Lester Brown: Ban the Bulb
by Lester Brown, Washington, D.C on 05.25.07
Sometimes an idea seems almost too good to be true. But this one is not. If there was a worldwide shift from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents, the drop in electricity use would permit us to close 270 coal-fired (500-megawatt) power plants that are contributing enormously to climate change. (See full report.)
Some countries have already started “banning the bulb.” On February 20, 2007, Australia announced it would phase out the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2010, replacing them with highly efficient compact fluorescent bulbs that use one fourth as much electricity. For the United States, this bulb switch would facilitate shutting down 80 coal-fired plants.
Two months after Australia’s announcement, the Canadian government announced it would phase out sales of incandescents by 2012.
In mid-March, a U.S. coalition of environmental groups—including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Alliance to Save Energy, the American Coalition for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and the Earth Day Network—along with Philips Lighting launched an initiative to shift to the more-efficient bulbs in all of the country’s estimated 4 billion sockets by 2016.
In California, the most populous state, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine is proposing that his state phase out the sale of incandescent light bulbs by 2012, four years ahead of the coalition’s deadline. Levine calls his proposed law the “How Many Legislators Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb Act.” On the East Coast, the New Jersey legislature is on the verge of requiring state government buildings to replace all incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents by 2010 as part of a broader statewide effort to promote the shift to more-efficient lighting.
The European Union, now numbering 27 countries, announced in March 2007 that it plans to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Part of this cut will be achieved by replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents. In the United Kingdom, a nongovernmental group called Ban the Bulb has been vigorously pushing for a ban on incandescents since early 2006. Further east, Moscow is urging residents to switch to compact fluorescents. In New Zealand, Climate Change Minister, David Parker, has announced that his country may take similar measures to those adopted by Australia.
In April, Greenpeace urged the government of India to ban incandescents in order to cut carbon emissions. Since roughly 640 million of the 650 million bulbs sold each year in this fast-growing economy are incandescents, the potential for cutting carbon emissions, reducing air pollution, and saving consumers money is huge.
More broadly, the European Lamp Companies Federation (the bulb manufacturers’ trade association) is supporting a rise in EU lighting efficiency standards that would lead to a phase-out of incandescent bulbs. (See data.)
At the commercial level, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, announced a marketing campaign in November 2006 to boost its sales of compact fluorescents to 100 million by the end of 2007, more than doubling its annual sales. In the U.K., Currys, Britain’s largest electrical retail chain, has announced that it will discontinue selling incandescent light bulbs.
Switching light bulbs is an easy way of realizing large immediate gains in energy efficiency. A study for the U.S. government calculated that the gasoline equivalent of the energy saved over the lifetime of one 24-watt compact fluorescent bulb is sufficient to drive a Prius from New York to San Francisco.
The challenge for each of us, of course, is to shift to compact fluorescents in our own homes if we have not already. But far more important, we need to contact our elected representatives at the city, provincial, or state level and at the national level to introduce legislation to raise lighting efficiency standards, in effect phasing out inefficient incandescent light bulbs. Few things can cut carbon emissions faster than this simple step.
I was under the impression that CFLs are actually rather harmful to the environment once they break/are disposed of. Seeing as they have mercury within them, etc. If we switch to CFLs, in 10-15 years all of those chemicals will be in our landfills. Even if CFLs are suppose to be disposed of properly, I have little faith in the American Public not to just chuck their burnt out bulbs into their trashcans.
Wouldn't LED based light bulbs be a wiser choice? Or is the amount of Mercury in CFLs negligible in the long run?
We won't actually be able to shut down any coal plants in the US, most likely, because population growth will offset any energy savings from baning light bulbs. We will still help the environment, though, and we won't have to build any more power plants for a while.
I'd like to add something. Whenever we talk about this to our friends, coworkers, families and so on, we should mention that this is not only good for the environment, but it's also good for your wallet. I know people who believe global warming doesn't affect them, but when you tell them that CF bulbs will save them money, their eyes light up.
It's not the way I would like to convince people to change their ways, but hey, I'll use whatever works.
GJ
http://www.60in3.com
Over here in the Netherlands the government also plans to phase out incandescents by 2012. They use the "good for your wallet slogan" but it doesn't seem to inspire people. I guess the green element is more attractive then the - in perception - small amount of money they save.
