The fluorescent process starts with UV - the technology of fluorescing requires a minute amount of Mercury to generate any light output to begin with. I’ve heard of experiments with other materials, but so far nothing that doesn’t cost a fortune can even come close to replacing Mercury. That said, the amount in a CFL is less than what’s in a typical can of Tuna, so it’s far less a problem than it’s made out to be. Break your thermometer and you’ve just put millions of times more mercury into your house.
But while it might be theoretically possible to generate a white light from passing electricity through gasses in a tube, without dramatically higher voltages and currents, no gas or combination has been found that can generate white light, only limited spectrum light. Up the amperage and you can do it - that’s how metal halide and arc lamps work, but now you’re getting into dramatically larger light output and you’ll be running into issues with household power supplies…
Just to clear up a common misconception (as mentioned in several posts), incandescent bulbs were never banned; in fact, they are still very much allowed to be sold - if they meet a minimum efficiency standard; for example, a 100 watt equivalent must use 72 watts or less for the same brightness
The result is a de facto ban, how you got there isn’t terribly important (in terms of effect to the consumer).
I Googled it too and what he seem to be saying is that the mercury exposure, via inhaled mercury vapor, is less, even if you didn’t follow the cleanup directions posted earlier. That actually makes sense since a lot of the mercury, especially in old CFLs, will be absorbed by the phosphor and glass (sometimes to the point where all of the mercury is absorbed and only the argon glows). Some modern CFLs also have less than 1 milligram of mercury, further reducing exposure. Here is what one source says:
Another source quoting the same study (worst-case scenario):
Note that is just what you are exposed to, plus the mercury in fish is in the form of methlymercury, which is more dangerous than metallic mercury (more toxic, easily absorbed and takes longer to eliminate).
FWIW Cecil investigated a very large number of potential negative effects of CFL lights, but was limited to hitting some of what he felt were the most important ones due to the column space which is available in the newspaper.
I tried putting a CF bulb in my porch light. Not only did the fug-ugly thing stick out below the fixture, but it left me & the kitchen garbage… not to mention the unexpected knock after dark… IN the dark for a full minute. Then it burned out after a measly month and a half.
My idiot husband replaced the ceiling lights in my laundry/pantry room with CFs to “save” energy. Since I’m not a bat, I’d either have to wait a full minute before going in or risk walking into a shelf and coming back with corn instead of beans plus a pretty little black eye to boot. Since I’m constantly in and out, I ended up leaving the lights on 'til bedtime.
So in my opinion, factoring in the cost of a CF bulb, leaving them on 15+ hours a day, replacing an outside light 4-5 times more often than an incandescent, not to mention the gas spent to drop them off somewhere due to being a HAZARDOUS waste product; then personally I can see NO savings involved in the change over, making this government mandate… ludicrous. I think I’ll get my passport for Canada and become a lightbulb smuggler…
Some nasty things just tend to work better in applications than the alternatives, witness DDT, asbestos, PPD, and phosphates. It should be noted that HID bulbs except for Low Pressure Sodium also contain mercury. Metal Halide is basically a Mercury Vapor lamp with salts added to improve efficiency and light quality and High Pressure Sodium has mercury to “get it started”, note that they turn blue when turned on before the sodium kicks in. Considering the amount of energy they use, maybe a standard inandescent is another “nasty thing that just works better”.
I was going to put “decent replacement for a standard incandescent” in the “things I’d buy if they existed thread” but we’ve had enough bulb argurments already.
CFLs are already yesterday’s lighting. Tech. change comes faster and faster. Incandescents 100 years, Fluorescents 60 years, CFLs 15 years. LEDs now. My experience-see above-is really positive. Their lifespan may be exaggerated , but a9W current for a bedside light? . Soon they’ll be as cheap as chips (sorry, french fries), and the CFL and incandescent will be dodos.
CFL work best and last the longest if left on for maybe 20 to 30 minutes.
they are not the best bulb for short uses or instant light. hallways, closets, porches might be better serves by another bulb type. in my laundry room i have an incandescent ceiling fixture and a long tube florescent fixture, if i’m in and out in a few minutes i use the incandescent.
Canada is also phasing out inefficient incandescent types as are many countries.
This. The latest batch of LEDs I bought produce a really nice, bright, more pleasing light. Yes, they are expensive. But they don’t get very hot (so it seems, anyhow), should last “forever” (close enough, anyhow), and certainly use a lot less energy once they’re produced. I’m pretty sure in 15 years new houses will be essentially 100% LED for lighting needs.
