Euro Condom

[David Duffy]

Thanks for the link. I think there's still a lot of confusion over this. Well, the government is involved I guess! :huh:

[musht]

Ingo Maurer is the genius wo invented low voltage halogen on tensioned wires amongst others:

 

http://www.ingo-maurer.com/

 

With todays concerns regarding fossil fuel depletion and climate change, I find it sad that so many people are working to evade efforts at reducing fuel use.

 

Looking for sensible , realistic , well thought out answers to reducing fuel use, not make people think they`re doing something type green wash.

 

Domestic lighting is a small part of total connected load, even in the home, lighting is nowhere near biggest energy consumer.

 

Commercial lighting is a completely different case though, how many empty car parks to you pass in the middle of the night as bright as centre spot at Wembley, office blocks and public buildings with every level lit but cleaners only working on one.

 

How many streetlights are still operating with elderly power sapping magnetic ballasts instead of modern efficient electronic ballasts.

 

Ther only people working to evade such things are commercial users seeking to avoid capital expenditure, for domestic users truning there central heating down by a degree will make much more difference than sitting in a green cast gloom under a 9W CFL.

[adam2]

I find the above remarks somwhat concerning with the need to save energy, both in the home and elswhere.

It is true that d0m3stic lighting accounts for only a small proportion of power used, however I feel that we should all be doing our bit.

At present the electricity used for d0m3stic lighting is increaseing rapidly, largely as a result of single pendant lights being replaced with a dozen halogens each of 50 watts.

Without drifting too far into forbidden d0mestic areas, it may be noted that 10 amp lighting circuits are now the norm instead of 5/6 amps, to allow for the hundreds of watts per room now used.

The heat from rows of halogen spotlights, and giant widescreen TVs is also increasing the demand for A/C which used to be almost unknown in the home.

 

 

A great many people proffess concern regarding climate change yet are oppossed to doing anything about it.

"domestic lighting is a minor energy user lets not worry about it, fight for your right to use wastfull lighting"

"domestic fridges and freezers dont use that much power, lets all fight against higher effeciency standards, that would add £10 to the cost of the appliance"

" the emisions from road travel are not that much, fight for cheaper petrol and more roads"

"Air travell is not that bad, fight for your rights to a cheap holiday, support airport expansion"

 

CFLs are available in much brighter versions than 9 watts, which would indeed be a bit gloomy in a large room. I have not noticed any green tint from modern CFLs.

[musht]

I find the above remarks somwhat concerning with the need to save energy, both in the home and elswhere.

It is true that d0m3stic lighting accounts for only a small proportion of power used, however I feel that we should all be doing our bit.

At present the electricity used for d0m3stic lighting is increaseing rapidly, largely as a result of single pendant lights being replaced with a dozen halogens each of 50 watts

.....snip......

CFLs are available in much brighter versions than 9 watts, which would indeed be a bit gloomy in a large room. I have not noticed any green tint from modern CFLs.

 

Get the feeling we are both reading from same script, just different pages ;-)

 

Wandering into domystick territory for minute.

 

Lighting like heating is an energy intensive activity, the Sun can deliver 2kW/ m^2 of visible light , something thats tricky to replicate artificially.

Own guess about proliferation downlighters is more to do with lowering ceiling heights and hence number of floors possible in a given height, seen quite a few r3sid3ntial developments where pendants would have dangled in occupants faces.

 

Using solely spotlights for general area illumination is just palin daft, thats what MR16 format lamps are , spotlights , not the universal fits everywhere light source, unless your a property developer looking at a fitting complete with lamp for less than a quid.

 

As you`ve suggested previously ,there is metal halide fittings that could be used and PL fluro downlighters with the electronics in the fitting not the lamp base, much greener.

 

Ok, cheap shot about green tint 9W, but anecdotal evidence does accuse modern CFLs of having poor reliability, still have some old ones soldiering on from the 90`s in low use applications. current crop seem to be cost engineered slightly too far....

[David Duffy]

On the subject of MR16's, I just replaced the (2x 60W oyster fitting) light above our dining table with 3x 20W MR16s. Better light over the table and half the consumption. We've also had dimmers on all commonly used lighting for over 12 years now and we rarely turn any of the lighting up past 40%, apart from dinner time.

[Tomo]

I find the above remarks somwhat concerning with the need to save energy, both in the home and elswhere.

It is true that d0m3stic lighting accounts for only a small proportion of power used, however I feel that we should all be doing our bit.

Pop quiz:

A) What's the lifetime energy usage for a CFL?

B) What's the lifetime energy usage for a tungsten lamp?

 

By 'Lifetime' I mean manufacture, usage and disposal, including transport.

 

Here are a few clues to help:

CFLs are generally made in the far east (China etc), and contain a very large number of components soldered together onto a printed circuit board, enclosed in an injection-moulded thermoset plastic.

The tube is long and thin, and carefully twisted or otherwise bent into the required shape. The coils at each end are small tungsten wires.

 

Tungsten lamps are generally made in the EU (France), and contain less than 5g of material. There is a thin tungsten wire inside, and the globe is a single-process blow moulding.

 

I can't find these figures anywhere.

 

This is one of the key reasons why I hate the ban. It's badly thought-out and hasn't considered how the things are made and disposed of. It's entirely based on Lumens/Watt, but doesn't take any manufacture and transport emissions into account.