Maybe nice to note that Greenpeace ran a campaign to promote the use of LED lamps with their 1millionlightbulbs website with people sending in their photo of them changing lamps.
http://www.1miljoenspaarlampen.nl (In Dutch, sorry)
Most of this legislation is stupid, jump-on-the-bandwagon stuff.
First, let me say that I have personally switched to using CFLs in my entire house with the exception of one torchiere and a rarely used dimmer bulb. I urge others to make the switch as well.
But (and you knew this was coming), mandating CFLs/banning incandescents (which is what most of these bills propose) is stupid. Instead of picking an efficiency level and requiring that by some set date, they pick a technology "winner" or "loser".
These bills should instead mandate a specific lumens/watt standard and then let the market take over. If GE really can make a more efficient incandescent, bully for them. If not, bye-bye incandescent. By the time some of these mandates take place, LEDs will be cost-efficient as well.
For instance, the California bill - http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_0701-0750/ab_722_bill_20070222_introduced.html - simply bans incandescent light bulbs by 2012. There is a little wiggle room in the proposed bill (if the incandescent uses less than 25 watts), but there is no attempt at a lumens/watt standard - it just bans one technology. In fact, under this law, I could sell craptasticly manufactured CFLs that use more energy than an incandescent and I would be exempt from the ban.
We really should expect better.
Saving money is a trick that is used here in the UK to promote green activities like this (the bio-diesel push and, even, pay-as-you-throw garbage disposal). The average punter does not care how their daily decisions effect the environment, but they do care how it effects their wallets.
If we could only highlight more and more of these cost-saving greening measures, I think that a larger number of people would follow through with them!
There is some Mercury in CFL's, however it is a relatively small amount - approx 5mg/bulb (the old fashioned Mercury thermometers have between 1000-3000mg so you would need over 200 CFL's to come close to that amount)
Mfg's have been able to minimize the amount in them, and are working to get rid of it, but haven't been able to completely eliminate it. They have also made the bulbs more break resistant to minimize any in-home releases.
With most communities putting in recycling programs for the bulbs, the amount of Mercury lost is pretty minimal. When you consider that most of the power in the US is from coal plants and that burning coal releases Mercury directly into the atmosphere it works out that the amount of Mercury released from the coal reqd. to light an incandescent bulb for it's life is way more than the amount released from the CFL + the coal reqd. to light it for it's (much longer) life.
LED's are a longer term option as they are still expensive and the light emitted is highly directional, and not quite ready for a lot of overhead lighting jobs.
My major beef with CFLs is, why do they have to place them in packaging that makes it nearly impossible to get the bulbs out? Regular bulbs are in those easy to get into cardboard wrappers, CFLs are in some dense plastic that conforms to the shape of the bulb that is difficult to tear or cut causing me to break bulbs trying to get them out of the container. Sheesh, and who wants to deal with that damn plastic anyway? And where does one find an American made CFL?
It will be tough to swich from something so traditional... In rich, modern countries it might go faster, but most of the world doesn't belong to that group
Maybe a stupid question, but what about conventional fluorescent lights? I have found them to beeconomical and more reliable than compact fluorescents, which have electronic ballast.
The amount of mercury in CFLs is actually less than the amount of Hg that would be released into the atmosphere by supplying the incandescent bulb with energy, due to coal's dirty nature. Google "mercury CFL" for the EPA fact sheet about Hg in CFL bulbs.
Digg frontpage! :D
I mostly agree... "ban the *current* bulbs!"
Surely the main issues here are manufacturing costs (something that I am blissfully ignorant of) and running costs.
Running costs are purely a result of EFFICIENCY, no? The current incand. bulbs are very inefficient compared to CFLs, and that is why they should be banned.
But... if we ban ALL incand. bulbs, regardless of efficiency, then surely we have killed all future development/improvements to that type of bulb.
If we (by we i mean legislators) focus more on efficiency and less on the type of bulb, surely the outcome will be better? Once that happens, we could then look at manufacturing costs.
Then all the fluorescent bulbs would break and the ozone layer would fall apart. Sounds like a great idea.
1) Banning a specific technology is fallacy. Demand specifications, like lumens per watt, and specific appliactions, like home lighting - otherwise, you're stifling the market and shifting efficiency problems from one market (energy) to the next (illumination).
