And of course, for the 50% of American household-days where the heater is running to keep the room warm, all the energy we save by having CFLs that don’t produce “waste” heat will be offset by running the room heater slightly more to make up for the missing “waste” heat.
Only houses with electric heat. Houses with other forms of heat generally convert the oil or natural gas to heat in their homes more efficiently than coal, or natural can can be converted into electricity then transmitted and converted back into heat in their houses.
$20.00 worth of foam used around bad places on your leaky house will do more for your energy foot print than any light bulb switching on the average house.
Do both sure but don’t start with light bulbs, get that house sealed up first…
Something else to consider is the cost of disposing of CFL bulbs. The city I live in specifically bans them from our household trash. We can take them to a local transfer station and pay 50 cents each or wait for the city’s twice yearly hazardous waste collection events. I just moved into this city, I don’t know if they charge for disposal at these events.
They say they ban them, but do they really pick through your trash? We’re supposed to separate our trash into categories like common people, but nothing ever comes of not doing it.
Right - they are considered hazardous due to small amounts of mercury.
The common twice-a-year scheme has an interesting side effect: Stores, offices etc. that use fluorescent lighting (i.e. most of them) typically wind up with a stash of dead tubes waiting for disposal. These are not always well looked after - some are just a pile outside the back door. Some get broken, thus releasing mercury (admittedly, trace amounts).
Logic would seem to dictate that if the goal is to limit the dispersion of hazardous waste, it should be about as easy to properly dispose of as normal waste.
But that is common sense. The government will not allow that. Heck, first they would have to think of it… Bawahahaa
But in the summer, (or just generally hot climates) air conditioners will need to be run that much less.