Tax season is coming up—invest in a few compact fluorescent light bulbs
by Ron Dembo, Zerofootprint on 02.22.07
Australia made news around the world this week by announcing an imminent ban on a cherished piece of Victorian technology: the incandescent light bulb. Now other governments, including California’s and Ontario’s, are considering a similar initiative. And in Ontario, at least, the opposition isn’t trying to halt the plan—John Tory is castigating the Liberals for taking their time.
And what’s not to like about compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)? In Australia, they expect the ban to result in a cut in greenhouse gas emissions of 4 million tonnes. In Ontario, it looks as though a move away from incandescent bulbs would cut electricity demand by the equivalent of the generating capacity of one coal-fired plant.
However, there will always be objectors (this is axiomatic—if there are still, somehow, people out there with doubts that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming, we shouldn’t be surprised that compact fluorescent light bulbs have their detractors). What is heartening here is that the objections are so easily dealt with.
The first is that CFLs are just too expensive. A more sophisticated, but equally misguided, form of this argument is that a ban on incandescents unfairly burdens those who spend a high percentage of their income on energy—that is, poor people. Apart from the fact that a planet threatened by climate change affects the poor at least as much as the rich, this argument against CFLs has got the economic view completely upside down.
To borrow an argument from engineer William Kemp’s book, Smart Power: An urban guide to renewable energy and efficiency, not only do compact fluorescents not cost money—they provide a better return on investment than the stock market.
Let’s look at it this way. Let’s say a CFL costs about $3 and an incandescent is about 40 cents. It looks at first as though the CFL is expensive, but it’s not that simple. A fluorescent lasts more than ten times longer than an incandescent, so over the life of the bulb the CFL is already cheaper ($3 versus the $4 for ten incandescents). In other words, fluorescents save money.
But it gets much better. Let’s say you spend 12 cents per KWh. As Kemp argues, over the 10,000 hours of the bulb’s life, you’ll save $92 in electricity costs. (The CFL will cost $27.60; the incandescent $120.) Since the average house has 25 light bulbs in it, the average savings will be in the order of $2,300. (That’s $2,300 you won’t pay tax on, either.) Try getting that kind of return on the stock market, particularly when the initial investment is guaranteed.
In other words, CFLs don’t put a financial burden on anyone, except the people who continue to flog steam-age technology. Whether you’re rich or you’re poor, you’re going to make money installing compact fluorescents.
Now, what was the second objection? First, let’s put it in perspective. We’re talking about technology that can cut household electricity bills by 60% and greenhouse gas emissions by 1.3 tonnes (and acid rain-causing compounds by 92 kg). That’s the equivalent of taking 4.3 cars off the road—per household. In other words, we’re talking about something pretty promising. And what is the downside? Some CFLs don’t work well with dimmer switches!
I’m sorry, but that is no objection at all. We’ve got a planet to save. Working out the caprices of our mood-lighting shouldn’t be a real problem.
I'm glad to hear that some governments are starting to take legislative action to outlaw antiquated technologies that the environment and our society's can no longer sustain. As for the article, beautifully written, music to my mind. The work of a wordsmith taking truth to power.
Something you haven't touched on: the production of CFL's versus incandescents. I'm not an expert on the impact of their production processes, but I do know that incandescents are little more that some glass and a tad of metal; nothing to worry about. In europe, we have to dispose of our non-functioning CFL's as we do chemical waste like paint, batteries and medicine. I know they contain a small circuit board and some metals that are not environmentally friendly and presumably hard to separate for recylcing purposes.
Can you expand on this? I'm all for the environment, and I know with the 80% reduction in electricity usage my house is 75% CFL's, but I'm hoping LED lamps will become cheaper and more useful (they don't come in bright enough kinds) and really make for a more energy efficient world.
Incandescents are not non-polluting when discarded. The filaments are made of a tungsten alloy, a very nasty heavy metal, although in small quantities. There was a tentative study correlating high levels of tungsten in local tree tissues with a leukemia cluster in eastern California.
A tentative study, and the causation of leukemia is has always been difficult to establish.
Can you dim a florescent bulb? We have a dimmer above our table and in our bedroom so that we can "set the mood" if you know what I mean. I don't believe dimming is possible with florescent lights.
Am I right, please tell me I'm wrong.
