CFLs and Other Bulbs - Real Energy Savings

Compact Fluorescent and Other Bulbs…

We have heard a lot lately about compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), even to the extent that municipalities and governments are considering banning the traditional incandescent bulbs in favour of CFLs. That seems to be rather heavy-handed and may not achieve the desired results, but action is required because lighting amounts to about 20% of our overall electricity consumption.

So let’s take a look at this trend and understand the benefits and drawbacks of these and other types of lighting.

The traditional light bulb, also called the incandescent bulb, is the original invention of Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan, dating from about 125 years ago. It works by passing an electric current through a thin wire filament, usually tungsten, inside an evacuated glass globe. The tungsten glows white-hot, and gives off light. As you can imagine, anything that glows white is pretty hot, and in fact an incandescent bulb only converts about 5% of the energy it consumes into light. The rest is given off as heat. We don’t always want heat along with our light, but up to now we get both like it or not.

The new popularity of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) owes a lot to two things: the great improvement in manufacturing leading to much lower cost, and the lower energy consumption. In fact, a CFL will last about 10,000 hrs, compared with about 1000 hrs. for an incandescent bulb, and it converts about 30% of its electrical energy into light. A CFL works by energising a gas inside the coiled glass tube, which causes a coating inside the tube to glow. As well, the new CFLs are brighter, more like natural light, and don’t flicker. Some heat is generated but far less than an incandescent bulb. Downsides are that they cannot be dimmed like an incandescent bulb and CFLs contain a small amount of mercury which is a concern at the time of disposal where the mercury may be released and contribute to air and water pollution.
Some manufacturers such as Philips, the Dutch electronics giant, and GE make very low mercury content CFLs. Safe disposal requires storing the bulbs unbroken until they can be processed. Consumers should seek disposal advice from local authorities, who need to prepare to receive these bulbs. Disposal methods include returning used CFLs to where they were purchased, so the store can recycle them correctly; or taking used CFLs to a recycling facility.
Proper disposal involves crushing the bulbs in a machine that uses specialized equipment and a mercury-absorbing filter to contain and treat the contaminated gases. Such machines are becoming more common along with CFLs. The crushed glass and metal is stored safely in drums, ready for shipping to recycling factories
Here is the real payoff… it is estimated that there are about 400 million incandescent light sockets in Canada. If 85% can be replaced with CFLs, we could save an estimated 15 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions and save nearly two billion dollars in electricity costs. That, readers, is serious conservation.

The real star players in the lighting Olympics are LEDs. LED stands for Light Emitting Diode. These put out an amazing amount of light for their power consumption, converting up to 70% of the electricity to light, and have a lifetime of more than 50,000 hrs. These numbers look pretty attractive, but they are still very expensive by comparison with incandescent and CFLs. You certainly get a lot of light for little electrical power. Work is progressing in making them cheaper, and in a range of “warm white” colours that people demand for home lighting. Philips has several programs underway to develop affordable and flexible LEDs. They are continuing to find many applications in automotive and aerospace, because of their small size, low power consumption and lack of heat generation. Almost daily we see new applications, such as tiny light gadgets for key chains, and convenient and bright flashlights.

If you can, do your part by converting your light bulbs to CFLs and help lower your electrical bill and your carbon dioxide emissions. It may be that the standard incandescent bulb is about to become the oil lamp of the twenty-first century, a useful gadget whose time has passed.