low energy light bulbs peacefulspirits

[peacefulspirits]

Can someone tell me about the overall comparison costing of incandescent/fluorescent light bulbs taking into account:

Component resources used in each. It seems to me that a fluorescent light bulb has ten or more times of the world's diminishing mineral resources in its manufacture.

Cost of proper disposal (just added to the rates?)

Cost of transport of (20 times?) heavier item.

Any health issues?

It's just that I would like a full comparison rather than a comparative cost of only while it is plugged into the light socket

[Bruce]

Perhaps these things should all be costed in terms of carbon, rather than a currency. After all, the whole purpose of changing to CFLs is to save carbon.

I doubt that more than a tiny fraction of used CFLs will ever be recycled or otherwise properly disposed of. They will just end up in landfill.

Not sure where you get 20 times heavier from ...

[Adrian C]

Designed by scientists like those that created the bomb and mobile phone. Given a deadly rating by leading anti-scientist organisations and the daily mail.

Deadly as I say. Recommended to air out the the room for 20 to 30 minutes if a bulb is broken. If in a school, that could mean sending the children home as opening the windows could cause unacceptable low temperatures.

However worrying about it, is also as deadly. Chances are someone somewhere has perished looking for an alternative ;-|

[john]

There's a good ongoing write up here ...

I hate the f******, goddamned objects. Another example of lobbying outfits foisting technical crap onto untechnical politicians.

[Matty F]

Also take into account:

the labour cost and difficulty of frequently replacing incandescent bulbs that are inaccessible. One large organisation has a guy going around with a big ladder each week replacing incandescents.

the CFLs that I use can handle overvoltage and undervoltage. Last time there was a low voltage power supply problem in my neighbourhood the CFLs were the only lighting that worked. And we no longer have to change the bulbs every month in a building that has frequent overvoltages.

in some buildings that I work in the wiring is not large enough to run incandescents but is fine for CFL spotlights. It's too expensive to replace the wiring. And the saving in power bills is enormous.

[meow2222]

where do you get 10x from? I assume you're exlcuding glass, since sand is hardly in short supply. Break 2 lamps, one filament one fl and you'll find the non-glass parts weigh much the same per lumen output. So no significant difference per lamp, but since fls last 5-20x longer, a huge material saving per hour of light for fls.

No idea where you get 20 times heavier from! Fls last 5-10x as long though, so again reduced transport costs / pollution / resource use.

We all know there's mercury in fls, and fls sometimes get broken. We also know that filament lamps cause fires now and then, and those are rather disastrous to health too.

I dont know of any (accurate) summary, but at least the above is a start.

NT

[meow2222]

... and another example of why we would benefit from smaller government.

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

There's more mercury in my teeth than in all the CFL's I will ever use.

[The Natural Philosopher]

when I ran a business, I could save the entire energy of the company by sacking two people.

[ransley]

Did you ever replace your thermostat and thoe it in the garbage, well it contained 1000x as much Mercury as a cfl, the Oral thermometer that is old, did you just throw that out, it has 100x as much Mercury. In the uS we burn alot of coal, as I remember England was dark from coal. Coal plants emit about 2-3x more mercury oner the life of an incandanent bulb to power it. Where do you think Mercury poisoning in fish is from, its from airborn fallout from Coal plants. Buy a bulb with a good warranty, mine have 7 year warranty, I just walk in to me local HD store, they recycle it. You will save 75% on electricity immediatly, and keep the need for ever bigger power plants down by converting. For the last maybe 50 years how many people complained about all those long T8 flourescent tube lights, nobody here complained. Buy a cfl with a good warranty and be happy.

[Matty F]

Almost all of the power used (around 200 kW) is in lighting via spotlights. Changing to CFL spotlights could save three-quarters of the power bill. And would almost eliminate the need for weekly bulb changes, which is difficult and dangerous when the ceiling is 20 to 40 feet high and the general public is wandering around.

[Ed Sirett]

The cost of manufacture is reflected in the price. So as you say they take about 10x more resources to make. The transport is to fairly significant degree a function of volume and weight. So the costs there may not be so different. All the above is offset substantially by the increased life of the CFLs

Then comes the real payback which is the energy saving.

The resources used in CFLs are hardly scarce, the bulk is glass, plastic and copper/metals much of which is potentially recyclable if new sources become scarce enough. In fact the first two are effectively energy and are a small fraction of the energy they will save in the bulb's lifetime.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Or not, as they seem to go far quicker than they are claimed to.

Which is also erroneous, since the main time lights are used is after dark, when the house needs heat anyway, so you can knock that energy saving down by a factor of two, or, if you happen to be using nuclear electricity, show that burning gas or oil to heat the house produces MORE CO2 than using lightbulbs.

An, if we have enough nuclear power, would actually be cheaper than gas or oil at last years prices.

[Andrew Gabriel]

CFL's don't make efficient spotlamps -- the light source is too big (you won't get a 4:1 energy reduction for same levels of illumination). Retail outlets mostly use minature metal halide lamps for this purpose, which with their tiny light sources, allow for very efficient directing of the light where it's needed without large losses.

[Matty F]

The CFL spotlights that I use look like normal spotlights, they direct all the light in one direction only. They seem just as efficient as any other CFLs. And as I said, the wiring is not able to handle non- CFL lights, and the saving in power is enormous.