Phil:
Rather than pissing all over yourself in half-witted attempts to piss
on others, just do the math, all of it.
The basic premise is "Life-time Costs". I will not use your "most
common 60W incandescent" as my basis, but rather the 100W lamp as it
lends itself to round numbers. Otherwise things are much the same.
Assumptions:
a) there are two sorts of compact fluorescent lamps. Ballast-in and
Separate-Ballast, commonly known as CFL and PL respectively.
Personally, I prefer PL-types as one replaces only the lamp, not the
electronics. But for the sake of Phil's very limited understanding, I
will confine the argument to good-quality CFL-types.
b) I will ignore the Chinese-Junque mass-market crap just as I avoid
those same sources for incandescent lamps.
c) I will point to where I obtain my lamps, and the cost, and the
published service-life, mean-average lumens and so forth. My source
will, without question, accept and replace without cost any lamp that
fails within the specified lifetime. It is as convenient to me as any
other souce by accident of geography, but even accepting shipping
costs, the equation hardly changes. I am also ignoring quantity-
discounts as they apply equally to any lamp purchased of whatever
nature.
d) The cost of electricity from PECO at present at our location, RS-1
rate is ~$0.145/kwh, delivered. That is 1000 wats for one hour.
e) Tungsten-filament lamps are about 6% efficient (and that is being
generous as they age), so in 100 watts, 6 are emitted as visible
light, 94 as heat.
f) CLF/PL lamps are ~23% - ~26% efficient depending on ballast losses.
We will use 23% as it most favors Phil. So, that means a 28 watt CFL
will give as much visible light as a 100 watt tungsten-filament lamp.
g) We will ignore halogen lamps for any number of reasons, mostly
because excepting miniature LV reading-type lamps, they are not
commonly used for general lighting.
Here we go:
We purchase, in our house, either this:
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/1E563
or the "75-watt" version thereof. The specifications are given for
fair comparison to:
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/5V600
So. It will take sixteen (16) 100-watt lamps to equal one (1) CLF
lamp.
First-Cost CFL: 18.59
First Cost Inc.: 0.56 x 16 = $8.96
First-Cost of CFL is 2.075 x the cost of Inc.
12000 x 100/1000 x $0.145 = $174 This is the operational cost for
12000 hours of 100-watt incandescent lighting.
12000 x 28/1000 x 0.145 = $48.72 This is the cost of 12000 hours of
28-watt CFL lighting.
174 + 8.96 = $182.96 This is the Cost to purchase and operate
Incancescent lighting for 12000 hours.
48.72 + 16.59 = 65.31 This is the Cost to purchase and operate CFL
lighting for 12000 hours.
Purchase/operation: Incandescent lighting is 2.8 X more expensive than
CFL lighting.
Transport & disposal (life-cycle, costs, remember):
CLF Lamp = 4.8 ounces
16 100W incandescent lamps = 12.8 ounces.
Or, 2.67 x the impact on landfill by weight notwithstanding volume
which is much greater for incandescent lamps.
Mercury:
http://www.mercurypolicy.org/emissions/documents/hgsources.pdf
Here in the US, most mercury comes from the burning of coal. It is
being controlled, but it does remain the major source. Hence, burning
electricity from coal releases mercury, irrespective of whether it is
burnt in Incandescent or CLF lamps. Less, of course with CFL lamps.
But the brute-fact-of-the-matter is that far more comes from the coal
than from the lamp if high-quality lamps are used. In Australia, the
coal may be slightly less in its mercury content than the
international average, but not 0.
http://www.csiro.au/resources/ps2ra.html
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1998/of98-772/
Bottom line.... more mercury is released from burning 1,200,000 watts
of power than exists in a GE 28-watt CFL.
Aside: Our township accepts fluorescent lamps of all types for
recycling at proper facilities, and at no "additional" cost to us. Our
taxes are enough!
So, Phil, were you to stop fulminating (pun intended) and start
thinking, you might actually learn something. I understand this is a
foreign concept to you...
Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA
