Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: CFL use *more* power than incandescentsb/c start-up surge?..

Start up surge doesn't use enough power over the light being on normally for the surge to make any significance difference to efficiency.... Mythbusters did an episode on this.

I found a summary of the MB segment:

Based on the amount of energy consumed turning on the bulb, they were able calculated how long the bulb would have to be turned off in order to make it worth the energy savings, i.e. "It's best to turn off the bulb if you are leaving the room for":

Incandescent: 0.36 seconds
CFL: 0.015 seconds
Halogen: .51 seconds
LED: 1.28 seconds
Fluorescent: 23.3 seconds

In other words, its almost always best to turn the bulb off. Even the 23 seconds for the fluorescent lights isn't very long, and the rest of the times are pretty much blinks of an eye.

Yeah, CFL's are pretty much a no-brainer... They're one of the only truly easy and inexpensive step step towards environmental responsibility that everyone can execute.

The energy savings are immense compared to incandescent bulbs.

The only (small) catch is that the bulbs contain mercury vapor which is highly toxic. But this is of minimal concern for three reasons:

- CFLs last a very long time (I still have a few in our apt. from 9(!) years ago).

- As long as they're recycled (e.g. free dropoff/recycling at IKEA), the mercury is recovered and does not contaminate the environment.

- Even if one smashes the bulb after use and releases the mercury into the environment, the bulb conserves so much electricity relative to incandescent bulbs that the reduction in Hg emissions from coal-burning power plants over the CFL's lifetime far surpasses the amount of Hg in the bulb.

even if we did not recycle ANY of the CFL bulbs the ammount of mercury released is minor in comparison to the benifit the bulbs had.

its the concentrations.. a body (Human or animal or plant) can tolerate so much minor toxins during its lifetime, small doses generally have few effects.

the problem is when you have alot of the community putting its waste into one area, that area gets saturated to a point that it can seep into water supplies and do other enviromental harm MUCH quicker then the local enviroment can adapt/cope

so just remember that its better to recycle it and re-use it then to let it go to waste as well.

consider the fact that nearly *ALL* lead acid car batteries are recycled, lead is a major poison to the human system (ask the romans) and we have eliminated it mostly from our paints and other commodities.