Talk:Compact fluorescent lamp

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[edit] CFL Health Risks

Why is there no mention in the article about the possiblity that these lights can cause migraines, especially for people with epilepsy or other light sensetive conditions and the lights have also been suggested to aggrivate certain skin conditions, going so far as suggesting they incrase chances of skin cancer. Considering countries like the UK want to make these lights mandatory, it is raises possible problems for millions of people.

http://spectrumalliance.org.uk/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7167860.stm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.42.92 (talk) 04:36, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

The reason there is no mention of health risks is because the health risks you describe are ridiculous and unsubstantiated. It goes along the nonsense of claiming that fluoride in drinking water is a danger because it's "forced" onto us. (Tonycom (talk) 00:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC))

And what kind of fool thinks people confabulate the forcing of fluoride with its potential harm and/or lack of benefit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.56.195.231 (talk) 23:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, ordinary CFLs tend to be pulsed with 50-100 Hz and thus can indice head related side effects like headache, nausea etc.. Certain skin conditions can maybe be affected, but for that I would like see substantial references. And yes flouride is poisinous, but it also strongly depend on the dosage. So brushing your teeth won't kill you :-) The strongest argument against CFLs as the only means of lights is:

  • Bears a significant manufacture and destruction cost.
  • Hard to properly recycle.
  • Contains hazardous mercury.
  • Very innefficient compared to fluorescent lamps with separated ballast.

Ordinary lamps are easy to recycle, and can be done so efficiently. So the CFLs as a means to accomplish a better enviroment doesn't cut it. Also to keep the price of the ballast down, many CFL manufacturers have cut corners in regard to component quality with significant risk of fire as result. Electron9 (talk) 00:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More on the health risks of CFLs

Below you can find an email that was sent to the Europarliamentarians of the Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, the Committee for Internal Market and Consumer Protection and the Committee for Climate Change:

I request all editors to research and write up an appropriate section on "Health Risks attributed to CFLs" too, when you all have time.

Thanks

Atulsnischal (talk) 19:43, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Have you read the letter? Does it look credible to you? Do you not think that an encyclopedia article should neutrally present the facts and not put excessive weight on views of a minority? --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:44, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] CFL energy consumption compared to incandescent bulbs

This section in the main article needs to be edited by someone who has a degree in engineering, becuase what is currently up there is mathematically incorrect.

The equations below are wrong because they are not taking the poor "POWER-FACTOR" (PF) of CFLs into account. PF is a technical term. It is a measure of active power vs reactive power for an electricla appliance. CFLs have a power factor of 0.6 at best. Incandencent bulbs have a PF of 1.

This means that a CLF rated at 20W infact consumes:

20W/0.6 pf = approx 33 Watts.

Power Factor = Cos (theta) where theta is tha phase lag between Voltage and Current. Power consumed = Rated Power/PF


Forgive me for pointing this out if it's been covered above somewhere (I only skimmed most of this talk page), but the article's discussion over energy consumption seems to use two different sets of figures. From the article:

CFLs use about a quarter of the power of incandescent bulbs. For example, a 15-watt CFL produces the same amount of light as a 60-watt incandescent bulb (approximately 900 lumens or 60 lumens per watt). A comparison of the purchase and operating costs of these two light sources follows. The kilowatt-hour (kWh) is the unit used to sell electrical energy in most countries. The cost of electricity in the United States ranges from $0.06 to $0.38 per kWh, with an average cost in May 2006 of $0.106 per kWh [1] (also see Electricity rates.) For convenience, a rate of $0.10 per kWh is often used for estimating the running costs of appliances.

Image:IncandescentLightBulb.png ( 75\,\mathrm{W}) \times ( 8000\,\mathrm{hr}) \times \left( \frac{\$ 0.08}{1000\,\mathrm{W} \cdot \mathrm{hr}} \right) = \$48.00
Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg \left( 20\,\mathrm{W} \right) \times \left( 8000\,\mathrm{hr} \right) \times \left( \frac{\$ 0.08}{1000 \,\mathrm{W} \cdot \mathrm{hr}} \right) = \$12.00
The CFL, therefore, will save $36.00 in electricity (compared to the incandescent bulb) during its rated life. Some American discount stores sell packages of CFLs for about $2.75 per CFL and incandescent bulbs for about $0.50 each, a $2.25 difference. The estimated payback period for buying the CFL instead of the incandescent bulb is, therefore, 500 hours, which is 100 days at 5 hours per evening.

Note: These bulbs are often available for $1 for 60w equivalent bulbs. You will often find CFL haters using wildly inflated prices like $10 a bulb

The text says 60W vs 15W; the equation uses 75W vs 20W. Likewise, the text says the average cost of electricity is $0.10/kWh, but the equation uses $0.08. I don't know enough about all of this to say which explanation is better, but it's clearly inconsistent. Esrever 17:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The table giving light output of Incandescent lamps is way off. Even standard 1000hr 240V frosted lamps used in the UK do better than the figures listed there. The 120V 750hr and 1000hr frosted lamps used in the US are going to be significantly better than even UK 1000hr 240V lamps. (120V filament lamps are more efficient than 240V filament lamps in this power range, and 750hr lamps are more efficient than 1000hr lamps.) To be meaningful, the table needs to consider 120V filament lamps separately from 220/240V filament lamps in any case because of the significant difference in their efficiencies.
Andrew Gabriel, 81.187.162.107 17:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Having made the above comment, I set about thinking how to correct that table, and decided it wasn't possible, given the descrete lumen figures down the left hand side. What's really needed is a graph, so I knocked one up giving lumens verses Watts for the different lamp ranges. I ignored the incandescent figures in the table as they're wrong, and used Philips figures for standard UK frosted 1000hr GLS (A-line) lamps. I used the table's figures for the CFL's, as I haven't bothered to get better ones, but the kink in the line puts them under question too. For US A-line lamps, I used figures for 1000hr 120V lamps available in the UK, but that only encompasses 60W and 100W, and these might not match common US values. So if someone can dig out all the US 120V values, I'll add them too. I'm not sure if US commonly uses 1000hr or 750hr lamps—be clear and consistent in which data you provide as they;ll be significantly different.

Graph here removed and superceeded by graph below, 28 March 2007

Sorry, the graph source isn't pretty. This is my first time using the tool, and I couldn't work out how to do a number of things I wanted to (in particular, calculations in the coordinate positionings to get the scale and offsets applied without resorting to magic numbers everywhere).
Andrew Gabriel, 81.187.162.107 20:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

From the Philips US web site:
  • 60W Med 120V A19 FR 1000 Hr 850 Lm
  • 75W Med 120V A19 FR 750 Hr 1100 Lm
  • 100W Med 120V A19 FR 750 Hr 1600 Lm
The above are 'standard' frosted lamps. Note Philips do not offer 1000 Hr 75W and 100W lamps. I haven't checked Osram/Sylvania/GE. WLDtalk|edits 21:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I note that the discussion is about energy costs and total costs-two different things. When discussing the cost of use, the fact that the incandescent needs to be replaced 7 or so times should enter into the calculations. This appears to have been neglected and may make the high initial cost of CFLs less relevant.Joshua2000 21:15, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, here's the graph with US 750h and 1000h lamps added, data taken from GE's website.
What do people think about replacing the table with this (or something based on it at least)?

I'm in favour. WLDtalk|edits 21:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, this clearly shows the 4:1 power ratio of 240V incandescent verses CFL, which is what I've been telling people to use for years, and ignore equivalent power specified on the packaging. It looks like a 3:1 ratio is applicable for 120V lamps.
Andrew Gabriel, 81.187.162.107 19:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I decided that I should not rely on the original table for the CFL light output, given all the other data in that table was wrong. I have replaced it in the graph above with data from Philips web page relating to their PL-Electronic CFL's. This data does look more credible—there is no kink in the line for starters which is a good sign. Also, the light output was slightly higher than the original figures—that could be because the original figures were dated.
Andrew Gabriel, 81.187.162.107 07:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest swapping the axes, as currently it's graphing watts against lumens, whereas I think it makes more sense to graph lumens against watts. WLDtalk|edits 08:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Confession: I'm the one who keeps truncating this section, including the above formula-with-pictures. Here's why: the only actual information you're conveying is that, for a given lumen-output, the CFL uses x% of the energy. Anything beyond that, and you're turning this article into cheerleading. There's nothing wrong with providing the positive information about CFLs, but please, avoid "dumbing it down" to embellish simple facts. Wikipedia should provide facts, not make the case for you. And if you're going to include financial comparisons, I see nothing wrong with saying that it "pays back" its initial cost much faster than the prevailing rate of return, but it needs to make clear that this is because you're using a light source a lot of people don't like. For example, how would Wikipedia explain the financial advantages of eating only gruel? Use the same kind of comparison. MrVoluntarist 15:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

In general the table is original research as a synthesis of data. It produces values intermediate between those provided by a manufacturer. If it showed only data points rather than the smooth curves it would be acceptable. A table would be the best presentation to avoid original research. The watts definitely should be along the x axis as that is the independent vartiable and the light it produces is the dependent variable. It should be possible to produce a similar chart with the data points and without the continuous curves. I buy a bulb and install it; that is the action I have direct control of. I do not force a bulb to produce a given amount of light and then see what wattage it consumes (alhough in the first 2 years of production of bamboo filament light bulbs in the early 1880, they did in fact adjust the voltage to get exactly 16 candlepower and then note the voltage rating for the bulb). How would 16 candlepower translate to the lumen ratings used today? Edison 15:04, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I originally started playing with the axis the other way around, but it doesn't physically fit into the wiki article so well. I'll take another look at doing this though. The existing table data is simply completely wrong, as many people have commented. There's no indication where it came from. The lines in the graph enable you to see that a 12W CFL would be equivalent to a 50W filament lamp. Even if you can't buy a 50W filament lamp in your country, that's still useful information. The range of common wattages available in different countries varies in any case. Rough conversion is 12 lumens is 1 candlepower, but they are not measurements of exactly the same thing. Candlepower is defined in terms of a green wavelength in the peak of the eye's response, and lumens are defined as a weighted curve matching all the eye's response. Candlepower is an obsolete concept and is a misleading measurement for non-black-body emitters (such as fluorescent phosphors).
Andrew Gabriel, 81.187.162.107 22:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kelvin Temperature is HOTTER as light color goes towards Blue ?

Unless I have it backwards and it's been way too long since Physics 101, isn't blue light considered HOTTER than, say yellow ? I thought that the Kelvin scale was originally developed to quantify the temperatures of stars. Our star is a yellow star, about 5 billion years along on its 10 billion year lifespan. But the Pleiades, relatively young, hot stars, burn blue and have a higher Kelvin temperature... 24.128.65.197 18:59, 22 April 2007 (UTC)P Button24.128.65.197 18:59, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Not quite. Kelvin is a temperature scale that was based on the interval of the Celcius scale, but the zero point was absolute zero (there can therefore be no negative Kelvin temperature). If something is heated hot enough, it starts to glow. The colour of the glow is a function of the temperature of the hot item. In the case of a European 100 watt lightbulb, the filament operates at a temperature of 2400 Kelvin (the word 'degrees' is not used). The warm orange glow thus has a colour temperature of 2400 Kelvin. As you note the temperature of a star should be easily determined from the colour of its glow. Heat something to 6000 Kelvin and it will emit light broadly equating to daylight. If you heat hotter, the light becomes blue in colour.
Fluoresent coatings aren't heated to emit light, but the colour can be broadly equated to the equivalent light from a heated body. This is the colour temperature of that fluoresent coating. It isn't perfect because the emitted spectrum is often not smooth or continuous.
20.133.0.14 14:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How Much Carbon Does One CFL Keep Out Of The Atmosphere?

I've seen many different opinions of this around. Energy Star says on their page that one CFL saves about 450 LBS of CO2 over its lifetime. Other Sites seem to indidcate that one CFL saves that much per year? What is the correct answer? I think it'd be good to have this on the page. Also, how is that figure calculated?

It depends on the power source. Light bulbs themselves don't put any CO2 into the atmosphere.
If the power source is something that produces CO2 (such as a coal-fired power plant), then a compact fluorescent will cause one quarter as much CO2 emission as an incandescent bulb of the same brightness, because it uses a quarter of the electricity. On the other hand, if the power source is one that doesn't generate CO2 (hydroelectric or nuclear, for example), then neither bulb will cause any CO2 to be emitted. Pat Berry 00:09, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
If you change a 60W light-blub to a 11W CFL you'll save about 220 kg CO2 when using Bituminous coal and 830 kg when using brown coal. Source: own calculation. It's calculated for the liftime of an CFL with a livetime von 15.000 h. (German calulation can be found here) -- MichaelSchoenitzer 12:43, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
While this estimate may be fairly accurate, it is questionable on what grounds it is assumed that "light bulbs" (or light sources in general) "don't put any CO2 into the atmoshphere"? Quite in contrast you may reason that factors such as manufacture, delivery and disposal (heavier weight than incandescent bulbs) put CFL's far ahead of incandescent bulbs (IBs) in terms of energy intensive production. While convenient and easily replacable with IBs, CFLs, because of their monolithic design, are likely much less environmentally friendly when compared with modular flourescent lighting. Also CO2 output is not the only environmental concern when dealing with light sources. IBs for example do not contain hazardous substances, a characteristic that cannot be claimed for CFLs. 66.46.103.18 23:47, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
In response to above: incandescent bulbs often contain lead which is considered dangerous to the environment. I have written a section entitled "Energy Savings from CFL A Myth", based on an article appearing in Silicon Chip magazine that argued that CFLs don't save any carbon emissions when used in conjuction with coal power stations. I don't know enough about other types of power stations to say whether the theory holds for them as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spuzzdawg (talk • contribs) 03:56, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
In all the arguments on how less the carbon footprint is for CFL versus incandescent bulbs, the one largest carbon contributor is the manufacturing process to make the CFL. Can someone find out just how much electricity is used in the manufacturing process of each component and assembly of the CFL and add it all together to obtain a total carbon footprint in comparison to the electricity used in the manufacturing of the incandescent bulb? I had heard (but cannot confirm) that the carbon footprint from the sum total of the manufacturing of the many internal components of the CFL (many from high-polluting China) greatly exceed the difference of the carbon footprint savings one would get from converting from incandescent bulbs. Due to the extremely high carbon footprint of the manufacturing process of the CFL components plus the assembly process, purchasing and using CFLs puts more carbon overall into the environment than that of using incandescent bulbs. Mycobra427 (talk) 17:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Carbon and Power Factor

One issue that is completely lacking in the article is the power factor of CFL is not figured into any of these calculations. The better quality bulbs I have have a power factor of .62 which means the 18W they take requires the power company to make 30W before losses (and the losses are higher because the power factor is so bad). I also measured on 12W dead bulb that was taking 20W with a power factor of .2 so it wasn't making any light and required the power plant to work as hard as lighting up a 100W bulb. Can someone dig up citations for any of this?

