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Replacing bulbs can save planet and money
Jul 03, 2009 (The Telegraph - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Lots of people want to save money and lots of people want to fight climate change. Can compact fluorescent light bulbs do both?
Yes, although with a proviso about saving money.
On average, a CFL bulb (in which electricity makes gasses glow) uses one-quarter the electricity of an equivalent incandescent bulb (in which electricity makes wires glow).
So a home that removes 10 traditional 75-watt bulbs that run an average of 5 hours a day and replaces them with 18-watt CFL bulbs will, over the course of a year:
--Reduce CO2 emissions by 1,153 pounds (equivalent to the CO2 produced by burning 57 gallons of gasoline).
--Reduce its electric bill by about $160.
A win-win! So why doesn't everybody replace their bulbs immediately? There are three issues: 1. The obvious drawback is that each CFL bulb costs around $4 while the incandescent costs around 50 cents, so those 10 newfangled bulbs will cost about $35 extra.
That cost will be recouped in lower electric bills within about three months, and will be recouped as much as 10 times over in following years because CFL bulbs last much longer than incandescent bulbs.
Yet, a recent problem with CFLs is that their great increase in popularity has led to complaints about less-than-expected lifespan due to shoddy construction from companies cranking out as many bulbs as they can.
2. Appearance and utility.
Many people have complained that the light from CFLs can be less pleasant than the light from incandescent bulbs.
The gender-stereotyping term for this is the "wife test," in the belief that women are more likely to notice the difference than men. If a bulb fails the wife test, no amount of money-saving will compensate.
The industry has been working hard on this issue, producing many different types of CFLs that it claims have better light.
Further, CFLs are often larger than traditional bulbs, can't be used with dimmers, and may not be usable outdoors in extreme temperatures. All three of these problems are going away with new generations of CFLs.
3. Mercury.
Fluorescent lights need a device called a ballast to regulate the flow of electricity, which is why CFLs have large bases.
These ballasts use a tiny amount of mercury. However, mercury is a nasty neurotoxin. As a result, you can throw away a broken incandescent bulb, but you have to recycle a broken CFL.
This problem won't go away. Because mercury is the only conducting metal that is liquid at room temperature, it will probably never be replaced in ballasts.
But concern about mercury shouldn't prevent use of CFLs: The biggest source of mercury, by far, in New Hampshire's environment is from the burning of coal and other fossil fuels to generate electricity (Public Service of New Hampshire is particularly dependent on coal). Reducing electricity used by light bulbs will compensate in large part for the mercury in CFLs.
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