Important Information about energy saver lightbulbs

[doobie]

Politician from TX says why Edison's light-bulb shouldn't be abandoned for CFL's

[maulotaur]

Thanks for posting this informative link.  I have some of these bulbs and have been looking into switching to LED bulbs instead.  Too bad they are unnecessarily expensive and hard to get.  But if we could get those then they might not be able to sell millions of the mercury-filled CFL's they want to force us to buy ...

-Paul

[K. Darien Freeheart]

I didn't watch the video just yet, but is it highlighting the fact that CFL's have high levels of Mercury in them, and that tossing them into the trash (of government run trash collection services) does more damage to the environment than buring the coal and oil need to power the same level of lighting from an incandescent bulb (banned in Ireland!)?

I chuckle to myself as I see the greenies around her replacing them with CFL's as if CFL was made of gold itself.

LED's are awesome. I've got traditional flourescents in my kitchen (burning strong year #3), use CFL's on the vanity and use LED's for everything else. $14 a bulb sounds scary except that I've probably spent $30 replacing the outside incandescents every few months.

LED's would be even more efficient if people used DC instead, but that's a discussion for another day.

[ByronB]

I can see the usefulness in fluorescent bulbs, they use about a third the power for the same lumen output but to mandate that all Incandescents be phased out is just ridiculous, even if you forget about disposal and breakage difficulties what about decorative fixtures, am I going to have to replace the non-frosted decorative fixtures in my bathroom with ugly, hard to clean CFL's.

I don't really have a problem with florescent lamps (or their miniaturized counterparts, CFL's) but it is all about application, if you want to light a office building it would be ridiculous to try incandescents, if you have a room with a higher ceiling, have bigger outdoor lighting requirements, or need a high CRI (closer to sunlight) rating you could use metal halide lamps, if you don't mind poor light quality and have money for initial setup costs use LED's, what I am trying to say is I guess is that they are too stupid to be able to write any law that would fair, therefore they should leave well enough alone... that is it if they try forcing me to get rid of my incandescent bulbs I am going to install a carbon-arc street light and maybe one of those old-school carbon arc spotlights (just have to upgrade to 400 amp service to have a chance at running them both at the same time).

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

Recently went to the local homecheapo and they were really pushing these hazardous waste bombs... Right beside these big displays was a sale on... you guessed it, good ole fashioned edison lightbulbs! 25 for $5! I put 6 boxes in my cart. Some greenie woman admonished me for not buying the $14 CFLs. She didn't realize what she'd gotten herself into. After about a 10 minute lecture to her on how the gubermint was doing WAY more harm than good by OUTLAWING (no one there knew about that) regular lightbulbs and FORCING us to buy dangerous, hazardous, have-to-call-a-hazmat-team-if-u-drop&break-one, have-to-ripout&toss-ur-carpet-if-it-breaks-on-there, cant-dispose-them-in-the-trash, CFLs... (and someone getting a large step ladder so I could climb down off of my soapbox)... NOT ONE of them bought the CFLs! They ALL picked up a few boxes of the good ole fashion lightbulbs that we KNOW are safe. I won't have those things in my house. They cost, but you can get 120VAC LED bulbs if you look around. Cheaper than CFLs too!

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

The 120V LED lightbulbs can easily be found with google... They run $20-45 depending on application (small accent light up to large floodlight). Most claim that you can run them 10 hours/day for less than $1/year and that they last for 10 years. Very hard to break one of these and they don't get hot either. If you did drop & break one, it would probably only be the glass lens that would break, not the LEDs inside, so easy cleanup... not like the CFLs!

I need to go order some for my own place...

[kola]

more mercury.

bad.

sad.

kola

[David]

At the Earth Day gathering in Keene a month or so ago, there were several vendors who were selling the leds.  Most would fit in any aplication that you put normal bulbs in.  One guy had a led that would fit in a tube flourecent, about a foot and a half long.  I asked them about the mercury, and forget what some of them told me, but they did not believe it would be a harmful amount.  They are prolly right in small amounts.  But methinks they are forgetting that millions of these cfls are being sold and that makes the mercury less than small amounts.     I like them, particularly in the summer because they run cool, but i don't honestly trust them too much.  I have yet to buy an led, too expensive, other than flashlights. 

[KBCraig]

C. Crane Co. is probably not the cheapest source, but they're a reputable company with good products.

http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/index.aspx

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

Good link for C. Crane... Their pricing is right about the same as other places. Sure, $35 for a light bulb seems high, but they last for 10 years. The boss points out that I have enough of the edisons to last at least that long already stocked up!  Guess it'll be awhile before I need more light bulbs... 

[doobie]

We need more people knocking over a couple of CFL's at HD, wally world, Lowes....and screaming 'HAZARDOUS WASTE SPILL!' and calling in a hazmat team.

[margomaps]

We need more people knocking over a couple of CFL's at HD, wally world, Lowes....and screaming 'HAZARDOUS WASTE SPILL!' and calling in a hazmat team.

Good call.   

But IMO, all this fear-mongering about CFL's is just that -- fear mongering.  Yes, they contain a small amount of mercury.  Yes, if you break one, some or all of that mercury could escape.  Yes, if you ingest, breathe the vapors of, or wallow in the mercury itself, that represents a health risk.  Come on though...if you break one of these suckers at home, who's going to call a hazmat team?  I'm not.  And I'm not terribly afraid of the risks either.

I think the bigger problem is that if/when CFL's are widely used, it may become difficult to safely dispose of them.  I'm pretty darn sure my town's dump/recycling center has no way of dealing with CFL's.  And there are probably many people in the same situation, or who are ignorant of the mercury content, or who know but just don't care and toss 'em in the trash anyway.  Do I think all these CFL's in landfills are the end of the world?  Hardly, but it's probably better not to dump them into the earth -- and that's what I think is going to happen to a large degree.

I kind of like CFL's -- some of them anyway.  The earlier ones sucked bigtime.  The more recent Philips bulbs that I use in my kitchen (R60?) are nice though.  Bright, quiet, 16w more than replaces 65w incandescent (the lumen output appears to be substantially higher than the tungstens).  My kitchen lights are on quite a lot, and there are around 10 of these bulbs.  So the reduced wattage is pretty significant to me.  As a bonus, in the recessed/projector style bulbs, the spiral element that contains the mercury is enclosed inside a larger glass bulb.  Seems pretty safe to me.

As to congress mandating CFL's.  You've got to be kidding me.  Maybe a year or two ago I read about how the Australian feds -- or maybe it was the UK feds, or both -- had mandated CFL usage.  I said to myself, "Wow, at least our totalitarians wouldn't do something like that."  Guess I was wrong.   

[BaRbArIaN]

Don't worry, at some point they will start charging you to dispose of them enough money to make up for the difference with LED's.  :-)

[kola]

 a "little of this" and a "little of that" makes a lotta of everything.

how many of "a little of this" makes it toxic?

its all insane.

kola

[K. Darien Freeheart]

But IMO, all this fear-mongering about CFL's is just that -- fear mongering.  Yes, they contain a small amount of mercury.  Yes, if you break one, some or all of that mercury could escape.  Yes, if you ingest, breathe the vapors of, or wallow in the mercury itself, that represents a health risk.

I still haven't watched that video up yonder, but I haven't yet heard a commotion being made over CFL's from an individual safety standpoint. Every concern I've heard about them is aimed at the "toss it in the trash like a regular bulb" crowd. As long as the government is managing the waste disposal, I don't trust them with millions of mercury bulbs!