At 8:04 AM -0500 6/4/10, Jules Richardson wrote:
Zane H. Healy wrote:
My question is which is really less
environmentally friendly? Incandescent
or Florescent?
I've got no hard figures; I've tried asking over the years, and
nobody seems to know for sure. My gut feeling though is that
fluorescent are a lot worse when you think of the 'big picture' and
include sourcing of the materials, manufacture, shipping*, and
eventual safe disposal.
That is my feeling as well, the question reminds me of the Toyota
Prius and other Hybrids. Which is less environmentally friendly, a
new one of those, or the '92 Toyota Camary we have. People don't
take into consideration what has to be done to manufacture these
"environmentally friendly" products, and all the icky stuff that is
used.
I've had plenty of fluorescents that barely outlast
incandescents,
despite manufacturers' MTBF claims. Plenty more that exhibit
weakened output after a few months. All of them seem to have output
even when new that's vastly less than the "incandescent equivalent"
rating claimed on the packaging.
I believe the Compact Fluorescents are also more sensitive to how
many times you turn them on and off. We have 3 kids, ages 2-7, I try
to put Incandescents where they'll be playing with the lights, and
Compact Fluorescents in other places.
I've also read that the manufacturers' claims on energy savings are
less than accurate. Apparently they cause some sort of problem for
traditional electric meters? I don't know how accurate any of that
is, it seems a bit odd, touching in the realms of urban legend.
(Waters are even further muddied up here in northern MN
where we
have electric heating that's on for over half the year, because
during those months any energy that bulbs lose as heat is still
doing useful work; there's no waste)
This is actually one of the main uses I see for keeping a good stash
of Incandescents around.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at
aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
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| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
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http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |