Compact Fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)

[beagle]

The debate seem to be livening up again.
I have no idea who's right on this one, though I do remember the "New Ice Age" scares of the 70s.

Elsewhere in the paper they point out that Siemens and Philips successfully lobbied the EU to impose a 66% duty on CFLs imported from China and the Far East.
There are limits to encouraging greenness it seems.

[Griffin NoName]

Personally I have always assumed that gobal warming would precede the next ice age which is overdue now. As evidence I cite last week's beautifully warm weather which is now on the way out as most of Britain awaits big globs of snow falling from the skies.

So the only relevant question for me is - is it worth changing my light bulbs to see if I can slow down warming and hence delay the next ice age. On the whole, I tend to believe not and in any case the strange new kinds of lightbulbs being silly shapes would poke out from most of my lampshades in a most unbecoming fashion. Replacing all my lampshades may give the economy a slight boost but no doubt at the expense of further carbon emissions.

Having dealt with that, I am left with one final question. Will the next ice age arrive regardless of my behaviour?

[beagle]

John Betjeman reckoned that in the event of impending disaster he would go to the haberdashery section of Peter Jones, because no bad thing could ever happen there. Perhaps the protection extends to the lighting/lampshade department.

[Griffin NoName]

I wonder if other more convenient branches of John Lewis would be Ok too?

why have I begun to design odd shaped lampshades in my head?

[Aggie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20553143

Field-induced polymer electroluminescent lights are being pitched as the next CFL-alternative.  Looks like a neat technology.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Cool!

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Sweet!  An entirely plastic light "bulb" would eliminate much of the drawback of current tech.   Of course, it's potential for recycling is lower. 

[Griffin NoName]

Says - one in his lab has been working for a decade - so no built in obsolescence then..... = big problem !!

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Indeed-- how can the induce their customers to keep buying'em, if they last for decades?   

[Opsa]

Fipel. Fipel. I've got fipel on the brain. They look cool. I hope they'll be as nice as they hope.

[VernonBarton]

The debate seem to be livening up again.
I have no idea who's right on this one, though I do remember the "New Ice Age" scares of the 70s.

Elsewhere in the paper they point out that Siemens and Philips successfully lobbied the EU to impose a 66% duty on led light imported from China and the Far East.
There are limits to encouraging greenness it seems.

Cfl time seems to be over now.. Leds and other technology have taken over the CFL

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Welcome VernonBarton! Remember to drop by the start here area and introduce yourself, we promise not to bite.
--
While it is true that LEDs are now more ubiquitous and affordable, CFLs are still cheaper and more widely used. Personally I have LEDs at home even in the fridge, and the only hold up is a ceiling fan with it's own FL/CFL sockets, and while I have had some failures they tend to live up to their long life reputation.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Welcome VernonBarton! Remember to drop by the start here area and introduce yourself, we promise not to bite.
--
While it is true that LEDs are now more ubiquitous and affordable, CFLs are still cheaper and more widely used. Personally I have LEDs at home even in the fridge, and the only hold up is a ceiling fan with it's own FL/CFL sockets, and while I have had some failures they tend to live up to their long life reputation.

I've been slowly going from CFLs to LEDs myself.  My main living room bulb is now an LED-- it's on daily, pretty much all day (I prefer to have a light on when I come home, especially if it's dark out, which it often is).

My bathroom light is too--it's on an automatic thingy that senses motion-- whenever I stumble in there?  It lights up, and politely turns itself off when I leave.   Rarely, I must wave at the thingy to turn it back on, but it's pretty good.

My next replacement will be in the kitchen-- I have a CFL in the refrig that I ought to replace-- it's on 24/7, due to warmup issues.  That's easily correctable, but it's only like 5 watts as it is now.  Trivial compared to the refrigerator itself.   The kitchen overheads will go next, though-- they are high-wattage CFL's giving me the equivalent of 500 incandescent watts of light.  I've yet to see an LED that can measure up to that output.   I may have to swap out the fixture for something with more sockets, to achieve with numbers what I cannot do with individual items.

[Opsa]

Welcome, Vernon! As Zono suggested, please stop by our "I'm Here Now" thread (click here for direct route) so that others can say hello to you.

As for CFLs, I love them in the bedroom, where they re slow to warm up, which helps my eyes get adjusted to the light turning on. In the kitchen we now have LED lighting under the cabinets, and it's great. It stays cool and lights the counter tops and sink very nicely.

[Griffin NoName]

I've got CFLs which start up fastt enough not to notice a delay, which is what I like. The one I have which takes almost 2 minutes to get to full strength drives me nuts as I blunder around in the dark. Keep meaning to change it.