Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb
Switch out every incandescent bulb you have for a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) today. Really, this can make a huge change in your electricity bill and in your carbon emissions.
Less work: CFLs use 1/4 the electricity and last about 10 times longer, meaning you don't have to climb up on a ladder as often to switch out your bulbs.
Money saving: Assuming most of the bulbs are left on about 3 hours a day, each CFL saves you $11 per year at the Boston rate of .19 per kWh. If you have 20 bulbs in your home, that's $220 per year, and $2200 per decade.
Carbon saving: By switching out an incandescent for a CFL, you will save per year about as many lbs. of CO2 as the wattage is of the original incandescent. In other words a 60 watt incandescent left on 3 hours a day on average replaced by a 13 watt cfl = about 60 lbs of CO2 savings per year. If you have 20 bulbs in your home, that's 1,200 lbs per year, and 12,000 lbs per decade (equivalent to taking 1 passenger car off the road for a year).
Warm light: Look for CFLs that say they have "warm" or "soft" light or a color temperature of 2700 to 3000 kelvin. These are bulbs that will create that same warm light you are used to with an incandescent bulb.
Turns on fast: Buy CFLs that have the EnergyStar Label. These bulbs have been proven to turn on quickly rather than taking a moment to warm up to their full brightness (like those old ones). These CFLs get a short electrical burst of higher wattage to warm them up instantly. This burst of higher wattage is only for a fraction of a second so the CFLs still use much much less than your old incandescent.
Lots of kinds of CFLs: There are reflectors, dimmable, 3-way, candelabra cfls. You name it, they've made it. Checks some of these out.
Modern technology:
Incandescents were invented in the 1800s. This antiquated technology heats up a metal filament to the point that light is emitted as a byproduct. Hold your hand over an incandescent. You could cook an egg over some of them. Since you don't turn on a light switch to heat up your home, it's best to switch to a more modern technology like the CFL which use electricity to make a gas inside the bulb emit light.
Put your hand over a CFL and you can feel the efficiency. It is using your electricity intelligently to create light first and foremost.
Disposal:
CFLs contain mercury, a toxin that should be avoided especially by children and pregnant women.
To dispose of a broken CFL safely, you should wipe it up with wet napkins into a plastic bag and recycle it at a hardware store. Never vaccum it as that will put the mercury into the air. Try to air out the room. Don't get too alarmed though. If you tried to suck in as much air as you could just above a broken CFL --because mercury doesn't get airborne easily-- you would only absorb about as much mercury as is in a single can of tuna. Just skip your tuna sandwich that week.
The amount of mercury in a CFL (and used by a CFL through its electricity use) is about half what would be emitted by an incandescent bulb from its operation. Incandescents use 3 times the electricity, 50% of that electricity in this country is created by burning coal. Burning coal emits mercury that goes into air, then rains down into the water, to move up the foodchain into tuna (a predator). You can either have your children eat your wasted energy as mercury in their tuna sandwiches or you can keep the mercury in your CFL where you can recycle it at the end of its life.
Embodied energy:
Embodied energy is how much energy a product takes to make. The embodied energy of an incandescent is much less than the energy needed to run it. You earn out the difference in about 2 months.
Don't wait for the bulbs to break. Switch out all the incandescent lightbulbs for CFLs now.
If your CFLs are burning out too quickly, you might be:
- using non-dimmable CFLs with a dimmer switch. Buy dimmable CFls for a dimmer switch.
- using a non-3-way CFL with a 3-way switch. Buy a 3-way CFl instead.
- using non-exterior CFLs outside. Buy CFLs meant for temperature extremes and wet locations if they are going outside.
- buying badly made CFLs. Buy CFLs with an EnergyStar label. They have quality control.
- there might be something wrong with your electrical system so that a low wattage is constantly running through your wires causing the CFLs to burn out faster. Get your electrician to take a look.
For more info:
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls_about
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/C08-11_DiggingDeepCFLsGreen
