 Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL's)
Use compact fluorescent
light bulbs (CFL's).
If you know only a little about CFL's, you've
probably heard that they save a little energy but they contain a lot of
toxic mercury. But the truth is, they save a whopping
amount of energy, and the mercury scare is way overblown. On this page
I'll give you the lowdown on CFL's in great detail.
I first recommended CFL's on this site way back
in the 1990's, when they were rare. It was kind of neat back then
to let people in on a big secret. It's not such a secret any more, but
I'm glad people are saving energy with CFL's.
To understand why CFL's are a big deal, we
first need to see why regular lightbulbs are so lame. Environmental
Defense has the best explanation of what's wrong with regular light
bulbs:
"Though we call
them light bulbs, traditional incandescent bulbs are actually small
heaters that give off a little bit of light--something you know if
you've ever touched a bulb that's been on for a while. These bulbs were
technological wonders when they were patented in 1880, but today they
are inefficient dinosaurs. They waste energy and money, and they are
responsible for millions of tons of global warming pollution."
Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL's) are one
solution -- they use about 75% less electricity and give off only a
little
bit of heat.
Here's are the benefits of CFL's:
- Use 75% less energy than regular light bulbs.
- Last about 10 times as long as regular light
bulbs.
- Produce similar quality light as regular light
bulbs (nothing like old-style fluorescents).
- Cost as little as $1.50.
- Don't generate ridiculous amounts of heat
(which you would have to pay to remove with AC).
And here are the downsides:
- Most of them can't be used with dimmer
switches. (Some can; check the package.)
- Cheap ones burn out really quickly. Buy name
brands and/or bulbs with a warranty.
- They start dim and take a minute or two to
reach full brightness.
- They contain a tiny amount of mercury, which
might be an issue if you break a bulb and you're
careless about how you clean it up. (More on this in a
minute.)
- They produce a higher electromagnetic field
than regular bulbs, and there is controversy about whether this has
health effects. (More on this in a minute, too.)
Old-style bulbs are such big energy-wasters
that many governments are banning them. That includes the U.S. and
Australia. They're doing this to save energy, because saving energy
reduces pollution. (Power plants put out tons of carbon, sulfur
dioxide, mercury, and more.)
Let's start out by looking at the savings you
get with CFL's. Right off the bat, you save 70% on energy as soon
as you screw them in. Here's a calculator to demonstrate:
And that's just the electricity savings.
Since a good CFL lasts 10 times longer than an old-style bulb, that's a
lot fewer bulbs to buy. This is especially important for large
commercial applications, where the cost of labor to constantly replace
old-style bulbs can be significant.
You'll save even more in summer months, because
CFL's
run cooler than old-style bulbs, so you'll spend less money to cool
your
home or office. This is balanced by the fact that you'll see
little savings during the winter, because your savings on lighting will
be negated by
higher heating bills. (Your old incandescent lights were helping
to heat your home.)
It's unlikely you'll pay more overall in the winter by using
CFL's, it's just that you likely won't see much overall savings during
winter,
either. So in summary:
Savings from switching to CFL
|
When not using
AC
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Huge savings
|
When not using AC or heat
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Significant savings
|
When using heat
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Little to no savings
|
To figure your electricity savings manually, ignoring heating/cooling
issues, use
this formula:
|
Watts x
Hours Used
|
|
|
x
Cost per kilowatt-hour =
Total Cost
|
|
1000
|
|
For example, let's say you replace ten 60-watt
bulbs with ten 15-watt CFL bulbs. That saves you 45 watts per bulb, or
450 watts for all ten. Let's say all your lights were on for six hours
a day, five days a week. That's thirty hours a week, or about 1500
hours a year. So your 450 watts savings times 1500 hours a year =
675,00 watt-hours. Divide by 1000 and you have 675 kilowatt-hours
(kWh). If you're paying 15¢ per kilowatt-hour, then you'll save $101.25
a year.
If you don't like my calculator there's also a calculator at EnergyStar.gov.
Modern CFL's produce great light. If you
saw the old ones and didn't like the kind of light they put out, you're
in for a surprise. Here's what Popular Mechanics said:
The results
surprised us.... [H]ere was the real shocker: When it came to the
overall quality of the light, all the CFLs scored higher than our
incandescent control bulb. In other words, the new fluorescent bulbs
aren't just better for both your wallet and the environment, they
produce better light.
How to buy CFL's
When you buy CFL bulbs the package will be
labeled to show you how many watts it's equivalent to. For example,
a 15-watt CFL bulb package will say something like "60 watt
equivalent". They have to say that otherwise people would look at the
package and think, "15 watts? That's not nearly enough light!" But it
is, because a 15-watt CFL bulb puts out as much light as a standard
60-watt bulb.
