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Stop the CFL Madness!
Boy, the hype is thick as a brick in here. I don't know who's really behind the insane rush to CFLs, but, as usual, I'm following the money. Thirty cents for an incandecent that breaks down in a landfill, vs. $5 for a CFL that needs a haz-mat crew to properly dispose of it. Swap out a few billion of them and do the math. The best rebuttal to the ...
Posted to The Green Lantern by elrod on February 18, 2008
Massive Groundwater Mercury Cleanup
Is it five years from now when the first big wave of long-lasting CFL bulbs will hit American garbage cans? I understand that it's more mercury in the air today to generate electricity for incandescents than is used in the CFL bulbs today. But our children or grandchildren will curse us and pay billions to clean-up the groundwater polluted by ...
Posted to The Green Lantern by ScheduleC on February 13, 2008
First if its efficiency and Green its LED
The main reason to go to any new light source is efficiency in the life of the source. The most efficient light source is Fiber optic from sunlight but retrofit is highly expensive Second most effective is a thermal protected Skylight source of light In Electrical light, The Light Emitting Diode (LED) is the most cost efficient source of light ...
Posted to The Green Lantern by Hhandyman on February 9, 2008
Compact fluorescent light bulbs
Not only do we not like the light they produce they take more energy if you turn them on for less than fifteen minutes at a time. A lot of times I am not in a room that long and I turn the light out when leaving a room. We find we have much more eye strain when using them than other light bulbs. Eye strain leading to head aches! Don't like head ...
Posted to The Green Lantern by kldkslate on February 8, 2008
CFL Fraud
The real problem with CFLs is that the wattages are artificially inflated. The reason they cost less to operate is because they only put out half as much light as their equivalent wattage incandecent bulbs. The same savings could be achieved by substituting 60 watt incandecent bulbs for 100 watt ones - with the same result - less ...
Posted to The Green Lantern by johnjohn2 on February 8, 2008
Re: incandescents and leaded gasoline
As far as the aesthetics of CFLs vs. incandescents, the new ''warm'' CFLs are fine. Lousy argument for incandescents. However, research the appropriate use of CFLs before you knock incandescents, please. CFLs can't be used in all applications, i.e. enclosed recessed fixtures, outdoor fixtures in cold weather, and fixtures with dimmer switches. ...
Posted to The Spectator by justaxin on February 3, 2008
Is Slate Incompetent, Who's the Editor?
You've done a great injustice here, and haven't researched your topic. Granted, there is a slight amount of mercury in CFL's. However, as most of the U.S.'s electricity comes from coal (the largest emitter of mercury in the world), in the end, using CFL's lowers the amount of mercury released. That's even if all of them are dumped in the public ...
Posted to The Spectator by hoffboom on February 2, 2008
Re: Incandescent lamps and energy use
pwoxby:The flip side of the ''waste heat not really wasted'' argument is that in the summer the waste heat is often expelled with air conditioning. That makes the waste heat doubly wasteful. yep; as much as there is no waste heat in the winter, in the summer the waste heat is extremely wasteful. the slightly redeeming factor here is that in a ...
Posted to The Spectator by gzuckier on February 1, 2008
Energy Savings?
Aside from the horrific quality of light from CFL, aside from the mercury vapor and hazmat cleanup and increased energy used in production and everything else that's wrong with the mandate for CFL's, there's one other point that I have yet to see anyone bring up: Will these bulbs, used in homes, actually save much energy? Fluorescent bulbs ...
Posted to The Spectator by DragonFyre on February 1, 2008
Re: Incandescent lamps and energy use
dpocius: It's true that incandescent lamps emit most of their output as heat of some sort or another, but that's not always a bad thing. We went a significant portion of the winter without a house heater, and I found myself leaving the lights on, savoring their small contribution to the warmth of the house. The ''waste'' heat isn't wasted if ...
Posted to The Spectator by gzuckier on January 31, 2008

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