Nothing important is lost, least of all hope, because I don't think that the extra CO2 is actually going to be such a big deal in the end. As I said before, it always used to be in the atmosphere, and the world didn't end then. So what if some of the low lying land floods - it's not like the whole world is going to be under water. People will adapt and animals will migrate - as they have always done as the world's climate changes.
So you hope for our oil based economies to go into recession and for you to be unemployed do you?
That's the trouble with these simplistic "tax it and the problem goes away" solutions - they always have some easily predictable downside that the campaigners can't see.
That would assume that they were on 24 x 365 which they are not.
At a reasonable guess, I reckon that I might use 200W for 8 hours a day on average, if that. In the summer months lighting hours are very short.
It would be, but I don't think that it's anything like that. I reckon that the lighting content of the bill is more like £30 a year with incandescents and the saving about £20.
Not worth it in terms of energy saving or the cost of implementation.
It would be if there were that much of a difference in overall energy saving and if the issue was just a slight difference in colour. Personally I find that CFLs make me start to feel physically sick after a while.
That's a separate issue and should be dealt with appropriately, not by window dressing around the edges.
I have and find them equally horrible.
When the technology has moved to the point that the colour spectrum and light quality and all other characteristics of incandescents can be accurately created, they may become interesting.
Our parents and grandparents left far more filth, and it hasn't been such a big deal to handle it.
If they fit standard sockets, and produce a light that people are comfortable with, then there is no reason not to use them (unless they are a ludicrous price)
Ok, must have been late. The main one is believing the power conversions printed on the box. A real ratio of 3.5 - 4 is more accurate. This is the most common reason for people thinking the light they give out is not as nice.
The 2nd one is to avoid the few bulbs that come in high colour temperatures like 4000K and up. They really arent well suited to domestic use. Kitchen under-cabinet strip lights are a regular offender here. 2700K matches incandescents, so is best for mixed lighting. Most CFLs are 2700K, but not all.
Finally I'd want to pick light fittings that will take either kind of bulb: then no matter what your decisions, or those of anyone else, you can have what you choose. There are a lot of fittings that will take one type or the other, but not either.
I have some of these, chosen because I needed cool lighting for a display stand. They are barely adequate for their purpose. These are 11W units, claimed ot be equivalent to 25W incandescent (whoah lookit that!, manufacturers normallyu claim 11W fluorescent to be equivalent to 100W incandescent, someone is telling lies).
Anyway they provide about as much illumination as a hurricane lamp.
If the effects of climate change are disasterous, then energy conservation will help ensure it happens more slowly, making it easier to adapt to and mitigate it's effects.
If a few billion spend on energy conservation turns out to be unnecessary, so what? It's like having car and house insurance, we hope we won't need it but it's there if we do.
The problem with climate change is that it often affects the people who can least afford to deal with it. If your house burns down or your car ends up in a ditch it doesn't affect the rest of the world that much.
BTW I find it strange that people object to CFL bulbs, because the latest TFT monitors are not backlit with filament bulbs, and even TV's and CRT's rely on phosphor, and yet people spend all day looking at them.
"N. Thornton" wrote | BTW I'm sure as more light fittings occur, lampshades to fit them | will also occur. Market forces.
If you look in the specialist lighting manufacturer's catalogues (ask an independent lighting shop rather than a DIY or department store) about a third to a half of fittings can be obtained in LE versions or are CFL compatible anyway. Many refurbishments or developments of hotels, pubs etc will be LE or halogen only.
The only non-CFL lamps in my house are the one in the bathroom and the one in the hall cupboard. The bath will go CFL when the existing bulb fails, because I have half-a-dozen CFLs sent to me free by the electricity co.
Because the costs are probably more than a few billion - the knock on effect of increased costs due to conservation (the reason why Kyoto was kicked into touch by the USA) on the economy is far greater.
Anyway, whats the good of wasting money when something useful could be done with it.
Ironically, it's the concerns about climate change that will ensure those people stay poor - they will be pressured into using far less energy than the west does.
Maybe because not many people use TFT monitors to light their rooms.
It still gives much more time to make adjustments for it.
I wouldn't hold up the US govt and a lot of their citizens as a shining beacon of forward thinking :))) I'd expect the current oil price is going to have more of a negative effect on the economy than any spending on energy conservation.
Besides, energy conservation will save some money too so the net spending is less in the long run.
Why not waste it on a stupid war in the Middle East instead? Why not buy a 4WD instead of a smaller car for going shopping and taking the kids to school etc?
Energy conservation will make energy cheaper for them, not much irony there. They use by far the least energy anyway, so there's no point pressuring them to use less, much better to focus on making the main users more efficient.
Also their needs go beyond the cost of fuel, it's no good having cheap fuel if a changing climate means you cannot grow food to eat.
thats an unusually small lighting load. Nearer 1kW is more typical for a 3 bed. Say 600w from 6pm to 11pm: 3kWh/day, 1MWh/year, £60 pa. CFLs can roughly quarter that.
A CFL typically saves its purchse cost in a few months, making the cost of implementation in reality a quick saving.
As far as worth it on energy goes, it obviously is.
If you personally dislike them that much, you are in a small minority, and I have no quarrel with you using filaments. For the rest of us CFLs make good sense all round.
That seems on the high side unless you turn all of the lights on and leave them on.
That also seems high from my count of lamps used.