Although CFL's generally last for years longer
than regular bulbs, the cheap kind can burn out quickly. I
therefore recommend buying either name-brand CFL's, or at least
ones that come with a 5+ year warranty. If the package
says "lasts five years" that's not good enough, you want a 5+ year guarantee.
Make sure to get a color temperature you'll be
happy with. The light bulbs you're replacing are probably "warm",
around 2800k. Anything above around 3500k will have a bluish tint to
it, and the higher the blue, the "colder" (more blue) it gets. If you
want similar light to what you probably have now, go for "warm" CFL's,
less than 3500k, the lower the better.
If you're in a super-cold environment, note that
most CFL's run dim in very cold temperatures, and most won't run at all
below 20°F. (Paralite makes some they claim will work down to minus
20°F.) If you're using them outside as floodlights, then make sure you
get the kind that are labeled for cold-weather use. One reader notes
that he put a $10 bug light sleeve around the light which acted like
insulation, and kept the light just warm enough that it would work.
The great mercury scare
Let me debunk this the easy way: The
median mercury exposure from breaking a CFL is only 0.07 mcg,
while single serving of Albacore tuna has 48 mcg. The
tuna has seven hundred times as much! The amount of
mercury exposure by breaking a CFL is just not that significant. (Illuminating Engineering Society, 2009) As
Popular Mechanics put it:
Each bulb contains
an average of 5 milligrams of mercury, "which is just enough to cover a
ballpoint pen tip," says Leslie, associate director of the Lighting
Research Center at Rensselaer [Polytechnic Institute]. "Though it's
nothing to laugh at, unless you wipe up mercury [without gloves] and
then lick your hand, you're probably going to be okay.
And while the risk from a broken CFL is tiny,
the risk from a bulb that never breaks is zero. You'd think that
would be obvious, but some of the hysteria surrounding
CFL's is coming from pages that say that just having CFL's installed in
your home is "killing you slowly" -- which is absolutely nonsense.
If a bulb does break, you just take some simple steps to minimize your exposure when
cleaning it up. You certainly don't have to call in a hazmat team.
One woman got bad advice that she needed to do just that, and the
anti-CFL folks have been having a field day with that one, not
admitting that the advice this person received about employing a hazmat
team was simply wrong.
Those who are still concerned can just use a
bulb
with a plastic cover. Check out the picture at right of a bulb I
bought recently. It's really unlikely that one of these bulbs will
break in the first place, but if it does, it's sealed. Problem solved.
Another idea being bandied about is that the
use of CFL's is resulting in a lot more mercury getting into the
environment, in general. Not true, because power plants put out
tons of mercury. They put out more mercury to power the bulb, than
is
contained in the bulb. (Ohio EPA) In
fact, for each bulb you don't replace with a CFL, you're
putting ten mg. of mercury straight into the air. (Popular Mechanics) Using CFL's dramatically reduces mercury emissions
at the power plant.
And mercury at the power plant is worse than
mercury in lightbulbs, because power plant mercury goes straight into
the air where it's impossible to recycle. By contrast, every
single Home Depot and Ikea take unbroken CFL's for recycling.
Next, let's put the amount of mercury in
perspective:
- 3000mg - Common thermostats (max. amount)
- 500mg - Old mercury-filled thermometer
- 500mg - Dental filling
- 25mg - Watch batteries from circa
1958-2008 (now going mercury-free)
- 13.6mg - Mercury emitted at power plant
to power an old NON-CFL bulb
- 5mg - Compact fluorescent light bulb
- 1-3 mg - Low-mercury
CFL's (e.g., Phillips and Turolight)
- 0.000007 mg - Median exposure from a
broken CFL
Figures from Energy Star Canada and GE,
exposure figure from Illuminating
Engineering Society.
See also the EPA's info about household
items that contain mercury, here
and here.
Let's also remember that tubular fluorescents
have been used in commercial and office buildings for decades.
This is not a new technology at all. Why have the Republicans been
silent about the millions of fluorescent tubes that have been in use
over the last century? Good question.
Which brings me to the politics behind all
this: I'd really like everyone to understand that the scare
warnings about mercury
in CFL's have been coming from Republicans who want to fight
conservation. This isn't partisan bickering, it's a matter of
public
record, as we'll see presently. What's especially ridiculous about this
is that the GOP has fought tooth and nail against pollution controls
for decades, and now they have the gall to claim to be concerned about
toxic mercury. Please. Their real goal is to keep us from saving energy.
Think I'm exaggerating? Here's the proof.
Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) took
the floor of the House to blast CFL lightbulbs and opened up with
this flabbergasting statement:
"Congress passed an
energy bill which should have been called the 'Anti-America
NON-Energy' Bill because it punishes Americans for using energy,
rather than finding new sources of affordable energy."
There you have it. Any attempt to reduce
our energy use isn't just unnecessary, it's supposedly anti-American!
And reducing energy use (and therefore pollution) is tantamount to punishment.
Punishment! Since Poe is an unabashed enemy of conservation, is
it any freaking wonder that he opposes energy-saving light bulbs?!
Is it any surprise that he will bring up any possible defect he can
find in CFL's in order to further his anti-conservation agenda?
It gets richer. In Poe's mind, all we need to do
is magically find some new sources of affordable energy. And what do
you think he has in mind? Why, drilling the Artic National Wildlife
Refuge and America's beaches for oil, for starters, something the
GOP has been eager to do for years.
Anyway, when Poe has made his
anti-environmental agenda so clear and plain, are we really supposed to
take him seriously when he starts frothing about the environmental
calamity posed by mercury in CFL bulbs? Not. As soon as Rep. Poe
and his cohorts vote for any other measure to reduce Americans'
exposure to toxins, that's when I'll start taking them seriously.
On the 2007 House energy bill, which CFL's were a
part of, 221 Democrats and only 14 Republicans voted for it. Of the
"No"
votes, over 96% were cast by Republicans. (USA Today)
And congresspersons who voted against clean energy took four times as
much money from oil companies than those who voted in the public
interest. (Oil Change International) If
you're a Republican and you're
offended by my pointing out that Republicans having been fighting
conservation on spurious grounds -- then please get your fellow
Republicans to stop fighting conservation on spurious grounds. Don't
get mad at me for simply pointing out what's actually happening.
Because if the GOP wasn't being completely ridiculous about this issue,
then I wouldn't be pointing out that they're being completely
ridiculous about this issue. It's not my fault they're being
unreasonable, I'm just the one pointing it out.
All that said, there really should be a warning
on the package about the mercury.
Really, anything that's a
potential mercury hazard should be labeled. I believe the scare is way
overblown, but the mercury notice and the cleanup steps should be
included in the product. I don't think the small amount of mercury in
the bulbs is a good reason not to use them
-- it's just not that big a deal.
More on mercury in CFL's:
CFL's and electromagnetic
fields (EMF)
There is controversy over whether the
electromagnetic fields (EMF) from CFL's constitute a health risk.
On the one hand, the scientific bodies of governments around the world
say that there is no risk from most EMF in general or from CFL's in
particular. On the other hand, some scientists and advocacy
groups have blamed EMF on a huge variety of ailments (including cancer,
diabetes, and even back pain), and some research has indeed suggested a
connection between EMF and health issues. Here's an example of
the widely differing opinions on EMF in general:
World Health Organization: "Approximately
25,000 articles
have been published over the past 30 years about non-ionizing
radiation. Scientific knowledge in this area is now more extensive than
for most chemicals. Based on a recent in-depth review of the scientific
literature, the WHO concluded that current evidence does not confirm
the existence of any health consequences from exposure to low level
electromagnetic fields."
Dr. Magda Havas
(PDF), writing in a peer-reviewed journal: "Although the position
of most international health authorities, including the World Health
Organization, is that this form of energy is benign as long as levels
remain below guidelines, an increasing number of scientific studies
report biological and health effects associated with electromagnetic
pollution well below these guidelines (Sage and Carpenter, 2007).
Epidemiological studies have documented increased risks for childhood
leukemia associated with residential magnetic fields exposure (Ahlbom
et al., 2000), greater risk for various cancers with occupational
exposure to low-frequency electric and magnetic fields (Havas, 2000),
miscarriages (Li et al., 2002), Lou Gehrig's disease (Neutra et al.,
2002), brain tumors associated with cell phone use (Kundi et al.,
2004), as well as cancers and symptoms of electrical hypersensitivity
(EHS) for people living near cell phone and broadcast antennas
(Altpeter et al., 1995; Michelozzi et al., 2002). Laboratory studies
report increased proliferation of human breast cancer cells (Liburdy et
al., 1993), single- and double-strand DNA breaks (Lai and Singh, 2005),
increased permeability of the blood brain barrier (Royal Society of
Canada, 1999), changes in calcium flux (Blackman et al., 1985), and
changes in ornithine decarboxylase activity (Salford et al., 1994)."
That's for EMF in general. There
isn't much research or analysis available about CFL's in particular,
but there is this:
- SCENIHR (an advisory board to European goverments)
reviewed the evidence and said that except for people who are extremely
sensitive to sunlight (who could develop skin
problems from exposure to certain kinds of CFL's), there's
no evidence that CFL's cause health problems.
