Compact Fluorescent Lamps Burn Out Faster Than Expected, Limiting Energy Savings in California's Efficiency Program

[HeyBub]

Sure, we have recycling centers.

It's hardly economical to burn up $3.00 worth of gas to carry a defunct light bulb to the collection point.

Just thinking out-loud here:

Assume the following:

• 120 million households in the US

• Each disposes of 5 CFLs per year

• Each CFL contains 5mg of mercury

That works out (120,000,000 x 5 x 0.005) = 3 million grams of mercury

If this 3 million grams of mercury were distributed uniformly over the country, that works out to about 3/4 of a gram per square mile, not even worth considering.

If, however, these 3 million grams of mercury were concentrated - in landfills for example - one could simply avoid those areas.

We COULD establish a used CFL repository - call it "CfL Object Containment Area," or "CLOCA Mountain" for short.

Or we could redirect all defunct CFLs to a recycling center.

The current price of mercury is $600/36Kg ($0.02/g), or about $0.00001 per CFL. If some entity recovered ALL the mercury in the above hypothetical, its revenue would be... fifty thousand dollars per year (120,000,000 households x 5bulb/house x .005g/bulb x 1Kg/1000g x $600/36kg = $50.000)

A significant sum indeed.

[BobR]

I haven't been writing the dates on them but since I have only been in this house for 5 years and I replaced almost all the bulbs right after I moved in, I know how many I have had to replace one or more times since and it doesn't same much for the life expectancy of CFL's. The ONLY ones I haven't replaced yet are in lights that don't get used but once or twice a year. The light that are used all the time, and all the time means daily but not left on all day, are having to be replaced at least once a year. On the other hand, I have several old flood lights that are on dimmer circuits that were there when we bought the house that are used daily.

[Don Klipstein]

One thing to keep in mind:

On average, replacing incandescents with CFLs actually reduces mercury pollution. This is because CFL-decreasable coal burning puts more mercury into the environment than the CFLs used to replace such incandescents in question have.

[Don Klipstein]

I am sick-and-tired of how much some people say whatever this-or-that which is not widely considered to have existed in the Garden of Eden being some poison that requires zero tolerance.

As much interest as there is in mercury toxicity, if mercury was so bad, would there not be some big number count of diagnoses of mercury poisoning after the days when 4-foot fluorescents had 10-11 times as much mercury as CFLs on average have, after the days when such 4-footers were allowed to be dumped into regular trash by commercial and industrial users?

Even in the 1980's, 4-foot fluorescents had 40 milligrams of mercury IIRC, and schools, offices, hospitals and retail stores were allowed to dump those into "regular trash". 4-foot fluorescents were the main light source used in such places at least since sometime in the 1960's, more likely 1950's.

So even now with lawyers looking for opportunity like that of asbestos, how many diagnoses of mercury poisoning do we have nowadays?

And how much mercury pollution is attributed to fluorescent lamps, and how much is attributed to coal burning? The way I hear it, coal burning is the mercury problem, and even was back in the bad old days of

1960's-1980's when fluorescent lamps had a lot more mercury than they have now, let alone the even smaller amount of mercury that CFLs have.

[Don Klipstein]

My experience is that they tend to "fall short of claimed life expectancy" in actual home usage, but in my experience they still greatly outlast incandescents and more importantly use about 25-33% as much electric energy to produce as much light as incandescents do.

That is an overblown cleanup scenario, slightly milder version of the same story as the need for "moon suits".

That appears to me on the alarmist side, but still advises only 5-10 minutes of "airing out" the room in question.

And why leave HVAC shut off for a few hours afterwards? If there was really a problem, would it not be better to blow it out?

For that matter, I remember recently LEDsMagazine.com describing EPA in what I can describe for now "unkind words", as to how they were working with (or otherwise) DOE for an "Energy Star" matter.

I also suspect for unrelated reason that USA's EPA is a bit obstructionist. What is the most industrial city in North America, north of the Rio Grande? I seem to think Mississauga, though someone close to me suggested to me the nearby Hamilton. Those two cities are not only north of the Rio Grande, but also north of Lake Erie and on the Canada side of Lake Ontario. I thought Canada is "more green" than USA - why having so much industry in comparison to USA with 1/10 of USA's population?

[Don Klipstein]

>

Converting AC to DC costs more like 50 cents than $100.

