Characteristics of energy saving lamps not found in incandescent lamps include:
– Electromagnetic pollution emissions across several frequency bands, umpteen times higher than
allowed for computer monitors, with steep harmonics, interference, peaks, pulses, distorted sine
waves
– Light flickering across several frequency bands, also rich in harmonics, peaks, spurious signals,
distorted sine waves, “dirty” light
– Poorer quality of the light spectrum with only two to four narrowband colors, spectral power
distribution strongly deviates from natural daylight, high percentage of blue and UV light
– Emission of toxins and odors
– Brightness often lower than specified, may become even much lower over time
– Lifespan often shorter than specified, especially after numerous switching cycles, in tests, energy
saving bulbs would sometimes blow out before the incandescent ones
– Elaborate manufacturing process including components that are a health risk: various heavy
metals, plastics, adhesives, phosphorescent coatings, electronics, capacitor, printed circuit boards,
ballast (radioactive components until 2007), average mercury content 2-4 mg (some 100 kilograms
in Germany alone)
– Toxic waste disposal (most end up in household garbage anyhow)
– Energy efficiency in most energy saving lamps lower than specified
– Above-mentioned electromagnetic pollution emissions not only occur at lamp, but also spread
across the electrical installation incl. its cables, wires, appliances…
– The same applies to spurious signals and fault currents that may cause technical problems in
sensitive electronic installations, devices, and data transmissions…
– Poor compatibility with modern home automation systems (interference, flickering)
“Did you know that incandescent lamps could last much longer than CFLs but are not allowed to do so? In 1924 the leading electronic companies founded a worldwide cartel called Phoebus. It was its goal to cap the unlimited life expectancy of incandescent lamps to increase sales. At first it was limited to 5000 hours; one year later it was reduced to 2000 hours. After World War Two, only 1000 hours were allowed. Current quality standards are still based on this number and specify life expectancy with 1000 hours – even though much better lamps would be possible. The Chinese did not play along, which is why their incandescent lamps still last at least 5000 hours. At the firehall of Livermore in California, one of the first incandescent lamps has already burnt continuously for one million hours, for over 100 years. It is celebrated as a good luck charm and made it into the Guinness Book of Records.”
Does the calculation for coal fired energy assume that 100% of the 2.7kw per kg coal is reaching the consumer? If yes then we should consider that I think it’s probably only about 30% of that taking into account the inefficiencies in generation and the losses of stepping up and down the voltages plus loss in the transmission lines. So it seems far more mercury is released with the old incandescent bulbs.
Seems a bit like a catch 22 if you ask me. I guess a good start is to only switch the lights on when we really need it.
Or/and go to bed at the same time with the chickens :)
..anyone ever thought about the that white billowing “smoke” coming out of the coal fired smoke stacks whenever they show footage of coal power plants in the news? Well – that is the steam. The smoke from the coal is actually much less impressive – a hazy brown/gray coming out of those slender chimneys. CO2 is invisible.
“Or/and go to bed at the same time with the chickens”
In my country it’s dark 24 hours a day in winter time, so we should rather have to do like the bears, go to bed for six months.
You should also note that the extra energy spent for incandescent bulbs is a contribution for the heating of the house, and if the alternative is to heat your house with oil it might be better to use incandescent bulbs powered from renewal hydro power. In summer we don’t need extra lights, as it’s daylight 24 hours a day anyway.
Also CFLs make you feel very cold because the cold lights, making you turn up the temperature a couple extra degrees. This psychological response is not irrelevant, you really feel colder with the cold light from CFLs. When it’s 40 cold degrees outside and dark for 24 hours, you really appreciate the warm light from incandescent bulbs.
Øyvind. Maybe the recession has changed things since my time there, but in my time in Norway I noticed people over the long summer days just leaving their lights on anyway. It seems like they were so used to them being on over the long winter that they just didn’t notice them any more.
