replacing halogen lamps

[meow2222]

Hold on, there is more to it. The lightbulbs themselves, if 12v, are a bit more efficient, but the way theyre almost always used is murderously inefficient. So in practice 12v halogen lights are on average much bigger energy guzzlers than GLS.

So dont start there at all, its the worst of all options. Halogens are also the highest fire risk of all lighting types, and have other issues too.

If this is translated into cost per annum people get a shock when they see those halogen costs, the highest by far. In short halogen downlighting will cost thousands to run. I wish that were an exaggeration.

no it doesnt. Many CFL and linear fl also have good CCT and high CRI, and win by miles in other respects.

re LEDs, theyre still gimmick lighting at this time. Maybe one day, but certainly not today, not for normal household uses.

NT

[meow2222]

I quite agree with the points you make. But there is one basic problem. Since there are other reasonable viewpoints as well, is it really a good idea for one camp to force others to live by its views? If you vote yes to that, youre voting for others to force their views onto you too. It cuts both ways. You'd effectively indirectly be voting for part p and other such crap.

IMHO nannying and dumbifying is the cause of a lot of problems in British society today.

NT

[Christian McArdle]

Well, to take a contrary view would require you to agree to anarchy.

I don't like the term nannying. It is used by right wingers to scare people and justify all sorts of crap, like the right to torture animals, blow smoke in my face and needlessly destroy the planet.

Christian.

[Christian McArdle]

They're not that bad. It's not like you have to go with Ikea special stick bulbs.

But why should you be allowed to needlessly pollute just because you prefer the look of older bulbs, which are actually not more attractive than many CFLs, just slightly different.

The majority would just buy the CFLs. I can't see lots of people coming back with 20 packs of light bulbs through the channel tunnel, like they do for ciggies. Particularly as the alternative will actually save many times their purchase cost in electricity.

Christian.

[Fash]

The point is that the mains ones are used in exactly the same way as low voltage halogens so if you want halogens use low voltage not mains.

It makes them a good choice but not the only choice.

Regarding CCT and CRI of fluorescents I absolutely agree, but only if you buy the right ones. I'm about to fit out the lights for a basement room which has very limited natural daylight (wouldn't meet current building regs but it's been in use as a habitable room since before building regs were thought of). I'm planning to use daylight spectrum fluorescents (tubes) for the main daytime lighting for exactly the reasons you give. However I'm still planning to use halogens for accent lighting since CFLs just can't do it. Even when you look at so called dowlighter replacement they don't have the same emission profile. The point of using halogens is that they are much more directional than either incandescent or fluorescent (of all varieties) this makes them very good for task lighting which is what you need in a kitchen

The kind of lighting the OP is talking about is the first place that LEDs will break into the market. Take a look at Luxeons latest K2 devices and efficiency is on a par with CFL the issue is just cost. For broad diffuse lighting LEDs have much further to go as CFLs are pretty good at this and the emission profile (virtually isotropic from a CFL) is similar to what we're used to from incandescent. LEDs on the other hand need lots of optics to create a beam profile that's isotropic since output is usually lambertian or if a lens is used fairly focused.

Fash

[Dave Plowman (News)]

They already do in extra electricity charges.

[Pete C]

There's something that could do with creative regulation, why do PCs use 50-100W when laptops use 15W (including the screen!).

At the very least there should be energy labelling.

Intel have got a lot to answer for...

cheers, Pete.

[Andy Hall]

Not really convinced....

I'd have to factor in all of my various servers and networking equipment......

[Andy Hall]

The trouble is that the alternatives are not at all attractive.....

But not aesthetically acceptable. Until that happens, these are not viable alternatives.

There's more than enough taxation already and this would simply promote a black market in light bulbs or people would pay the money.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Wel I have just replaced my 17" monitor that was about 50W, with a 19" LCD which on standby, is about 3W I think. About 30W illuminated..

The PCs - well..it costs money to go for ultra small chips that can still switch fast enough at lower power. The problem is inherent to Microsnot..it needs giga flops to even put the welcome screen up, let alone the bloatware it normally runs.

No Microsft actually. The typical American response to a design issue 'build it crude and then throw a big engine at it'

[Andy Hall]

The mechanical aspects are bad enough. They are all too large.

My main issue is with the appalling quality of the light produced.

If it were as simple as that, then that might be a justification.

I think you might be surprised

[Andy Hall]

Different application. Different architecture.

Have you ever visited a major data centre or network point of presence and seen the electricity supply and cooling arrangements?