 

On top of that, what lamp do you use in your toilet? CFLs are completely inappropriate, for several reasons: It takes them several minutes to brighten to rated, and they only manage a certain number of 'strikes' before they fail.

How long do you spend in the loo?

 

(Oh, and CO2 is temporary. Mercury is forever.)

[david.elsbury]

Tomo, if a "normal" GLS was no longer available for your toilet, you'd be best advised to go for a fairly low wattage halogen GLS replacement (as marketed by Osram among others)

[smalljoshua]

On top of that, what lamp do you use in your toilet?

A fast on CFL from GE.

 

It's been in there for 4 years, still going strong.

 

Josh

[adamharman]

The toilet is the one place I do have a CFL! The dim glow when it's warming up is ideal when I get up in the middle of the night for a p*** as it gives the eyes time to adjust.

[adam2]

A 100 watt incandescent lamp, if it lasts the rated 1,000 hours, will use 100 KWH in its lifetime.

In 10,000 hours, ten such lamps and 1,000 KWH will have been consumed.

 

A 23 watt CFL will in 10,000 hours consume 230 KWH.

 

Therefore the energy saved over 10,000 hours is 670KWH, or about £67 worth.

 

As regards the energy used in manufacture and transport, it is incorrect to compare the energy used in the manufacture and transport of a CFL with an incandescent lamp.

 

One should compare the energy used in manufacturing and transporting ONE CFL with that used in to make and transport TEN incandescent lamps, because the CFL lasts ten times longer.

 

Phillips state that the energy used to make a CFL is about five times that used for an incandescent lamp, but because the CFL lasts ten times as long, the energy per thousand hours of use is less.

 

Remember that the energy used in the manufacture and transport of lamps, has to be paid for by the consumer, as part of the retail price.

Since CFLs can be purchased for £2*, the manufacture and transport of these items must consume less than £2 worth of energy, or the suppliers would go bust.

 

*I have seen lamps sold for much less than £2, but suspect that to be selling at a loss, which is not a fair comparison.

 

As regards the mercury content of CFLs, that is certainly a concern and I believe that such lamps should be recycled (I do)

It must however be remembered that the burning of coal emits mercury, and that much coal is burnt in power stations.

The use of CFLs reduces mercury emisions from power stations by a lot more than the mercury content of the lamp.

[musht]

Haven`t seen many CFLs rated to 10,000 hours , 8000 hours appears to be general claim.

 

Even at 8000 hours lumen depreciation would be having a severe effect.

 

Would because my experience and that of many others , is that will be lucky to see 8K hrs out of a modern cfl before complete failure.

 

Philips should know their numbers , but only 5 times energy consumed in making a CFL against a tungsten lamp is quite laughable and bears no examination close or otherwise.

 

Philips being responsible for the Geni series of CFL lamps found for less than 50p in many supermarkets, possibly because the lifetime of these lamps is nowhere near 8k hrs.

 

Fascinated to know where you recycle your CFLs as recycling facilities equpped to properly seperate the compnents safely are still very rare?

[Tomo]

A 100 watt incandescent lamp, if it lasts the rated 1,000 hours, will use 100 KWH in its lifetime.

In 10,000 hours, ten such lamps and 1,000 KWH will have been consumed.

 

A 23 watt CFL will in 10,000 hours consume 230 KWH.

Sorry, but wrong. You've ignored power factor.

The power station produces VA, not kW. (They actually monitor line frequency to work out if they're falling behind demand - not voltage!)

 

An incandescent lamp has a unity power factor. Thus a 100W lamp uses 100VA.

 

A CFL has a very poor power factor - I've seen examples as low as 0.5, but 0.6 is probably common. Thus your 23W of 'real power' requires the generation of 38 to 46VA to cover the power factor.

So you're actually using 38% of the CO2/second with your CFL, not 23%.

 

The claimed lifetime is also wrong. 10,000 hours is a bad joke - most of the manufacturers have already given up claiming that and now say around 8,000 hours or less.

 

Finally, the claimed 'multiplier' for energy use tells us nothing, because we aren't informed what the baseline is. We also aren't told if that includes transport or not.

You are right that such figures need to be given in terms of "Per 1000 hours of useful life", but you've also got to know what 'useful' means.

 

Which is exactly my point - there may be an advantage to using CFLs, but we don't know because the research has not been done!

So now we're seeing legislation based on uninformed guesswork, and that is a terrible thing.

[dbuckley]

The NZ equivalent of Which! did a review of CFLs recently, see the test results. There clearly are differences between lamps.

[dmxtothemax]

Have they tried to ban incandesant lamps altogether, in europe?

they have already banned the import of gls incandesant lamps in Australia,

all lamps over 220v and less than 150w.

12v 50w halogens are next on the hit list!

[adam2]

The Osram and Megaman CFLs that I use have a claimed lifetime of 15,000 hours and certainly last well though I dont record the hours of use.

 

The power factor is of very limited relevance, the fuel cost of producing electricity is based on KW not on KVA.

The price paid by the consumer is also based on KW and not on KVA.

 

A poor power factor increases the losses in the national grid and is therefore to be avoided. For this reason large industrial power users are penalised for poor power factor, though the power factor charge is small relative to the charge for KWH.