203.111.137.4 01:30, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

This was covered in the now archived part of the discussion. An 18 watt bulb takes 18 watts of power regardless of the power factor. The power factor of 0.62 just means that the bulb takes more current than a pure resistor taking 18 watts would do, but the generator does not require any extra input power to generate the extra current (theoretically). In practice, the extra current does mean that there are greater losses in the distribution network, but this is the power companies' problem. They can correct it. 20.133.0.14 10:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
If the distribution losses are real (and they are), why is it "the power companies problem"? Isn't the wasted power generated all of our problem, and the reason for supporting CFLs to begin with? Until power factor correction is standard on CFLs and the power factor becomes a non-issue, I think that the power factor discussion warrants a section in this article.

I agree that the power factor discussion warrants a section in this article. Biscuittin (talk) 00:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The total load from CFLs is likely to be on the order of 100 to 200 watts in any given house, so the reactive power will be small compared to the total household consumption. Also note that much of household energy consumption is from inductive loads, like refrigerators, heating pumps and blowers and air conditioners, so the capacitative load added by a CFL could result in a net improvement in household power factor on average. This is a complicated issue and we would need a reliable source for any addition. --agr (talk) 01:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mercury pollution claims

The main problem with the Mercury section is that ubiquitous graph of incandescents using roughly twice the mercury of incandescents 1. doesn't use the word coal in the title and 2. doesn't have accompanying text that clearly describes situations where the graph does not apply. Also, it does not include the mercury used directly and indirectly in the manufacture and transport of the much heavier CFLs -- materials transported to the manufacturer, manufactured CFLs and packaging to point of sale, transport from point of sale to consumer and to dump by consumer.

While technically correct, I'd like to point out at a few issues with the mercury pollution claim in the article. The main problem I see there is that it only covers mercury pollution from coal power generation, which has reached only around 50% of all energy generation in the US in 2005[2]. Other sources of energy generation do not generate mercury emissions. Even though this is mentioned in the text, the chart may be misleading to those who don't realize that on average mercury pollution from incandescent bulbs should reach 5 milligrams, and from CFL bulbs 5.2 milligrams.

Second, I ran some numbers myself. According to the EPA, about 48 tons of mercury were generated by energy generating companies in 1999[3]. For the same year, DOE shows 3.7 billion MWh of electricity generated[4]. That means that a megawathour of electricity generated on average 13 milligrams of mercury emissions. Given the maximum life of an incandescent bulb of 2000 hours[5], a 75W bulb will burn through 150kWh of electricity during its lifetime, thus being responsible for 1.97 milligrams of mercury emissions. in 8000 hours, assuming the maximum lifetime of a CFL bulb 202.82.130.164 08:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)Currently there are 10,000hours & even 15,0000hours of CFLs available in the market202.82.130.164 08:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)(this number is being disputed on this talk page, but for a moment let's assume it's correct), four 75W incandescent bulbs will generate 7.86 milligrams of mercury emissions, while a single comparable CFL bulb at 20W (again, a disputed fact) will generate 2.1 milligrams of mercury emissions. Add to it the 4 milligrams in the bulb202.82.130.164 08:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)Most CFLs <25W contain less than 3mg of mercury in most cases202.82.130.164 08:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC). , and you get to 6.1 milligrams. This is, using the best case scenario with the highest CFL bulb efficiency and longest CFL bulb lifespan. Note that shorter lifespans of incandescent bulbs would have no effect on the total mercury emissions level, as their number is derived from the total energy consumed. Jpurdes 23:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Have to be pretty careful about generating numbers yourself ~ No OR Alci12 18:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
But what happens to the numbers when you factor in the mercury contained within the CFL itself? Although I can't speak for the US, here in Europe the lamps currently go to landfill, which means that the mercury escapes to the environment. This quantity is certainly more than a few milligrammes per lamp (and certainly a lot more than the article claims). 20.133.0.14 12:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Also missed is the point: that the mercury allegedly released by the burning of the coal is distributed by the winds evenly over the planet. The mercury released from the lamps in landfill is concentrated in a few locations. A thousand landfilled lamps releases nearly 3 grammes of mercury. Such a quantity is a pollution disaster. 20.133.0.14 10:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
The quantity of mercury in a compact fluorescent has been steadily dropping as technology advances allow less to be used. 2mg seems to be a common figure now, down from around 5mg a few years ago. Contrast this with the average of 3g of mercury in a person's body (originally in the form of mercury amalgam fillings, which is released when cremated), and we can see that you need 1500 compact fluorescents to make up the same level of mercury as the average person's body contributes to pollution at death. The contribution from compact fluorescents really isn't such a big deal in the scale of things.
81.187.74.206 08:28, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
The problem is the sheer number of fluorescent lights - many units of 2mg add up to a severe problem. Some crematoria are already removing Mercury from flue gas - see http://www.ospar.org/documents/dbase/publications/p00179_Mercury%20emissions%20from%20crematoria.pdf, and a simple method would be to remove teeth containing amalgam before cremation - the rest of the body burden of mercury is quite small - see http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0907/is_1_59/ai_n15721976/pg_1. WLDtalk|edits 18:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
20.133.0.14 - I don't know where you got your data. The human body is about 6 MILLI GRAMS of mercury per 70kg, not 3g etc. So 1 or 2 CFL's is more mercury than a human body. If levels get anywhere near 1 gram (through injustion or whatever) it is lethal. Coal doesn't put mercury where CFL's will put it. For example coal is filled with radioactive material and that is why the ash etc. is collected and disposed of correctly. If CFL's are just chucked into land fills like normal rubbish the mercury level will rise. Not to mention that the mercury level considered normal and safe is so low that you would have to mix the mercury from one CFL with 10 tonnes of dirt. CFL's obviously save power, but if the power all comes from clean energy then they are obviously far more dangers due to the use of mercury.--Dacium 10:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Here's an interesting article about a woman who broke a CFL bulb in her child's bedroom and had to pay $2,000 for proper cleanup and disposal. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=aa7796aa-e4a5-4c06-be84-b62dee548fda 72.69.106.251
That article could hardly be more sensationalist nor one-sided. Where in the article do they worry about the billions of existing non-compact fluorescents and street lamps? Somehow, the word seems to be surviving all of those without creating "billions and billions of CFL mercury bombs". That is typical horse-manure from folks who want to avoid anything resembling environmental regulation.
Atlant 17:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I would think that it would be obvious the difference between lisenced professionals handling street lamps or installations in large buildings vs. Suzie Soccer Mom and Joe Six Pack juggling a baby in one arm and a "CFL mercury bomb" in the other. Is the article a little over the top? Yeah. Does it bring up some good points? Hell yeah. 72.69.106.251 11:27, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, the article makes none of that clear. And haven't we been living with (non-compact) fluorescent lamps for the better part of a century now? It's a little late for articles to tryto spread hysteria. "Mercury bomb" is a completely ludicrous description; there's probably more mercury in a can of Tuna fish and, as methyl mercury, it's certainly more dangerous to us.
Atlant 12:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LED lamp

the market might switch to LED lamps, however the article needs some updating, most market data is from 2001, anyone ? Cheers Mion 13:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

i've added a para on the end of #Energy_consumption, based on a New Scientist article David Woodward 05:21, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Vote to remove "neutrality" banner

  • Remove The banner was placed by a unregistered editor. Any vandal or curmudgeon can put up an ugly banner, and then all visiting readers are subjected to it for weeks or months - and it can't be removed? Why not just fix the problem? As far NPOV is concerned, the article is quite informative and accurate: a slight bias towards CFLs is natural since most of the contributors are probably CFL fans. People write about what they care about.--Anthony717 07:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
AFAICT, someone did try to present the disadvantages in the article. But they were immediately edited back out again, and the sensationalist slant put back. 81.157.133.142 17:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I vote to keep the banner. The bias is not "slight". See the Total Environmental Impact section above. --72.244.191.252 14:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove.Mion 15:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Reason, better is a small banner in the section instead of disputing the whole article. Mion 15:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Environmental issues are too important to make informed decision based on half the arguement. Too many decisions are made in just this manner. The article does not present a truly balance view. As noted here many of the disadvantages of the CFL were bulk edited out. I B Wright 09:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Agreed. This is too important an issue. When people are talking about banning all but this product in parts of the world, then it is important that we can agree on the need to ensure neutrality in the debate. One might argue that the article is neutral as it is, but surely no-one could argue that no-one is concerned about its neutrality. Gantlord 14:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment The neutrality tag say that someone doesn't think the article is neutral. That claim has to be described in the talk page and has to have some basis that meets WP:ATT, not a personal feeling nor can it be based on original research. I would like to see a concise statement of what points of view are not adequately covered with some source for that point of view. --agr 14:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. The talk page seems to have more than enough material to support the dispute banner. 81.157.133.142 17:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Comment A huge amount of the recent discussion on this talk page turned out to be unsupportable allegations by one editor, though. -- Atlant 13:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Comment The discussion may have been unsupported, but from what I have observed, this may be by design (in my view: of the lamp manufacturers). But the discussion has has certainly not been disproved either. I B Wright 09:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove. I agree with Anthony717, if there is still a small amount of puffery, it is only in 1 or 2 sections. If people feel that strongly about it we could always move the contentious sections to the talk page and then remove the banner. In my mind there is no doubt that CFLs are an important item for a wikipedia article, the article is suitably neutral for the vast majority of sections. Environmental impact, e.g. mercury has been addressed (BTW the EU has ruled on mercury content in CFLs) and can always be expanded on.David Woodward 10:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. There is still bias in the article and over-reporting of possible attempts by silly politicians to ban the use of incandescents, giving the wrong impression of what is really happening in the world. Wiki should resist putting these refs into a serious article. They are quite misleading, and yet more publicity for Greenpeace and other extremists.Peterlewis 12:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove. The article overall does not seem to be at issue; individual sections or statements should be flagged where they are questioned. The article neutrality flag should be used primarily when the entire article is biased or only presents one point of view.--Gregalton 13:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove -- Atlant 13:29, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove Overall, the article seems fairly well balanced. Problems with specific sections should be brought up individually. --dinomite 02:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove Above, I asked for "a concise statement of what points of view are not adequately covered with some source for that point of view." It's been over three weeks and nothing has been put forward. The tag currently directs readers to this talk page which is filled with unsourced material and OR. That is not an appropriate use of Wikipedia. --agr 07:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment:Looking through the article, the unsourced/unreferenced parts generally come down to a few sections. Conspiracy theories aside, I don't see specific arguments either about biased statements (save those that are flagged). The section on efforts to promote/ban is largely factual mention of efforts that exist, not approval of those efforts. Complaints/disadvantages/preferences of consumers receive an airing, even though several of these statements are unsourced. There has been sufficient time to respond on the flag with no concise summation of where the problem is.--Gregalton 09:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I removed some of the unsourced material and the tag.--agr 11:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep it Keep untill all claims are resolved it should be be presented as factual (moved from incorrect placing by unregistered editor by --Gregalton 21:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Payback period neutrality

The opening paragraph starts with this, that I've flagged: "Increases in the price of electricity decrease the payback time, and incandescent bulbs have been decreasing in price so the payback time for CFLs is now lower.[citation needed]" This seems to me to be a claim that cannot be made without knowing a few of the parameters, including the increase in the price of electricity. A statement that can't be sourced and depends too much on electricity costs (which vary from place to place) should not be in the opening para.--Gregalton 07:09, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The comment about the lowered price of incandescent bulbs is independent of the price of electricity, but is relevant to the calculation of pay-back time for CFLs. My local Tesco store sells new compact incandescent bulbs for 30-40 pence each, very much lower than the several pounds charged for CFLs. The reduction happened recently and clearly changes the payback argument. By the way, the cost of electricity is also lower now in the UK, so there is even less incentive for using CFLs. I have been busy replacing burnt-out CFLs with incandescent bulbs, with good savings, and better lighting with a softer tone. Peterlewis 07:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
So it is specific to one location. Lower-priced incandescent bulbs unambiguously lower the payback period compared to higher-priced incandescent bulbs, but the text currently does not contain that essential qualifier.--Gregalton 08:26, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Tesco is an international store, and not just at one location. When did you go to one and price their bulbs?? The current article still sounds like an advert for CFLs and its neutralty is highly suspect Peterlewis 11:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I've ever seen a Tesco, so it's not a particularly relevant point. Get a published source to support your points and critique specific statements rather than broad accusations of bias; otherwise it's just cavilling.--Gregalton 12:38, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
So try Walmart then, you will find the same policy there. If Wiki s to be a credble source of info for general readers, it must reflect reality rather than your POV Peterlewis 13:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
No Walmart either; you seem to assume both a location and a POV. What exactly are you talking about anyway? All I've said is that to make a coherent, neutral statement on the payback period, you need a minimum of variables, of which you have referred to exactly one. Given that the other variables also change and depend on location, the statement should not reflect one reality - saying 'payback period is now longer' is neither universal nor neutral (unless you can assert that electricity prices have fallen everywhere and CFL prices have not changed, etc). How is noting that POV? Another broad and baseless accusation of bias.--Gregalton 13:19, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Any payback calculation must take into account the price paid by the consumer in retail outlets, or the calculation is a meaningless exercise. If you use the calculations of others, then they have to show the price paid for that product. This is just common sense. Peterlewis 14:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

That would only be true if it were "a close call". With CFLs, it's not at all close. If we assume a reasonable lifetime for the CFL (say, 10K hours) and a typical rate for electricity (say, US$0.10/KWh), then it's a blow-out in favor of the CFL:

  • 20W CFL uses 10,000 * 20 = 200 KWh of electricity over its life = $20 of electricity.
  • In that same 10K hours, a succession of 100W incandescent lamps use 10,000 * 100 = 1000 KWh of electricity = $100 of electricity.