Maybe you are right? Anyway, electricity can be very cheap in summer; it depends on the rain and the snowfall during winter times. Still, for me at least I’ve bought several hundred incandescent bulbs before the ban of EU, and I think I have enough for the next 10 years. In my apartment there will never be a CFL bulb, and when my storage is empty I hope there has come another alternative not full of toxins and mercury, and which has a natural spectrum of light and doesn’t fill up your house with very disturbed electromagnetic fields.
The support of Norway attending EU is now at its lowest level for decades, I think to remember the last statistic showed almost 70 % was against joining the EU, and I think this has much to do with the EU ban of incandescent bulbs. This has been a really hot topic here the last year.
The video focuses on mercury, and finishes off by saying how at some point we’ll get to renewable energy sources and LED’s, but I would argue that you may as well stay with incandescent (or maybe candles?) and focus your money on getting solar, wind, or some other alternative energy sources. That will pay for itself in the future, and you would immediately stop being part of the mercury problem if you created a surplus of energy. In fact, you could sell of the excess to ‘the grid’ and hence make that energy available to others instead of them using coal.
LED’s may be super low energy compared to the rest, but they require rare earth metals. Solar also requires rare earth metals. I think I’d rather ‘use up’ those metals on solar panels than on LED’s. That’s mid term. By the time your solar panels are due for replacement in 30 years, you’ll be using very sustainable carbon nanotube panels, or something else that doesn’t require rare metals or a lot of energy to create.
Forgive me for posting twice, but I didn’t see Oyvind’s comment about the long lasting incandescent bulbs. That is absolutely true and I have seen a 100 year old working bulb with my own eyes.
Now if we could just get rid of all those ‘down lights’.. the halogens that architects are so fond of.
– The end of the light bulb – the end of healthy, natural lighting? By Wolfgang Maes, Building Biology Expert / Journalist DJV: https://www.baubiologie.de/downloads/english/energy_saving_lamps.PDF
– An Open Letter from the Institute of Building Biology + Ecology Neubeuern (IBN) to the Responsible Politicians in the European Union: https://www.baubiologie.de/downloads/english/open_letter.pdf
– Stress durch Strom und Strahlung: https://www.baubiologie.de/site/shop/buecher/_wmaes05.php
Characteristics of energy saving lamps not found in incandescent lamps include:
– Electromagnetic pollution emissions across several frequency bands, umpteen times higher than
allowed for computer monitors, with steep harmonics, interference, peaks, pulses, distorted sine
waves
– Light flickering across several frequency bands, also rich in harmonics, peaks, spurious signals,
distorted sine waves, “dirty” light
– Poorer quality of the light spectrum with only two to four narrowband colors, spectral power
distribution strongly deviates from natural daylight, high percentage of blue and UV light
– Emission of toxins and odors
– Brightness often lower than specified, may become even much lower over time
– Lifespan often shorter than specified, especially after numerous switching cycles, in tests, energy
saving bulbs would sometimes blow out before the incandescent ones
– Elaborate manufacturing process including components that are a health risk: various heavy
metals, plastics, adhesives, phosphorescent coatings, electronics, capacitor, printed circuit boards,
ballast (radioactive components until 2007), average mercury content 2-4 mg (some 100 kilograms
in Germany alone)
– Toxic waste disposal (most end up in household garbage anyhow)
– Energy efficiency in most energy saving lamps lower than specified
– Above-mentioned electromagnetic pollution emissions not only occur at lamp, but also spread
across the electrical installation incl. its cables, wires, appliances…
– The same applies to spurious signals and fault currents that may cause technical problems in
sensitive electronic installations, devices, and data transmissions…
– Poor compatibility with modern home automation systems (interference, flickering)
– Ultrasound emissions
– Life cycle assessment questionable
See second link above.
Also, wouldn’t mercury in a landfill be safer than mercury in the atmosphere?
JBob, one teaspoon of mercury is enough to poison an average Swedish lake!
