For the last time, switch to CFLs

Please don't use incandescent bulbs for heating

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 8:31 PM on 26 Mar 2008

Read more about: dumbassery | green living | energy at home | green products

Please.

nobulb As Andrew Leonard writes in his "How the World Works" blog, this all began with a column by ...

Toronto Star energy reporter Tyler Hamilton that itself had summarized the conclusions of a study raising questions about whether it always makes sense to replace incandescent light bulbs with CFLs. The nub of the argument was that in some cases the heat generated by the incandescent light bulbs could be useful.

Tyler is a friend of mine and a great reporter, so I sent him an email explaining why this is not true, which was not written for publication. Then Leonard himself summarized the column on his blog. So, as Leonard explains:

This excited a storm of comment, and even inspired Joseph Romm, author of "Hell and High Water: Global Warming -- The Solution and the Politics," energy expert, blogger extraordinaire, and regular Salon contributor, to pass on a copy of an e-mail he sent directly to Hamilton.

[That Leonard comment is, I believe, the blogging equivalent of make-up sex. Note to parents: that link is PG-13 -- but I digress.]

Anyway, here is my email:

From either an energy or a CO2 perspective, incandescents are a big loser. If you really like electric resistance heat, buy the best portable forced air heater -- it's is still infinitely better than using an incandescent for heat from a CO2 perspective. It doesn't really matter what the source of your electricity is, since energy around Canada and North America is fungible (and we don't yet have an oversupply of zero carbon electricity).

But again if you really prefer heating your house with electricity because you have zero-carbon electricity, then buy an electric heat pump -- if you have one, then dump your incandescent, the heat pump is much more efficient. For a new home or gut rehab, get a geothermal heating and cooling system. Plus better insulation of course.

This is especially true if you do any significant amount of air-conditioning during the year -- which certainly most commercial office buildings do in Canada -- and I'm guessing many people run air-conditioning in your homes in Toronto during the summer (certainly that will become more common thanks to global warming).

I can assure you that if you were to do the life-cycle analysis in detail, you'd find that keeping incandescents for the heat value is an energy/climate loser.

Leonard also notes,

A similar argument was made in a prominent letter to the editor published in the Star on Saturday.

(Incidentally, a very nice life-cycle analysis comparing incandescents to compact fluorescents can be found here. The answer: CFLs win.)

The bottom line: As traditional incandescents get phased out and replaced by CFLs, LED bulbs, and more efficient incandescents, don't get all hot and bothered. They had their moment to shine.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

For story: For the last time, switch to CFLs
12 Comments | Post a Comment

Why mandate them?

If they're so great, why didn't the market shift long ago? Oh, because of laws and corporate profits, I forgot. I find fluorescent lights to be much wanting, really. In short, they suck.

The cheaper ones from China, forget it, you'll have mercury all over your house. They sputter and have strange tints and don't really generate as much white light. The good ones are made by the same company that made old light bulbs but they just cost more - no duh.

Now try to heat your chickens or your car battery on a cold night with a CFL. Obviously, some people don't think of such things, like heating with incandescent lights. White tower folks, I guess.

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 10:05 PM on 26 Mar 2008

Pushing a dodgy solution

CFCs are more efficient in operation than normal incandescents, but what about embodied energy? Especially when, as Sam pointed out, they break really quickly.

Low pressure sodium gas discharge lamps are MUCH MORE efficient than fluorescents (2-3 times, according to wikipedia, and sodium is much safer for health and the environment, and since it's a major part of salt, I would imagine that it's much more available...

Seems like a much better solution

check out http://www.envirowiki.info, the knowledge database for environmentalists and activists.

by naught101 at 12:39 AM on 27 Mar 2008

The market didn't shift

because it's only been in the last few years that energy prices have really started to leap and concurrently the quality of CFLs has improved out of all recognition.

If you don't like the cheap rubbishy imports Sam, spend a bit extra and get quality long life CFLs with fast start up times and 2700K light. Simple.

Mandation is required now because it's important that the shift from incandescents happens quickly.

by scatter at 2:27 AM on 27 Mar 2008

Low pressure sodium

If you want a big yellow street lamp in your living room go right ahead. Otherwise, enough with the .....ing incandescents already, go CFL.

Couple things to watch:

Don't use screw-in CFLs in standard recessed can lights (these are very inefficient fixtures in any case). If you must absolutely must have cans trade out the fixtures for CFL-happy versions. Not a huge investment.
You have to get special dimmable CFLs to use with dimmer switches. Standard CFLs will blow the switch.

Otherwise CFLs generally make a very good like-for-like trade with your old Edison glowies. Home Depot sells a sample pack with different color rendering so you can experiment to get the light that's right for you. You can even get 3-way CFLs for use in 3-way lamps.

Many people find the equivalence rating printed on the box a tad optimistic, depending on the color rendering, so you may want to uprate by maybe 10% - they still represent a huge energy saving, one of the few energy upgrades you can make for less than a hundred bucks that will start saving you money right away.