Even if the incandescent lamp ran for the full 10K hours and cost nothing, the CFL is still the winner, right up to the point where the CFL costs $80 (and no integrated CFLs cost anything near that much).

All this argument about Walmart versus Tesco seems to just be obfuscating the main point: CFLs are a clear winner over incandescent light bulbs in total cost of ownership.

Atlant 15:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You sound just like an environmentalist. Base the arguement purely on the distorted economics of ownership and ignore every negative factor. Real life CFLs do not have the life claimed. Real life CFLs are dimmer than the filament lamp they are alleged to replace (so you actually have to use more powerful ones than claimed to get the same amount of life). You ignore the fact that CFLs are complicated to construct and made from a large number of parts made in lots of different factories (which require energy to manufactue those parts (and to light and heat the factory itself) - parts and assembly estimated to be made in at least 10 different factories). 20.133.0.14 10:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
You're right, I do sound just like an environmentalist. (Were you trying to insult me? Perhaps next you'll call me a liberal and a socialist, but those labels won't insult me either.) I'm actually quite familiar with the inner workings of CFLs and exactly how much light they put out, and I chose my example right from the real world: my family room downstairs. There, I replaced a bunch of 75W R30 lamps with 19W CFL R40 lamps and got more, not less light. The CFLs claimed to be the equivalent of 90W of incandescent and I'd have to say I agree with that assessment. Above, I was using round numbers (20 instead of 19 and 100 instead of 90) just to make the math obvious.
With regard to lamp life, it's only anecdotal evidence, but I've found all of my CFLs to be very reliable. Out of many lamps of a number of different designs, I've only had five fail. Four 4W units were used in "night light" service (always on) and ran to their full rated life and more. Another lamp failed in infancy due to a bad wire-attachment to the base shell; I fixed it and it's still running. I've also used them in applications such as my garage-door opener where the vibration used to quickly kill ordinary incandescents.
Meanwhile, your point about how many factories manufacture the components of the CFLs is fairly spurious; the components are very small and the transportation of these components pales in comparison to the amount of coal or oil that their use displaces; unused coal and oil need not be transported.
Atlant 11:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Peterlewis wrote: "Any payback calculation must take into account the price paid by the consumer in retail outlets, or the calculation is a meaningless exercise." You spoke about the payback period in absolute terms without the other variables - which is not just meaningless, but misleading. The cost of incandescents in the calculation is actually the least meaningful variable. For every $1 you save on a 100w incandescent, your payback period only gets longer by 125 hours of use (using the $0.10/kwh figure above, for $1 = 10 kwh, or 10000w-h / 80 = 125 hrs). Assume 4 hours a day for about a month's use. (Of course, adjust calcs for local figures as necessary). So even if the price of incandescents was reduced to zero, in a matter of months they would no longer be "free".--Gregalton 17:03, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

How can any variable in a calculation be more or less "meaningful" than any other? All the variables are meaningful by the very nature of any calculation. The payback time is clearly dependent on electricity costs and bulb costs, as well as the way the bulb is used. The total elec costs of lighting is a very small proportion of the energy used in the home anyway: space heating and appliances use far more on average. Those who seek a ban should direct their attentions elsewhere, if they want to save the planet. It seems to me that having a wish list from politicians and pressure grpoups is not helpful to readers of the article. And other issues may control consumer preferences, such as the quality of light produced by a bulb, the potential for harmful UV emissions, and the sheer size of many CFLs (apart from their initial cost). Peterlewis 09:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Some variables affect the end result more than others; that can be analysed by means of a sensitivity analysis, calculus, etc. If you calculate the payback period under different scenarios, its sensitivity to the cost of the incandescent is low; going back to the original point of discussion, you mention only this variable to the exclusion of the others.--Gregalton 10:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Gregalton, thank you, that was exactly the point I was trying to make above. If you'll forgive me, I've added a Wikilink to your reply.
Atlant 11:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] http://sound.westhost.com/articles/incandescent.htm - is it a blog?

What are this article's and its author's credentials? It is cited as a source in the 'Energy consumption' sub-section of the article. The website seems commercial in nature, to do with sound and audio systems. The author seem to have an Australian interest. Many of the references he cites at the bottom are pages here in Wikipedia. Much of the rest seems to be the author's own opinions and his personal research based on experiments using his company's audio test equipment combined his own rudimentary knowledge of concepts like RMS, power factor etc.

I don't think this counts as a good, peer reviewed primary or secondary source in the terms of WP policies. I suggest that the citation and the facts derived from it are removed until a better source can be found.

Has anyone got a problem with that, before I do it? --Nigelj 19:18, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It's an opinion blog, mostly unreferenced, and should go. If there were better sources/referenced, it would be useful to include.--Gregalton 19:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I removed it, along with unsourced claim the CFLs cost more to produce. Far from clear this is so if all the incandescents they replace are counted.--agr 02:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reaction time

I have reverted latest change: why remove specfic times to react and replace with general statement? The fact is that some CFL's do take a very long time to react. Peterlewis 10:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Because it is unsourced. The 30 seconds sounds like a clear exaggeration, or at minimum a worst case scenario. If the claim is 30 seconds, it should be referenced, or removed, or edited to general.--Gregalton 10:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
London dweller provided a source on this - thank you! However, it misrepresents (in my view) what the GE reference says: "Compact fluorescent light bulbs work best if they are left on for over 15 minutes each time they are turned on. These types of lamps can take up to 3 minutes to warm-up. Warm-up will probably not be noticeable from a user stand point, but the lamp needs to warm-up in order to reach the point of most efficient operation." (My emphasis). The page currently reads "takes up to three minutes to reach full brightness." I will edit to reflect; the claim that up to 30 seconds (let alone three minutes) to reach full (let alone usable) brightness remains unreferenced.--Gregalton 11:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Thirty seconds actually isn't an exageration for at least one specific model of CFL that I have (a 19W "Commercial Electric" R40-form factor Cool White CFL) that uses a rather-long, rather narrow arc tube. I'd bet those lamps take more than 30 seconds to reach full brightness! But yes, most CFLs are up-and-running faster than that.
Atlant 12:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, it is sometimes slower, but it was written as "can be 30 seconds or more" - without any balance that it can be significantly less, or qualifications as to the circumstances. To give a neutral statement, it should be referenced and in context. The ones I have are pretty much instant, but I'm not claiming that as a generalized fact.--Gregalton 12:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
My experience with a mixed bag of CFLs in my home is that some are 'instant on', but take some time (3 minutes sounds about right) to reach near to full output, others reach near to full output in 10-15 seconds. The 3 minute one is the newest, bought as a replacement for a mirrored spotlamp, which is disappointing, as I'd hoped the long warm up times problem had been solved. The ideal information to have would be a set of lumen output graphs for a wide (and representative) sample of CFLs used for domestic purposes, as that is what most peoples experience of CFLs will be. Experimentally, not that difficult to produce (a good school science project maybe?), but I've not been able to find the data. WLDtalk|edits 12:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I have no reference to support this, but it has been my experience so far that the CFLs that have arc tubes with a very long, narrow aspect ratio are the ones that are slow to brighten-up. These tend to be the reflector lamps because that aspect ratio is how they fit the CFL inside the reflector. I base this assumption on two-out-of-two reflector CFL designs that I've had experience with so far.
Atlant 12:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
So it was your home peer review process? ;) Take a look at the energy star studies WLD found - they are pretty critical of the reflector ones in terms of meeting standards. It would also be useful to see if there is more recent info, since it appears the energy star people are implementing a much more rigorous process of testing/checking claims.--Gregalton 12:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
We have done controlled tests of the light output of CFD's, and, for some reason, it is indeed true that the R40 format reflector/spot lamps in CFD form take much longer ( more like 5 minutes than 1 minute ) to reach full brightness, than ordinary tubular or spiral CFD's do. Eregli bob (talk) 07:58, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Interesting read here: http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_development/revisions/downloads/cfls/MaxLite_comments_V4_1005.pdf -
"RUN-UP TIME – BARE PRODUCTS ONLY:Average of 10 samples tested must be less than 1.0 minute per ANSI C78.5, clause 3.11 and 4.8.
MaxLite agrees that this proposed run-up time spec can address concerns from consumers and this is important for our industry. However this spec limits construction of the burner to those made with secondary or auxiliary amalgam to ensure consistent run-up time. Even using this construction method and very tight controls our engineers feel an average 2.1 minutes is reasonable based on current technologies and manufacturing processes."
I suppose it depends what 'run-up time' is, as it is not defined, but as it is a 'concern for consumers', I suspect it has something to do with light output - nobody cares if their CFL runs at significantly less than maximum efficiency for the fist couple of minutes, but they do care if the light output is significantly lower. The whole document is worth reading - especially the bit where they say "If the spec remains at no more than 2 individual samples can have a lumen output less than 75.0%, costs can be increased by as much as 20%." - in other words, 20% of CFLs will have output less than 75% of their 100 hour output - Ouch! WLDtalk|edits 13:24, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good example of reference

Thanks to West London Dweller, who found a good reference on the dimming over lifetime of the CFL issue. I'd like to emphasize that for me, this is what is needed for most of these claims: find a reliable source, and state fairly/neutrally what that source says. The more specific the better, so that we can bring the text up to a higher standard.--Gregalton 12:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome - it was surprisingly difficult to find. I was hoping to find a graph of lumen output over time, which I'm sure I'd seen for CFLs, but I couldn't turn it up. I'd love to find the final reports and actual experimental results from the PEARL program - being US Government run, it *should* be publicly available, but might need an editor from the USA to file a Freedom of Information request. Regards, WLDtalk|edits 12:26, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Found it. Or rather, "lumen maintenance" graphs for standard (not compact) fluorescents. The same graphs are used at two websites, here: http://www.bchydro.com/business/investigate/investigate760.html and here: http://www.nstaronline.com/business/energy_advisor/PA_11.asp. I'm still looking for the equivalent for CFLs. WLDtalk|edits 15:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Still no CFL graphs, but some useful and interesting sites that could be used for other references: Compact Fluorescent Lamps: What You Should Know and http://www.iaeel.org/IAEEL/NEWSL/1993/tva1993/LiTech_2_93.html, the latter showing the dramatic difference in running a CFL base down or base up, and the effect of temperature on efficiency and light output. The former has an interesting point about spectral sensitivities of photometer and eye compared to CFL output. WLDtalk|edits 15:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
[6] toward the end has graphs of the actual measured lumen decrement over the life of CFLs and incandescents, and data from it would be a good addition to the article. CFLs decrease more over their lifetime than do incandescents. The actual power draw of CFLs increases over their lifetime. Some brands of CFL last way more than the rated lifetime, so for years they could be putting out less light than a comparable incandescent would have, since it gets replaced periodically. The upshot of this is that if a task (reading, sewing, finding your way through a basement without tripping) requires a certain illumination to be efficiently done, then the initial illumination would have to be increased some for a CFL compared to the nominally equivalent incandescent, to allow for the greater drop in outout over the CFL's lifetime. We do not install a lamp and only use it for a short while. There is no good rationale for assuming that people can just get used to lower and lower brightness levels over the long life of the CFL. This info is important and reliable figures should be included in the article. It is unreasonable to just assume that there is so much excess illumination that the progressive darkening of the CFL will not be a problem. There is also the slow increase in brightness when they are switched on, and the slower brightening and lower output when it is cold. Edison 18:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I have restored deleted text since possible UV emissions are not mentioned elsewhere. UV can cause substantial degradation of pigments and polymers. Peterlewis 06:20, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I have edited the restore to remove repetitive parts unrelated to "Color" (the putative subject of the session). The UV part needs a reference, though.--Gregalton 07:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I have replaced the fact tag. Perhaps I have missed something, but I don't see any substantiation of different UV output profiles. The issues about damage due to UV probably could be covered by wikilinks to articles on UV, or references rather than external links. --Gregalton 16:18, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the text here (that can be restored when substantiated) " The possibility of ultra-violet emissions from fluorescent lamps has been mentioned; ultra-violet emissions can cause serious damage to light sensitive pigments in paintings and textiles, for example. Many commercial polymers are also sensitive to UV degradation.[citation needed]".--Gregalton 04:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Light and Heat

Ultimately, the electrical energy that lighting consumes ends up as heat.

This is inaccurate and misleading. Some of the energy ends up as heat, but the portion that ends up as light, which is electromagnetic radiation, does not turn into heat. The key difference here is that CFLs convert a far lower proportion of the energy they use to heat, whereas incandescents turn about 90% of their energy into heat rather than light. This enables a CFL to produce the same light output as an incandescent while using one fourth to one fifth of the energy the incandescent uses. Revising this section. JustinBaeder 20:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd be happy to see some references to either confirm or deny them, but I believe that the facts are: (1) The actual proportion of EM energy radiated within the visible spectrum is small for all bulbs, including CFLs; they are all still quite inefficient. (2) When even this tiny fraction of the total energy is absorbed by materials within the room, it is indeed converted into heat in the surface of those materials. Pale surfaces reflect more, but eventually all the light in a room is absorbed by some surface somewhere and so converted to heat (otherwise we'd be able to see by the 'echoes' of light after turning out the bulb). There may be a net loss of a tiny proportion of the visible (and some IR) light out of the window if it's dark outside and you don't draw the curtains, but that is never going to be significant. --Nigelj 21:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
The point is that the CFL converts less of the electricity to heat when/where it is not needed; it produces more usable light per unit of energy input than the incandescent. Even after it is all absorbed and converted into heat energy, the actual energy consumed by the unit to provide the same useful work is much lower.--Gregalton 04:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

All light energy emitted by a CFL or by an incandescent bulb in a room will become heat within nano to microseconds. Very few diffuse reflecting surfaces (like walls)in households have greater than 85% reflectance. If 15% of the energy is absorbed at each bounce of light off a wall then within 20 or 30 bounces there is very little energy left. The light energy absorbed at each reflection is the result of excitation of electrons to an unstable higher energy state which is typically dissipated as lower energy radiation (infrared energy or heat). This happens extremely fast, so except for what goes out the window, it's all heat. The real issue is whether or not the heat is useful, and what does this mean for overall facility or household energy use. In cold countries such as Canada, light is needed most in winter when there is limited daylight. This is typically when heat is also needed. In Canadian residences heat is required at the same time light is required about 85% of the time due to long hours of daylight in summer and short hours in winter. This is also true for much of the northern United States and Europe. CFLs are a good environmental choice with respect to energy when heat is either waste or a nuisance. When heat is required a switch to CFLs is neutral on energy use if residential heating is from electricity, but can be more costly and also increase greenhouse gas production if fossil fuels are used for heating. In Canada, for example, 65% of resdiential heating is from fossil fuels so a ban on incandescent lamps will immediatley increase greenhouse gas generation from this country.--Passable (talk) 08:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fatigue

I saw no mention of the difference in fatigue between long-term use of CFL's vs. incandescent bulbs, although I may have missed it. I recall that long drafting or study sessions with conventional fluorescent lighting was very tiring due to flicker. Do current CFL coatings and electronic ballasts reduce this, or is fatigue still a factor? Unless I am convinced that they are not hard on the eyes, I will continue to use incandescent lighting for reading, etc. Austin R. Baer 24 April 200768.57.11.71 14:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

User:wiseguy

Yes, Fatigue is definitely a factor. We ran tests at our school, where students were asked to rate the ease of reading a book illuminated from a hidden light source. Two light sources were used - a CFL and a Plain old incandescent lamp. The results were staggeringly in favour of the incandesent. 70% of the participants rated incandescent light easier for reading books.

See this article on CFLs - see page 11 "Human Response - Flicker". Not a cheerleader report by any means. The short form is that fluorescents sometimes work at a straight multiple of the electrical frequency (50 or 60 Hz). Older fluorescents often used 2X the electrical frequency, on the edge of perception. CFLs usually operate at frequencies above 1000 Hz, like 20-60kHz (not perceptible) - although there may be some around that work at lower frequencies. I take it that poor power quality (where frequency may vary more) will also tend to make the flicker noticeable for the latter type of ballast. So, try a newer, quality bulb and see if you can notice anything.--Gregalton 18:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Flicker at any rate like 20 - 60 kHz is utterly insignificant, however you look at it. --Nigelj 21:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Exactly - not perceptible. I understand this is the case for almost all newer bulbs, but there may be a few on the market with some flicker.--Gregalton 04:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Nowadays, with electronic ballasts, flicker has two components:
  • A high-frequency component established by the frequency of the "half-bridge" (inverter) circuitry, and
  • A low-frequency component that's 2X the mains power frequency.
The high-frequency component is always present and, at least for the mercury emission lines, essentially irreducible. It has no effect on humans but can affect IR remote controls, so the frequency is usually chosen to be "away" from remote-control carrier frequencies (commonly, 32,768 Hz).
The low frequency component may or may not be present, depending on how much money the ballast manufacturer is willing to spend on their "bulk storage" capacitor(s). At 100 or 120 Hz, it's not visible to most humans under most conditions, but it can lead to stroboscopic effects when viewing moving equipment.
For a selection of CFLs that I was studying recently, the low-frequency flicker component was a (roughly) 50% amplitude modulation of the high frequency component, so while these lamps still flickered in a frequency range that some humans might see under some conditions, the intensity of the flicker wasn't very deep.
Make of this data what you will; I'm of the opinion that most people, absent stroboscopic effects, couldn't perceive the flickering of a CFL (with an electronic ballast) even if they tried.
Atlant 13:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


Flicker (time-domain variations) is not the only possible source of fatigue/distress in human exposure to lamp light. Spectral issues are another possibility. Incandescent light tends to have a more broad, "natural" spectral distribution. -69.87.200.198 21:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Was this study of students' fatigue double blind? There is a large societal bias at least here in the US that CFLs are somehow inferior. I have heard many people say this as a reason for not switching to them. They don't like the color, the slow response, whatever. Just like they want an SUV because it's "safer". If the students knew in anyway which lights were CFLs, I'd say toss the results, just like you should toss any results from anecdotes (my own included) and any study without good protocols. Studies of studies, including peer-reviewed studies find methodological and statistical flaws - you can't trust what you read in the papers - never mind what some random person said their students observed. What if I said that I experienced less fatigue using CFLs? To be honest I've never given it a thought or noticed but I could claim anything. More studies! And just for the record I've seen CFLs take 3 minutes to brighten to normal levels - pisses me off - most however are instantly too bright to look at70.56.195.231 (talk)jawshoeaw —Preceding comment was added at 00:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Arc or Glow Discharge?

There is discussion on the Archived talk page about arc discharge (with reference to CFLs), though mercifully, not in the article itself. If you read the references cited, then you might appreciate the difference. The discharge in a Compact Fluorescent Lamp (a medium pressure lamp) is a glow discharge not an arc discharge. It is easy to distinguish the two types of lamp. If you switch off a fully warmed up lamp, a glow discharge lamp will immediately (or almost immediately if it is a preheat ballast) restrike. An arc discharge lamp will not - it has to cool down a bit first. If you can find a germicidal lamp of the CFL design (but it isn't a fluoresent as there is no fluorescent coating), and observe the discharge (through UV glasses!), you will see that it uniformly fills the discharge tube with a glow - that is what a glow discharge is. Such lamps operate at low to medium pressure (that is from nearly a vacuum to around a thirdish of a Bar (or a thirdish of an Atmosphere - near enough the same thing).

The arc discharge lamps are high pressure devices and operate at pressures of around, or in excess of a Bar (Atmosphere). In other words, once warmed up, they cease to have a partial vacuum and often become pressurised. The discharge, does not uniformly fill a large diameter discharge tube, but is usually in the form of a thread. This is the arc. The discharge tube can be made a smaller diameter than the glow types,but not too small a diameter. Unlike the glow discharge, the temperature in the arc is very very much higher. Further, the arc emits light in other parts of the spectrum besides the normal spectral lines for the active element. In the case of mercury type lamps, the high pressure mercury lamp (or mercury arc lamp as it is often known) emitted useful amounts of visible radiation, and indeed such lamps were used as space illuminators, though the light is a very blue colour (and was often balanced with a standard filament lamp). Sometime around the 1970's, a fluoresent coating that glowed a pinkish colour was added to the inside surface of the outer bulb which combined with the blue visible light from the arc gave a much truer white light. High pressure lamps are generally more efficient than their glow discharge counterparts.

The sodium vapour discharge lamp (the yellow ones - possibly in your street lighting) also has its high pressure arc variant, but these were impossible to manufacture until comparatively recently because the sodium attacked the quartz glass arc tube. Metal Oxide arc tubes solved the problem, and the arc outputs a characteristically pinkish light - without the assistance of fluoresent coatings. The efficiency of this lamp is, however, lower than it otherwise should be because the metal oxide arc tube is a partial conductor at the elevated temperatures required and thus generates heat that serves no useful purpose (they operate at red heat - as you can see when a lamp goes out). The high pressure sodium arc lamp is often a plug in replacement for its equivalent high pressure mercury arc lamp. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.133.0.14 (talk • contribs) 14:19, 26 April 2007

[edit] Pollution if a CFL breaks?

I found this link while searching for something entirely different: < http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,268747,00.html >. Is it true? How big of a problem is accidental breakage of a CFL in someone's home? I'm not happy about the idea of potential mercury pollution in my apartment. Anyone? --Peter Knutsen 11:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I just came to ask the same thing? Why on Earth would I want a light bulb in my house if it's going to break and pour mercury all over the place? Isn't this an awful idea? Maybe I don't fully understand the issue? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.49.243.207 (talk) 20:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC).
"Pour mercury"? There certainly isn't enough mercury in a DFL to pour. You'd probably have to really work at it to be harmed in any way by the amount of mercury in one CFL. And really, how often do you break any light bulbs? The risk here is certainly minimal.Atlant 21:34, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I work at a department store that sells CFLs in Australia. As they are phasing out the incandescent lightbulb, the majority of bulbs we sell are CFLs. I'd approximate that I personally deal with between 5 and 10 broken CFLs a day that usually arrive in the store broken. I guess that number of bulbs could potentially be a problem. --Spuzzdawg (talk) 16:19, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
It depends how 'safe' you want to be. The body typically has 6mg of mercury in it. A globe is 2 to 5 milligrams. It takes about 1 to 3 full grams of mercury to die, 0.5 grams to get poisoned etc. As the article states the lady went over-board. True to get mercury levels down to 'natural' levels you would have to spend thousands on cleaning. But in reality all you have to do is pick up the breakages and clean down the area with water. Mercury when ingested has a 'halflife' (the body flushes it out) of about 70 days. So even if you some how ate all 5 milligrams in a few years there would probably be no trace of it.--Dacium 10:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Not true. Mercury is a recognized 'cumulative poison'. The body has a minimal mechanism of removal once Mercury has entered. 86.133.163.214 17:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
That's not what the CDC and other sources say. [7] [8] --agr 11:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

There was a case study of a man who had ingested over a kilo of mercury (metallic obviously). He was fine. If I recall correctly, he was an Indian man taking a folk remedy. Very amusing abdominal x-ray. My point is just that the ingestion route is very important as is the type of mercury. Methyl mercury would kill you with many orders of magnitude less than a kilo! Mercury vapor is more easily absorbed by the body but it also is much more dispersible, i.e. open your windows and let the wind do the cleaning. But Fox news? Come on, that should have been a giveaway - the article is only slightly above an April fools story from google. What about all the 1970s are earlier houses filled with lead paint? Real estate agents everywhere wink as you sign the papers saying that the seller, to the best of their knowledge, does not know about any lead. I'm sure there will be a new form for CFLs in the future. 70.56.195.231 (talk) 00:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)jawshoeaw


Ah, Fox News. Note this is not a news item per se, but a column by 'an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.' Take a look at [criticism] of this group. Institute is more of an advocacy organisation than think tank. Short form: skeptics of global warming, fuel efficiency, environmental regulation, etc. It may be best to look for other sources about the potential dangers of mercury.--Gregalton 11:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
One could try reading the references given in the article, I suppose, at FACT SHEET: Mercury in Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs). Retrieved on 2007-03-19. and Frequently Asked Questions, Information on Proper Disposal of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs). Retrieved on 2007-03-19. and also, possibly at http://www.epa.gov/mercury/. WLDtalk|edits 13:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
By their very nature, editorials (i.e., where people are published specifically to state their opinions) by people who don't have credentials in the relevant fields, are not objective sources, so are not appropriate citations. Now, if the EPA published what he said, we could cite that.
As for what he said, it's way off. The whole point of landfills is to *concentrate* waste, not to "dilute" it. What do you think happens to the residual toxins when you throw away a can of paint thinner or pesticides? Or even a full can that you're not going to use any more, like many people do? You think the landfill "dilutes" them to acceptable levels? Of course not; the purpose of a landfill is to concentrate, not dilute. Next, the author assumes that all of the mercury in landfill-disposed bulbs is released. According to the EPA, it's only 3.2% of the mercury that is released. He ignores mercury release from power plants, and the fact that the DEP suggests that the homeowner was overreacting and there was no health threat. About the only thing he gets right is the fact that most CFLs are disposed of in the trash, not recycled. -- Rei 17:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced material

I just removed the following text from the 'Energy consumption' subsection. It looks like a mini-advert with, what seem to me, plenty of unlikely but exactly quoted figures - and not a citation in sight.

