EcoTalk's Daily Greens: #49: Light Bulb Enlightenment

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#49: Light Bulb Enlightenment

With all that Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs do for energy conservation, it’s a wonder that so many of us are still in the dark. Conventional lighting accounts for 28% of the energy in your home, sapping California of precious resources while also draining your pocketbook. Also known as CFLs, Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs light the way to cost-effective conservation. CFLs last 10 times longer than standard bulbs while using 75% less energy, and the 35 bucks you’ll save by replacing just four of your bulbs with CFLs will be a nice reward for your environmental enLIGHTenment. LISTEN

SOURCE: Flex Your Power

This post was written by William Craven

Friday, 23 June 2006 | Permalink

Comments

I'm a Computer Scientest with a background in Computer Engineering and have spoken with Eric Williams, a researcher at the United Nations University and author of the book "Computers and the Environment".

I would like to state my scepticism about the effectiveness of switching to CFL's due to the environmental and energy costs in the manufacturing of the technologically complex light bulb.

It is common to focus on the post-production energy impacts of a particular technology. In fact, when the production phase, and more completely, the entire lifecycle of a particular technology is considered, the benefits don't always outweigh the consequences.

In comparing CFL's and incandescents, there are many more things to consider than simply the energy use during its consumer lifespan. The components of a CFL are more complex to produce. There are Printed Circuit Boards - PCB's (are they ROHS compliant?), microchips, transistors and resistors. The process to manufacture the microcircuits in a CFL would consume a tremendous amount of energy and large quantities of water to keep the microfab facility sterile. An incandescent is much simpler to manufacture, and contains very simple, basic components making the manufacture and disposal of an incandescent much less complicated than a CFL.

To illustrate the differences between new technologies with old, I did some quick math to compare an LCD with a traditional CRT computer monitor. LCD monitors are more sophisticated in that they have a higher quantity of precision complex parts and microchips to drive image generation, whereas a CRT is simply a glass tube with an electron emitter behind it.

LCD's are more efficient in electricity usage than CRT's while operating. A quick calculation shows that in North America you save around $13 a year in electricity using a 19" LCD vs a 19" CRT operating 40 hours a week, over 52 weeks. It takes 17 years to recover the purchase price difference between 17" models, 27 years for a 19" model. We never hear of the environmental costs during the manufacturing phase, detailed below (2005 figures):

To manufacture one average 17" LCD requires:
3.7kg Photolithographic and other chemicals
5.9kg Elemental gases (N2, O2, argon)
87kWh electricity
198kg direct fossil fuels (98% natural gas)
226kg Embodied fossil fuels
1,290 litres water

To manufacture one average 17" CRT requires:
0.5kg Photolithographic and other chemicals
0.2kg Elemental gases (N2, O2, argon)
21kWh electricity
3kg direct fossil fuels (100% oil)
9.5kg Embodied fossil fuels
450 litres water

Referenced from "Computers and the Environment" by Kuehr and Williams, published by the United Nations University.

CFL’s are a step in the right direction and have made progress over the past couple of years in reducing mercury content. The entire product lifecycle needs to be taken into consideration to get a more accurate picture of the pro's and con's of a new technology purported to give us environmental benefits.

Posted by: Daniel Teleki | Sunday, 29 April 2007 at 10:22 AM

Interesting comparison. Although we have swithed to CFLs I have always wondered about the benefits when taking into account the total costs to the environment (including production costs and disposal). What I'm left wondering is, although it seems to take allot more to create a CFL, if we all switch to them, would the overall number of bulbs being produced decline (due to the exceptionally longer life-span of the CFLs) enough to offset the differences in production and disposal "costs" to the environment (thereby cancelling each other out and leaving us with energy savings overall)? ie...I would use maybe 5-7 regular bulbs per socket in 7 years vs one CFL (hopefully) per socket.

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Posted by: kamagra | Friday, 04 June 2010 at 02:51 PM

I think most people are aware of the benefits of compact fluorescent light bulbs, I think its the initial cost that is preventing some from buying. You can spread the payments and the best way to do this is to change 2 or 3 to start with and next month do the same again. If you do it this way the bulbs should blow in roughly the same order, so you will only need to replace one at a time. The money you have now saved on electricity should go towards buying new lamps.

Posted by: Low Energy Light Bulbs | Tuesday, 29 March 2011 at 12:27 PM

However there is no problem of disposing of incandescents when their life is over. You can throw them in the trash, and it will not hurt the garbage collector.

Posted by: Types of Grow Lights | Monday, 18 April 2011 at 08:15 AM

Interesting information, the point of Daniel Teleki is excellent, thanks for the update.

Posted by: samrx | Friday, 07 October 2011 at 08:14 AM

You bring up excellent points and interesting information. The topic is complex but no doubt do new bulbs save energy and cost.

I found a place that has awesome deals and prices:

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#49: Light Bulb Enlightenment

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