- Health Canada
says "In short, the contribution of the dirty electricity-generated
fields to the total produced by CFLs in a home is estimated to be minor
or insignificant."
Researchers have
recently
suggested that a special kind of EMF, called "dirty electricity" (DE),
is
particularly effective at promoting things like cancer and diabetes,
and that if earlier research failed to find an EMF / illness
connection, it's because that earlier research was looking too broadly
at EMF, rather than at DE specifically. And CFL's are supposedly
high in DE. However, the new research about DE is
in its infancy. I could locate only four studies in
peer-reviewed journals about DE, and three of them were by the same
author, and none of them was a double-blind case-controlled study
(generally considered more reliable than other kinds of
studies.) And Health Canada, as cited above, measured the DE of
CFL's and considers it to be very low. So it's way too premature
to claim a definitive link
between the DE from CFL's and negative health effects. Of course, that
doesn't mean
there's no link, only that the science doesn't support confidence in it
yet. I don't fault anyone for wanting to be cautious while the
science is progressing.
Anyway, when the experts disagree, I won't
presume to
be able to tell you the conclusive truth on the matter.
So instead I'll summarize the arguments of both sides.
The case that CFL's are a health risk:
- CFL's emit a much higher EMF than regular
light bulbs (incandescents) or the newer LED bulbs.
- CFL's are responsible for a high amount of
"dirty electricity" (DE) in particular.
- While few studies exist about DE and
harmful health effects (four), all of them found a positive link. (Havas, June 2008, Havas, Sep. 2008 (PDF), Havas 2006, Milham
2006, PDF)
- If earlier research didn't find links
between EMF and health
problems, it's because it didn't look at DE specifically.
Therefore,
the statements from science organizations that EMF isn't a health risk
are unreliable, because they're based on incomplete science.
- In any event, there is indeed a fair amount
of data linking EMF to health problems, even when the research wasn't
DE-specific.
The case that CFL's aren't a health risk:
- Most government health organizations say
that there is no known risk, including the World Health Organization (EMF in general) and SCENIHR and Health Canada (CFL's in particular).
- Most studies have failed to find a
correlation between CFL's and health risks.
- EMF
degrades dramatically with distance. A magnetic field of 6 -
2000 µT at a distance of one inch, is only 0.01 - 0.03 µT at a distance
of three feet.(WHO) If you're not close enough to a
household source to touch it, the absorbed EMF is extremely low.
- EMF isn't unique to CFL's. All kinds
of
electronic equipment emits EMF, including hairdryers, computers,
wireless routers, and most
notably mobile phones. So using incandescents instead of CFL's
wouldn't necessarily reduce a person's exposure significantly,
depending on the kind of electronics in the person's environment.
Even the sun is a source of EMF.
Further reading:
Does bad power factor
negate the environmental savings?
No, it doesn't. CFL's do have a bad power factor (50-60%, compared to 100% for
regular bulbs), and so some have suggested that the utility company has
to generate more electric to power the CFL's, even if the home user
isn't charged for it, and so we don't really succeed in burning less
fuel at the power plant. However, people who appear to know what
they're talking about say this is not the case. Dennis Towne, an
electrical engineer, says this is not the case:
"[Bad power factor]
causes higher current flow than would be expected for a given power
output, but it does NOT increase the power consumed.... [We can now]
peacefully ignore the power factor issues of CFL's."
Josey Paul, in a letter to Home Power magazine, agrees:
"[I]t is not true
that utilities must therefore burn twice as much coal or cook twice as
many atoms in order to supply twice as much energy to run Carol's CFLs.
Power factor does not affect the energy consumption of homes either on
or off the grid.... To prove this point, I set up an experiment with
CFLs vs. incandescent lights (resistive loads with a power factor of
1.0), and measured watts and volt-amperes delivered by my inverter.
Then I measured the amps from my power source, a bank of L-16
batteries, which are DC sources wise to the tricks of reactive
power....The low power factor did not require the batteries (or the
utility) to produce any extra energy."
Now,
low power factor does require the utility to compensate a bit, but at a
far, far lower level than would be the case if they had to make up the
total difference between the actual power factor and a power factor of
1. For example, here in Austin, Texas our utility is
publicly-owned, and they've been aggressively pushing conservation for
years to try to prevent having to build an expensive new power
plant. They hand out cold, hard cash for things like recycling
your old refrigerator, installing extra attic insulation, putting in
solar water heaters, and -- you gussed it -- switching to CFL's.
If CFL's didn't really save electricity even at the power plant
then there's no way they'd be doing this.
Related pages
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