For example, would you ban incandescents for flashlights? How about car headlights? Little kids' science projects? Holiday lights? What if Sylvania, for example, designed an incandescent that got LED efficiencies? What if GE came out with a cheap CFL that got incandescent efficiencies? The former would be banned, but the latter is OK?
2) CFL is not the best technology to come along for illumination; the color is wrong, they're toxic if broken (five micrograms isn't a lot, but a landfill's worth is), and better (if not less expensive) technology exists (LED).
CFL's aren't really a good idea in much of the world, the risks outweight the rewards as it were.
Incandescent bulbs use about 95% of their energy in 'heat'. In cold countries, or places that would otherwise require heating this is obviously a non starter for CFL (say... like ontario). Replacing them with CFL's just shifts the load from regular power to either, regular power or oil/natural gas etc... The cost then of recycling the more complex and toxic CFLs tends to negate their benefits. In this case shifting to CFL's is a waste of money and just adds risk to homeowners. Overall a bad idea.
CFL's contain a fairly substantial amount of mercury, that when it's running is by definition vaporized (this is how they operate). The mercury isn't particularly problematic in the sense that like all metals it can be recycled if anyone is so inclined. The issue is what happens if it breaks and you get vaporized mercury in your house? Not good, actually, very not good.
The benefits of fluorescent bulbs in any sense stem from their reduced power consumption. As such big business and some homes (that want say a ring of light over the kitchen) use FL already. That makes sense, and certainly for industrial lighting and buildings which always need to be cooled etc.. that makes sense, and already happens.
The main benefit of CFL's is in areas which need to be cooled a lot already (hot countries, texas arizona that sort of thing). In that case where a regular bulb is heating the house, and the AC is cooling it, one is already adding one expense to another. Since those places tend to have the population density to support elaborate recycling programmes already it makes a lot of sense there. Well except that by 2012 one would probably be better of with LED based lighting and leave CFL's where they belong: Never manufactured in the first place.
As an aside one of the supposed benefits of CFL's to justify their increased cost is that they last longer. This is only true in scenarios where they are on for a long time (not closets etc...), where the base of the bulb is cool, electrical power is very well regulated etc... (I'm not sure if the latter is a good estimate for normal north american homes or not, certainly mine is not and that means fluorescents last as long or less than incandescents).
I think the money wasted on CFL's would be better spent on renewable power (gov't policy levels) and putting solar panels on your home. And then spent on LED lights as they drop in price and performance.
I replaced my whole house w/ cfl's 3 yrs ago and will never go back. Another reason they are more efficient which is often overlooked, is that they don't heat up as much so your AC doesnt need to work as hard fighting them. Which is important and a big energy saver if you live in Florida like I do, Alaska not so much lol
ALL of my home's light bulbs are dimmers. I rent this place. Nearly all of those are halogens too and they are of varying styles. I don't think there is any way I could find CFLs that fit some of the housings and even if I did a CFL won't dim... I live in the USA. Instead of forcing us to switch to different inferior lighting I vote for power plants other than coal or oil burning. For years I have wanted more nuclear power plants built as well but the public ignorantly is afraid of them. Please, If France can get ~90%+ of their power form nukes so can we..
I am all for alternate forms of energy. I do not support an unnecessary change by the people in this case. I don't litter, I pick up other people's trash, I care about the environment, but we have better choices. I personally hope energy costs continue to rise to force more alternative energy research.
Arjan van Woensel is correct.
Have you ever seen one of these CFL explode when u try to dimm it? What happens there considering my house is full of dimmers and downlights?
Someone needs to make a CFL that is equivalent to
3-way 50W-100W-150W incandescents. I'd hate to
have to pitch my favorite reading lamp to go green.
Am I alone on this?
Exactly how many people would lose jobs if 270 coal-fired (500-megawatt) power plants closed? 5, 10, 15,000?
agh jeeze.
1. compact fluorescents don't dim
2. cfls and leds do not like hot environments, like ovens
3. the spectrum of cfls sucks for long term viewing
4. fluorescents flash at 120hz which is also annoying in the long term
5. if you're heating your house, it doesn't really quite matter how efficient the light bulbs are (otoh it matters doubly if you're air conditioning)
6. cfls look bad in open-bulb fixtures that use the shape of the bulb as part of their design (like chandeliers)?
