Are compact fluorescent light bulbs really eco-wise?

Question

Or will we be sorry (with irreversible damage) ten years later for mercury poisoning everything? What is better in the seventh generation school of thought, incandescent, sodium vapor, halogen, or mercury vapor/ CFL's?

Answer 1

Compact fluorescent light bulbs, right now, are more " eco-wise" then anything else most consumers can get a hold of (ie. incandescent) and currently save over 2000 times their own weight in greenhouse gases.

But since my house is completely on solar / wind and we REALLY need to watch usage, every light is fitted with s***w type (typical 110v lamp socket style) LED bulbs. They emit the same luminosity (typically 45) but at only 1watt rather then a 45w compact or 10w CFL. However they usually cost twice as much as CFLs which is twice as much (or more) as compacts. Still LEDs would be the way to go by far.

As for the second part of your question...

Mercury IS the lesser of the evils, without getting toooo elaborate discussing specifics (ie. which burns ozone faster, other layer's besides ozone, disposing locations, methods, wind conditions, etc), one needs less mercury gas then most others, to obtain the same luminosity in a vacuum because of mercury's longer agitated spectral wavelength. Mercury's wavelength is more blue which is a longer more "luminous" or brighter light to say sodium, which is a more light orange or shorter less bright (red being the shortest) wavelength. so you'd need more sodium or other, in the tube or more electricity to the tube, to create the same luminosity as mercury.

so mercury wins out only because the sheer volume needed is less then the others.

Hope this helped,

Dan Martin

Retired Boeing Engineer now living 100% Off-the-Grid with my family, using Alternative Energy & loving every minute.

for more info visit www.agua-luna.com

Answer 2

The large source of mercury poisoning is coal burning, mostly for electrical generation. By contrast with CFC bulbs, the energy from coal used to power the light will be the source of most of the mercury.

In theory we should be able to extract more light per unit of pollution from LED lights but we are still wait for production volume on them.

But none of the other lights reduce pollution enough to offset the pollution from coal.

If we can swing away from coal generation , we can start to rethink this. But even in Quebec which gets almost all its power from hydro, the effect of using more power in Quebec is to force people in the USA to use more coal because there is less Quebec electrical  power for them to buy.

Answer 3

Buying more consumer goods, even if they are environmentally preferable, has environmental impacts. I'm not sure of the time it will take for a compact fluorescent to compare favourably with an existing, working incandescent, because throwing away something that works while you buy a new product with lots of embodied energy drives the whole system which makes all the pollution anyway. If your old bulb breaks, then definitely buy a more efficient one, but LED technology uses even less energy than compact fluorescents.

Answer 4

About as eco-wise as putting flouride in the American water supply was.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q3y8uwtxrHo&f...

Answer 5

Being a very environmentally concerned person, even I would have to say no. They have mercury in them. They also really don't prevent anything from happening. Plus they can cause migraines and even seizures to people with a certain type of epilepsy