One of the newest applications to be filled by the CFL is by the new Industrial CFL (ICFL). These 200-watt lamps are capable of replacing typical industrial and retail installations of 320- or 400-watt Metal Halide fixtures. While the comparison of initial lumens looks more favorably to the MH lamp, the Industrial CFL will never degrade to the lumen level that MH does at end of life. The newest technology introduced in January 2007 allows for a direct screw in replacement. These lamps use 80% of their energy input as light, and only 20% is given off as heat. In buildings where air conditioning is a factor, the heat load reduction from switching lamps can equate to 125% to 200% of the lighting energy savings based on current efficiencies of air-handling equipment.

--Nigelj 21:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that was added by this edit and I had the same reaction you did when this text was posted: advert. I wondered about the edit at the time, but left it, however, if others feel it should go, I can support that.
Atlant 22:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
By the same logic you would you consider this whole page an add? I think it is a relatvent product. Large CFL tubes to replace stanard MH tubes... what is the big deal?--Dacium 01:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I thought the "big deal" with the deleted material was the emotive language, and all those exact, scientific-sounding numbers with not a reference for any of them. --Nigelj 20:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction?

This passage seems POV and contradiction:

"During summer months, extra heat inside buildings will increase the load on air conditioning systems which then use yet more energy to compensate. Although the heat provided may appear beneficial during winter months, interior light fittings are generally not as efficient at distributing the heat they produce as proper heating systems."

First it states heat produced during summer makes air-cons work harder, so CFL's are an advantage. Then it states the obvious, that in winter it would be cooler, but claims bulbs would not be efficient heaters. The truth is any energy you save in cooling in summer by having a CFL would be directly offset of the energy lost in winter by not having one. The passage gives the POV that you save in summer and then goes off at a tangent about winter efficiency, as if the bulb was somehow efficient at heating in summer, but not in winter. The only thing that should be stated here is that bulbs are not efficient heaters, so they are not needed as a source of heat. And CFL's use less energy, so you have more energy available for cooling/heating as required.--Dacium 01:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Where does this bit about bulbs being inefficient heaters come from? I don't think it's true in general. --agr 02:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
It must be possible to find a straightforward citation that settles this issue once and for all. The article should not have to find tortured language to underline the straightforward principle that any appliance used for a specific purpose that is not designed to generate heat is not efficient, and even those designed to produce localised heat (like a stove) are not necessarily efficient ways to heat a house/apartment. Any television produces substantial amounts of waste heat, but would anyone seriously argue that this is beneficial? A television that generates less waste heat (while providing the same functionality) is more efficient, period, and the same applies to lighting.--Gregalton 09:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
You are going to have a hard time finding one, because it would violate laws of physics. Most home electrical appliances are 100% efficient electric heaters. The exceptions are those that have some mechanism for dumping the heat they produce outside the house. Electric clothes dryers are vented outside, for example. Hot water created by electric water heaters and clothes washers mostly gets flushed into the sewer system. For the lighting, the only significant exception I can think of, besides exterior lighting of course, is ceiling fixtures, particularly the recessed kind on the the top floor of a house. A good part of their heat will escape through the roof. Otherwise, all the electrical energy consumed inside a house helps to heat the house. That's not to say it's all to the good. Gas and oil fired heating system are generally much more efficient ways to heat a house than electric resistance heating, which is what electric appliances provide. And their are better ways to heat a house using electricity. Electric heat pumps can achieve efficiencies of 200 or 300%. So reducing electric consumption by home appliances is still a good thing. But the benefit is partially offset during the heating season and correspondingly amplified during the air-conditioning season. The amount of offset depends on the heating and air-conditioning systems being used. --agr 11:16, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
The issue is not about the fact that it is also converted into energy (heat) - it is being converted into heat of course. The question is whether that heat is useful where it is being produced. Home heating systems at least attempt to use and distribute the heat to contribute to comfort (the intended purpose); this is almost never a consideration with lighting fixtures or e.g. televisions. If you've ever lived in a place with poorly positioned or distributed radiators, for example, this is immediately obvious - one part of the room is hot and the other cold, requiring more use of heat to achieve the same effect of acceptable comfort. Although the waste heat from incandescents and other non-heating intended appliances might have some marginal contribution to overall heat, the effective contribution to useful heat is negligible. Once the added contribution to air conditioning requirements during hot seasons, use outdoors and other areas where the heat is absolutely wasted is added, it should be clear that this whole argument is a canard. The efficiency I'm referring to is that energy consumed is used maximally for its intended purpose, with minimal "collateral" waste. This whole line of argumentation that the excess heat generated by incandescents is useful some of the time is ludicrous - would anyone justify the use of a less efficient refrigerator (television, whatever) on the basis that for half of the year, the excess heat is used in the home?--Gregalton 11:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Well designed heating systems circulate the air to achieve a uniform temperature throughout a room. Any excess heat from lights and appliances will be carried along and generally well mixed. You are right that we are talking about a small effect. The heat produced by a heating system is generally several times as much as the heat generated by lights and appliances. I'm not arguing against CFLs. But there is an offset to their savings during heating season, probably around 25% - 40%, and a comparable amplification during air conditioning use. So the payback does vary by where you live and how you heat and cool your home. In almost all situations, CFLs are still a big win.--agr 18:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I'll leave the point about how well heating systems actually distribute heat from point sources in odd locations and whatnot for now, to go back to the original point. What we have now in the article is a fairly tortured and cumbersome paragraph because there were some objections/comments on the issue of "waste heat," and whether it is really wasted - and the short answer is much of the time it is, and even where it's not entirely wasted, better alternatives for heat exist.
I think the article would be greatly enhanced by excising this over-qualified text and leaving a straightforward statement: Incandescents are less efficient because they convert more of the energy into heat and less of the energy into light. The other effects are barely relevant, or only relevant in a small subset of situations - the short, simple statement that is concise and relevant for this article is that CFLs convert electricity into light more efficiently. I certainly hope articles about e.g. television display technologies don't specify that although CRTs produce more waste heat than LCDs, the waste heat is actually useful, some of the time, depending on the time of year, electricity generation profile, prevalence of air conditioning, design of the home heating system, and placement of the television. (Although maybe I'll go check the article on televisions now;)--Gregalton 20:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd go further and leave the whole heat issue out entirely. All that needs to be said is that CFLs require much less electricity to produce the same amount of light. --agr 13:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
The other issue that a lot of folks ignore is how much of the heat value of the fuel is captured inside the house. Nowadays, a modern gas-burning heating appliance can be 95 to 98% efficient at converting the fuel value of the gas into heat inside your home or office building. By comparison, a huge portion of the heat value in the oil, coal, or natural gas that a thermal power station is burning is just rejected to the environment as waste heat; it doesn't get turned into electricity. If you wanted to heat your house, you'd do far better to directly burn the fuel in your home heating system than to have the power company remotely burn the fuel and then ship you 60% of the heat value as electricity. (That's 60% for the best-case plants; efficiency is much lower for "peaking" plants, and then you have to subtract whatever transmission and distribution losses cost you.)
(This, of course, doesn't apply if your electricity comes from nuclear power or renewable sources such as wind, waves, solar, or geothermal energy.)
Atlant 12:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Most people get electricity from more than one source via an energy grid. Usually the marginal source--the one that produces the last bit of power--uses fossil fuel. So even if most of the power where you live comes from nuclear, hydro or other non-fossil sources, the energy saved by switching to CFLs will still largely reduce fossil fuel use.--agr 18:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
Good point. I'll take one minor exception, though. Where hydro power (or pumped-storage hydroelectricity) is available, it's often used as the "peaking power" due to the inherent storage capacity that the water reservoir behind the dam often represents. But your point is dead-on when the peaking power is gas turbines and the like.
Atlant 12:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I think I was the original author of this passage. Let me explain. It said, "interior light fittings are generally not as efficient at distributing the heat they produce". That did not refer to the efficiency of power stations or claim that the efficiency of an ohmic heater changed with the seasons. It simply referred to the fact that in order to distribute light, most light fittings are fitted high up in a room, whereas, because hot air rises, the most efficient place to install a heat-source is low down in the room. Air heated high up will likely stay up there and never reach near the floor (where the people are) until it has cooled. While it's up there, it's either heating the next floor up or just testing out your loft insulation.

The final part of the same passage that you deleted at the same time, but did not discuss here, said,

For space heating, there are also less expensive and more environmentally friendly heat sources than electricity.

I'm not sure that all this really should go from the article, just because it clashed with a few people's POV and they did not read it carefully enough to actually understand it. Maybe some better wordsmith than I could make it easier to understand, but I feel that the points made remain valid and important.

The three points that have been deleted are:

  1. Waste heat in summer is a waste, but can be a many-times-over waste if it adds load to air-con.
  2. Waste heat in winter may seem OK, but it's usually being released in the wrong part of the room.
  3. Any electrically generated heat is often worse for the environment than the householder's main heat-source.

If everyone agrees that those three one-sentence points have no place in this article, then that's fair enough. I'm just worried that with all the POV noise above, no-one's really sure what got deleted in the end. --Nigelj 20:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Although I don't disagree with any of the points, I don't see the need for stating them in the article. They seem to be answering a question that has not been asked: whether waste heat is somehow not waste heat. Is anyone actually disputing this? The essential point is that CFLs produce light more efficiently (same amount of light for much less energy consumed); most of the difference is wasted. The rest is too much detail for this article, and creates the impression there's some reason to doubt it's not (mostly) wasted. But perhaps others feel it needs to be here.--Gregalton 04:05, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] It all ends up as heat

Everyone's had a go at editing it, but I'm still not happy with the following paragraph that appears under 'Energy consumption'.

Incandescent lamps are less efficient than CFLs because incandescent lamps convert approximately 90% of the energy they consume into heat (compared to 30% for a CFL).[7]

The source quoted does not seem clearly to be quoting 30% for CFLs as its sentence refers to "Both compact fluorescent bulbs and fluorescent tubes" and it also seems to be emphasising infra-red losses, whereas I'm fairly sure that the electronic ballast of CFLs gets a lot hotter than that of fluorescent tubes used to, and that that heat will more likely result in a greater losses by convection.

Looking at the maths, if 90% of a 60 W bulb goes as heat, then it produces 6 W of visible light. If 30% of the equivalent CFL's energy input is converted to heat, then it produces 7.7 W of visible light. Yet our table says that the first produces 700 lm and the latter only 660 lm. There are clearly discrepancies here. Does anyone know how to convert these lumen figures into watts of actual light energy over a 360° sphere? Then at least we could be consistent.

Then there is the final point - a bit of a cavil I know - but it was discussed here some time back: It cannot be avoided that all the energy consumed by any light bulb ends up as heat - the component that is released as light ultimately goes to heat the surfaces that absorb it.

I think all we can really say is what we've already said elsewhere all over the article - CFLs use less electric energy per lumen of light - trying to explain this in terms of efficiency percentages as well seems rather imprecise and potentially misleading.

Any other comments? - I propose cutting that paragraph from the article for now, and moving that reference to 'External links'. --Nigelj 17:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree.--agr 22:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
After I'd written the above last night, I boldly removed it anyway. Looking at the Luminous efficacy article is interesting. It seems that we can expect something like 2% efficiency from incandescents and maybe 7%-8% from CFLs. This is more like what I would expect from my knowledge of physics - i.e. very few watts of pure light energy is subjectively very bright, if you concentrate the energy into the visible spectrum. That article looks well cited; I think we should cross-reference it from here. --Nigelj 21:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Energy table

I know it has a note saying it's undergoing heavy work, but is it even strictly necessary in the first place? Energy claims are well-referenced already, most of the information comes from a copyrighted source and it's a huge lump in the middle of the article. Chris Cunningham 08:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Chris, do you have a problem with this article being too long, or too detailed, or having too much information in it in some way? I see you deleted something I added yesterday about the electrical efficiency of CFLs on the basis of I/we/you "Don't need" it, now you want to delete a table, which has a great deal of information in it, too. The article currently is 36 KB, which is within guidelines afaik. --Nigelj 18:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
In a word, yes. Articles become less readable well before the magical 32k mark, and this one is particularly bad for it in places. The note about efficiency that I removed yesterday seemed pretty patronising considering it was stuck in the middle of an article about energy-efficient light bulbs; it's true that the link contained within is important to the article, but it doesn't need a whole paragraph of wrapper to be introduced. I'm generally opposed to the inclusion of large tables where they aren't the main focus of an article and don't add a great deal of information, and the table in question fails both of those criteria. It's available from a reference, it should just be summarised and linked to. Chris Cunningham 18:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
It's good to know where you're coming from. I'm not sure everyone is going to agree with you though, so while you may indeed 'be bold', don't assume that everything you think/feel/know/oppose is necessarily correct, please. --Nigelj 19:08, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Errr, yeah. That's why I brought it to talk instead of reverting again, believe it or not. Anyway, I'm sure we can move on from this. I still object to keeping the fluff text in. Chris Cunningham 20:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Anyway, this doesn't resolve the table thing. I don't think it adds anything to the article. I believe a link should be sufficient. Chris Cunningham 20:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Compact Fluorescent Considerations

I think this belongs here. It was put on the talk page of the talk page guidelines instead. One might notify the ipuser on his talk page of replies, as he is probably not watching this space. --User:Krator (t c) 21:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Although a layman, I have thought about Compact Fluorescents and their impact. It is generally assumed that because this type of bulb uses far less energy and lasts longer that it is a real panacea to energy use. After all, about 40% of electrical energy consumption is caused by "lighting".

