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New Walmart to do something good?!?
[link|http://www.fastcompany.com/subscr/108/open_lightbulbs.html|How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World? One. And You're Looking At It.]
if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

...

So far, the impact of compact fluorescents has been trivial, for a simple reason: We haven't bought them. In our outdated experience, they don't work well and they cost too much. Last year, U.S. consumers spent about $1 billion to buy about 2 billion lightbulbs--5.5 million every day. Just 5%, 100 million, were compact fluorescents. First introduced on March 28, 1980, swirls remain a niche product, more curiosity than revolution.

But that's about to change. It will change before our very eyes. A year from now, chances are that you yourself will have installed a swirl or two, and will likely be quite happy with them. In the name of conservation and good corporate citizenship, not to mention economics, one unlikely company is about haul us to the lightbulb aisle, reeducate us, and sell us a swirl: Wal-Mart.

...

Which presents a daunting challenge: Wal-Mart's push into swirls won't just help consumers and the environment; it will shatter a business--its own lightbulb business, and that of every lightbulb manufacturer. Because swirls last so long, every one that's sold represents the loss of 6 or 8 or 10 incandescent bulb sales. Swirls will remake the lightbulb industry--dominated by familiar names GE, Philips, Sylvania--the way digital-music downloads have remade selling albums on CD, the way digital cameras revolutionized selling film and envelopes of snapshots. CFLs are a classic example of creative destruction.
I've got a number of swirls in my house - both bathrooms, laundry room and garage. I'd have more but I use X10 in the rest of the house and the CFLs don't work well with it.
Darrell Spice, Jr.            Trendy yet complex\nPeople seek me out - though they're not sure why\n[link|http://spiceware.org/gallery/ArtisticOverpass|Artistic Overpass]                      [link|http://www.spiceware.org/|SpiceWare]
New Also use them here and there, but . . .
. . most of my lights are on dimmers, and I use those dimmers, so it's no go there.

There were supposed to be dimmable florescents available by now (florescence agitated by RF rather than high voltage) but I haven't seen any. Maybe an FCC problem.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New Tried some - wasn't impressed
The dimming didn't work well with X-10. Plus they're rather [link|http://www.smarthome.com/903233.HTML|pricy].

I'm considering [link|http://www.smarthome.com/whatisinsteon.html|Insteon] to replace the X-10, have been waiting for the toggle switches, which I see they [link|http://www.smarthome.com/prodindex.asp?catid=103|finally have]. I think the dimmable CFL will work as expected with it since Insteon uses both powerline and RF to transmit the commands.

Damn - the toggle switchs are $46 vs $19-46 for the decora style. Think I'll wait a while longer.
Darrell Spice, Jr.            Trendy yet complex\nPeople seek me out - though they're not sure why\n[link|http://spiceware.org/gallery/ArtisticOverpass|Artistic Overpass]                      [link|http://www.spiceware.org/|SpiceWare]
New Every bulb in my apt. is flourescent...

Imric's Tips for Living
  • Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
  • Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
  • Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.


Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
 
 
New I use them...
...On my outside porch lights. They take a few minutes to warm up, during which time they gradually increase in brightness. But otherwise, I've had 'em out there for at least 2-3 years each, and nary a problem. They're on all night long, most every night.
-YendorMike

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
New Every time a bulb burns out I replace with fluorescent
We have about 15 in the house now.
Regards,

-scott anderson

"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
New Me too.
Mind, I make up for it by having 200W of halogen in the kitchen.


Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
[link|http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?pwhysall|A better terminal emulator]
New Stupid question
I've got the fluorescents now (some at least).

But weren't the LED bulbs to make more of a dent. I was watching them on Thinkgeek (iirc) but haven't had a chance to buy any. Anyone used them yet?
New I think you would need a wall wart for each
Unless you like 60 Hz flicker, you would want to run a diode on DC power, somewhat less than 120 volts. I suppose you could put a converter in the base, but that might get expensive, and I don't know what the MTBF of the converters is. It may be an investment issue.
I have a few diode lamps that are kind of nice. I have a lot of flourescent lights, but my wife has issues with them on occasion. It's her makeup, really...
New Nope... the way things are going...
AC will be the new DC as far as LED lighting goes.

I have seen new products in queue, one being 2 super dright LEDs designed with a capacitor in them now glow for each part of the cycle and also smooth out the lighting in one nearly flat lighting package. And they take about 9W and produce a similar amount of light a 60W Bulb does. The lamp it goes in, is usually more expensive, as it needs to refract to get good coverage.

But still over time, if these lighting packages were replaced at 5.5 Million perday... the next year Would save: 102,382,500,000 Watts hours (that is 102,382 Megawatt hours). The I2R losses wouldn't be ... saving even more.

Blah, Blah Blah... I know.

