Yes. This is kind of my point. And when I was saying that
'background' items like shipping costs are politely ignored, I was
referring to the multiple shipping operations that are required for
the many components in a CFL, and the many raw materials contained in
those components, just to get all the bits and pieces from the
individual specialist manufacturers, to the places where the lamps
are assembled. In the case of an incandescent lamp, we are talking a
few components, simply made from a few raw materials. With a CFL, we
are talking semiconductors comprising silicon, dopant chemicals,
plastic, metal. Capacitors comprising metal foil, plastic, rubber,
maybe paper, metal leads and other chemicals in the electros. Coils
comprising processed iron powder, copper wire, insulation, copper
foil, epoxy adhesive, steel leadouts. Then there's the complex glass
tube, and the chemical phosphors and mercury vapour inside it.
Tungsten electrodes. Then the pcb material that its all mounted on.
Lots of soldered joints. And then the plastic enclosure for the
ballast. And then the 'normal' bits that an incandescent has anyway.
Every single one of those components, and the manufacturing processes
for *their* component parts, involves energy input for the process.
They all need workers who have to be moved from their homes and back
again each day, They have to be heated / cooled, fed and watered, and
then lit as well. And when they've made their bits of the lamp, these
have to be shipped on somewhere else. These are the energy costs that
the general public are never made aware of. If they were, they might
start to question the perceived wisdom that they've been fed, that
these things are actually 'green'.
**Indeed. I just did a little research and found that some of these issues
HAVE been examined. The total manufacturing energy input for a typical CFL
is around 1.7kWhr. The total manufacturing energy input for a typical
incandescent is around 0.3kWhr. Considerably less. Or is it?
The thing is, there are so many components to a CFL, and so many processes
to make those components, and so many processes to extracting, refining and
making appropriate the constituents *of* those components, that I think it
is probably an impossible task to analyse the total energy budget of making
one of these things, with any accuracy. There will probably also be a degree
of deliberate distortion downwards to those figures by the greenies that
would produce them, to make them look better. On the other hand, an
incandescent bulb uses - what - seven, eight maybe components, each of which
could be totally accurately pinned down on their production energy costs.
Bear in mind that the processes to produce the components are also very
simple and straightforward, unlike the processes required to make the
components of a CFL.
Let's put that into some kind of perspective:
A typical 100 Watt IC lasts for 1,000 hours (at best).
A typical 15 Watt CFL lasts for 5,000 hours (I've certainly exceeding that
figure quite comfortably).
I have to say that in my experience, you have been extremely lucky to get
that sort of life from CFLs. I have used all sorts over the years, from
cheap to expensive, and have never obtained anything like that length of
service from any of them, with the exception of some very early ones that I
installed in a day nursery that we once owned. They were Dulux globe CFLs
and very expensive. We owned that nursery for twelve years, and most of them
were still going when we sold it, so I don't dispute that it is possible to
make long-lasting CFLs. I just don't think that overall, taken across the
whole raft of qualities and costs, they are doing it any more. However, I
have a lot of low voltage halogen downlighters in my house, that I put in
more than ten years ago. Of the eight located above the stairwell, and the
further five along the upstairs corridor, only one has failed in all that
time, and that was only a few months ago. Maybe, like you with your CFLs, I
have been lucky with these halogens. Here in the UK, there have been
governmental drives to push CFLs, by heavily subsidising the cost of them,
and in some cases, almost giving them away in supermarkets, and in others
*actually* giving them away. With the best will in the world, these are
cheap crap, so that is what the general public are having foisted on them as
a result of the drive to try to get people to actually want them, and is
probably why the general experience is that they don't last anything like as
long as the figures that they would try to have us believe. Also, those
figures are only good - if at all- when the ballast is properly cooled,
which means having the lamp in service the 'right' way up. Unfortunately,
many lamp fixtures that they go in, don't do this, and luminaires enclose
them completely. Incandescents didn't care about this, of course.
Over 5,000 hours of use, the CFL has consumed 75kWhr + 1.7kWhr = 76.7kWhr.
IOW: The energy cost of manufacture is almost insignificant, even though
is a little higher than 5 incandescents.
Over 5,000 hours, the IC lamp has consumed 500kWhr + 1.5kWhr = 501.5kWhr.
I would argue that the energy cost of manufacture is a spurious argument.
Only possibly, if you feel you are able to trust the figures for
manufacturing energy budget. As I have said, I do not because of the
complexity of arriving at a figure. Plus you also need to factor in the full
energy cost of recycling the toxins contained within it at the end of its
service life. There is zero cost for this with an incandescent, as it does
not contain anything potentially harmful to the environment.
The pollution cost is another matter entirely. During operation, coal
fired generators (like those here in Australia) emit mercury. A typical
100 Watt lamp will cause the emission of around 10mg of mercury over it's
life. 5 lamps (5,000 hours) will cause the release of 50mg or mercury. By
comparison, CFLs will cause the release of around 7.5mg of mercury + 4mg
of mercury contained within the envelope. If the lamp is disposed of
correctly, then the total mercury release will be 7.5mg. Far less than
that of IC lamps. Other nations, that employ different power generation
schemes will see different results.
Again, these figures are only meaningful if you genuinely achieve a figure
of 5000 hours across the board. And that is the important thing. *All* CFLs
need to achieve that figure for the calculations to be valid, and that ain't
never gonna happen, as long as there are cheapo Chinese ones flooding the
market. In any case, in Europe, coal fired power stations have been on the
decline for many years. Most are now gas or nuclear
And this does not take into pollution created at the point of manufacture.
That is an issue that should be dealt with locally.