7. cfls are bad in a place like a cold garage where they are really dim, and only on for short times and never get to full brightness.
outright banning something? i can't decide that something in my house would be better served by a traditional incandescent bulb? what a horrible totalitarian idea! if the problem is the people who go to the store and go 'uh derr i buy the bulbs i always buy', then what is needed is education on the long-term cost savings of the slightly more expensive bulbs. yes non-thinking is a huge problem, but it certainly shouldn't be solved by taking a product completely off the shelves.
emissions from generating electricity should be attacked at the source. reduce the emissions of preexisting power plants, and change the types that are built. (if reducing emissions drives up the price of electricity, then that will certainly decrease electricity usage also, right?) solar should be coming down enough in price over the next few years to make it viable for large portions of the grid (in the day). visiting hydroelectric dams and seeing the power they put out makes you wonder why we don't see more of those, too.
how long has nuclear power been around? oh that's right, we gave up on those and went back to burning oil, because of hysterical fear of zomgmeltdownz!!! although apparently i've heard about new pebble-bed reactors that have built-in negative feedback to avoid that sort of thing, so hopefully that'll help too. there's really only one place we get our energy from, nuclear reactions. we either have to harvest what the sun puts out (short or long term), or create our own.
outright banning something as simple as a lightbulb is just ridiculous. let's ban heaters, air conditioners, computers, and stereos while we're at it, because of all the energy they use. in fact, let's just ban any light bulb over 20W (for use in nightlights). people can just sleep when it's dark, and do things when it's light. riiiight....
Wherever I can I replace incandescents with fluorescents. I love that it's such an easy way to do something good for the planet. Score one for the blue planet!
banning conventional bulbs is stupid: you can't use CFLs in ovens. There are plenty of applications for which CFLs are just not suitable.
Perhaps passing legislation that would require that new lamps that don't use old fashioned dimmers come with CFLs if not LED lighting pre-installed, and that all new buildings use CFLs if not LEDs, would be a better idea. Banning the conventional light bulb outright is a dumb idea simply because there are applications for which CFLs and LEDs just don't work well.
A big protest is going on India to ban the blub.
http://meninweb.blogspot.com/
I'd just like to add that these types of bulbs give off really crappy light. It just doesn't have the same color as light bulbs, instead of yellow, it's more of a blue-ish color, which irritates me.
True, CFL's are able to be used everywhere...yet. Companies are working very hard on making them suitable for every application that an incandescent is used for. They most certainly CAN be dimmed, but it takes a dimmable ballast for this which used to be very expensive. They now have CFL's that replace floods with built in dimmable ballasts. These go for around $15-$20 US but we will continue to see prices drop because there will be more of a demand and companies will produce more rapidly.
CFL's are also starting to come in much "warmer" colors. That means warm incandescent tone that makes your colors stand out (used in lots of supermarkets for making the food look better) are appearing in almost every wattage. WALMART I know has different color fluorescents lamps over their food isles in the new stores. Their lamps by the skylights are also on dimming ballasts.
There ARE 3 way CFL's now. There are also traditional looking "Edison" lamps and also candle looking CFL's for chandelier use.
They are the wave of the future, do some research to learn all you can!
I have converted most of my house to CFL. There are a few fixtures that just don't fit. But I am not sure I agree with a ban on incandescent. CFLs do not work well at very low or high temperatures.
Can you replace the light in the oven with a CFL? The dryer? CFLs perform poorly outdoors in the winter. They may not light at all and are very dim. The lights in my garage door opener are "incandescent only". Will I need a new garage door opener.
Dimable CFLs came on the market several years ago but suddenly were not in stores. Not sure why they were pulled but that means no dimable fixtures.
I have used CFBs for a long time now but I am not sure making incandescent bulbs illegal is a good idea. Light bulbs get broken all the time but CFBs contain mercury. If a CFB is broken will you have to call for a hazardous material clean up crew? Will you have to disclose said broken bulb when you sell your house? These bulbs don’t last near as long as they claim (a lot of the time they last even less time then incandescent bulbs based on my personal experience) and they have to be taken to a special facility for disposal because they can‘t go in your regular recycling, thus negating any carbon savings because I have to drive my car 50km to the disposal facility and take time off work to do it. CFBs don’t work in the cold ie out side in the Canadian winter. CFBs don’t save as much power as people like to think because they have a ballast that takes them out of phase with the electricity supply so the hydro company has to supply you with 44 watts to power your 22 watt bulb, dimmers even make this worse. Add in the fact that most light bulbs are used at night when its dark out, a time when most coal fired generating stations are throttled back because they are not needed when demand is less, and you will have little if no measurable reduction in carbon emissions. I think they have a lot of planning to do before they really make this happen. I am not sure that the trade off of in the inevitable mercury contamination is worth the reduction in carbon emissions. We can adapt to global warming but we cannot adapt to the mercury poisoning that will inevitably end up in our food supply. I am putting my money on LEDs as soon as they become viable.
why all that chat about cfl's? as if it's the only alternative.
think led!