“Did you know that incandescent lamps could last much longer than CFLs but are not allowed to do so? In 1924 the leading electronic companies founded a worldwide cartel called Phoebus. It was its goal to cap the unlimited life expectancy of incandescent lamps to increase sales. At first it was limited to 5000 hours; one year later it was reduced to 2000 hours. After World War Two, only 1000 hours were allowed. Current quality standards are still based on this number and specify life expectancy with 1000 hours – even though much better lamps would be possible. The Chinese did not play along, which is why their incandescent lamps still last at least 5000 hours. At the firehall of Livermore in California, one of the first incandescent lamps has already burnt continuously for one million hours, for over 100 years. It is celebrated as a good luck charm and made it into the Guinness Book of Records.”
See first link above.
As I discovered, their mercury content means you need to be very careful in how you clean up after breaking a CFL:
https://green-change.com/2010/10/03/cleaning-up-broken-cfls/
Does the calculation for coal fired energy assume that 100% of the 2.7kw per kg coal is reaching the consumer? If yes then we should consider that I think it’s probably only about 30% of that taking into account the inefficiencies in generation and the losses of stepping up and down the voltages plus loss in the transmission lines. So it seems far more mercury is released with the old incandescent bulbs.
Seems a bit like a catch 22 if you ask me. I guess a good start is to only switch the lights on when we really need it.
Or/and go to bed at the same time with the chickens :)
..anyone ever thought about the that white billowing “smoke” coming out of the coal fired smoke stacks whenever they show footage of coal power plants in the news? Well – that is the steam. The smoke from the coal is actually much less impressive – a hazy brown/gray coming out of those slender chimneys. CO2 is invisible.
“Or/and go to bed at the same time with the chickens”
In my country it’s dark 24 hours a day in winter time, so we should rather have to do like the bears, go to bed for six months.
You should also note that the extra energy spent for incandescent bulbs is a contribution for the heating of the house, and if the alternative is to heat your house with oil it might be better to use incandescent bulbs powered from renewal hydro power. In summer we don’t need extra lights, as it’s daylight 24 hours a day anyway.
Also CFLs make you feel very cold because the cold lights, making you turn up the temperature a couple extra degrees. This psychological response is not irrelevant, you really feel colder with the cold light from CFLs. When it’s 40 cold degrees outside and dark for 24 hours, you really appreciate the warm light from incandescent bulbs.
Øyvind. Maybe the recession has changed things since my time there, but in my time in Norway I noticed people over the long summer days just leaving their lights on anyway. It seems like they were so used to them being on over the long winter that they just didn’t notice them any more.
Maybe you are right? Anyway, electricity can be very cheap in summer; it depends on the rain and the snowfall during winter times. Still, for me at least I’ve bought several hundred incandescent bulbs before the ban of EU, and I think I have enough for the next 10 years. In my apartment there will never be a CFL bulb, and when my storage is empty I hope there has come another alternative not full of toxins and mercury, and which has a natural spectrum of light and doesn’t fill up your house with very disturbed electromagnetic fields.
The support of Norway attending EU is now at its lowest level for decades, I think to remember the last statistic showed almost 70 % was against joining the EU, and I think this has much to do with the EU ban of incandescent bulbs. This has been a really hot topic here the last year.
The video focuses on mercury, and finishes off by saying how at some point we’ll get to renewable energy sources and LED’s, but I would argue that you may as well stay with incandescent (or maybe candles?) and focus your money on getting solar, wind, or some other alternative energy sources. That will pay for itself in the future, and you would immediately stop being part of the mercury problem if you created a surplus of energy. In fact, you could sell of the excess to ‘the grid’ and hence make that energy available to others instead of them using coal.
LED’s may be super low energy compared to the rest, but they require rare earth metals. Solar also requires rare earth metals. I think I’d rather ‘use up’ those metals on solar panels than on LED’s. That’s mid term. By the time your solar panels are due for replacement in 30 years, you’ll be using very sustainable carbon nanotube panels, or something else that doesn’t require rare metals or a lot of energy to create.
Forgive me for posting twice, but I didn’t see Oyvind’s comment about the long lasting incandescent bulbs. That is absolutely true and I have seen a 100 year old working bulb with my own eyes.
Now if we could just get rid of all those ‘down lights’.. the halogens that architects are so fond of.