If you have a short attention span here’s the summary:
Compact Fluorescent light bulbs have become very affordable and will save you money in the long run by saving energy and lasting longer. Bulbs that last longer also aid in decreasing the amount of trash to our landfills and using less energy decreases green house gas emissions and can help decrease our dependency on foreign oil and help prevent new oil drilling in sensitive environments. You can buy them at any local hardware store: Home Depot, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware, etc.

If you like more background depth here’s a longer version:

According to the US Governments Energy Star Program (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls):

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year. This would save more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

ENERGY STAR qualified bulbs CFL’S):
• Use ~75% less energy than standard incandescent bulbs.
• Last up to 10 times longer than standard bulbs.
• Save about $30 or more in electricity costs over each bulb's lifetime.
• Produce ~75% less heat, so they're safer to operate and can cut energy costs associated with home cooling.
• Are available in different sizes and shapes to fit in almost any fixture, for indoors and outdoors.

How to Choose and Where to Use CFLs:
ENERGY STAR qualified CFLs provide the greatest savings in fixtures that are on for a substantial amount of time each day. At a minimum, ENERGY STAR recommends installing qualified CFLs in fixtures that are used at least 15 minutes at a time or several hours per day.
CFLs perform best in open fixtures that allow airflow, such as table and floor lamps, wall sconces, pendants, and outdoor fixtures. For recessed fixtures, it is better to use a reflector CFL than a spiral CFL since the design of the reflector evenly distributes the light down to your task area. If a light fixture is connected to a dimmer or three-way switch, you'll need to use a CFL that specifies use with dimmers or three-way fixtures.

Why use CFL’s? (According to me and other sources such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - not Energy Star)

1. Reducing landfill mass- using longer lasting products is an easy way to decrease our trash loads and associated problems such as soil and water contamination, odor pollution, air pollution, etc.
2. Saving you money. Few people object to this one.
3. Saving energy. This is where some people raise conflicts; there are lots of reasons to save energy, Global Warming Theory being the one I will mention last. Other reasons include: it would be more difficult to artificially inflate oil prices if usage actually decreases rather than continually increases. It can still be done, there’s just one less justification for it. Decreasing energy use makes it harder for the oil industry and its lobbyists to push for additional drilling, especially in sensitive environments like the arctic and the coast of Florida. Decreasing green house gases in an attempt to diminish the effects of global warming.

Some brief notes on Global Warming:

Recently, several people have mentioned to me that they don’t “believe” in global warming. That’s ok with me. We are not in Never-Never Land and Global Warming is not a fairy that needs your “belief” to continue to exist. Please be clear, Global warming is two things:

1. A set of measured natural phenomomena. In other words, its happening, it’s happening, its happening. Carbon and other greenhouse gases are increasing in our atmosphere. This is measured, quantified fact. Ocean and atmospheric temperatures are significantly higher than previous decades. Ice sheets are melting. Animals that rely on ice flows and ice sheets (e.g. Polar Bears, penguins) are facing species endangerment and threat of extinction. Coral reefs, one of the most temperature sensitive ecosystems on the planet, are dying. These things are not theory; these are simply measured anomalous occurrences that have attracted the attention of scientists and observers.
2. A theory that attempts to integrate the aforementioned observations into a reasonable, relatively certain explanation. This explanation also has several parts:
a. Global warming phenomenons are occurring due to the increased levels of “greenhouse gases” in the upper atmospheres of our planet. These gasses include methane, ozone, water vapor and carbon dioxide. Theoretically, the presence of these gasses cause the atmosphere to hold more heat.
b. Causality: the second part of the theory is that these changes are anthropogenic, that is man-made. In other words, it’s our fault this is happening. Some scientists (a minority) and other refute this notion and believe that this warming, etc. is a natural cyclic trend and has nothing to do with our actions.
c. Predictions: the last part of global warming theory is what it means for our planet and us as human beings. This part is truly the most theoretical as it is trying to determine what will happen in the future. Because I’m unaware of any really accurate methods of predicting the future (my magic eight ball is only about 50/50) I will concede that this is the speculative part. The majority of scientists believe that global warming will result in a number of disastrous problems for life on this planet. These include, but are not limited to, increased tornados, hurricanes, floods, droughts and other severe whether phenomenon. Why? Well as the equator and other areas become hotter the normal winds patterns across our planet (that control all such local weather phenomenon) will likely shift- meaning they will shift rain to areas that do not normally have as much and shift rain away from areas that normally have more rain. The consequences here are elementary- plants will die, famines and disease are very likely as food and water become scarce in areas that are not normally adapted to such scarcities. Another huge concern of global warming repercussion is sea level rise. As ice caps and glaciers melt sea levels have continues to rise. If this continues at its present rate there are several small island nations that would cease to exist- they would be completely underwater and we will have to find a way to evacuate those people- possibly within our own lifetime.
d. Many more possible, potential, likely, repercussions are predicted but I won’t belabor these points (ooops too late?). What I will say is that some people believe that these things will not occur, or will not be severe and lasting problems because of one of two things:
i. Self-correcting mechanisms will take place within the planets atmosphere to lessen or correct the impacts of global warming.
ii. Mankind will develop technology to deal with or diminish these occurrences as they happen.
e. If these issues are self-correcting or can be “fixed” by human technology then GREAT- no problem, super, etc. But once again we can’t know that ahead of time so why take chances? An once of prevention is still better then a more costly (in many senses) cure isn’t it? What’s the downside to saving a little energy? Why NOT do it?