Dr. Love
Unfortunately, I want to switch to CFL's but the dimmer issue as well as the fact that they are do not produce a "warm" light prevents me from doing so in a designer home environment. I am glad to see that the ban is going on because it will cause fashion forward areas (Auzzies and Californian's) to help push the envelope and maybe in a few years we will get good alternative lighting that can produce warm lighting that is dimmable AND have the best value of saving the planet...
Well, you missed some of the objections.. for instance, the 'quality' of the light. Just as some brands of CFLs give off a more pleasant light than others, incandescent bubs give off a more pleasant light than CFLs.
But the bigger objection is this: do we really want governments to be telling us what light bulbs to buy? Where do you draw the line about what people are allowed to decide for themselves vs what the government mandates? Should people be sent to jail for buying the wrong kind of light bulb?
I'm sure it would be more healthy for us to limit our ice cream intake - should there be a law limiting how much ice cream we can eat?
Education and incentives are a better way to get people to do the right thing than to have governments decide every little thing we can or cannot do.
Some thoughts on the mecury in CFLs (from Geza Vamos):
Three times more mercury is emitted by in coal power plants to power incandescent lamps, so even if you threw your used CFLs
Mercury in CFLs is a popular topic with energy conservation detractors, put CFLs in context mercury in common goods:
Dial (non-programmable) thermostats 3 grams
thermometer = 2 grams
amalgam dentist filling = 0.5 grams
4 foot T12 fluorescent lamp = 0.050 grams\
4 foot T8 fluorescent lamp = 0.020 grams
4 foot T5 fluorescent lamp = 0.010 grams
CFL = 0.005 grams
And some info on how CFLs get recycled (from BCHydro.com):
"The company that recycles the bulbs, utilizes a small vacuum chamber that is constantly rinsed with water. The lamps are fed into the machine and once in the vacuum chamber, the end of the lamp is broken open. The vacuum draws out the mercury and phosphorus, and cold water is used to keep mercury in its most transportable state, a liquid.
The glass is then crushed and the aluminum end caps separated and these items are sent for recycling. The end caps are then sent to local smelters, and the glass is used to manufacture light-reflecting paint for highways. The mercury and phosphorus are placed in sealed drums and sent for separation, recycling and neutralization. "
Yahoo built a decent website backed by a bunch of companies encouraging people to drop their old bulbs for CFLs:
http://green.yahoo.com/
Like bobinnv above, i find that ecoterrorists can be arrogant and ultimately self defeating. Don't get me wrong, CFL's are great, and I have many in my home but a ban is nonsense and counterproductive.
A ban means that I cannot have ANY incandescent bulbs. Even in my workroom where bulbs usually get broken long before they burn out, or in my storage room I only enter once a month or so for a few minutes at most. In the latter case, I use a bulb that turns itself off after 20 minutes, just in case I forget to turn it off :-)
So lets see, the eco-gestapo brownshirts would rather have me doused with mercury and other noxious powders (some radioactive), if i should break the bulb in my workroom or break my neck if I coudn't afford the expensive bulb for my storage area. Of course in California, many poor people have no medical insurance, but as Scrooge said, "reduce the surplus population" is certainly an environmentally correct solution.
Then there's the naive belief in everything on the label. Hey folks, about that 10,000 hour lifespan claim: thats under ideal conditions, which means, as for all fluorescents, a minimum of switching cycles. I don't mind my 40c incandescent burning out a bit early. You think I can return a CFL and get my money back? Fat chance.
When you take into account all costs, including environmental costs, you will find, as most sensible people do, that using a variety of bulbs, including CFL's makes sense. A ban does not.
Further, I believe that with the millions of CFL's already sold, a study would find that the most used bulbs, inherently the most cost effective switchovers have already been replaced, meaning that a total ban would have much less effect than predicted, perhaps even a negative effect, all things being considered.
STOP THE BAN.
A comment responding to Dr. Loves point about CFLs not producing a warm light.
NOT TRUE
It seems to be a common misconception that CFLs only come in the classic fluorescent bright white light, but many manufactures sell bulbs in different temperatures.
I had no problem finding ones that mimicked the color of a typical incandescent.
Try a few different brands. If at first you buy one you don't like, try another one.
I actually like the cool light of flourescents, at least at night. It's lunar in quality. Perhaps that's because we had a flourescent night light in our kitchen when I was a kid. A dim, cool flourescent light in the dark makes me think of home.
A light bulb with the ENERGY STAR is [i] guaranteed [/i] to be warm unless it is marked as being cooler
"In addition to other quality requirements, must turn on instantly, produce no sound, and fall within a warm color range or be otherwise labeled as providing cooler color tones."
Now I don't know how small they can make this label, but I have been very happy about the light quality and color. Personally, I use Sylvania and Home Depots n:vision, with occasional GE's. I like all of them pretty well.
What brand and style best simulates the color of a typical incandescent?
My husband and I just replaced all but one of our lightbulbs with CFLs this weekend. I can attest: the light is not institutional at all. It's warm. And as for the one remaining incandescent in the house: it's on a dimmer switch. But that'll change soon—there are plenty of dimmable fluorescents on the market.
Don't take my word for it, though. Try replacing just one incandescent with a CFL, and then you'll probably agree that the light is just as good, and the fringe benefits are even better!
bobinnv asks an important question and I guess there will always be this conflict between those who look to the government to deal with problems and those who look to the market and voluntary solutions.
Now the question is how do we decide when the government should be involved and when not?
I this case I would submit three things are leading governments to do this.
First, it is relatively easy and painless compared to other things that are being suggested to fight global warming, such as a carbon tax, and it has a fairly big impact on CO2 emissions compared to the investment, and even saves people money. This is probably why one sees otherwise conservative politicians like John Howard in Australia embracing it. I'm sure he desperately wants to do anything short of a carbon tax.
Secondly, the evidence is that global warming is serious and something needs to be done. Now why don't we ban ice cream since it is a health threat? Well, I think the case could be made that it is not as serious a threat to health as global warming could be if say sea levels rose 7 meters, CAT 5 hurricanes became a common occurrence, all the coral reefs were bleached away, the ocean turned to green slime, and the temperate areas became host to numerous tropical diseases. I've had dengue fever and you don't want it in Chicago, believe me.
Thirdly, I have read that only about 5% of the U.S. population uses CFLs. Basically we have a market failure, people go for the short term cheaper, but more polluting, fix. The voluntary approach isn't working, if it was there would not be an issue.
And if we increased education and created incentives it might work, but not as quickly or as extensively. And who would pay for the education campaign and incentives? I think that would be the government, paid for with tax dollars, no? A simple ban is quick, effective, and doesn't raise taxes; again, I think that's why Mr. Howard likes it.
And the ice cream analogy doesn't quite work. We are not being asked to cut back on light, we can have the same amount of light, but with bulbs that use less energy and produce less C02.
The analogy might work if the ban was on "full cream" ice-cream and one could only by skim or "lite" ice-cream, but that would be relatively easy to circumvent (just add some cream). Whereas with CFLs no one will be trying to fatten up the light coming from their CFLs to burn more kilowatts.
Next, I'm sure no one will be arrested if they use an incandescent bulb, probably because the ban will be on their sale and there simply won't be any to buy.
And as far as the soft light issue, they have been improved and the CFLs in my house have a nice soft light.
As far as the dimming issue, I believe they are now available, but you may have to look a little harder.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/new_cold_cathod.php
I've heard that Wal-Mart is pushing CFLs, so they may have a bigger selection than others.
Some claim that they don't work that well, I don't know, but if they don't now, I'm sure there are folks working hard in the labs on the problem right now. Perhaps by 2010 when Australia’s ban goes into effect they will be ready.
And here's one for Dr. Love: Turn off the lights and turn on a hand cranked, rechargeable, Garrity LED lantern, the LEDs don't put out much light and set the mood quite nicely. (And, hey, cool, no CO2) ;-) (No, I don't work for Garrity, I just don't know anyone else who makes them.)
So, when do we have the government get involved? There's no easy answer, but in this case I think the answer is, when there is a very serious problem (climate change is global in nature), which the market is failing at, and the intervention is easy and will be relatively effective compared to the cost.
Things will get interesting down the road when governments start proposing more than these "little things," and the intervention won't be so easy. I think we will be seeing the phrase "carbon tax" in the news a lot more.
More amber hued mood lighting? No worries. Put yellow lamp shades around your CFLs. A little imagination goes a long way.
Yes, you're definitely right. In fact, governments should deregulate everything and instead provide education and incentives! You are kidding, right?
Unfortunately the whole notion of education and incentives doesn't work quite as well as you apparently think. The government already decides for us many things for us, for the greater good of the country. You can tout personal freedoms as much as you want, but I for one am glad that ordinary people can't really get their hands on assault rifles, nerve agents, etc. No matter what amount of education is provided and incentives for 'proper use' given.
