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I am concerned about the fact these new bulbs contain mercury. I am very uncomfortable purchasing anything with mercury in it. How are the bulbs supposed to be safely discarded once they are used? I would like to use less energy, but not if it means putting mercury into the ground.
There is less mercury in the newer CF bulbs than naturally occurs in the soil. The problem is when you get 1000's of CF bulbs in one location (landfill) the mercury contamination level can become quite high and leach into the groundwater. We have the same situation with alkaline and rechargeable batteries and nuclear waste, no one gave any serious thought to the disposal of the waste products!
I believe GE is trying to mandate that you can only buy CFLs... LED are excellent choices, unfortunately, GE can't make a lot of money off of LEDs since they last so long.. and the government won't press LEDs into the market but they are willing to press CFL into the market though... government serving big business again! Lets make bigger governments! Yah!
I believe GE is trying to mandate that you can only buy CFLs... LED are excellent choices, unfortunately, GE can't make a lot of money off of LEDs since they last so long.. and the government won't press LEDs into the market but they are willing to press CFL into the market though... government serving big business again! Lets make bigger governments! Yah!
LED's are not a replacement for incandescent lighting in the home. LED lights have replaced most marker and brake lites on trucks and trailers because of their low power consumption. LED lights do not have the candlepower equivalent of an incandescent or CF lite. Also, the light emitted from white LED's is very "cold" in color quality making for a very undesirable lighting environment.
LEDs from a standard AC power source also flicker at 60 hertz. Most people can't detect it but I can. That would give me a headache in a huge hurry.
I also can often detect the 60Hz flicker in fluorescent tubes and CF lights, sometimes I have to shut the light off to avoid a headache. LED's run on 60Hz AC flicker because the half-wave rectifier used in the power supply does not supply true (smooth) DC to the LED's, but supplies a "sawtooth" type of DC which the LED's pick up during the reversal of voltage and current flow as the current flow goes from zero to max positive then thru zero to max negative and back to zero to repeat the power cycle. If you take a look at the teeth of a saw blade, that is what discontinuous DC would look like on an oscilloscope, peaks and valleys with max to zero voltage along the time/current baseline.
Has anyone bothered to check if the compact florescent bulbs are actually as efficient and economical as they are quoted to be. Wattage is the manufacturers quoted measurement. You may like to use a good energy meter. Depending on what brand of bulb you buy, you may find that when measuring Volt Amps or applying the power factor of the bulb, that the quoted efficiency is up to 100% out.
But don’t worry, you only get charged for the wattage. This still means that you may need twice the power station output for lighting and are not doing quite as much good for the environment as you thought.
When I bought my house incandescent bulbs were throughout. Remodeling in effect, my possessions stayed in storage, so no accessories changed the equation. After 2-3 months of average billing I replaced almost everything with CFL's and my bill dropped noticeably. I keep the porch lights on continuously after dusk or out of town for security. I'm a happy customer with few exceptions.
My biggest issue with CFLs is that they absolutely suck in the cold. If you have a porch light, or a fixture in an unheated basement/garage you can pretty much forget getting any signficiant light out of a CFL when it's below freezing. If the darn things even comes on, it barely glows with as much lumens as one of those tiny borthday cake candles. Pathetic and disappointing.
I'd like to use incandescent for the light quality/color/rendering... but they suck my battery bank dry really fast. I save our one incandescent lamp for things where correct color is important or detail is critical. I hate the gastly gray/green/orange cast of flouros and the flicker drives me batty.
Unfortunately, the rest of our lights are CFL, but I will be replacing them with LEDs when we build the cabin... and wiring them straight 12v from the battery bank rather than dinking with the inverter to convert to 120v! Running a straight 12v LED bulb saves even more energy, and you don't get the annoying flicker.... and the DC bulbs are CHEAP compared to the AC versions. Still more expensive than incandescents, but a heck of a lot cheaper than running my generator more often!! LEDs work awesome in the cold, so bonus there!
Most of the energy saving bulbs are expensive but they are supposed to last longer. So that means by spending more money at one time will save you money monthly on you electric bill and you save money by buying less bulbs. The initial cost seems worth it to me but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
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