i have been using these for a couple of years now where i can. you cant tell the differance. and im not replacing bulbs like i use to.

i changed out 18 bulbs at once...and saw a pretty dramatic decrease in my next month's bill. not to mention...i rarely have to change them out.

While CFL's are an improvement oner incandescent bulbs, I'd like to see more development in LED (light emmiting diode) technology. They're even more effecient than CFL's by a long shot and almost no heat generation at all.
The Canadian federal government has outlawed incandescent bulbs for the year 2012. They want eveyone to switch to CFL's. What most people don't realise is LED technology would improve dramatically if there was a push to go that direction instead. The price would follow suit.
The biggest detracting factor I see with CFL's is that they're hard to recycle and contain mercury, which isn't all that environmentally friendly. When you toss them in to the garbage that will be introduced into the environment as soon as the bulb breaks.
LED's have already replaced incandescent bulbs in a number of applications like traffic lights and signal lights on vehicles. You'll see them on tractor trailer units as the lamps with all the small bright spots behind the lense. That is the wave of the future and I'm surprised they aren't more popular than they already are.

Good point Kid- LED's are even more effiicent. Unfortunately, LED bulbs do still have a few problems- they can be hard to find, more expensive, and are less bright and have a direct field of light, which makes it most useful only when aimed directly at what you want to light. They make good night lights, exit lights, etc- same with the examples you gave- but aren't great for reading or lighting a room.

As far as the potential for mercury introduction, in my opinion it is negligible when compared with the mercury output of the new coal fired power plants that reducing our power usage will help prevent.

FYI: Energy Savings Comparison for Light Bulbs:

Incandescents, "CFL (Compact Fluorescent Bulbs)," "LED (Light-Emitting Diodes)

Life Span (in hours) 1,500 10,000 60,000
Watts 60 14 6
Cost $1.345 $2.98 $54.95
KWh of electricty used over 60k hours 3,600 840 360
Electricity Cost (@ $0.23 per KWh) $821.72 $191.73 $82.17
Bulbs needed for 60k hours of usage 40 6 1
Equivalent 60k hour bulb expense $53.80 $17.88 $54.95
Total 60,000 Hour Lighting Spend $875.52 $209.61 $137.12

We've definately come a long way from whale blubber!

Thanks for the info Anoasis

Most manufacturers will recycle the CFL's and traditional fluorescent bulbs, so if there's a facility in your area please make an effort to see that they do get disposed of properly rather than landfilled.

No, thank you guys for caring about our planet and listening to me babble!

I haven't bought an incandescent bulb in many years, period (using CFL instead) and recently I've been buying LED replacements for regular light bulbs recently - they are better than I expected! The LED bulbs are very expensive, but as long as I don't destroy them somehow, they will cost less in the long run.

I'm sorry if this is redundant - I didn't read every sentence of the opening post - some people have pressed recently for legislation requiring the use of CFL.

I think this is completely wrong. They should look at CFL lumin/watt ratios, and press for legislation which requires people to use those ratios. Right away, this will mean CFL. Down the line, this will mean LED, or even something else altogether. Why commit ourselves to CFL? Energy efficiency is the goal, not using a particular tech.

The CFL do use less engergy that is true, but one one thing that has been overlooked or shrugged off by the enviros is that CFLs contain a small amount of mercury. Mercury is an extremely toxic heavy metal. Each and every time a CFL is disposed of in the trash, that is a small amount of extremely toxic hazardous waste that goes into the environment. I know that landfils are lined to prevent leakage from the landfill into the environment but eventually the liners fail, if not now then years from now, but the mercury will not have dicipated or bio degraded in the mean time. So we save a bit on energy now and reduce some greenhouse gas emissions and pass on a bunch of contaminated soil to our children.

Garden, I read your post 3 times and don't see any place where you call someone a liberal! You're slipping!



