Change Your Light Bulbs, Change the World: Save Money with Compact Fluorescents

WJEffries has it right. There needs to be very close scrutiny of
CFl's before any law regarding light bulbs is passed anywhere else.
Look at the obvious component makeup of the bulbs. An incandescent
actually is cheaper to produce. A glass globe, stainless steel,
filament, usually an aluminum base and a touch of lead free solder.
Now look at the cfl. It requires special manufacturing techniques
for the glass spiral. The ballast is of electronic components that
pose a problem in recycling. The base is usually made of plastic
and where do plastics come from. Any oil involved here? Now onto
the KEY ISSUE.... Mercury. We are allowing one problem to be solved
by creating another even more toxic, MERCURY !!! During the initial
start up phase, a cfl has no savings at all. It may actually use
more electricity until the bulb is excited and that takes about 23
seconds for it to come to full brightness. This leads into another
important aspect that WJEffries mentioned. The light these bulbs
give off is not the same and the spectrum is way out of whack for
comparison. How many have replaced a regular bulb with a cfl only
to see that the light is not bright enough or yellow. Even the
supposed daylight don't come close. I believe there is a need for
better illumination but the present day cfl IS NOT THE ANSWER ! It
posses more risk and is a serious health hazard. Until another bulb
is created without the dangers involved, no laws requiring a switch
should be allowed. The danger and differences are real but like I
stated..... Why create a bigger problem when trying to solve
another.

LED light bulbs still seems to offer the most promise for
significantly reducing electricity usage. www.DonsGreenStore.com
has some of the best prices around. You can replace a couple bulbs
around the house and start to make a difference!!!!

I buy my compact fluorescents at http://www.1000bulbs.com
.

here at Energy Technology Educartion Centre, Pukekohe, New
Zealandwe are educationig people to make energy efficien lighting
modules made from BRIGHT WHITE OR BLUE LEDs. A module with 10-16
LED will hardly use 80mA at 12v and very bright too. No enegty
losses in form of heat.LOT better than any lighting module.Time for
the LED lighting module is catching the attention.I am in Chicago/
Wuekagan IL and will run few full hands on workshops on this DIY
topic.I am anle running two hands on workshops on Making Biodiesel
in NEW ZEALAND way. a way easier than any other way.warmlymelvin
din

Here at ETEC, PUKEKOHE New Zealand we are educationg people to
make thier own LED lighing modules.These LED mode hardly use 80mA
at 12 V and will alst at least 20 years.at least 95% the electrical
enegy in converted into light energy not into heat.I am running few
full hands on workshops on this DIY topic from Wuakegan,Antioch,
Chicago IL on 20 Dec and 30 Dec.Making LED\cmodule is funand they
are not that costly. A charged car battery can run them for weeks.
A small solar charger coupled with the car battery will take care
of the lighting needs on an energy educated house.contact me at
8478381569 or email melvindin@varsity.co.nz OR do the google search
about these workshops by typing in myemail address.warmlymelvin
din

Forget CCrane their LED light bulbs cost $30 to $40. If you are
looking for a much better price to give this new lighting option a
try, www.shop.donsgreenstore.com has comprable LED bulbs for under
$15.

Great points regarding CF bulbs. I don't believe the rhetoric
that the efficiency of CFs more than makes up for the small amount
of mercury in them. The enlightened parent whose kids are exposed
to the mercury from broken compact fluorescent bulbs won't want to
swallow the efficiency pill either.Individuals need to be
considered in addition to society as a whole. Unlike other parts of
the world, America protects the rights of individuals and not just
society at large.If companies or lawmakers wish to promote or even
subsidize CF bulbs, they also need to create a system to make it
easy to recycle them. The warning label on CF bulbs is so insincere
and so indicative of Americas current legal yet unethical policy of
disclosure, "As long as I disclose, I'm not responsible". Most
people toss CF bulbs (along with various batteries NiCad, Gel
cell/lead acid variant) in the garbage. A legitimate study on the
effects of mercury in CF bulbs would be helpful. But, what are odds
that the study will be funded by a responsible group that doesn't
have a conflict of interest?If anyone has any suggestions on how to
bring these points to the general public, please let me
know.Glenn

Just one bit of advice for those of you with boys who like to
play ball in the house ... If you decide to slowly replace your
light bulb with compact fluorescents in order to spread out the
cost, Don't start with floor lamps that can be hit by flying
footballs. Broken bulbs defeat the long term energy savings payback
you get from the more expensive bulbs.

As GLee says, use the sun like the chickens do. I did that for 2
years and I've never felt better!

