Compact Fluorescent Bulbs: NOT a Bright Idea!

Imagine hundreds of millions of light bulbs with mercury in them making their way into the landfills and eventually into the water table over the coming years. What a beautiful image. It brings and all natural tear to my eye. *sniff*

 

None of this matters. The joy of forcing people to do what we want trumps everything. "Drop that super-sized coke and get on your knees." Oh, I love the SWAT team searching for raw milk.

Outlawing something by regulation is banning it. Poor Debater has a good forum name.

Banning DDT has killed almost 30,000,000 people but who's counting. It's the good intentions that count.

 

If CFL lightbulbs were as awesome as you imply, they wouldn't need to be regulated, because the free market would have already allowed them to beat incandescents.

The fact that we need to regulate them into homes means they're not great.

 

Mileage improvements in cars have been driven by market forces, not government.

And even though we can observe what has happened there, for some reason you think it is necessary to force efficiency improvement in light on everyone.

Why do you hate the market?

 

I was in Walmart last night and grabbed a 4 pack of 60 watt bulbs for $1

a 2 pack of Gore bulbs was $13

I also really enjoy the $20-$30 per bulb price for dimmable Gore-bulbs

I will be making a run to Wal Mart and Lowes and stocking up before this year is out. I am fighting Gore bulbs for as long as possible

 

I was in Lowe's, and a 2-pack of dimmable halogen 100-watt equivalents was $8. So, the moral is to stop shopping at Walmart.

Those bulbs meet the current new standards, so it's absurd to claim such bulbs don't exist. Yes, they won't meet the 2020 standards. What's the point of bringing that up? By 2020, LED bulbs will cost a buck, and they will meet the standards.

If y'all want to waste money just so you can play the victim of the evil liberal George Bush, we can't stop you. But it does look silly. I'm glad the government saved me some cash by spurring the new technology, just as it did with the auto industry. The free market often sucks mightily at planning and efficiency, and some guidance definitely improves it. The biggest enemy of the free market are the free market cultists. As founder of capitalism Adam Smith pointed out, the free market can't exist without government regulation. I guess he was a dirty socialist too.

 

A better quality of light, assuming "better" is defined as "more similar to sunlight". Since the temperature is higher, the blackbody spectrum from a halogen bulb is closer to the blackbody spectrum of the sun.

Old incandescents actually give off a kind of sickly yellow shade of light. It's just a sickly yellow shade we've gotten used to.

 

It was only three months ago that our government awarded a $10,000,000 prize to Philips for making an LED bulb that sells for $50. Who but a liberal administration would consider a $50 light bulb as affordable? Talk about out of touch.

Here's the article from a liberal media outlet.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...ly-price-tag/2012/03/07/gIQAFxOD0R_story.html

 

By the way, I use CFL bulbs in my house. The lifespan claims are utter horse(*)(*)(*)(*). How do I know? Because I've been using them for less than 2 years and have already had to replace several.

Now, granted, I'm a dad, which means my primary job is turning off lights and appliances that have been turned on days earlier by my wife and kids, but still... I'm averaging less than a year per bulb.

 

It's been awhile Dan, but I did not get an impressive lifespan out of CFL either but I found an article on the internet that explained the long life results came from labs where the electrical current was a
absolutely steady. In real life where the current fluctuates the life of the bulbs is significantly reduced. I still have a couple of CFL in fixtures that aren't vision critical. If I need to read, no CFL.

Oops. I just got up and checked. My last CFL burned out last month. It was replaced with incandescent.

 

Halogen =/= incandescent.

And in 1960, we were going to be living on the moon and driving flying cars by 2000. Predictions of the future are silly and inherently flawed.

If technology has value, the government doesn't have to spur it. It comes through the free market.

When?

Can you provide me with an example of such guidance in an otherwise free market?

The biggest enemy of the free market, inherently, is regulation. The fact that you think otherwise means you don't actually know what a free market is.

Except that he was not referring to market regulations. He was referring to the basic (and sole legitimate) responsibility of government - protecting the citizenry from coercion or violence, so that each person can act as freely as possible while not causing direct harm to anyone else.

 

I will add my anecdote: I have been using CFLs for 4 years and have yet to replace one. I installed a yellow outside light bulb 1-1/2 ago and it did just fine in the cold NH winter. It did take a few minutes to reach 100% brightness in the cold but it is still working.

 

I have an "outdoor" one that's been in place for 3 years, turned on nearly 24/7, and is still working. But the light it gives off is utter crap. I think that's the trade off in this technology.

 

When an alternative to incandescent bulbs is cost effective and effective in use then the government will not have to force people to buy them. It's hard to believe but the government never forced anyone to buy color televisions, gasoline cars, or incandescent lightbulbs. Now they want to force us to switch to digital television, abandon gasoline cars, and change lightbulbs. Forcing gives them an erection and boosts their insider trading profits but it's not how things should be done. I wouldn't hesitate to buy an LED bulb that would fit my light fixtures, allow me to read, and was cost effective.

 

This is unrealistic. It is very doubtful.

You will not be saving as much money as you think. Most of the Chinese manufacturers are lying about the lifespans of their inferior quality CFL bulbs. Even the actual lifespans or higher quality CFL's are much less than the rated lifespans under realistic operation conditions. If you plan on using those new CFL bulbs as closet lights or motion detector outside flood lights (where they will burn out quickly, and wear the efficiency is actually lower in the first two minutes of operation) you will NOT be saving any money.