(for the audience, I respect Garden and his views, and he knows this)

OMG Massage, how careless of me of course we all know that this is just a liberal plot or conspiracy
theory Seriously though the problem of the mercury in the CFLs and in all fluorsecnt bulbs had to be addressed. As we fight the battle to save the planet from our own excesses, we have to be careful that we don't shoot ourselves in the foot in the process. Don't get me wrong I am all for the use of anything that saves engergy but as far as I know, nobody has addressed this problem yet and I am sure that most of the people that pat themselves on the back for using CFLs will simply discard them in the trash when they burn out instead of disposing of them properly because to dispose of them properly it would require time, effort and money on their part because the bulbs would be considered a Hazardous Waste.

Thats all good but my youngin suffers from multiple seizure disorders. One of which fluorescent bulbs triggers there seizures. Sorry! but i am not able to rise to the machine on this one.

I certainly don't want you to risk your childs health!!!!

Luckily there are many other ways to conserve energy- including just turning things (lights, water, A/C) off when not really needed. So no need to be sorry or feel bad- just do what you can, when you can. : )

Also, just a reminder on the mercury issue- the only power source we currently use with NO known negative repercussions is Solar power. So by all means utilize solar as you are able and willing to do so.

However, this might be investment-intensive for many. So the mercury problem is a balence- as long as we use coal fired power plants (and we do!!) then reducing the amount of power we use (e.g with CFC's or LED's) will also reduce mercury emissions overall. According to the EPA:

"The highest source of mercury in our air comes from burning fossil fuels such as coal, the most common fuel used in the U.S. to produce electricity. A CFL uses 75% less energy
than an incandescent light bulb and lasts at least 6 times longer. A power plant will emit 10mg of mercury to produce the electricity to run an incandescent bulb compared to only
2.4mg of mercury to run a CFL for the same time."

anoasis, I am not referring to the mercury that comes out of a power plant, I am not sure but I believe that is scrubbed out in the stack. There are very strict regulations on what can be released to the air, and the emissions in the stack gases are constantly monitored. My Son in Law is an environmentalist for a power plant I will ask him. My concern is the mercury that is in the CFLs and will end up in the landfill when the bulb is discarded. This problem has never been addressed and it must be addressed before it jumps up and bites us in the butt 20 years from now. I am not disputing the efficiency of the CFLs I am pointing out an inherent problem with them that everybody seems to want to turn a blind eye towards. It is not a case of the good outweighing the bad, it is a problem that can be dealt with now or later but it is a problem that will be dealt with.

One other pet peve I have is there is a great hue and cry about fossil fuels putting off green house gases but nobody says a word about the greenhouse gases that are put off by millions of acres of forest going up in smoke evey year due in a large part by the enviros blocking every rational forest management program that includes logging. Seems we can't cut some of the trees but we can burn all of them.

it can take 500 of said bulbs to contain as much mercury as is in one thermostat...

it'd be uber nice if we could get everyone to recycle their bulbs, however. you're NOT supposed to chuck them in the trash.

That's true Lulu there is very little mercury in each bulb, but if you figure the number of bulbs in the average household and multiply that by the number of households in the U.S. the number is huge. Granted you are not supposed to throw them in the trash, but there is no other simple inexpensive way of getting rid of them now. Until it becomes cheap and convenient to dispose of them properly, they will go into the garbage.

Hazardous Waste generated by households is a bigger problem in the U. S. than that generated by industry. Industrial generation is regulated by the E.P.A. households are not. Most people think the garbage can or the drain in the sink is the proper receptical for whatever they don't want or need. If recycling requires the least amount of effort or the expenditure of money, most people are reluctant to do it.

People engage in all behaviro for only two reasons. To get something good or to avoid something bad. The most powerful motivator is when they get something good. They must know they will get something good from their behavior, they must be certain they will get that something good each time they do the behavior and they must get that something good immediately when they do the behavior. People get all 3 from tossing these things in the trash. They are rid of the problem, it cost them nothing extra and involved little effort on their part. That happens every time they throw one away. The fact that it may cause a problem later is a negative thing that is in the future and therefore has little or no effect on their behavior.

These things are going in the trash and we had better come up with a plan to deal with that fact or we are going to have a bigger problem to deal with 20 years from now. It is not sound environmental policy to simply trade one problem for another.

You can buy your LED bulbs from me, hurray hurray. I use tens of thousands of LEDs per month. Much more efficient than other light sources. The fluorescents also use mercury, which is terrible for the environment. The efficiency is nice, but at what cost.

LEDs will be the light source of the future, until someone comes up with a better technology. Lighting them is only tricky if you don't know what you are doing. Packaged solutions are becoming more and more available. LED prices are getting lower all the time.