Your analogy is flawed. An uninformed citizen making the choice to consume a large quantity of ice cream is only affecting their own body. And, to a lesser extent, the health care system that has to deal with their inevitable heart failure or diabetes. On the other hand, when an uninformed citizen makes the choice to purchase environmentally-unfriendly products (i.e. producing unnecessary emissions of greenhouse gases) they affect everyone on the planet now and for generations to come.
While in the grand scheme of things one household switching light bulbs clearly doesn't have a significant impact, just imagine an entire country of households switching light bulbs. It adds up.
Again, you can tout personal freedoms all you want, but the fact of the matter is: this is a trivial change for people to make and it will have a positive lasting impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
I was having a discussion with a colleague yesterday and he had had a CFL that had burned out, smouldering in the process, which reminded me that I had had the same problem, on one of our lights which is left on when we're out - the hall light (which is why we use a CFL).
While a web search has found some statements that this is 'normal', as CFL use goes up, I can see this turning into an Urban Legend (CFL causes house to burn down) that could impact takeup.
I prefer the color/light from CFL over ican myself also. It seems to make it easier to read to me.
I recently replaced a couple light fixtures in my house and bought the kind with large globes which hide the bulbs and people can't tell if there are CF or incan without looking.
I just need now to find CFL's with the round globe for the bathroom.
The rest of the lights in my house are on dimmers so I'm stuck there, everything else but the bathroom and dimmer lights are CFL's
not to mention that CFLs don't fit in many incandescent applications: task lamps, vanity mirrors, etc.
Banning incandescents is pretty stupid, IMO. First of all, as people mentioned, CFLs still don't work for many non-common uses. For example, how am I supposed to replace the bulb in my lava lamp when it goes out? I can't, it has to be incandescent.
Also, banning something outright creates hostility. I'm an environmentalist, but banning incandescents angers me.
Finally, I buy green power from my local utility (and even if I didn't, most of that power is from hydroelectric), so what do you care what I use my electricity for? I use a mix of incandescents and CFLs (I want to get a few more CFLs to replace burned out bulbs, but it is hard to find good CFLs within walking distance) and my power usage is way below average. I bet most of my electricity use comes from 1. my fridge 2. my electric stove and 3. the two servers I have running 24/7.
A better solution would to use a cap-and-trade system to make dirty power generation more expensive, which would lead people to reduce their consumption in the way that they choose.
Bob says:
"A ban means that I cannot have ANY incandescent bulbs. Even in my workroom where bulbs usually get broken long before they burn out, or in my storage room I only enter once a month or so for a few minutes at most. In the latter case, I use a bulb that turns itself off after 20 minutes, just in case I forget to turn it off :-)
So lets see, the eco-gestapo brownshirts would rather have me doused with mercury and other noxious powders (some radioactive), if i should break the bulb in my workroom or break my neck if I coudn't afford the expensive bulb for my storage area."
Please, John Howard, an "eco-gestapo brownshirt?"
Get a grip man, put a wire cage around the light in your work room. And spend $3.00 dollars on a CFL so you don't break your neck in your storage area; I think you will find that to be a cost effective solution.
Let's see, a man with a house, and, presumably, a computer can't afford $3.00 to save his neck?
Bob also says,
"Further, I believe that with the millions of CFL's already sold, a study would find that the most used bulbs, inherently the most cost effective switchovers have already been replaced, meaning that a total ban would have much less effect than predicted, perhaps even a negative effect, all things being considered."
Sorry to shatter your belief state, but a very small minority of people have made the switch, 5% according to this,
http://www.charityguide.org/volunteer/fifteen/compact-fluorescent.htm.
Or 6% according to this,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/business/02bulb.html?ex=1325394000en=7cdfdd70524b7590ei=5088partner=rssnytemc=rss
As you say, you have "many" in your home, I would wager that that is more than 5% of your lighting needs. I don't know where you live, but most people that I know don't have ANY in their homes, there is plenty of room for improvement.
I'd love to see your imaginary study that shows otherwise.
I'm glad to see we've pretty well concluded that CFL's are great but a ban is not, except Tavita, who raises political argument in favour of a ban. Being a conservative, I can attest to the pain I feel when Conservative/Republican governments do stupid things, which they seem to do on a regular basis. Two dumb things do not equal smart thing!
Here is some input from a CBC article
"In a 2003 survey, Natural Resources found that the average Canadian household used 26.4 light bulbs and that 77 per cent of these — no less than 243 million — were the old incandescent variety."