If people want to use CFLs in the belief - mistaken in my opinion -
that they are in some way helping the world to use less energy, then
that's fine.
**It's not a mistaken belief. It's a fact. CFLs use FAR less energy than
incandescents. From cradle to grave. Vastly, hugely less energy.
On the face of it, they appear to, and as I said before, that is the *only*
angle that's been exploited by the greenies, to try to gain them widespread
acceptance. Personally, I believe that the situation is far less clear than
this rather simplistic assumption, when you factor in the *true* costs.
Almost certainly, they use less energy if you accept the simple picture, get
the projected life from them, and believe the equivalence figures for light
output, that they put on the boxes. And again, on this score, I understand
that they are now trying to legislate over here, to mark the boxes in lumens
or some such, probably because users are starting to doubt the quoted
equivalence figures. In reality, if you have a genuine like for like in
terms of light output, factor in the *real* costs of producing,
transporting, and disposing of properly at the end, and get the more typical
average service life of 2000 hours from them, then the saving becomes much
less significant, and for me, insufficient reason to ban me from using
incandescents.
If it's really the case, then CFLs will win out the day
in the end.
**By a massive margin, in fact.
Distorted by the fact that CFLs are effectively government sponsored, and
that I cannot buy the bulbs I want any more, because they have banned them
to make sure that I can't. If it was still incandescents vs CFLs on a level
playing field, the take up of CFLs would be much less, which was the reason
in the first place that they found it necessary to legislate to force people
to use them.
But I think that it is utterly wrong that the existing
technology has been banned completely on thin evidence and a less
than truthful declaration of the energy required to make and dispose
of the things, the only factor being pushed, being the lower energy
consumption when they are in use, as though this is the be-all and
end-all of their right to exist, and to be forced on us.
**Your opinion is duly noted. That comment is a political issue. I recall
EXACTLY the same arguments were made, here in Australia, when leaded
petrol was legislated out of existence. I susepct that, in 20 years, when
we look back at this whole discussion, it will appear to be a non-event.
More efficient lighting will be the standard, incandescents will be
relegated to specialised applications (oven lighting, etc) and the whole
issue will be viewed for what it really is - a storm in a teacup.
I fail to see how you equate leaded petrol to the situation with CFLs. It is
a different issue entirely, with very clear motives and outcomes. You would
have to be brain dead not to understand that putting huge quantities of lead
into the atmosphere at ground level and in a form that people could breathe,
is bad in every way. Removing lead from petrol had little if any impact on
the general public, because it was already possible to build engines that
had no requirement for lead in their fuel, without compromising performance.
It was, unlike CFLs, a classic example of a genuine *replacement*
technology, which suffered no disadvantages over the technology that it was
replacing. There was not even any need to challenge this bit of legislation,
because the advantages were very clear to see in large cities the world
over. Even if you clung on to your car that needed leaded petrol, this was
still available at the pumps for some years after unleaded came in, and
after it was finally removed from sale, there was still LRP (lead
replacement petrol) available for some long time after that. Finally, if you
still wanted to run your vintage engine, this could be achieved in most
cases by the simple expedient of altering the ignition timing, and in the
worst case, reducing the compression ratio a little, by fitting a thicker
head gasket. CFLs are nothing like this. They are a substitute technology
which is unable to replace incandescents in a number of areas - such as
decorative light fittings - and having many other shortcomings in comparison
to incandescents, in exchange for the dubious possibility that they in some
way help to save the planet.
The point that Trevor makes about aircon to mitigate the heat output
of incandescents, holds no water here in Northern Europe. Unlike in
Australia, it seldom becomes hot enough up here for more than a few
days a year, that aircon is needed. And that is only in the summer,
when it's light for 16 hours of the day anyway, so there's not much
lighting being used. OTOH, for much of the year, it is cool or cold
enough to require heating in houses, and in this case, the complete
opposite of Trevor's premise, is true, in that the heat output from
the incandescent light bulbs, serves to mitigate heat input
requirement, from the central heating system.
**So? Northern Europe is not the whole world. Vast swathes of this planet
consume vast amounts of energy for air conditioning. Northern Europe is a
small player in that respect. Worse, CO2 emissions from Northern Europe
impact on those regions where a small amount of warming will lead to
serious problems. We only have one place that we can all live. We all need
to work together.
I'm having a bit of trouble picking the bones out of that one, Trevor. You
made a very clear statement that a disadvantage of incandescents was that
they generated heat that needed the use of aircon plant to remove. I merely
stated that this is not the case in Northern Europe, where aircon is not
common in the first place, and where the exact opposite of what you contend,
is true. In the case of what you are stating, we are talking a double whammy
in that the lights waste energy in producing heat, and then your
energy-thirsty aircon plant has to be used to waste a bit more removing that
heat. Here, the heat is not 'wasted' for much of the year, as it partially
mitigates the required heating input from the central heating. 50 watts of
heat pouring off a lightbulb into my living room, is 50 watts that my
heating system has not got to put into my radiators. I fail to see what your
point is regarding Northern Europe against 'vast swathes of the planet etc'.
The population density of Northern Europe is much higher overall than that
of many of these vast swathes that you refer to, so the fact that we don't
use huge amounts of energy for aircon, equates to a much lower energy
requirement per person, taken overall.
And, just to reinforce the point: I do not consider lighting to be a major
problem in power consumption (and, therefore, CO2 emissions). Nor do I
consider appliances that use auxiliary power to be a major issue either.
So why do you support the banning of a proven simple technology, which did
the job of providing even-intensity pleasing-quality light, to everyone's
satisfaction ??
Arfa
--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au