--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
Freedom is not FREE.
Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars?
SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;

0 rows returned.
New Way cool, sounds nifty. Thanks for the info.
I'm going to have to look into them.
New CF are still more efficient.
I generally don't like the light given off by CF bulbs I've seen, and LED lamps are still very pricey, so I generally prefer bulbs like [link|http://www.bulbs.com/products/product_detail.asp?page=products&inventory=11243|Halogena] bulbs. 900 lumens/60 W = 15 lumens/watt, 3000 hours, $2.99 (0.33 cents/lumen). This [link|http://www.bulbs.com/products/product_detail.asp?page=products&inventory=11764|equavalent spiral CF] is 900 lumens/13 W = 69 lumens/watt, 10000 hours, 2700 K color temperature. $7.49 (0.83 cents/lumen)

The most powerful LED bulb-replacment I see [link|http://www.superbrightleds.com/edison.html|here] puts out 60 lumens/3 watt = 20 lumens/watt. It costs $30 ($1.50 per lumen).

There are [link|http://www.cree.com/press/press_detail.asp?i=1150834953712|131 lumnes per watt] LED parts in the lab, but they're not commercially available yet, I don't think. But they're starting to catch up...

Cheers,
Scott.
(Who will look into CFs again the next time he gets bulbs.)
New CF colour.
I had more than a few CF globes in the apartment I rented. They were good in the 'oyster' fittings because they didn't get as hot. However, when we bought, most of the lights had dimmers on them. :-( So no CFs. And a lot of fittings were Edison Screw instead of the Australian Bayonet Cap. :-/ I've got half-a-dozen CF globes downstairs with no homes as a result.

There is also the problem of colour. Most of them are 3500K or higher. That's quite a cold colour and not at all like incandescant light. For a warmer colour you want a lower colour temperature. Like 2500K or 2700K. Except those phosphors are more expensive, and therefore so are the light bulbs. So I'm very picky about my CF light bulbs!

Wade.
"Insert crowbar. Apply force."
New We have several, too.
both porches, garage, laundry room, above the stove - have basically put them everywhere regular incandescent bulbs were.
--
Steve
[link|http://www.ubuntulinux.org|Ubuntu]
New Something doesn't add up
If every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.
So 110 bulbs uses as much energy as 1.3 cars? Even if we were running generators off the rear wheels I don't think so, and commercial electricity production -- which we actually use for light bulbs -- is more efficient than that by (guessing) an order of magnitude or more. Anyone have any better numbers? Or a way to justify these?
===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
New I think it's something like this.
100 HP = 74.5 kW via [link|http://www.gordonengland.co.uk/conversion/power.htm|this] conversion page.

110 bulbs * 60 W = 6.6 kW - so you'd need 1240 bulbs to match a single 100 HP car.

So, it doesn't seem to add up.

The analysis seems to be based on assumptions about CO2 production. At least that's what seems to be going on if you follow the discussion [link|http://hybridblog.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/04/equating_prius_.html|here].

HTH.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Are they seriously known as 'ice cream cone bulbs'?!
Sheesh!

Anyway. I think the cheaper the globe, the worse the colour spectrum given out. There are lots of places giving away Compact Flourescents at the moment (primarily I think because they get a government rebate for doing so). But from the free globes I have seen, the light they cast is very cold.

All the lights in my house are flourescent, and the light looks fine to me. One of the older one takes a second to start, but the rest of them are instant.

A few weeks ago I had to replace my first Compact Flourescent light...which I bought in 1995.
Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
New I haven't heard that name used, but . . .
. . it's quite reasonable. We used to have a lot of drive up places that made a cone of soft whipped ice cream turned out into a swirl like that. Dairy Queen, I think.

For myself, I've replaced 5 CFs in the three sockets I have them in. They don't last forever but they do last a few years each.

I have one low wattage incandescent from a hall fixture that ran 30 years that I know of and who knows how long before that. I still have it but I pulled it when I changed the fixture.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
     Walmart to do something good?!? - (SpiceWare) - (17)
         Also use them here and there, but . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (1)
             Tried some - wasn't impressed - (SpiceWare)
         Every bulb in my apt. is flourescent... -NT - (imric)
         I use them... - (Yendor)
         Every time a bulb burns out I replace with fluorescent - (admin) - (1)
             Me too. - (pwhysall)
         Stupid question - (Simon_Jester) - (5)
             I think you would need a wall wart for each - (hnick) - (2)
                 Nope... the way things are going... - (folkert) - (1)
                     Way cool, sounds nifty. Thanks for the info. - (hnick)
             CF are still more efficient. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                 CF colour. - (static)
         We have several, too. - (Steve Lowe)
         Something doesn't add up - (drewk) - (1)
             I think it's something like this. - (Another Scott)
         Are they seriously known as 'ice cream cone bulbs'?! - (Meerkat) - (1)
             I haven't heard that name used, but . . . - (Andrew Grygus)

We're talking "filled with angry bees" levels of agony.
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