There are far larger uses of energy to worry about before dealing with lightbulbs.
Where do you find the figures to justify that point? Do CFL unit sales outstrip incandescent bulb sales?
If this were a truly voluntary choice issue, there would not be Building Regulations requirements to fit fluorescent lamps in special fittings to prevent standard bulbs from being used. Therefore people are not buying them as a matter of choice but in part through being forced to do so.
I don't have an issue with use of fluorescents in appropriate applications. For example, I use high frequency ones as part of my workshop lighting and with quite high intensity. However, I think that they are completely inappropriate for inside the house, especially where I want to have a relaxed atomosphere. They are simply too harsh for that.
"Our lamps take normal bulbs" well that's what my mum says, it would not cross her mind to buy one. If CF bulbs were supplied with new fittings then she would (of course) replace the CFLs when the time came with new CFLs.
I believe they are often slightly yellow, especially when middle aged; anyway a shade has a greater impact over the light output. LV halogen are harsh but can be used appropriately. CFLs just need to be used correctly, the right power & the right placement.
I've tried different kinds and different placements and have even done blind tests where I didn't know what had been installed. I can tell immediately on walking into a room what is in use.
Perhaps there are effects other than colour temperature that are not well understood.
I've already said that I don't like them and have said why. However, it is an equally valid point that domestic lighting is way down the list in terms of energy consumption and potential saving, and putting legislation around it is all about form without substance.
As I said, unfortunately this is all about positioning. The government has legislated around something that is not near the top in terms of potential energy saving, simply in order to be able to tick boxes in reports next time there's a Kyoto Summit or equivalent.
I think that this is a real shame, because I do support the notion of appropriate and effective energy saving. What I do not support is this type of thing which is a distraction from the more significant issues.
The public is only stupid up to a point and can recognise when they are being railroaded. Unfortunately this one is a prime example of it.
Not in my experience or to my taste, so I think we'll have to agree to differ.
Have to agree there - total installed lighting load with no CFLs, including table lamps but excluding external lighting, of two houses in my recent experience:
3-bed semi: 1080W
4-bed semi: 1060W
In reality the 3-bed had 4 CFLs in place of some of the lamps and the
4-bed has three CFLs. I do not recall ever having all the lamps on at the same time at either house, and would guess that a "normal" load during the hours of darkness would be at most half that.
And the fact that it is usually impossible to replace *every* normal lamp with a CFL - they won't work on dimmers obviously, and I've yet to see the CFL which will fit in place of a 12V halogen :-) These halogen lamps are big energy guzzlers when you think about it. At my parents' house where there used to be a 100W incandescent in the middle of the ceiling, bouncing off the ceiling and creating a good, even light in most of the room there is now a 4-plate of 50W halogens: 200W of lighting load that, because they are directional, makes the room seem darker!
Here I have to disagree: that is not at all the point. The fact is that every household in the country can make an instant power saving just by swapping out a few lightbulbs. Individually it isn't much, but corporately it adds up to "one coal-fired power station" (or whatever the current favourite calculation is). It isn't even as if it is an expensive thing to do either; some electricity boards give the things away, others have special offers, and Ikea sell some of the cheapest CFLs I've ever seen, though I can't vouch for their quality either of construction or of output.
Yes there are many other, larger, savings which can be made, but just because we haven't yet persuaded everyone to buy a Toyota Prius (or is that the Honda?) doesn't mean we shouldn't change a few lightbulbs until that happens.
You may not like the light a CFL gives out as the main lighting in your living area, but how about in the hall or on the stairs or landing? With small children we tend to leave the hall and landing lights on throughout the evening as it makes traversing the stairs that little bit safer. A CFL is bright, almost as shadowless as a filament lamp and takes a quarter the power.
One thing I think I've heard you argue in the past is to fit 300W linear halogens instead of 500W. The great thing about this is that the bulbs are the same size and so are an easy replacement. If the lamp is in need of replacement, how about downsizing to 150W? Two or even three strategically placed 150W lamps will probably give more useable light and for less power than a single 500W.
Yes. The lamps themselves are a good deal more efficient, even allowing for transformer losses. Unfortunately, they are mostly used in a totally inappropriate way where their efficiency is completely destroyed. They are a trend which will pass eventually (although it may be replaced with something worse;-).
There's a 225W (IIRC) which is same output as 300W, made by GE. It has an IR reflective coating to focus the IR generated back on to the filament, reducing the power needed to maintain the filament at the right temperature. (There's an equivalent for the 500W one too.)
However, the circumstances where any of these are suitable for use at home are extremely limited (far more limited than where you do actually find them in use).
OK, but you can scale up any gimmicky thing on that argument.
For example, it is commonplace in the U.S. in restaurants for a glass of iced water to arrive pretty much automatically whether you ask for it or not. One of the chains of choke and puke diners (Denny's I think it was) made a big PR thing out of asking customers if they wanted water and then claimed savings of X thousand gallons a day. So they get kudos and the punters a warm fuzzy, but it's a drop in the bucket compared with what's used in sprinkler systems.
There are a whole bunch of things with home heating and cavity insulation, which taken on a national and do-able basis would make much larger differences.
That would be one of the places that I would least want fluorescent lighting. I prefer these areas to be welcoming rather than being like walking into a hospital.
That can make sense. I don't have that need, so they are switched off when not required. The children aren't small but just behave like it.
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