Hindustani said:AllAboutTheMusic said:Too bad their mercury is so TERRIBLE for the environment Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs Dump 30,000 lbs of Mercury per year

According to the text on the box, these bulbs contain less mercury than other compact fluorescent lamps and they exceed the NEMA standards for mercury levels.

Is "exceeding" in this context good or bad?

Poojoust said:

"Go White!"

LOL

Go Green!

(Mi State U.)

arekkediri said:Which location? If this is in Austin, TX I'll give you green.

I just gave you a green. Don't forget FatCash.

They also have the 100W bulbs for about a buck each (6 pack for $6 after instant coupon). I picked up a couple of those as well.

heroofpellinor said:I bought a bunch of these over the months at Costco and we switched every bulb in the house for a while. But the light is so awful that we switched back to the incandescents.

I had the same experience. This is related to the temp of the light. I believe the temp of the Coctco lights is around 2300K. The lights with temps of 4500K, 5000, even 6000K are much whiter and much brighter.

Unfortunately the temp of these lights are not as easily found as their equivalent W. But I have been able to find the temp of every light that I have come across so far. You need to be persistent and read all the fine prints including prints on the base of the actual light.

If you aren't a Costco member, and are close to a 99 Ranch, they are selling 75W (uses 18 watts, I believe) for 25 cents each. These are also subsidized by PG&E. Go Green!
"GREEN is B.Y.O. mug."

http://www.letsgreenthiscity.com/

And you can look up your local stores that are providing PG&E discounts on CFL's, here, even though it doesn't list 99 Ranch.

Regarding the Hg hazard...how did all of us old timers who accidentally broke thermometers at home or in the school science lab survive? Between that and lead paint, if you believe the paranoids, you'd think we'd all be dead or severely ill.

I've been using the Feit 23/100W CFLs for a few years. They put out a white somewhere in the middle of the scale. Not too cool like some workplace fluorescent tubes, but not too warm like a soft white incandescent either. It's a little harsher, but the difference is negligible if they're used inside a fixture that's opaque.

The only place I don't like CFLs is in rapid/short duty cycle applications, like a 1/2 bath, spare room, or basement. In those situations, the warm up ramp up is annoying, and brief usage periods don't make much difference in terms of energy usage. Fluorescents also dislike being switched on and off a lot, which can shorten their life-spans.

Still, modern CFLs are light years better than the early attempts, which had much longer delays and poor quality light.

CrankyBastard said:Regarding the Hg hazard...how did all of us old timers who accidentally broke thermometers at home or in the school science lab survive? Between that and lead paint, if you believe the paranoids, you'd think we'd all be dead or severely ill.

Although I agree with you but the analogy is not correct. CFLs have mercury vapor which is easily inhalable and thus more dangerous. The lab equipment or thermometers that use mercury have it in liquid form.

An interesting personal experience with these bulbs: We had a power outage and when the power came on, the voltage was evidently not right? All our regular incandescent bulbs were working at about half brightness, nothing with a motor worked, etc. But these fluorescents lit up just like normal, no detectable difference in brightness. Weird. When the power company corrected the problem, everything worked normally. I don't know the scientific explanation of this, but if you are prone to power surges, these bulbs may help you out.

Hindustani said:CrankyBastard said:Regarding the Hg hazard...how did all of us old timers who accidentally broke thermometers at home or in the school science lab survive? Between that and lead paint, if you believe the paranoids, you'd think we'd all be dead or severely ill.


Although I agree with you but the analogy is not correct. CFLs have mercury vapor which is easily inhalable and thus more dangerous. The lab equipment or thermometers that use mercury have it in liquid form.

Mercury vapor is far more dangerous, but at this amount you would be probably be exposed to more in your dentist office.

"The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) has assigned mercury vapor a threshold limit value (TLV) of 0.025 mg/m(3) as a TWA for a normal 8-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek and considers mercury vapor an A4 substance (not classifiable as a human carcinogen). The ACGIH also assigns a "Skin" notation to mercury vapor [ACGIH 1994, p. 25]."

Assuming a home has about 300 cubic meters (1100ish square foot home with 9 feet cielings), the gas dispersed would be about .017mg/m^3, which is lower than recomended above.

If you break it, don't sniff it and open the window.

But look at the savings in CO2 emissions.

2 lbs CO2 geberated per kWh (Coal fired, thats the only reliable number I could find off the internet)

15 watts*365 days/year*3 hours/day=16.43 kWh= 33lbs CO2
60 Watts*365 days/year*3 hours/day=65.7 kWh = 131.4 lbs CO2

Savings of 98.4 lbs CO2/year. (Numbers are approximate blah blah blah, I personally believe we need more nuclear reactors)

Great Deal OP, I will swing by and pick up some.