low energy bulbs again - how low energy?

[Roger Mills]

OK, so what *is* the situation? If these are to be banned, the 'powers that be' have *hopefully* thought about a suitable replacement which doesn't involve demolishing and re-building my house?

I don't currently know what that is - although LED-based lights do look reasonably promising.

I'm all for saving the planet, and reducing my fuel bills - honest - but virtually every measure introduced by New Labour has been far more effective at grabbing headlines than at achieving any real results. This has left me cynical enough to suspect that banning the sale of conventional light bulbs is yet another such measure.

[Huge]

Combine that with the enthusiasm displayed by the likes of Hansen, Mary and Hilary Benn (and other similar innumerates), the fact that they don't actually last as long as the manufacturers say and that some find the light and/or the start-up time unacceptable, what other reasons do we need not to use them?

BTW, we went to India for a 2 week holiday a couple of months ago, and didn't see a single filament bulb the whole time - all the lighting in hotels, restaurants, etc., was CFLs. I have no idea what that means.

[Mary Fisher]

If the powers that be didn't enforce downlighting on you then they have no responsibility to replace them.

I think so too. People dismiss them for their relatively (as yet) lopw light emittance, their colour (which I like) and for other imagined problems but I think they're the future. I might not be here to see it but I shan't be here to see many other exciting things.

I don't like NL any more than anyone else and I agree that they go for headlines but I don't think this matter is 100% theirs, it's going to come through Europe (which is not liked either) or some other agency.

There are more important things to worry about though :-(

Mary A greater cynic you couldn't find

[Man at B&Q]

The environment will suffer far more from the dumping of end of life CFLs and all they contain, than a bit of tungsten, glass and some inert gas.

MBQ

[Man at B&Q]

No buts about it.

Why? Give us the science.

Where do you think the air warmed by a heater ends up? If there's already warm air there because it's been warmed by a bulb, what happens to the heat from the heater? Think of the bulb as providing the heat that would anyway dissipate through the ceiling to save the heater from having to do it.

Same applies to TVs on standby.

MBQ

[The Natural Philosopher]

Anyway, its all bollocks. With enough nuclear power stations we can all use incandescent bulbs to heat our houses without feeling guilty about it.

There is no *energy* shortage, just a fossil fuel shortage. And s shortage of stuff upstairs in many peoples heas, and an overabundance of money in certain industrial sectors that can see the writing on the wakll and want to erase it before everyone else sees it.

[Roger]

The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

I have a 3 bulb enclosed fitting in my living room that used to eat conventional bulbs at the rate of several a month. (Horizontal bulb holders to add to the enclosed problem)*. Since switching to CFLs I have had very few failures. Last one was last year and I think the date on it was circa 2001. The 3 bulbs in at present are 2 off 11 watt dated 8/8/07 and 1/3/06 and 1 off 13 watt dated 21/9/03. I don't think that last one will last much longer as the tubes are rather blackened.

*As my ceiling height is only about 6' 8" I am a bit limited in the type of light fitting I can use and as I have small windows the light gets switched on a lot more than your average sitting room light. The fitting in question is a bit of a family heirloom having originally been one of a pair installed in the new build family home in 1953 or 4 and moved to my parents retirement bungalow in 1968. After my BiL broke one of the covers changing a bulb the surviving example was passed on to me. Funnily enough I don't recall these light fittings eating bulbs when I was a child but perhaps bulbs were tougher then or more likely it is a memory that hasn't survived the test of time.

[Roger]

The message from Huge contains these words:

Even when the wages are low it still costs labour to replace dud bulbs?

[Jan Wysocki]

[snip]

If they're MR16s, then there are 3 and 4W LEDS available (search for Brilux/Luxeon/Cree MR16)

I've been trying 3W and 4W 230V GU10 LED lamps. I like the cool/soft white (6500K?) ones. However, although the LEDs may have an expected life of 20- to 50,000 hours, the switched mode? PSUs in the bases of 3 out of the 8 I've been using have gone pop in less than the year I've been using them for. (Several hours a day, can't be more specific.