[silicono2]

Perhaps not when I was living in France--the whole apartment block had electric power only (inc. the heaters), and in France electricity is cheaper--it's one of the biggest producers of nuclear power. So whether it's the wall heater or waste heat from the lights, it costs the same. Maybe I'll also clarify: the light is going on my desk--I kinda like the feel of a tiny halogen lamp in a dark room.

Seb

[Pete C]

Are your servers at home a major data centre or point of prescence? :)

I meant the sort of PCs bought for home/office use.

cheers, Pete.

[meow2222]

not at all, just not heavy handed ott unnecessary and questionable control. Some things our society has a good level of agreement on, and are important. Some things are neither. Our society certainly does not have a concensus in favour of cfls, and their importance is still open to reasonable debate.

Maybe it is sometimes, but I think its also used fairly enough. Just how much government control of your life do you want? Where do we draw the line? Trying to force the populatoin into using a product is has firmly voted against is just not imho a constructive way to govern. The constructive path would be to look at why people arent buying many cfls and address the issues with them. And theres nothing difficult about doing so.

And in other areas like part p... I dont even need to comment.

NT

[Andy Hall]

I don't needlessly pollute for two reasons:

- I don't consider that CFLs are an acceptable form of lighting based on what I expect from artificial lighting.

- I don't control the means of electricity generation (e.g. burning of fossil fuels and consequent CO2 emission. That is in the hands of the energy producers, the market for fossil fuels and to some extent the government.

I don't buy the argument that says that if I reduce my electricity consumption by some means or other it will reduce CO2 and other pollutant emissions over the long term; and I don't even buy the one that says that if everybody does, it will make a big difference.

Realistically, these things don't happen, so it would make far more sense to focus on different areas:

- Heating is by far the largest use of domestic energy, so it makes sense to go for the most efficient use of fossil fuel that one can. That's under my control.

- Transport is almost certainly the second. I can affect that by working at home when possible.

I don't think that reduction in electricity consumption, taken over time would act as a means to reduce pollution, rather the reverse. That will be market and cost driven. An increasing electricity consumption, as will tend to happen anyway will have the effect of increasing the demand for fossil fuels, given the present generating capacity, and hence the cost. This in turn will make nuclear generation even more attractive than it is today.

OTOH, reducing the rate of increase in electricity requirement would have the effect of delaying the inevitable and obvious move to nuclear generation and hence have a far more significant effect on polluting emissions.

[Andy Hall]

Nope, but some of the equipment is the same.

To do what, though?

[The Natural Philosopher]

I could not agree more.

CFL's like all the other 'recycling/eco/green' issues in the end turn out to be more sops to the eco conscience, than actual meaningful solutions.

I am reminded of the huge weight loss I noted years ago in a rather attractive girl..'what diet did you use?' ' No diet at all' 'so what's the secret?' ' Just eating less....'

All the excellent switching off of lights and TV's that my wife insist on was totally negated when I came down this morning and find the room with the UFH thermostat in it had the window wide open...so the poor UFH had been heating the countryside since 4 a.m.

Domestic fuel consumption is actually far greater than all the electricity consumption of fuel put together, and transport exceeds them both.

The most major area to tackle is transport, and the causes of transport..

e.g. consider, you drive from e.g. Cambridge to London to go to Ikea, to get our cheap tacky Swedish crap that has been imported from Sweden, and so on. 120mile round trip, adding say 3 gallons of petrol - maybe £13.50 - to the cost of the item. Before tyre and brake wear replacement energies are considered.

Order on line, and save 3 gallons. Thats about 463 MJ of energy.

If that had been burnt in a power station it would probably be around

200 Megajoules of electrical output.

There are 8760 hours in a year. 3 Mega seconds. So thats about 66W

So. *That one trip to London and back equates to a 60W light bulb left on 24x7 ALL YEAR*.

[Christian McArdle]

The desktops frequently don't use 50-100W if set up properly with the energy saving options implemented. Set it to halt the processor on idle, shut off the screen and power down the disks and it won't eat that much more than a laptop.

Christian.

[Christian McArdle]

You draw the line where behaviour adversely affects others to an unreasonable degree.

My belief is that the main reason is because of a combination of unit purchase price disparity and the stupidity of the average purchaser. I don't believe that people specifically and intentionally buying vanity bulbs is the main problem. I think that if vanity bulbs were seriously increased in price, then the majority, who couldn't tell the colour spectrum of a sodium light from an incandescent, would buy CFLs and those who want to continue with halogens can pay enough extra to offset the carbon.

Yes. Part P fails on many counts. It was ill thought out and didn't pass the test of adversely affecting others. Pure protectionism from vested interests.

Christian.