There may be other considerations worth discussing. The "real" issue it the overall "carbon impact" in comparing incandescent and compact fluoresents. Using a 100W incandescent as a base line, I established a number of carbon impact categories and arbitrarily assigned the incandescent a value of "1" or "0" to each category. Then, I similarly assigned the compact fluorescent bulb a "gut feeling" value less or greater than "1" to establish a "relative total value" of the overall carbon impact. The following impact characteristics were considered:

  1. Power Consumption (incandescents use approx 5X more enery per lumen)
  2. Amount of Glass required for manufacture (less glass in each incandescent, but more incandescents required over live of a fluorescent)
  3. Amount of Plastic required for manufacture (none in incandescent)
  4. Amount of Metal required for manufacture (approximately the same)
  5. Amount of Neon Gas required for manufacture (none in incandescent, only a vacuum)
  6. Transportation costs of Gas to bulb manufacture location (gas is made in one location, shipped to bulb mfg. location)
  7. Amount of manufactured electronics (none in incandescent)
  8. Differences in Packaging (cardboard vs hard plastic case)
  9. Shipping costs from point of manufacture (incandescent US sites vs China, Mexico, Taiwan for fluorescents)
  10. Disposal/pollution costs (compact fluorescents use neon gas, electronics and mercury)
  11. Weight Differences that make fluorescents more expensive to transport

My layman's analysis indicates that the true "carbon cost" comparison is that fluorescents actually are 2X-3X more costly in terms of carbon produced over the lifetime of the bulb. While certainly not definitive, this should indicate that the total carbon impact should at least be analyzed in a much broader view than a simplistic "Compact Fluorescents use less electricity and last longer..." -- therefore they are GOOD! Maybe someone with more knowledge can look into this more analytically.

JSM 64.25.5.225 15:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Am I the only one wondering why this is here? Btw, you forgot to put in the 5mm of mercury gas in those bulbs (source, the manufacturer's label, its a toxin and must be listed). SanchiTachi 16:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

An interesting attempt to consider the whole picture. Hope someone develops these kind of details, -- away from WP... -69.87.200.198 22:37, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name

Just reading through this article after moving the above section here, and I was wondering what the article was actually about. I had never heard of this type of lamp, though I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the subject. Then I went to the Dutch translation page in "in other languages", which is named Spaarlamp - I know what that is!

I wonder, does English have an equivalent to that Dutch name, literally meaning "Saving lamp", because of the lower energy usage?

--User:Krator (t c) 21:23, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

"Energy saving lightbulb", the third suggestion in the intro. Chris Cunningham 09:36, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Table

The numbers in the table are backed by the cited references - changing them without citing the new numbers from a proper source is ill-informed. Yes, they are not convenient. Life rarely is. Please discuss proposed changes to the table here - being bold and making changes in this particular instance is not appropriate. Thanks. Sorry if this is abrupt or curt - I'm bust doing 'other stuff' right now, but I don't want readers of the article to get the wrong impression that the changes are backed by the references. WLDtalk|edits 18:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I like the current "consumption of electricity" table -- even though it is kind of peculiar. I'd like it even more if each number had lumens-per-watt with it.-69.87.199.95 22:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the consumption of electricity table is poorly constructed. Any table with only one entry per line is just not designed well. It makes this table hard to read and decreases its value. I'm not sure what the best fix is. Perhaps the lumen values should be "binned" into 50 lumen ranges, with all devices within that range shown in a single row. Perhaps some other format would present the same data in a better way.--Srleffler (talk) 07:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I've reworked the table into a [graphical] chart showing the same data. Hopefully this new representation will be easier to understand. --bdesham ★ 02:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links

User:Beetstra seems to have a problem with the external links section. For the most part these link to pages with additional information and perspectives on CFLs. They are not selling product (he properly removed one that apparently was). Which links are objectionable and why?---agr 22:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Some people don't like the idea of "external links", and just remove them. That is a shame, since that is where most readers look for "more information". Reference sections are not so useful, not very inviting -- few general readers would have the patience to try to make any sense of them!-69.87.199.95 22:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyone got an opinion on the presence of the 'try green' link on this page? It looks like it has been there for a long time so I don't want to remove irresponsibly, however it appears to go to an online retailer of bulbs and doesn't provide further information? Hemens (talk) 17:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the site, and it seems like a retail site for CFLs. They also have some information on general environmentalist topics, that link back to... Wikipedia articles. There isn't anything related to CFLs on that site beside the commerce section, so I removed it under the provisions of the external links policy. — EagleOne\Talk 18:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Floodlights and spotlights

Incandescent bulbs are naturally point sources. Which is often a problem, because people prefer diffuse room lighting. But an advantage for reflector applications, because there is a point focus for the reflector. Fluorescent bulbs are naturally linear; CFLs wrap this into a wad, but it is still not a point. For general room lighting, this is good. For reflectors, a problem. So CFL floodlights and spotlights are not so efficient. The article should cover this, and give typical Lumen-per-watt performance figures for the projected light, comparing common CFL versions to common incandescent/halogen versions.-69.87.204.11 01:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Few incandescent bulbs are "point sources." An A19 frosted bulb, the most common kind, diffuses the light from the filament through the coating in the bulb. Small? Yes. Point? No. A clear bulb is more of a point source. Edison 15:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heat

"11. How much heat (or infrared radiation) is emitted by regular, halogen, and compact fluorescent light bulbs?

Because incandescent and halogen bulbs create light through heat, about 90% of the energy they emit is in the form of heat (also called infrared radiation). To reduce the heat emitted by regular incandescent and halogen light bulbs, use a lower watt bulb (like 60 watts instead of 100).

Fluorescent light bulbs use an entirely different method to create light. Both compact fluorescent bulbs and fluorescent tubes contain a gas that, when excited by electricity, hits a coating inside the fluorescent bulb and emits light. (This makes them far more energy-efficient than regular incandescent bulbs.) The fluorescent bulbs used in your home emit only around 30% of their energy in heat, making them far cooler." [9]

The figures for energy efficiency are from the GE webpage, but they are wrong. Ordinary incandescent bulbs change at least 95% of the electricity into heat, radiated and conducted. Very little energy becomes light. Perhaps some special halogens do as well as 90%. Maybe. Fluorescent bulbs are better, but only somewhat, and still convert most of the electricity into heat. All ordinary electric lights mostly are making heat; this is very difficult to avoid or overcome.

Using a lower-wattage incandescent does make less heat -- but it is even less efficient, turning a greater percentage of electricity into heat! Which PR flack wrote this misleading FAQ? CFLs are 3-4 times better at turning electricity into light, so you can use about one-quarter the wattage (that is why they are cooler) -- but they are still turning most of the electricity into heat. If you used the same wattage fluorescent, you would be making almost as much heat (and much more light) -- and you would fry the CFL unless you did a good job cooling it.-69.87.204.11 01:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 4 statements needing citations

The article mentions, in four different sections, that manufacturing CFLs uses more energy and materials than does manufacturing incandescents, pointing out that this offsets some of the CFLs' higher efficiency. In fact, one of the statements says it might *more than* offset the efficiency(!)

Also, the statements don't specify whether the manufacturing energy and materials of one CFL are greater than for *one* incandescent, or greater than all the incandescents that the CFL is replacing over its lifetime -- those are two very different things!

None of the statements is supported with a citation, and only one of them is followed by 'citation needed'.

I mention this mostly because I'm very curious about this fact and want to learn more! (not to pick bones about the article). Can anyone provide citations?


1 - "some people question whether the amount of power and raw materials used in their manufacture compares well with incandescent lamps"

2 - "the total lifetime energy (from manufacture to disposal) may actually be higher [for CFLs as compared to incandescents]" -> The sentence immediately following cites a New Scientist article. I checked -- the citation supports the particular sentence it is attached to (concering total lighting energy use in industrialized countries), but doesn't say anything about manufacturing energy use, which the reader is arguably led to believe.

3 - "Care should be taken however, to take into account the higher amount of energy that 'low energy lamps' take to manufacture when comparing life cycle energy efficiency with other lamps"

4 - "They have a much higher manufacturing and recycling energy requirement than standard lamps[citation needed]"


Richardsaccount 06:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The lifetime energy requirements of CFl's vs Incandescents should be considered in a single section (preferably the existing CFL's vs Incandescents section) rather than strewn over the article like it currently seems. Things to consider are:
  • CFL efficiency isn't reached until the bulbed is "warmed up" (~3 min)
  • CFL's lifespans are more affected by constant switching than incandescents
  • Incandescents produce heat that reduces heating requirements (inefficient heat, but useful nontheless); the opposite could be said of hot environments where cooling costs are increased due to incandescent use
  • More material required during development, meaning costs of material transport and manufacture need to be taken into account
  • Larger bulbs; one package of 4 CFL's weighed 710g vs 4 incandescents' 170g -> more transportation costs due to increased bulk and weight
  • Energy required to recycle CFL's (due to mercury) exist while incandescents can be safely dumped in a landfill
  • CFL's have a pronounced (yet modest) spike when turned on and take longer make useful light - energy is essentially being wasted; incandescent bulbs give usable light instantly.
  • The transportation of broken CFL's to the recycling plant should be considered
  • The energy cost of adopting CFL's over usable incandescents. The manufacture cost of incandescents isn't spread over the bulbs entire operating lifespan and waste will be generated as the bulbs head to the landfill (including tranportation costs taking them there)
  • Similar issue as above when people adopt newer styles of CFL's (softer light, etc) over perfectly usable, cooler CFL's. In this case, the longevity of CFL's ceases to be an argument towards their efficiency.
  • CFL's fail in situations with vibration, meaning a lower bulb lifetime in ceiling fan and garage door installations
Some of these issues really are bean counting (taken from NSRP), but everything adds up. It may be interesting to show the average consumer benefits (for those interested in saving $$$) vs the average environmental benefits (for those interested in saving our home). LostCause 12:14, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CFLs better than incandescent bulbs?

Posing this question may provoke some debate; but has ever anybody seriously investigated if there is support for the blanket statement that CFLs are "better" than incandescent bulbs? Obviously "better" is meant to venture into a more holistic approach including environmental as well as energetic considerations from birth to death of these light sources. There are many artificial lighting scenarios where CFLs will economically outperform incandescent bulbs; the operating cost savings over time quickly amortize the initially higher purchase price. However, do the energy savings due to the reduced operating energy requirements when considering potential benefits of the "waste" heat really always offset the certainly higher energy consumption for production and lower energy requirements of CFLs during operation as proclaimed? Is it possible that there exist a considerable market where CFLs are actually at par with incandescent bulbs or at least with certain types of incandescent lights (e.g. Halogen)? Additionally today's socioeconomic systems have not yet monetized certain environmental side effects that can not really conclusively be measured in terms of energy or economic scale. Has anybody undertaken any serious research in this aspect? 66.46.103.18 00:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

