[LINK] Here's one that will snag a few

[Richard Chirgwin]

Stewart Fist wrote:
> Turnbull's non-incandescent bulb promotion requires some answers before we
> even begin to accept his 800,000 tonne a year "greenhouse gas' saving.
>
> 1. Since we are said to produce about 500 million tonnes of the stuff a
> year, the saving is bordering on the trivial.
>   
Yes, but does that matter? "This saving's trivial so we won't do it" 
could quickly degenerate into "there's nothing worth doing so we'll do 
nothing".
> 2. And what is the energy budget on manufacturing one of these bulbs.  What
> is the cost in terms of energy input in manufacture, transport, retail etc,
> compared with energy saved.
>
> I suspect that it is considerably on the plus side, but I'd like to be sure.
> does anyone have any figures?
>   
This, however, is a much better point of argument!
>
> 3. Moreover, what is the expected life of these bulbs.  People keep quoting
> 4x that of an incandescent, but in my experience both types are very highly
> variable -- with new incandescents being much less reliable in recent times
> than they used to be.
>   
Amen to that. The crappification of everything. In moving manufacturing 
offshore, companies do two things:
- outsource quality control to the customer, who buys a product for 25% 
saving on price but 75% loss of lifetime;
- maintain a premium on "brand" which is now divorced from product 
quality (eg: Fletcher Jones - why would I pay the same price for a suit 
as last year, when last year the suit was made in Victoria and this year 
it's made in China?)
> I bought a couple of the new fluro type about six months ago and one only
> lasted a month or so. The other is still going, but it is certainly not as
> bright as is claimed on the packet.
>   
The first CF we owned lasted about 13 years - it was a Philips launch 
giveaway to journalists. Today, a lifespan of months would be more 
common in my household; but there is a set of incandescents in the 
bathroom which don't have a CF replacement, and their lifespan is in weeks.
>
> Until last year I had one incandescent bulb in my home (an American screw
> fitting) that had lasted nearly twenty years.  I was given it by a friend,
> who was an electrician, from his stock, so I can remember when it was
> installed.  Other incandescent bulbs in our house last only months.
>
> What would the manufacturing energy budget-saving be if incandescent bulbs
> were longer lasting I wonder?
>   
That would be a nice calculation.
>
> 4. What happens when you put these bulbs on a thermister-dimmer circuit.  I
> haven't tried.  Does anyone know?
>   
Compact fluros hate dimmers. They last about two hours; I think the 
electronics tries to compensate for the lower voltage but can't cope 
(burned by not reading the note on the packet which says "not suitable 
for standard dimmers").
>
> 5. Were the old bulbs inefficient anyway?  In summer, the excess energy
> consumption will obviously emerge as heat. This will be warming up a hot
> house so that is clearly a waste of energy.  But in summer the lights are
> only for only half the time they are in winter, and usually we have less of
> them on at night because family members tend to be doing things elsewhere.
>
> In winter, any loss of light-generating efficiency will result in household
> warming and so part-substitute for other heating methods.  This means that
> there is no loss of efficiency at all.  And winter is the the major time we
> use lighting. 
>   
I don't think anybody adjusts their heating habits to take lamps into 
account. If the house is heated on a thermostat, perhaps, but I don't 
think that accounts for a majority of households.

RC
> So about 500,000 tonnes of Turnbull's 800,000 tonne saving in CO2 is not
> actually a saving at all.  To maintain the same ambient household
> temperature it will require thermostats to be turned up another notch in
> winter to compensate.
>
> Maybe they might legislate to require us to use fluoros in summer, and
> change to incandescents in winter.
>
>