Walmart, compact fluorescents and practical environmentalism

[Flubber]

I don't know how many bulbs I have of each type exactly but the 50- 100 sockets number sounds about right


Incandescants and the new CFL ones
9 - chandelier
6 -dining room chandelier
8 -- 4 bedrooms X2
12 -- lamps
10-- Hall lighting
2 den
2 garage
4 outdoor lights
4 basement/furnace room/storage room

57 total

Other fluorescent

4- undercabinet lights


Halogens/ Floodlights

10 kitchen lighting
8 basement developed area


So I have it at 79 different lights

I would guess that fewer than 20 of them are the new CFL types but its all the higher usage areas. About 18 months ago we started buying them and are just swapping out lights as we go. Some of the incandescants are the original lights installed by our homebuilder 5 years ago ( all the lights on both chandeliers fall into that category). Conversely all of the hall lights are now new CFL's


-----------------------------------------------------------

Overall this is a just a small thing that can have an impact. This plus hybrid cars plus CO2 sequestratrion pluswind and tidal power plus plus plus . . . There are things we can do -- sensible economic choices that can have positive impacts

[Flubber]

Oh and one comment

I find the CFL's to be fine in my halls where they are encased in a lighting fixture. The light seems ok.

But oddly, in my garage where I just have 2 "naked" bulbs, the lighting just seems dingy in comparison to what it was. Its not enough that I will switch them out buty the lighting just seems vaguely inferior

[Kuciwalker]

It depends on the efficiency of transmission over power lines, of power plants, and of your central heating system. And it also depends on placement of the bulbs - when they're on the ceiling, the heat doesn't spread as well.

[RGBVideo]

I wish I'd be as good as Drake is...

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Sitting humbly on shelves in stores everywhere is a product, priced at less than $3, that will change the world. Soon. It is a fairly ordinary item that nonetheless cuts to the heart of a half-dozen of the most profound, most urgent problems we face. Energy consumption. Rising gasoline costs and electric bills. Greenhouse-gas emissions. Dependence on coal and foreign oil. Global warming.

The product is the compact fluorescent lightbulb, a quirky-looking twist of frosted glass. In the energy business, it is called a "CFL," or an "energy saver."...

Compact fluorescents emit the same light as classic incandescents but use 75% or 80% less electricity.

What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

That's the law of large numbers--a small action, multiplied by 110 million.

The single greatest source of greenhouse gases in the United States is power plants--half our electricity comes from coal plants. One bulb swapped out: enough electricity saved to turn off two entire power plants--or skip building the next two.

Just one swirl per home. The typical U.S. house has between 50 and 100 "sockets" (astonish yourself: Go count the bulbs in your house). So what if we all bought and installed two ice-cream-cone bulbs? Five? Fifteen?

Says David Goldstein, a PhD physicist, MacArthur "genius" fellow, and senior energy scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council: "This could be just what the world's been waiting for, for the last 20 years."...

So far, the impact of compact fluorescents has been trivial, for a simple reason: We haven't bought them. In our outdated experience, they don't work well and they cost too much. Last year, U.S. consumers spent about $1 billion to buy about 2 billion lightbulbs--5.5 million every day. Just 5%, 100 million, were compact fluorescents. First introduced on March 28, 1980, swirls remain a niche product, more curiosity than revolution.

But that's about to change. It will change before our very eyes. A year from now, chances are that you yourself will have installed a swirl or two, and will likely be quite happy with them. In the name of conservation and good corporate citizenship, not to mention economics, one unlikely company is about haul us to the lightbulb aisle, reeducate us, and sell us a swirl: Wal-Mart.

In the next 12 months, starting with a major push this month, Wal-Mart wants to sell every one of its regular customers--100 million in all--one swirl bulb. In the process, Wal-Mart wants to change energy consumption in the United States, and energy consciousness, too. It also aims to change its own reputation, to use swirls to make clear how seriously Wal-Mart takes its new positioning as an environmental activist.

It's a bold goal, a remarkable declaration of Wal-Mart's intention to modernize and green up a whole line of business using market oomph. Teaming up with General Electric, which owns about 60% of the residential lightbulb market in the United States, Wal-Mart wants to single-handedly double U.S. sales for CFLs in a year, and it wants demand to surge forward after that.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/108/open_lightbulbs.html

This is good news. If we truly want to do something about environmental issues, we need to marginalize the hysterical Al Gore/moonbat fringe that currently dominates the debate and let practical and capable organizations like Wal-Mart come up with solutions. Capitalism and technological advancement will save us.

6.6/10

[Cort Haus]

Valve amplifiers heat rooms pretty well. The radiator is buggered in my room, but playing the bass for 30 mins warms it up a treat.

[muxec]

I am using compact fluorescents at home. There are some problems. First is that some manufacturers lie about the brightness. Another problem is that CFLs need time to achieve peak capacity. Good lamps take 15 seconds to "warm up", poor lamps can take several minutes. And yes energy savers become dimmer with time.

Yes, incandescents provide lots of heat. It is good at winter, but you waste more energy at summer cooling rooms heated by lamps.

[Solly]

Originally posted by muxec
I am using compact fluorescents at home. There are some problems. First is that some manufacturers lie about the brightness. Another problem is that CFLs need time to achieve peak capacity. Good lamps take 15 seconds to "warm up", poor lamps can take several minutes. And yes energy savers become dimmer with time.

Yes, incandescents provide lots of heat. It is good at winter, but you waste more energy at summer cooling rooms heated by lamps.

We don't really need air conditioning in Britain. Maybe two or three days a year, and anyway when it's warm you get enough daylight indoors anyway.

[muxec]

Britain is so cool...

[Solly]

Good to see Mobe getting a Pwning again

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Doddler
Good to see Mobe getting a Pwning again

Priceless!

[Solly]

So you accept that the savings from "energy-saving" lightbulbs are erroneously inflated in order that they sell more of them?

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by muxec
I am using compact fluorescents at home. There are some problems. First is that some manufacturers lie about the brightness.

Er, get a brighter bulb...

Another problem is that CFLs need time to achieve peak capacity. Good lamps take 15 seconds to "warm up"

My ten year old ones do that. The new ones on the market are as instant as any 'normal' inefficient bulb - you must've been ripped off by a shiester!

And yes energy savers become dimmer with time.

??? Not from my experience.

Yes, incandescents provide lots of heat. It is good at winter, but you waste more energy at summer cooling rooms heated by lamps.

Doddler stole your login password didn't he?

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Doddler
So you accept that the savings from "energy-saving" lightbulbs are erroneously inflated in order that they sell more of them?

No I don't.

You haven't proved a single shred of evidence to back up your claims despite everyone on this thread asking you for a link to your preposterous claims, or even your 'back of a *** packet make stuff up calculations'...

Until then we shall all just sit back and laugh at your highly snake oil salesman-like claims...

[Solly]

Originally posted by MOBIUS


No I don't.

You haven't proved a single shred of evidence to back up your claims despite everyone on this thread asking you for a link to your preposterous claims, or even your 'back of a *** packet make stuff up calculations'...

Until then we shall all just sit back and laugh at your highly snake oil salesman-like claims...

But I'm not the one trying to sell you something, unlike the manufacturers of those energy-inefficient lightbulbs you are fond of..

[MOBIUS]

Only person round here that has actually put forth figures to back up their arguments is you.

We just want to see where you got your information from. You've been asked at least a dozen times by loads of different people to provide proof - if these bulbs are the scam you claim them to be, it should be effortless for you to show this to us.

In fact, if we are being ripped off by evil enviro-hippies it should be your moral obligation to lift the wool from our eyes...