problem here, with resultant further degradation of our groundwater.
I still think banning incandescent bulbs is a dangerous and stupid idea. But the new fluorescents don't seem to be nearly as bad as I had thought.
Posted by: SursumCorda on March 28, 2008 06:37 AM