Heck, I even got a couple of solar-powered motion-detector outdoor security lights that turned out to be LED-based. They work pretty well, although admittedly they’re a little dim for my tastes, but I think that’s more a function of the manufacturer being cheap, than limitations of the technology.
Unlike incandescent, which are always hot? Seriously? To get a CFL very hot, you need a rare failure; to get an incandescent hot, you switch it on. What’s more likely to start fires?
Also, because the incandescent draws more load - 60 to 100W - compared to CFL - 9 W to 20 W - it’s more likely that something goes wrong with the wires, esp. in older houses, with old bulbs than with CFLs.
Only if you use electric heating which is wasteful because you add one additional step during which you loose power.
Switching to heating with gas or wood pellets is much more efficient than heating with electricity.
Or, third option, you use halogens in those places where it’s quick off and on.
Wrong. Some bulb makers inflate the value - not the efficiency rating, the correct value that should be given on the packaging is the lumen = output of light measured objectivly plus the Kelvin temp. = colour, that is subjective warmth of the light.
Yes, some producers, esp. of cheap bulbs, print a higher number than actual measured on their packaging.
That is not a fault of the CFL technology, though, but cheating in advertising or false labeling, that crops up in many other industries, too (food companies cheat with the size of the packages, car companies measure their mpg under lab conditions and not on the real road etc.)
Do you have a cite for that?
First, if people have been limited by the capacity of the socket before and put in a brighter CFL, they are still saving electricity. E.g instead of a 100 W old bulb, they use a 40 W CFL (which is much brighter) they still save energy.
If people were smart instead of hell-bent on defying “laws that encroach their personal freedoms”, they would use Halogens for those places - quick light, still more efficient than the old time bulbs.
Again, this is people being dumb or not getting a good salesperson at the lamp shop. The power output is not directly related to the Kelvin temp. Yes, as a rule, CFL tend to be a bit blueish, which is perceived colder, while old bulbs are yellowish or reddish.
That doesn’t mean everybody dislikes this - for many people it’s better to have cold neutral white-blueish light when working. And for the sofa lamp, you can choose a CFL lamp with a different Kelvin temp = a more reddish or yellow tint.
Wherever people get smart instead of cutting off their nose to spite their face.
Oh my god, are you serious? Instead of going to a proper lamp shop with a variety of more than 5 bulbs to choose from, you are going to throw out your lamps? WTF? There are quite enough bulb designs to choose from in the last 15 years, they no longer have the ugly and big design of the first generation. (Though I don’t benefit, because I got a dozen cheap way back then and now it takes ages till they are used up. Probably LED bulbs will be affordable when my CFL run out).
We’ve had this a dozen times already in previous threads: look at the lumen amount; look at the Kelvin temp.; even if you “only” halve the Watts, you still have 5-10 times the lifecycle.
At a guess, because Cecil was talking about the ordinary requirements of the average homeowner, not speciality uses; photographers, people who work with colours, or gardeners who need special UV lamps all already use very special bulbs. Those either won’t be affected or they will use halogen - which, as you yourself point out, has the same qualities as the old bulbs.
How? For those special places: cold (outside); quick turn-on (bathrooms); dimmable; true colour - the consumer can use halogen with the same properties as incandescents (and same size and look) while saving 1/3 of previous energy.
Unless the consumer wants to defy the all-intrusive state by stockpiling wasteful and inefficient incandescents. Rest assured, the eco-fascists won’t raid your home, and you can also buy them over the internet from other countries to waste money and power to your hearts content to make some point.
I’m disappointed in Cecil here: it sounds more like the rantings of a crotechy old guy than his usual fact style.
All laws are intrusions on somebody’s personal rights, but without them, people couldn’t live together, and individuals wouldn’t be able to exercise their personal rights.
Whether this particular law is “pointless” is a matter of opinion - is Cecil against seat-belt laws or new standards of efficiency for cars, too?
As for the question how much is saved: true, overall it’s not much compared to bigger wasters, but it’s also a rather easy to legislate piece with little resistance from manufacturers. Compared to how much resistance from lobby groups, industry and consumers the big steps are going to cause, light bulbs can at least be achieved, so better a small something than nothing.
It is quite easy to start a fire with an incandescent, but virtually impossible, I would guess, with a CFL. As I mentioned above, a 9W LED gets surprisingly hot- not the globe, but the ribbed metal base. Presumably this is to do with the electronics in the bulb stepping down the mains voltage to something manageable. It would be interesting to know if your LEDs, running off 110V, run cooler than ours off 240V.