This query and the previous one both make essentially the same point. These issues have been extensively discussed above. The energy costs associated with the manufacture and transport of CFL are presumably included in the unsubsidized retail price, which is substantially less than the projected energy cost savings. There are offsets associated with the heat produced by incandescencts, they are somewhat balanced by the increased air conditioning costs, the details depend on the local climate, type of heating, etc. but the net effect does not alter the general conclusion that there are substantial savings in switching to CFLs. There other costs associated with incandescent use that are not listed above, including the cost in labor of replacing bulbs, hazards associated with increased use of ladders (a major cause of accidental injury) and risks associated with burnt out bulbs. If you want to talk about unmonetized environmental side effects, those associated with producing added electricity likely dwarf those associated with producing and disposing of CFLs. Think global warming, Iraq war, nuclear waste disposal, etc. --agr 19:04, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
The original question(s) was/were posed out of genuine interest and serious environmental concern. Without sufficiently accurate information to substantiate any relevant claims with numbers i.e. how much energy is required to, for example, manufacture and also transport light sources (CFLs or incandescents) to the user and how much energy does it cost to simply dispose or recycle them, I believe the questions are very valid as they have not been answered conclusively. This is specifically relevant in light of past and present proposals in various countries around the world to ban/outlaw incandescent lights and cannot be answered with ingrained beliefs or incomplete types of analysis. There is a lot of talk and unfortunately too little substantiation. I do use a number of CFLs for certain applications at home but just not for every possible use. I strongly believe that it may not be justified to completely ban incandescent light sources from all uses because it may be uneconomical and environmentally unfriendly for a number of usage scenarios depending on whether or not the heat generated by the light source may actually be useful, for example, by contributing to space heating. Furthermore, it seems to be just to discuss and, if determined relevant, to implement a suitable recycling program for CFLs. Dumping CFLs in a landfill along with other garbage is likely not an environmentally sound solution. I dare to say that if the waste heat from incandescent lights can be used to contribute to already required space heating and the space heating is of a certain type then incandescent lights may not be so bad after all. This of course regards residential applications for use in living spaces inside buildings/houses. Incandescent lights certainly have higher maintenance and operating costs because of higher replacement frequency and higher energy consumption. They certainly need a lot less energy during manufacture, for raw materials and components than CFLs per unit - a factor that is likely going to become irrelevant if you balance the number of incandescent bulbs that are required to a achieve the same life time provided by a single CFL. If you assume some reasonable numbers for manufacture, raw materials, components and disposal, say 0.1kWh energy consumption per 100W incandescent light source versus, say 1kWh per CFL (100W equivalent), then you do the math and calculate the operating energy costs, say 25W actual consumption per CFL versus 100W for the incandescent for, say 8000 hours lifetime. If you then assume 50% of the "wasted" energy from the incandescent bulb can be recovered by contribution to space heating (a figure a CFL, though also generating heat, will likely not achieve because CFLs are overall poorly radiate heat into the ambient, for example, your living room) your total energy balance will reveal some interesting aspects. If you further do the same analysis for a 50W Halogen light source (which will generate about as much light as the 100W incandescent bulb and live about twice as long) in comparison to CFLs Halogen lamps may actually be at par if not even outperform CFLs in terms of (estimated) energy consumption for a number of (widespread) applications. 66.46.103.18 23:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
This isn't the place for soapboxing. Any reliable sourced information can go into the article, if it's not reliably sourced then the discussion should be held elsewhere. This discussion has been held on the reference desk before BTW. However since you went into such depth on heating, I should point something out. The heating advantage of incandescent light bulbs is often mention including in the incandesecent bulb article but as with so many aspects around this whole debate, I've never seen any actually figures determined from some sort of well conducted test, or even calculated figures which try to take into account the factors involved. However many people including you have failed to consider that heating your house with incandescent bulbs is incredibly inefficient for a number of reasons including the fact that all the heat is generated and therefore likely remains near the ceiling which is not where you usually want it. Some other factors are also discussed here [10]. In absence of proper consideration of these factors, figures like 50% sound like they were pulled out of your ass so to speak and are IMHO likely to be extremely overestimates. In reality, I suspect the actual recovery you will get from an incandescent bulb is at most 10% (i.e. for every 100W you spend on the bulb, you save 10W on your heating bill) and in most instances it will probably be far less although I'll freely admit this is basically a figure I pulled out of my ass Nil Einne 11:39, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Agreed and thank you for pointing out other places to take care of this discussion. Besides, I'm sorry to hear that you consider this "soapboxing" and to see the community being exposed to that type of language. I am considering deleting my comments completely to comply with wikipedia's ideas and prevent further escalation. Just briefly, you may have misunderstood the above; it was nowhere said that heating your place with incandescent light bulbs was a good idea. It wasn't even said or speculated that, even if "waste" heat was included in the energy balance, incandescent bulbs would be anywhere close to being as power efficient as CFLs. The only thing that was speculated, was (in other words) that there might be a not so insignificant number of Halogen lights in use for which the widely accepted belief that "CFLs are always better than incandescent bulbs" may not be true. 66.46.103.18 19:47, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

On this subject, I think this article could be tightened up a bit to discuss both the alleged benefits and drawbacks in more centralized "advantages" and "disadvantages" sections, instead of everywhere in the article. I've cut out a few of the more egregious instances, but it still seems like the stuff from both sides is kind of scattered across the article wherever someone could find an excuse to stick it. I think some of the discussion of how clean or unclean electricity is needs to be toned down as well, because this varies heavily by country (e.g. the U.S. uses lots of coal, France uses almost exclusively nuclear), so would be better summarized briefly here and left for articles like Environmental concerns with electricity generation to deal with more fully. --Delirium 18:56, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Repetition

Throughout the article several times, the fact that CFLs last longer than Incandescent bulbs and the fact that they cost more but consume less power is repeated in nearly every section. This needs to be addressed. 75.176.118.208 04:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to edit some of these, as well as the other repetitive bits. The dimming issue is repeated again and again, for example, as are some others. I find the whole embedded energy section to be repetitive, unsourced, and lacking any additional insight beyond the other areas where this is covered more concisely and with better references. The whole article still needs more cutting and pruning than additions.--Gregalton 08:11, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I've commented out the embodied energy sectin altogether since it has no references and seems implausible...how much extra energy could there even *be* in a product that now sells for a ocuple of bucks? I don't think the heading for embodied energy can be un-commented until we see a real reference ( and not just some folklore ona Web page somewhere, but a credible source). --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
You can track down the extra energy by looking at what companies in China pay for electricity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.111.137.4 (talk) 01:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
The May 2008 issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine has an article on wind power in china which states that builders of wind farms there are getting 6 US cents per kwh - and that this price is thought to be very low by Chinese standards. Even if the entire cost of the lamp is due to embodied energy (and of course it's not), and even if Chinese factories pay 1/10th of the cost of North American electricity, overall the payback on CFLs is now so big that they surely repay their "embedded" energy investment several times over. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mood-lites

I appreciate all of the debate and discussion. I, personally, do not think it is fair or right that the govt is trying to ban any product from the marketplace. I also think the argument is wrong - and that a better argument is to suggest lower wattages whenever possible. As smart as we are, I don't think consumers really know that lower wattages means less electricity burned. I am partial to Mood-lites (lights based on how colors work affect moods), and think there are many ways you can use them and avoid putting another hazardous waste material into our already contaminated water supply. How many are really going to properly dispose of CFL's, and I have read that one CFL contaminates 1,000 gallons of water when not properly disposed of in recycling bins. Has anyone thought of that in the billions - the amount big businesses want to sell? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.248.116.217 (talk) 22:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Gov't has a responsibility to ban harmful substances sometimes. Lead in gasoline for example. However, I think that you will find all comparisons of the type "x amount of water will be contaminated by y amount of substance" to be questionable. It would only be relevant if such contamination took place in your city's reservoir. In fact, that's probably how such numbers are calculated. Reality is messier. Where I live, very little drinking water comes from groundwater, so none of my drinking water is contaminated. The landfills slowly release their toxins, although they are often sealed to limit this, never mind the fact that CFLs have mercury gas. Of course some of that must be liquid, but as I understand it, if you break a CFL, the vapor mostly blows away. It would almost make more sense to just break them outside rather than concentrating them in landfills. My city accepts them for recycling, but if they didn't? Even in the case of groundwater contamination from some hypothetical future landfill bombarded with all these CFLs, the groundwater volumes are enormous. take an area one square mile in size 5 feet deep of just water. That's a billion gallons if I did my math right. So it would take a million CFLs to "contaminate" it, assuming all their mercury somehow was evenly dispersed into the water as some sort of water soluble mercury. But aquifers can span many hundreds of square miles. And the mercury doesn't all become soluble, and not all of the CFL's mercury is in the landfill and your body can eliminate some mercury and and and! And if the mercury ends up in the rivers, it goes out into the ocean where the numbers are so huge they're ridiculous. Just don't eat swordfish 70.56.195.231 (talk) 01:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)jawshoeaw
A lot of fish is already poisoned with mercury. It only takes a small amount. ---- Theaveng (talk) 13:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notes and references-

EagleOne combined the Notes section and the References section [11]. They did not look very good before, but I see a benefit in an article about a technical subject in havein a References section, where references about the subject are fully listed then having a Notes section where we can say which can use a given ref numerous times citing to a particular page, or commenting on why a ref should or should not be considered reliable with respect to the cite. Thoughts? Edison 17:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stated efficiencies are nowhere near accurate.

The article currently states that waste heat is 90% for incandescents and 30% for fluorescents. That's far far more efficient that anything I've seen anywhere else.

I can't find a good 3rd party reference right now, but the two pages in the Wikipedia itself claim light output as up to 3% for incandescents (i.e. 97% waste heat) and up to 7% for fluorecents (i.e. 93% waste heat).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Energy_efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy

24.83.194.189 07:34, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I cleaned up the section in question. I also took out the unsourced bit about CFLs taking more energy to produce. It's far from clear that this is true if all the conventional bulbs (6 to 10) a CFL replaces over its lifetime are considered. --agr 11:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Well then, it sounds like you went too far. There can be little doubt but that one CFL bulb takes more energy to manufacture than one ordinary incandescent bulb. That is a simple basic fact, that it would not be proper to suppress. You are welcome to try to frame the fact in whatever contexts you think are relevant. (There are some situations where fluorescents do not last longer than incandescents.) -69.87.203.112 00:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mercury emissions (NPOV)

I flagged this section, as I think it could use some attention. As it stands, it reads almost like talking points. It starts off, right away, with WP:OR that "interprets" the graph on the right for the reader in the most negative manner possible (ignoring, for example, that regardless of where our power *could* come from, where it *does* come from is mostly (>50%) coal). The article misrepresents one of the references it makes (about the dropped bulb); the maine.gov description suggests an overly paranoid homeowner and a spill that was not a safety problem. An editorial is cited as demonstration of a "containment" problem about a "16,667 cubic feet of soil" needed in a landfill to contain the mercury (editorials are not objective sources), as though landfills (i.e., places where people get rid of everything under the sun, including bottles of all kinds of toxic chemicals) meet the standards for safety in a home in *any* regard. One "reference" is hardly even tangentially related to the subject, and should not be cited at all.[12]

Looks like POV issues on this section have been raised before. I think the tag should stay until they're cleared up. This section needs a lot of work. -- Rei 17:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Rather than just note these things, I'll be WP:Bold and try and fix them. Let's see how this works out. -- Rei 17:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I've attempted to remedy the situation, and think it's a lot better. If nobody has a problem with the section in it's current form, I'd support the removal of the NPOV tag. -- Rei 17:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Why does the graph under Mercury contain just Coal Power? From what I understand, the United States, Europe, or many other areas of the world don't get 100% of their power from Coal... This graph seams very inaccurate.--65.107.88.154 13:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Lots of power in the US comes from nuclear plants and hydro, depending on the region. By no means is coal the only fuel for electric generation. The US Dept of Energy [13] says (2005) Coal 50%; nuclear and natural gas 19% each; hydro 7%; oil 3%; nonhydro rewewable 2%. Edison 13:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
The cost of hydro and nuclear is mostly capital cost, so they are generally operated to max capacity. Therefore reductions in demand, or slowing of demand growth, largely comes from coal and natural gas.--agr 13:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
You know, there's a lot of mercury in the environment anyway. No matter how many CFLs you break over someone's head, he's not going to die (at least, not from mercury). I recall playing with bubbles of mercury from broken thermometers, tilt switches, and mercury batteries, and even school labs, and I have multiple fillings - true, today I have thinning hair, weak eyes, fatigue, and a pot belly but I suspect childhood mercury exposure is the least of my worries. A little proportion is in order; prudent avoidance of mercury exposure is fine, but don't go checking into emergency for chelation therapy just because you dropped a bulb. The article should strike a balance here --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:39, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Finally the voice of reason, at least on this point :) Wtshymanski, there is a small concern regarding the mercury from CFLs and small children since they are more likely to be harmed by small amounts of Hg, although broken glass might actually be more dangerous. But here's an interesting thought (at least to me). A certain number of people must die or be severely injured by falls from ladders to change light bulbs of any kind. The less often you change a light bulb, the less often you risk your neck. I changed out to CFLs years ago when they were more expensive, mostly because I got sick of changing light bulbs all the time, some of which requird standing on a step ladder, or chair, or phone books. I fell once, but was uninjured. It made me think, someone out there will actually die from changing a light bulb. No one will ever die or even get sick from breaking a CFL (not from one, anyway). A second point, I had to make road trips to replace all those incadescent light bulbs occasionally, partly because I'm impatient and disorganized. The carbon footprint of that is small but non-negligible. You could argue that I should combine my trips but people do irrational things all the time. Fewer bulbs to me is to me one of the most important selling points. I would pay $100 for a CFL if you told me it would last forever.70.56.195.231 (talk) 00:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)jawshoeaw

[edit] Recycling problems

The article says "Return used CFLs to where they were purchased, so the store can recycle them correctly; or Take used CFLs to a local recycling facility. " The problem with this is that stores in my area in the U.S. just throw them in the trash if you return them. The manufacturers do not have a program for picking up the returned lamps and the store has no way to get rid of them without it costing about $.89 per bulb out of the merchant's pocket. The city has a household hazardous waste recycling program about once a year, in which cars line up for a two block, two hour crawl to drop off insecticides, paint, solvent, or fluorescent lights. It is clearly inadequate, and the mercury in these lights presently just goes into landfills for the most part. Are there U.S. laws requiring stores to accept bulbs (and batteries) and providing some channel to get them to a proper recycling factory? Perhaps paying an incentive for the duds to encourage the recycling? The cost of ultimate proper disposal should be part of the initial cost of the bulbs. With rebates from utilities, compact fluorescents of 60 to 100 watts equivalent lighting are available in some US areas for $.99 each compared to typical retail of perhaps $5.99. An existing recycling option for stores is a shipping container (SUPPLY068-5 GAL CFL & MIXED LAMPS RECYCLING PAIL) with a plastic liner which holds 90 used CFLs, but which costs the merchant $80 [14]. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency says that most households just throw the bulbs away and they go to landfills where the mercury gets released. Per [15] New York and California mandate recycling of compact fluorescents. This article is way too blasé and point of view in assuming that homeowners and small stores will pay a lot of money for recycling packs, or will endure long lines on special days at a city facility to get rid of the bulbs. Even making a special trip to a facility uses up so much gas that it cuts into the claimed savings. Edison 12:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC) There is one machine in Australia to recycle the fluorescent tubes and it only recycles about 1% of the ones sold and it doesn't work with CFL. You also can't ship recycled CFLs out of most countries since they contain too much mercury. The glass can be crushed and sent as recycled glass but where does the mercury go?