2 of the failures were out of 4 from Initial Lights others came from Hong Kong via eBay: 1 failure out of 2

My suspicion that these are power supply failures comes not only from hearing one go 'pop', but from experience with high powered LED cycle lights which seem to be indestructable.

I've also tried and liked very much the cold cathode GU10s that Initial Lights used to sell. These aren't direct replacements as you have to connect them to a 500V high frequency power supply. They need a minute or so to achieve full brightness, but the light that these 5W bulbs produce is excellent - I have used them to illuminate framed prints.

[tom.harrigan]

It is a difficult question to answer. For my own purposes, I assume

10% of the final cost to me, unless the item is manufactured in an economy where energy and labour is cheap, where I assume 20%. So, a 1000ukp turbine will have to produce 200ukp of electricity, or 2000kWh of electricity before it fails to energetically pay for its manufacture. At 5 quid a year, not very likely.

I don't agree. The grants available, the extra points on your home energy assessment, the example set by our betters (eg David Cameron), domestic generation inducements from electricity suppliers etc. add up to a very strong encouragement bordering on coercion.

I do plan to install one however, especially if I can get the taxpayer to pay for part of it.

T

[Andy Hall]

Exactly the same as the little notices about how much washing of towels in hotels harms the environment. This of course has nothing to do with any cost saving for the hotel at the expense of comfort for its guests.

[tom.harrigan]

I think this is precisely the point. A proper analysis and comparison of the whole life costs of the different bulb technologies has not been done. We shouldn't rely on manufacturer's claims for such a study either. We could simply be supplanting energy use here for even more use in China. We are certainly embarking on increased mercury pollution- and what are the environmental and health costs of that, not to mention the other health risks of cfls in the news recently.

T

[<me9]

You /can/ get larger ones, I've seen 30w ES in Homebase, but nowhere else retail. It is recommended that 30 w and larger are operated base down, to reduce heat in the control 'gubbins'.

You can get them up to 85W here.

That should be bright enough.

They also do daylight ones (6500K).

[<me9]

I've a couple of switched ones somewhere, and a triple. The double ones would be useful where 20w cfls arent quite enough.

[Mark]

Robert

You forgot the VAT so they cost £55.86 each. A mere £50 each if you buy 10.

mark

[Roger Mills]

Interesting - but still a long way to go!

The 4 watt bulbs claim to be equivalent to 20 watt halogens. I have 12 (3 banks of 4) 50 watt halogen downlighters in my lounge. Twelve 4W LEDs (at £16 a throw!) ain't going to get me very far.

Also, while they may be plug compatible, they're unlikely to work with my existing transformers - since these require a sizeable minimum load before they operate.

[Andrew Gabriel]

No we aren't.

[neverwas]

Any for sale pl?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ive just been listening to the beeb.

germany will pay you about twice what they will sell you electricity at, if you make it from windmills or solar panels. MASSIVE susbify, since its totally unecomonic.

Contrast the speches today with respect to nuclear. "Has to pay for itself, no government subsidies".

Level playing field my arse.

[Andy Wade]

That's a complete misunderstanding of the idea of power factor. The [supply system] doesn't have to generate 60 W, nor burn fuel at a rate equivalent to 60 watts worth of output. The (RMS) current drawn by the lamp is the same as for 60 W resistive load, so resistive losses in the cables are increased by a factor of four without power factor correction. However the I^2*R losses due to current drawn by your lighting load will pale into insignificance compared to that caused by much heavier resistive loads (cookers, heaters, showers).

:-( 4:1 GLS:CFL is nearer the mark, so a ~75% saving in principle (probably reduced in practice because you tend to leave them on longer). Assuming a PF of 0.5 (some CFLs are actually lower than that) it's a 50% reduction in current compared to GLS, so also a 75% reduction in I^2*R loss.