Florescent light bulbs?

80%?? No way!! That is like a FREE ENERGY MACHINE!!! Are you telling me that we can take what's left over from the 20% of the energy it uses, and use it to power the rest of the appliances in our house?? WHO NEEDS SOLAR POWER!!!

==================== Yes, it offers a real saving . Not all the energy in your house is used for lighting, but something like 20-30 % of your energy bills are for lighting, so you could reduce that to 4-5%, That is the direct equivalent of chopping

16 - 24% off your bill . We have 3 standard incandescent bulbs in our house ( 1 in the fridge, 1 in the oven and 1 in the microwave) all the rest are fluorescents, and we save about £100 / $200 a year as a result.

Yes, he said they last twice as long as incandescents - is this possibly because incandescents have an average life expectancy longer than 1000 hours where average voltages are lower.? If so, and if fluorescents in the boondocks have their usual 8,000 hours, the saving is restored back to more or less 80%.

Probably about the only thing harder than raising taxes would be passing legislation to prohibit or restrict reproduction. :-)

That being said, at least in developed nations population growth is pretty low. The real problem -- and Gore does kind of mention it in the movie, as I recall -- is that getting all the population of places like China up to U.S./European standards of living is going to require a *phoenomenal* amount of energy with commensurate increases in pollution.

If you take the viewpoint that global warming is real, from a certain point of view the fact that China ratified the Kyoto protocol -- even though it's not required to actually enforce any real emissions controls at present -- was a much bigger win than the loss of the U.S. not ratifying it.

Make sure you MISS the movie about the Marshall University football team killed in a plane crash in 1970.

(My home town.)

How can you make a movie about a plane full of jocks, flown by Southern Airlines pilots who'd never landed at Huntington before?

They flew into the side of the mountain, forgetting that the airport was on top ;-)

"Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!" was more interesting ;-)

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
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I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Al Gore seems rather literate.

I'm guessing he can spell both "fluorescent" and "Oprah" correctly.

And you?

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But does it cost less to actually buy the bulbs? I don't remember how much Al Gore said a package of florescents costs.

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Why don't you just build the Tesla machine featured in the film "The Prestige"? Then you can have everything free, not just energy.

There are a few places where they're not cost effective at all. I have a kitchen sink fixture that has two horizontal 60 W incandescents in it. It probably runs more than four hours a day. The CFs I tried in it failed in a couple of months, one after the other, probably because of heat buildup and maybe the horizontal orientation. Another factor is winter. I have electric heat, and I figure I don't save anything from CFs in wintertime, because, except for a bit of light that escapes from the windows, the house doesn't care if it's heated by hot air from the furnace or energy released from light bulbs. They should be much more economical in neutral or cooling season, though.

-- John

Except that the fluorescent quality control is terrible.

Around here, they burn out MORE often than incandescents.

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I got my flourescent bulbs with standard sockets at the local Ace Hardware Store. You can also get them at Home Depot and even at CVS Pharmacy.

Every lightbulb in my house is florescent except for the ceiling floodlights.

Bob Kolker

>

| >>But can anyone tell me how I can get a hold of one of these Tesla = bulbs? | >=20 | >=20 | > We save only 20 percent compared to incandescents ? | >=20 | > There must be something about Tesla stories that | > magnetically attracts funny maths. | >=20 | > Sue... | >=20 | Actually, the savings may be negative. |=20 | A fluorescent closet light is LESS efficient than an incadescent when=20 | total lifteime costs are considered. |=20 | In general, fluorescents make sense if the lamp is continuously run = more=20 | than four hours a day. |=20 | A reasonable guess is that fluorescents are only cost effective in ONE =

| HALF of most home light sockets.

Your "reasonable guess" is f****ng stupid.

Hey gang. Welcome to alt.gothic. Listened to any Bauhaus lately?

On the subject of fluorescent lights, it's seemed to me that some of the newer, inexpensive ones (the spiral-shaped screw-in models), emit a much more comfortable spectra than the old long tube type that have been popular in office lighting for so long [1]. I used to say that I couldn't stand fluorescent lights, but these newer ones seem to emit a softer, yellow-tinted light.

Are they using a different substance in them that fluoresces at a different frequency, or are they just using tricks with filtering the light? I would imagine that filters would reduce their efficieny somewhat...

[1] And were used on-stage behind David Bowie on the "Low" tour.

Well, 'should' has two interpretations. One is "is morally obliged to", and indeed those bulbs _are_ morally obliged to last longer. The other is "can be reasonably expected to", and in that case the answer is 'no'; at least not after my experiences.

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Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Posting from Google?  See http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/

"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" came out in April.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

Right. A florescent bulb costs $9.99, 40kWh costs diddly, and so does an incandescent bulb.

diddly + diddly

--------------- Didn't you pay _any_ attention to the last two presidential elections? Even if you don't live in the USA I can't see how you could have avoided it.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Posting from Google?  See http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/

"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" came out in April.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

Google, or a quick trip to your local hardware store will give you a much better answer than waiting for one of us to ferret out sale prices in your neighbor hood.

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The guy that started this thread had a question on incandescent MTBF. I'm not sure the question was answered, but he probably knows a lot about fluorescent spirals, now.

But in answer to your question, the mini-spirals have either 3, or 4, (depending on cost,) layers of phosphor in the tube, each emitting narrow band light to approximate covering the entire visible spectrum-it does not cover the spectrum totally, (photographers beware.) The "color" of the light is usually expressed in degrees K stamped on the side of the electronic ballast, (or some other consumer euphemism, like "DayLight," "SunLight," etc.,) right next to the cautionary label about using the light near navigation or communication equipment that functions in the few tens of mHz. range do to RFI emitted by the harmonics of the 20 kHz.+ electronic ballast. (Sometimes these are printed only on the plastic packaging-along with temperature range, typically 20F-140F, otherwise the lamp won't start-or give less lumens output-and some instructions about not mounting the lamp upside down, or in an enclosed space because the heat fries the electronic ballast-it varies by manufacturer.) The reliability numbers, and lumens / Watt, are given for STP operation, and limited, (for the inexpensive lamps,) by the electronic ballast, which means components of 50K hrs. (10 years "system" reliability for 5 components, 4 hrs. / day,) for commodity electronics.

John

--

John Conover, conover@email.rahul.net, http://www.johncon.com/

...

...

I don't know about "diddly". 40kWh costs me about $8 (in SF Bay area) and the last time I bought CF lamps I got a six pack in Costco for about $7.99.

$0.50 + $8 --------------- >> 1 $1.30

kevin

To me the main advantage in using CF bulbs is not having to continually go through the house changing bulbs. I will note that some brands do have a quality control problem, I have had a couple with intermittent ballasts and one with a cracked tube where it enters the base.

I am saving the intermittent ones, when I have enough to warrant the time I will pop open the base and reflow the solder connections.

I pay around $3 or so in packs of four from Home Depot or Lowes.

John

I think the post below was his way of firing a shot across the bows. Plenty of math/sci goths, but if he is going to post stupid stuff to y'all just to generate responses over here you might want to at least have an eye on the crossposts before ripping him a new one.

NightMist wander>Al Gore came on Opera yesterday and said we could save 20% of the

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