[edit] Environmental issues Worldwide tag

I tagged the section with Worldwide View tag because it mainly talks about situation in North America with a specific source of energy. The section also completely ignores the fact that the "waste" energy of normal lamps infact doesn't go to waste in places where there are heating costs involved, eg. during winter when lights tend to be on: A normal 60 watt lightbulb 'produces' 50 watts more of heating energy than a comparable fluorescent lamp.

The section also reads as a defensive piece instead of a neutral viewpoint and completely fails to point out the fact that in case the CFL lamp is switched on and off regularly (as is the case with a normal lamp & energy saving) the lifespan of the lamp may infact end up being *shorter* than the lifespan of a normal lamp (source: Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Lifespan). - G3, 23:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

A discussion of the interaction between CFLs' heat and other sources of heat and cold already exists higher up the article. What you describe is not a 'fact': as is fully cited and sourced higher up, you'd have repeatedly to switch a CFL off within seconds of switching it on to have that kind of effect on its life. The reason these are not discussed again in this section is because they are covered higher up - you need to read the whole article. But, when you have done so, if you feel you can improve the tone of this section, and that you can source some relevant facts from outside the US and Canada, please feel free to have a go. We'll all read what you've done and try to improve it yet some more - that's what we do here. :-) --Nigelj 18:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Replacement lamps

The article is sorely lacking details about replacement lamps. 2-Pin Twin Tubes, 2-Pin Cluster Quads, 4-Pin Cluster Quads, 4-Pin "F" Quads, 4-Pin 2-Ds, 4-Pin Circulars are some of the formats available. The twin tubes are sold in 5W to 13W, the quad tube clusters in 9W to 26W. www.energyfederation.org/consumer/default.php/cPath/2050_25_173 seems like a good source. We should have typical pictures, dimensions, and the proper tech terms for the sockets and form factors, just like we have for screw-base bulbs. Please find good info and add it to the article if you can. -69.87.203.112 00:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cold climate use

I came here looking for information on CFLs for use in cold weather; I had some (3) outdoor fixtures with ballast in the fixture, and out of at least 5 bulbs 2 were no use in winter (northern New York) and 2 were satisfactory if left on 24 hrs - I assume the problem is getting the ballast warm enough. If they are recommended in provinces of Canada, surely there's some discussion available to reference. But I haven't found it yet. ssp 06:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] UV rays

Do fluorescent light bulbs emit stray UV rays? --24.118.213.206 14:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC) All CFL generate UV light internally however its supposed to stay in the bulb because the flint glass should block it. You can see from the black light bulbs that there are exceptions to that. I have two bulbs that are generating enough UV to discolour the white plastic base and there are other reports of them fading colours which is attributed to UV. The major environmental concern is that if the bulb is producing UV, it also is producing ozone. My only (and poorly conducted) test shows the level of ozone its making has greenhouse gas equivalent about 2.5 kg of CO2 and hour. Another concern for UV light is it has been associated with eye damage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.111.137.4 (talk) 01:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Energy Savings from CFL a Myth

The April 2007 issue of the Australian 'Silicon Chip' magazine ran an article about CFLs in response to the Australian Environment Minister's decision to outlaw incandescent light bulbs. In this article they gave a detailed list of the numerous drawbacks CFLs have most of which don't seem to be in this wiki article. The most significant of these issues is that CFL tubes are likely to be used at night. During the night, Australia's coal power stations run in 'kickover' mode which is capable of producing enough energy to run all the lights in Australia. Silicon Chip go on to say that you could turn off every light in Australia and the power stations would not change the amount of coal they are burning. Therefore, in Australia, no carbon emissions will actually be reduced by changing incandescent lightbulbs to CFLs. I think that this point and other drawbacks should be written in to the article if they can be verified.--Spuzzdawg (talk) 03:49, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mercury emissions image

The coal output image has been more accurately listed with a statement that the united states gets only around half of its energy supply from coal, though the world wide coal energy is only 40% Coal#Coal_as_fuel. Should this image be altered to reflect this information, as it is impossible to decide, as someone plugging in a light bulb, where the energy comes from.--65.107.88.154 21:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dead link (note #3)

The link about the light spectra of different sources is dead. Can anyone replace it with something else please? 213.113.60.164 (talk) 15:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Table again

The numbers in the table are backed by the cited references - changing them without citing the new numbers from a proper source is ill-informed. Yes, they are not convenient. Life rarely is. Please discuss proposed changes to the table here - being bold and making changes in this particular instance is not appropriate. Thanks. Sorry if this is abrupt or curt - I'm bust doing 'other stuff' right now, but I don't want readers of the article to get the wrong impression that the changes are backed by the references. WLDtalk|edits 18:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I like the current "consumption of electricity" table -- even though it is kind of peculiar. I'd like it even more if each number had lumens-per-watt with it.-69.87.199.95 22:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the consumption of electricity table is poorly constructed. Any table with only one entry per line is just not designed well. It makes this table hard to read and decreases its value. I'm not sure what the best fix is. Perhaps the lumen values should be "binned" into 50 lumen ranges, with all devices within that range shown in a single row. Perhaps some other format would present the same data in a better way.--Srleffler (talk) 07:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I've reworked the table into a [graphical] chart showing the same data. Hopefully this new representation will be easier to understand. --bdesham ★ 02:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
A user removed the chart in favor of the table. I reverted this change because I feel that the chart is much more efficient and attractive and makes it much easier to understand what information is being displayed. --bdesham ★ 20:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
FWIW, I prefer the chart - it is a much clearer representation of the data. The only problem I forsee is maintenance - if new figures become available, the graphic will be harder to update. But until that time, it is by far the best way of helping a reader to assimilate the relevant information. Clicking through to the image page provides us with a link back to the original data in tabular for (via the 'revision' link) - I can't think of a way to improve it any further :-) Please do not revert. --Nigelj (talk) 11:50, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm still not thrilled by the graphic - it cites the Wikipedia article itself as a reference, which is odd. I would prefer a table to a chart because it gives precise values for calculation - the chart just gives a vague idea that some lamps use less than others with interpolation required for any particular value of watts or lumens. Why not watts on the horizontal axis and lumens on the vertical? You pay for watts and get lumens - isn't the dependant variable usually on the Y-axis? --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:07, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
The image page doesn't really cite the article; it merely provides a link to the original data used to create the chart. The image page includes the citation from the article, so it is properly cited… the Wikipedia link is just for those people who want to see the exact data points used. As for the axis orientation, I think the chart makes sense because people aren't worried about the wattage of their lights, they're interested in the light output, and the chart shows the energy used by the different bulb types for any given light output. I don't really understand your interpolation comment at all. With the chart it is trivial to visually interpolate the data and make a rough estimate for data points that aren't given. However, this was nearly impossible with the table, which only listed certain discrete values, and even then with an inconsistent and confusing scale (e.g. jumping up by 15 lm and then 100 lm). If you have any suggestions for changes for the image, I'd be happy to consider them, but I don't think either of these criticisms stand up. Regards, bdesham ★ 01:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] USD $ 30

"In the United States, a CFL can save over US$30 in electricity costs over the lamp's lifetime"

Is that figure of $30 correct? That sounds a bit low. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ironcorona (talk • contribs) 15:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's do the original research here. The box says a 23 watt 1600 lumen CFL replaces a 100 watt, 1750 lumen incandescent and that it lasts 5000 hours. So, that's 5000 *(100-23)/1000 = 385 kWH not used. Multiply that by $0.10 per kWH (some Americans pay more, many pay less) and you get $38.50. Your milage may vary. --Wtshymanski (talk) 23:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Miracle bulbs

Indeed, you can make an incandescent bulb last 20,000 hours. But don't forget that lumens/watt decrease proportional to the 7.1th power of life (see bibliographical notes at Incandescent light bulb). So, the 7.1th root of 750/20000 is 0.63. This means that you use 3 miracle bulbs to do the job of 2 standard bulbs. Over 20,000 hours that extra bulb will use an extra 1200 kWH of electricity, worth US $120 at $0.10/kWH (convert to your favorite units). --Wtshymanski (talk) 23:26, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

And shazam! Someone (Theaveng) found lumens of 500 and 800 for miracle-bulb vs. standard bulb - pretty darn close to 0.63 ratio, as the TP-110 equations predict (actually the reference says 530 lumens and 850 lumens, near enough). The miracle bulbs sell for $1.70 each in case lots, according to the supplied link; (yesterday) morning's Canadian Tire flyer shows a 4-pack of 13-watt CFLs for $7.48, all of $1.87 each. And TP 110 warns us that in the real world, we don't get the laboratory life numbers anyway. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I did the work that YOU should have done yourself. If you're going to make a claim, you need to back it up NOT with equations/original research, but with citations. Lesson learned? ---- Theaveng (talk) 13:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I still don't see a reference backing up the claim that the 20,000 hour incandescent bulbs are more economical than 10,000 hour CFLs using 1/4 to 1/3 the wattage. My calculations show the 20,000 lamps have 4 or 5 times the cost per million lumen-hours at 10 cents/kwh, so I suspect there are *no* references supporting 20,000 hour incandescents over CFLs. (Playing with the spreadsheet and setting the cost of replacement to 0 shows you'd have to be buying electricity at 2 mils/kwh or less to make the long-life incandescent bulbs cheaper per million lumen hours.) I've removed that claim. Observe the utility of consulting a good reference and obtaining equations that let you predict results.Observe that I'm not making a claim, just refuting one. Reading Theaveng talk page history is very illuminating. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
By that logic, we should expunge all sentences from this article which claim CFLs are cheaper alternatives & lack citations. ----- I also ask that you refrain from making ad hominem attacks (per wiki policy). If your argument is truly as strong as you believe it to be, you should be able to win the debate on the *argument's* merit, not through muck-raking the other person. ---- Theaveng (talk) 12:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup of broken bulbs

This section inaccuratly states there is no special clean up process though the EPA lists otherwise:

http://www.epa.gov/Region7/factsheets/2008/what_to_do_if_a_cfl_breaks_2008.html

Before Cleanup: Vent the Room

  1. Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
  2. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces

  1. Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
  2. Use sticky tape (such as duct tape) to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
  3. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes and place them in the glass jar or plastic bag.
  4. Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

Clean-Up Steps for Carpeting or Rug

  1. Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
  2. Use sticky tape (such as duct tape) to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.

If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.

  1. Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

Disposal of Clean-up Materials

  1. Immediately place all cleanup materials outside the building in a trash container or outdoor protected area for the next normal trash.
  2. Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.
  3. Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states prohibit such trash disposal and require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.

Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Vent the Room During and After Vacuuming

  1. The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window prior to vacuuming.
  2. Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.
  If you have questions or concerns, or need additional information, call EPA Region 7 at 1-800-223-0425.  Larger mercury spills may be reported to the EPA Region 7 spill line at 913-281-0991.


Can we post the EPA's guidelines and refrence them, as the EPA is a government site? I am not so good with the formatting as you can see. --207.67.97.151 (talk) 15:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Target of CFL redirect

Please note: I have proposed that the CFL redirect be moved from the Canadian Football League to the disambiguation page, CFL (disambiguation), in recognition of the growth of the term CFL to mean compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

Comment at: Talk:CFL (disambiguation)#New Move Proposal. Dragons flight (talk) 19:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Toshiba "Neoball-Z Real Pride"

There seems to be a new bulb on the way with longer life and more efficiency:

http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2008/04/06/new-toshiba-lightbulb-lasts-12000-hours-only-uses-10-watts-awesome/

If anyone knows any specifics, it might be worthwhile to add something to the article. Jake (talk) 23:39, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recent information loss?

I notice that this recent edit by Wtshymanski lost some information from the article. As the previous author of most of that stuff, I don't feel I should just hack it back in. If others think it's clearer as it is, that's fine by me :-) Nigelj (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The information is not lost. The point about building heating is made elsewhere in the article at length. The 2% efficiency must be based on monochromatic green light and so is not representative of white-light general illumination applications; the efficacy of incandescents is given elsewhere in the article. The whole section on energy efficiency and luminous efficacy needs to be combed out and rewritten since it is disordered and repetitive. By all means, hack away; but try and be conscise and improve the overall organization of the article when doing so. To hack is also to prune, you know... --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] fluorescent light bulbs

In science class today, we were talking about the mercury that is in fluorescent light bulbs. We were wondering about the people that manufacture these light bulbs. Aren't they in any harm to the mercury? Also, if the light bulbs are supposed to be "environmentally safe", then how come the producers are putting a harmful toxic in the light bulb?

Replied on your talk page, since it's a general question. Acroterion (talk) 21:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Power factor

Careful on claims that low power factor on CFLs leads to higher energy consumption than incandescents - these want a really reputable source because it flies in the face of the whole point of CFLs. Any CFL with an "Energy Star" logo (North America) must have a power factor of 0.5 or higher. (Manufacturers who want to use the logo must test for this.) A 23 watt CFL with 0.5 pf will draw 46 volt-amperes, compared with 100 volt-amperes for the 100 watt incandescent it replaces. So, I^2R losses in the power system to that point will be about 1/4 of what they would with an incandescent (simplifying, of course, since the load of a CFL is nonlinear and so this isn't the sort of low power factor that you can compensate with just a capacitor). (I'd love to find a reference for this argument).

And on life expectancy, an "Energy Star" logo says the lamp design has been tested for one on-off cycle (5 min on , 5 min off) for each 2 hours of rated lamp life; so a 6000 hour lamp has been cycled 3000 times. Again, not all lamps carry the "Energy Star" logo and no European editors have told us what standards are used over there. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)