Now if only there were a good energy-efficient replacement for those small halogen floods and spots... Yes, I've tried the LEDs, haven't found any with half-way decent color rendering yet. If you know of any, please share.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

by spaceshaper at 4:18 AM on 27 Mar 2008

Halogen replacements

You can get some reflector CFLs that fit halogen sockets:

http://www.megamanuk.com/products/product.php?sid=2

LEDs are on the cusp of breaking out. Give it a couple of years and we'll be there.

by scatter at 5:09 AM on 27 Mar 2008

Worried about the Mercury

I got a few of these bulbs and I broke a few of them. One getting it out of the packaging. One because my one year old knocked down a lamp and one because I was trying to put a lampshade that sits on top of a traditional bulb on one of these bulbs which is not something that a smarter person would have done. I think I was trying to get them to 'work' where they would not 'work'. I read the packaging. I opened a window nearby and aired it out. I picked up the pieces. Unfortunately my wife vacuumed one which we read is a big no no and now the pieces from all of them are waiting in a bag outside for a time I can bring them to a special disposal site. I can't just throw them away because the mercury will get into the groundwater etc. So I'm not going to use these things until my son gets a little older except in places like ceiling lights. And every time I read one of these posts about how I should use them I cringe a little because I'm too scared of the mercury. Or maybe I'm being paranoid?

by ac5p at 7:05 AM on 27 Mar 2008

but how?

given that 100% of the energy of either a cfl or an incandescent ends up as heat, how is using an electric heater any better? (no tirades please, i'm not a denialist, i in fact have mostly cfls in my house, but i just don't understand this reasoning)

by gzuckier at 7:08 AM on 27 Mar 2008

What does "efficiency" mean?

I too still don't understand why an "efficient" heater is better from a CO2 perspective? I imagine when people talk about relative efficiency of heating devices, they are concerned with things like how quickly can the device generate heat where it is desired. But as any energy loss must end up as heat somehow, then the argument that a more "efficient" heater is better from a CO2 perspective than a less "efficient" one depends on assumptions about whether the "waste" heat stays where it is needed or not.

Now, granted I'm an unusual case, but here it is:
I have zero-carbon electricity, but have a gas furnace for heating. I only use an airconditioner for maybe 2-3 weeks per year, but use heating for 6-8 months of the year. My house is reasonable well insulated.

If I replace all my incandescent bulbs with CFLs (and do nothing else) my carbon footprint rises, because I've switched some heating from (zero carbon) electricity to natural gas. Joe argues I could then also buy some high efficiency electric heaters to switch that heat back to electricity. Well sure, but now I've had to buy new bulbs and new heater(s), when I would almost certainly have been better off spending that money on better insulation, replacing the furnace with electric, swapping my car for a hybrid, etc. The lightbulbs seem to be irrelevant.

Or did I completely misunderstand what "efficiency" means for electric heaters?

by Easterbunny at 8:48 AM on 27 Mar 2008

Resistance!

given that 100% of the energy of either a cfl or an incandescent ends up as heat

100% of neither ends up as heat.

But the technologies are vastly different.

In an incadenscent bulb, light is a by product of electrical resistance in a filament (which is actually being heated, just like in your toaster or wallboard panel).

In CFL the electricity is gapped across a gas whose atoms kind of "resonate" and give off electrons. The electricity is a kind of catalyst rather than being directly applied to a filament.

Possibly the best Alternative Energy blog I read: New Energy and Fuel

by jabailo at 8:49 AM on 27 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

Halo subs, light for heat

Scatter, thanks for the CFL GU10 link. I hope these will be available at retail and in US voltages soon.

Easterbunny, few of us have access to zero-carbon electricity - far from it - and those who do should still use it wisely so that surplus may be retained in the grid to reduce carbon emissions elewhere. Heating your house with incandescent bulbs in the summer and then removing that heat with a/c is not wise use. Even in winter I doubt that the balance of gas vs. non-carbon electricity to which you refer is likely to make your total environmental impact favor retaining incandescents over CFLs. Simple rules still apply: use efficient heaters for necessary heating, use efficient lights for necessary lighting. Now that vastly better options are available, incandescent bulbs make for both inefficient heating AND inefficient lighting.

And remember that even though the electricity may be generated without direct carbon dioxide emissions, it still always comes at some environmental cost: even renewables like hydro, solar and wind have adverse ecosystems impacts.

Please conserve.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

by spaceshaper at 9:25 AM on 27 Mar 2008

Tongue in cheek

I was being a little facetious when I said "CFL sucks." I've got them everywhere except for a rusted out porch light and the refrigerator.

The point about CFL is that they don't generate heat, which is wasted energy. That means lower electric bills. If you count up all the residential light fixtures in the US it's a huge deal - don't get me wrong - but to me and my household it's no big savings as claimed.

I'm going to upgrade to a heat pump or advanced HVAC unit instead of the 1970 air conditioner so that will save TONS of money. This means a lot in 100-degree territories like Texas. Over about 90 F my computer servers might start frying.

So with all deference to Mr. Romm's article, on one hand we have this mandate for CFL which really doesn't help me personally, but on the other have HUGE energy draws for HVAC, water heating, and other large appliances. I see little help there except some communities have a rebate program based on CEER or something of that ilk. Not here in my town, though. -sam

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 10:16 AM on 27 Mar 2008

CFLs work

CFLs are now available in more sizes, shapes, wattages, color rendering indexes (indices?) than ever before. the new ones lack the bothersome flicker and bluish tones of the old ones from 14 years ago. The amount of mercury in one is far less than the mercury coming out a smokestack of a powerplant in my area, to fire a more wasteful incandescent.
LEDs are now becoming available and the brightness, color rendering etc is quite good. My issue is the price is still 5-15 times what a CFL; but they don't have the warm-up lag and they are dimmable. Good for special situations where those features are desired. Also the durability is awesome.
The advent of LEDs will also challenge our notion of what a light fixture should look like, and how it should function. We will start to see distributed lighting, aimed just where it is needed (for tasks, accent highlights, etc.) and it will be very efficient. Yay!

I'm going to use LED bulbs in some Malibu lights (low voltage DC for outdoors use) when I get around to installing the light fixtures themselves. I expect the power usage will be minimal, if I switch off the transformer when not in use.

I agree with Spaceshaper above. Conserve!

Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.

by 2wheeler at 11:03 AM on 27 Mar 2008

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