For that matter, in the usual screw-base CFLs, the with-the-bulb electronic ballast starts with changing the AC to DC for the electronics to work with. The electronic workings even changes the DC back to AC of a higher frequency - generally, fluorescents have one end getting starved of mercury if forced to work for long on DC. There is even a bit of history of some fluorescent fixtures made to use where available power of suitable voltage was DC ande not AC - the ballasting was different and the switch had a 4-pushes-per-full-switch-cycle design to reverse polarity of DC applied to the fluorescent bulb every time it was switched on.

[Ashton Crusher]

carpe diem manana.

[HeyBub]

Several years ago I recall some groups getting all exercised about the alarming levels of mercury in Chesapeake Bay fish. "We're all gonna die!" was the concerted uproar.

Then somebody wrangled a fish from the Smithsonian that was caught in Chesapeake Bay in the 1860's.

Guess what?

Yep. The museum fish had higher mercury levels than the most recent fish.

[clare]

That is only true if the CFL has a reasonable fifespan. Even a dirty coal generating station puts out less mercury than is used in a CFL bulb if it only lasts for 100 hours.

[Don Klipstein]

So far, I am not seeing noticeably faded LEDs on buses or in traffic lights. However, white ones have a phosphor fading issue. Also, LED lighting units usually get more watts per square inch of exposed surface than LED automotive taillights and LED traffic lights.

[Don Klipstein]

For cats, just get a few of those low power green or blue LED nightlights. Dark-adapted people can see their way around with those, and cats have much better night vision than people have.

[Don Klipstein]

My experience is on average around 4,000 hours. This includes ones that get some extra heating by being in an enclosed fixture. (I only use 13 watt ones there to keep the extra heating down.)

[HeyBub]

Right. Cats have night-vision six times more sensitive than humans (or dogs). Cats have a membrane at the back of the eye (the Tapetum) that reflects light back for the eye to get a second go at detecting it. Other animals have this too, most notably deer. This membrane is why a cat's face illuminated by a flashlight in the dark looks like two headlights (or why the same thing occurs with a spotlighted deer).

Cats also see in color (dogs in black and white).

[clare]

You are getting almost 4 times my (average)cfl lifespan. And I'm using the bulbs made for the specific use (in this case PAR type reflector floods in pot-lights)

[Pete C.]

I'm not sure why some people seem to have such poor luck with CFLs, I've been using them at multiple locations for a decade and I've not had any premature failures at all.

[Nate Nagel]

same here. I have actually found one place where they are the ONLY thing that will last - a sandblast cabinet. Even "rough service" bulbs would generally only last one job. CFL works great.

I was just in Lowe's today and saw that they now sell Lutron dimmers specifically marketed for CFLs. Maybe someday when curiosity gets the better of me I will buy one and see if it will overcome my objections to the "dimmable" (note quotes) CFLs that I've tried.

Only other quibbles I have with CFLs are the long startup time for the "globe" type used for bathroom fixtures with exposed "bulbs" (but I still use 'em) and the unavailability of 3-way CFLs in greater than 150W equivalent (this one is annoying as 250W or higher incandescent 3-ways are still available, and honestly, aren't 3-ways nearly always used in table lamps that are sometimes used for reading light?) For 90% of my bulb replacement needs though I find them quite adequate.

nate

[krw]

You can tell (they can see better), when the cat stops in front of you and is surprised that it gets run over. Of course, the fact that the cat in question is all black, doesn't help.

[woger151]

Heh. I have 6 CFL BR-40's here in my home office. I did some research and thought the FEITs sounded good. Those bastards all burned out.

[Don Klipstein]

Pot lights are heat hellholes. CFLs easily overheat in those. Try a different brand, a brand overtly rated in writing for such use, one with a specific and high maximum ambient temperature rating, or a lower wattage.

One thing commercial buildings often have for recessed ceiling fixtures with CFLs: Fixtures with separate ballasts, and the fixtures take ballastless pin-base CFLs, often 13W twintube or 26W doubletwintube.

NOTE - 13W twintube and 26W doubletwintube usually come in 2-pin form with built-in glow switch starters. These CFLs suffer more wear from starting than others.

[clare]

I'm currently running the third "brand" of PAR type cfl - and all PAR type bulbs are supposed to be made for this same type of service. It says on the bulb "not for use with dimmers or in totally enclosed recessed fixtures"

These are not totally enclosed - and if the slowness in lighting is due to "warm-up" these things should light FASTER, not slower.