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_lighting_leds.html this is
a start in the right direction. Build your own LED lighting
circuits. This teaches you how to build your own lighting with the
new bright LED's. The only problem with LED's is that they are very
directional with their light. However, if you have lots of them in
a group or a bundle then the light angle appears to be a little
better. You will never get LEDs to shine like incondescents or
fluorescents do. When it comes right down to it, you get about the
same energy out as you put into any of them. With incondescents you
get lots of heat from them and not so much heat with fluorescents
but still they get hot too and I think the heat is what cuts down
on their longivity that is claimed (5 YEAR WARRANTY) for them.
Maybe if you used them in a freezer they would probably last
longer, but then again, they don't work good in the cold either.
You'd be better off to use a kerosene lamp or a candle. Better yet,
take lessons from the chickens and use the sun. Go to sleep when
the sun goes down and get up when the cock crows.

You can find LED blubs
@http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/index.aspx

Readers need to keep in mind that when these bulbs go out, that
they need to dispose of them at a hazardous waste facility since
the bulbs have a minute amount of mercury within the
bulbs.

I have no evidence but I really wonder if fluorescents are
cheaper. Purchase costs of one fluor. would probably purchase more
then a dozen incandescent bulbs. They cost more to make, have
mercury in them, you can't just throw it away in a landfill. And I
haven't had one last more then 3 years..... Cheaper and more
environmentally friendly? I think not...

Yes there is a very small amount of mercury in CFL bulbs, but it
is less than what is saved by not burning all that coal to keep an
incandescent bulb burning. Why don't you go one step better and
look into LED light bulbs for applications where you don't need
much light. They last 50,000 hours and don't contain any mercury
usually.

I can't understand why we (the USA) don't outlaw incandescent
lightbulbs like we did with leaded gas. The amount of savings in
polution and energy would be incredable.

We've absolutely got to cut our electricity usage--to both cut
greenhouse gases and to reduce demand for coal. Mountaintop removal
coal mining is devastating Appalachian communities, environment,
and economy (see www.ohvec.org or www.ilovemountains.org). Too big
of an issue to cover here, but it's the big dirty secret in the US,
in 2006 covered by Orion, National Geographic, Vanity Fair, O
(Oprah) Magazine, and the American School Board Journal.Compact
fluorescents are at least a step in the right direction. Does
anyone have information on LEDs available for use in the
home?

I felt a need to comment on this topic and, lo and behold,
WJeffries has already stated my opinion.The alleged problem with
incandescent bulbs is that they are essentially a heater that
happens to produce light.Well, I'm in NW Minnesota where, other
than about two weeks out of the year, we are not really concerned
about generating a bit of extra heat with a light bulb.
Furthermore, we heat our house with electricity, so it make no
difference whether the heat is produced by a light bulb or an
electric baseboard heater.I echo WJeffries' sentiments and would
like to add that compact fluorescents, judging by their price, most
likely have a higher cost in terms of energy to produce.This
campaign, by the know-it-alls in DC, is just another
one-size-fits-all approach that does not fit all.

This is a bit of questionable economy. There are problems that
the "change your bulbs" crowd don't address.1) most florescent
bulbs are manufactured with mercury which is bad.2) florescent
bulbs are manufactured with other toxic chemicals which is bad.3)
By law you must dispose of the florescent bulbs properly to avoid
polluting the environment because of #1 and #2 above yet in many
places there is no way to do it right. So people throw them in the
regular trash and thus the landfill and that is bad.4) Incandescent
bulbs are not actually wasting energy. Here in our northern climate
of Vermont they are helping to keep our home warm. The energy is
not wasted. It is emitted in the IR portion of the spectrum.
Florescent bulbs on the other hand generate more in the UV portions
of the specturm and that is bad.5) A great many florescent bulbs
and fixtures flicker, strobe, whine and scream. Even better quality
electronic ballasts have this problem. More over I have had two
very high quality electronic ballasts for florescent bulbs burst
into flames. I've never had a problem like any of that from
incandescent bulbs.6) Florescent bulbs do not actually last as long
as is claimed in my experience, they have problems at low
temperatures, have lower quality spectrum in all too many cases and
are not an all around replacement for incandencent bulbs.7)
Throwing away a perfectly good incandescent bulb to replace it with
a florescent bulb is a bad choice for all these plus more
reasons.All that said, yes, I use florescent bulbs, but think about
it before you proclaim that changing bulbs will change the world.
It won't. Be realistic.

I'm not going to change my lightbulbs because I don't care about
the environment.

You might want to look at LED lighting. They do cost a bit more!
I installed two flood lights and have been very satisfied with
their operation / energy cost.