Link for more interesting factoids: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/living-green/lightbulbs.html
You can see that 23% or 72million bulbs in canada are NOT incandescent already, a figure that is sure to be increasing rapidly since 2003, due to the brisk sales of CFL's. You can in Home Depot for instance, compare the shelf space devoted to CFL's vs the "other" bulb, the halogens. (Now theres a bulb that SHOULD be banned! IMO of course :-)
Despite objections to education campaigns listed above, I have seen them work well in the recycling field, along with peer pressure that is generated by them and would far prefer my tax dollars to be used in this way. Suitable incentives, delivered through the Electric Utility also seems to work very well here in Canada.
Other than these two strategies, don't get too excited about this whole thing anyway. There are much bigger fish to fry.
Andrew says,
"Banning incandescents is pretty stupid, IMO. First of all, as people mentioned, CFLs still don't work for many non-common uses. For example, how am I supposed to replace the bulb in my lava lamp when it goes out? I can't, it has to be incandescent."
It seem to me that the key phrase would be "non-common uses." The article I read about this says there would be exception (it mentions medical devices). Now, since the ban won't go into effect until 2010, it seems there is time to create an exception list of those non-common uses where there would not be replacements.
Other instances cited in this thread such as work room lights or storage areas could easily be handed without exceptions. In the work room, put a wire cage around the light; in the storage area spend a little extra on a CFL so one can see (all the other CFLs in high use areas will more than pay for it).
As far as green power, that's great, but it's not widely used won't be even by 2010 and even those with green power will save money. How angry can one be about that?
Having said that, I agree that a cap and trade system would be better, but we are dealing with Australia and John Howard here. There are only two countries in the world that have rejected the Kyoto Protocol (a cap and trade system); the United States and Australia.
It's ironic to me that the conservative Howard rejects cap and trade, basically a market based system, and prefers this kind of government intervention. As I said before, he must think it is easier. So much for his conservative principles.
that's funny b/c my CFL's work just fine with the dimmer switches i use ?? plus, you could easily solve this if you just used multiple smaller output lights you could just turn on seperately. well, might not be that easy, but how's this - i cut my 30 kwh per day house down to about 20 kwh and all i did was change my lighting. so that's $1.40 per day. not bad for something that took less than an hour to do (going to walmart and installing them at home).
Thanks, Tavita for your suggestion of putting wire cage around my workroom bulb. I will add it to my to-do list, i believe item #1437, probably done by next decade. Meantime ......
But sorry, your suggestion to replace storage room light, as for the many seldom used lights in any house/ cottage/ garage/ shed/ dog house/ pig pen/ chicken coop/ [taking breath] dock/ boathouse/ sump room/ broom closet/ cupboard/ or any other odd place where someone wants a light from time to time -- is simply intellectually LAZY. OK of course for folks with lotsa moola. If each bulb change cannot be justified on its own merit, it should not be done. Especially by government thuggery.
Go pick on them halogen bulbs. Leave the lowly peoples bulb alone!
You can find tons of info on this on http://www.energyfederation.org. They are a non-profit distributor of energy efficient products and have lots of info on CFL's.
Yes they make dimmable, 3-way, reflectors and other styles in CFL's. In my opinion CFL's are they way to go.
Bob says,
"But sorry, your suggestion to replace storage room light, as for the many seldom used lights in any house/ cottage/ garage/ shed/ dog house/ pig pen/ chicken coop/ [taking breath] dock/ boathouse/ sump room/ broom closet/ cupboard/ or any other odd place where someone wants a light from time to time -- is simply intellectually LAZY. OK of course for folks with lotsa moola. If each bulb change cannot be justified on its own merit, it should not be done. Especially by government thuggery.
Go pick on them halogen bulbs. Leave the lowly peoples bulb alone!"
Umm, excuse me, but in any given home there are not really "many seldom used lights". In my house there is one storeroom with one CFL, the rest of the house has 13 other lights that are used on a regular basis. I doubt very much that I am unusual in that regard.
I'm sorry that you can't think outside the storeroom, but I won't be boxed into your decision making rule that each and every light bulb has to be justified on its own merit. I can see the broader context where more frequently used lights far out number seldom used lights, which means that people will on average save money on the deal and we get to fight global warming at the same time.
Did you actually read the initial post? The average family will save $2,300 over the life of the bulbs. Sorry, but IMHO your objection is trivial and has no intellectual merit.