And like I mentioned, many people actually HATE the light from these CFL's.

The government should have funded research to develop the new technology before they mandated it.
Likely it may not spur new technology, as we have seen when the government has tried this type of policy in other areas:
http://www.instituteforenergyresear...refiners-to-pay-fine-for-nonexistent-ethanol/

 

How about a food example:
Long before Her Honor Bloomberg thought to outlaw soda, McDonalds started changing their menu to add more healthy choices like salad, as well as adding (during a recession) quality coffee at half the price of Starbucks.

Those changes for the better have allowed McD's to thrive during bad economic times, and it wasn't regulation. It was them responding well to changes in the market.

Should the government now force Burger King to have more salads? No. Good ideas should thrive, and bad ideas, like creepy Burger King guy, die on the vine.

 

A New York Times panel looked at 21 alternatives to incandescents and found nearly all of the compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) disgusting. But they did like some of the LED and halogen choices.

 

Just my experience. Halogen. dangerous. extremely hot, the faces can and do fall off the bulb and fall on children or adults causing painful burns and if not that then they break when they hit the counter or the floor leaving glass all over the place. They are also said to be dangerous with NO face...says the package. They hurt your eyes and they are too hot to work unde.

LED's: pretty light, great for decorating but they are not dependable. And just as a side note, some towns/cities replaced their incandescents in the stop lights with LED's and the snow doesn't melt. Drivers could not read or mis-read the signals and accidents resulted. Failure to follow thru by the brainiacs that decided it was a good idea to replace.

 

New research funded by the National Science Foundation has scientists warning consumers about the potentially harmful effects energy-saving CFL light bulbs can have on skin.

The warning comes based on a study conducted by Stony Brook University and New York State Stem Cell Science — published in the June issue of Photochemistry and Photobiology — which looked at whether and how the invisible UV rays CFL bulbs emit affect the skin.

Based on the research, scientists concluded that CFL light bulbs can be harmful to healthy skin cells.

“Our study revealed that the response of healthy skin cells to UV emitted from CFL bulbs is consistent with damage from ultraviolet radiation,” said lead researcher Miriam Rafailovich, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stony Brook University, in New York, in a statement. “Skin cell damage was further enhanced when low dosages of TiO2 nanoparticles were introduced to the skin cells prior to exposure.”

According to Rafailovich, with or without TiO2 (a chemical found in sunblock), incandescent bulbs of the same light intensity had zero effects on healthy skin.

The scientists found that cracks in the CFL bulbs phosphor coatings yielded significant levels of UVC and UVA in all of the bulbs — purchased in different locations across two counties — they examined.

With high levels of ultraviolet radiation present, the researchers delved into how the exposure affected the skin. According to the findings, skin damage from exposure to CFLs was consistent with harm caused by ultraviolet radiation.

The warning comes based on a study conducted by Stony Brook University and New York State Stem Cell Science — published in the June issue of Photochemistry and Photobiology — which looked at whether and how the invisible UV rays CFL bulbs emit affect the skin.

Based on the research, scientists concluded that CFL light bulbs can be harmful to healthy skin cells.

“Our study revealed that the response of healthy skin cells to UV emitted from CFL bulbs is consistent with damage from ultraviolet radiation,” said lead researcher Miriam Rafailovich, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stony Brook University, in New York, in a statement. “Skin cell damage was further enhanced when low dosages of TiO2 nanoparticles were introduced to the skin cells prior to exposure.”

According to Rafailovich, with or without TiO2 (a chemical found in sunblock), incandescent bulbs of the same light intensity had zero effects on healthy skin.

The scientists found that cracks in the CFL bulbs phosphor coatings yielded significant levels of UVC and UVA in all of the bulbs — purchased in different locations across two counties — they examined.

With high levels of ultraviolet radiation present, the researchers delved into how the exposure affected the skin. According to the findings, skin damage from exposure to CFLs was consistent with harm caused by ultraviolet radiation.

“Despite their large energy savings, consumers should be careful when using compact fluorescent light bulbs,” said Rafailovich. “Our research shows that it is best to avoid using them at close distances and that they are safest when placed behind an additional glass cover.”

 

Actually I like the LED replacements they have put in traffic lights. The colors are much brighter and more brilliant, due to the nature of LED light (it is monochromatic and tends to be much more directional). This is especially true for producing green light. Passing full spectrum light through a filter is not a very good way of producing a pure color. Like I have been saying, LED lights are good or appropriate for some applications, but not others.

And just to emphasise the obvious again so there is not confusion, CFL's are completely different than LED, though both are considered "energy saving" alternatives to conventional incandescent light bulbs.

 

quotes from another forum from people unhappy with CFL's

 

Another stupid, poorly thought out law that we have allowed our meddling politicians to impose on us. Illumination without representation.

 

More on that, and on similar preceding studies,
also on the UV radiation involved, on the effects of it, and spectral light studies
http://freedomlightbulb.org/2012/07/new-study-on-cfl-uv-radiation.html

 

New, a comprehensive University Study from Virginia:
Consumers are not Irrational, and Environmental Benefits are "Negligible", from light bulb regulations etc
http://freedomlightbulb.org/2012/08/energy-efficiency-regulations-lambasted.html

 

The incandescent bulb and the compact fluorescent will be phased out by 2020.