I'm happy to finally see some constructive comments on this one.
I just wish that, if we are going to legislate energy efficiency (which I mostly think we should do) that we legislate how much energy one can use and then let them decide how to use it. We do this in commercial buildings. We say that offices can have 1.2 Watts/square foot and schools can have 1.5 Watts/square foot and the designer can accomplish that however they want. A simple way to do this in residential would just be to tax electricity. That wo uld accomplish so much more than changing light bulbs, especially in Ontario.
In my days as a lighting designer/electrical engineer, I had at least a couple of times where incandescent (well halogen to be exact) fixtures were used instead of fluorescent (and fluorescent technology in commercial buildings is years ahead of what is available, residentially) and I was able to achieve more light on the task surface with less wattage (much less wattage) becuase of the precise aiming possiblity of halogen. Now that isn't always the case, but there are times where it is.
It was completely silly for ontario to ban incandescent--why becuase ontario is cool much of the year. WHEN YOUR FURNACE IS ON, INCANDESCENT IS 100% EFFICIENT! Ontario will save electricity by requiring CFL but will increase the amount of Natural Gas needed by the same amount.
And in the warmer months, in Ontario, the sun stays out really late and people turn their lights on really late as a result, making the amount of light used, residentially, in the summer quite small comparitively...
And I still have not ever gotten anyone to tell me how much energy it takes to MANUFACTURE a CFL bulb compared to an Incandescent.
I fear that we have a similar crisis ensuing among green people of "someone said it, so it must be true" We jump on this bandwagon and don't really know the costs (environmentally). For all we know, without the data I ask for regarding manufacturing, we could be using more energy, globally, by using CFL. Really.
Consider the boondogle with paper cups vs styrofoam cups. Do you know that, considering the growing, harvesting, processing, manufacturing of paper cups uses MORE petroleum than goes into creating a styrofoam cup. But yet everyone who cares, but hasn't stepped up and when reusable, takes paper over plastic
WHAT IF CFLS vs Incan is the same problem?
WHoops, on that last comment I appear to have gotten distracted--ignore the comment about paper vs plastic bags. I meant paper vs styrofoam cups...
I would add that it is important to consider the additional energy and hazard posed by manufacture of the CFLs in China. A full accounting of the energy consumed in production and pollution due to poor handling of materials and use of high mercury, dirty fuels for energy production is needed to see if there is benefit.
I do not like these quick fix, feel good solutions to complex problems. Cheap low flow toilets that require multiple flushes and low flow showerheads that have motivated the industry to develop multi head shower fixtures are good examples of the limitations of government mandated environmental quick fixes.
Leave the government out of this! Replace bulbs where it makes sense, provide for recycling, and most of all, provide information to help people decide what to do.
Read how my family is tracking the impact of 'going green' on our electric, gas, and water bill. Read Jan 6th's blog, 'Fluorescent vs. LED Comparison: Flood Lights and Buyer's Regret'.
My goal is to find least expensive options for transforming my family's consumption patterns while maintaining or improving our standard of living. Watch us compare our monthly 2007 and 2008 electric, water and gas bills.
Find out for yourself from our real-life experiences.
peace,
jlw
http://livinggreenlivingwell.com
Just what percent of the population do you think will recycle these damn CFLS?
People litter as if there is no tomorrow, even after all the ads pleading with them not to.
The average person will just throw these things away with the newspaper. Oh, did anybody mention that there is a fee to recycle these CFLs? Once mercury starts showing up in the ground water, the politicians will have a new “crisis” that will demand umpteen billions of new spending to “fix”.
I’ll use candles before I’ll use a CFL.
What happens if you break one in your house? Do you have to call the HazMat team?
If we really want to save the damn planet from “global warming” we should ban air conditioning. That’s probably coming.