Light bulbs - the cost of manufacture

One of my concerns with the new energy efficient light bulbs is the cost of manufacturing them. When I say 'cost' it includes the money cost and the environmental cost. A traditional incandesant bulb is very simple to manufacture and does not need too much in the way of toxic chemicals. However, the new bulbs are much more complex to manufacture and contain more raw materials and toxic elements. Although the new bulbs do last longer there is then the issue of disposing of them safely.

See the light

The first rule of being micro green is to reduce. My view is that turning lights off when not needed will produce greater savings and I would only recomend CFLs for lights that are left on for long periods of time such as landing lights or outside lights.

The type of light

Becuase they use different methods to create light, incandesent and CFLs produce very different types of light. The CFLs are actually producing a light that is flashing on and off (50 times a second), this can sometimes be seen when these bulbs start to flicker.

Many of these bulbs will not work with dimmer switches which can be a real problem for some people. The light given off by a CFL bulb tends to be a bit whiter and does not have the same warmth as a incandesent bulb.

Wasted heat, or is it?

Traditional incandescent light bulbs work by passing an electric current through a tungsten filament, the resistance of the filament causes it to get very hot and as a by product light is given off.

This of course means that incandescent bulbs waste most of the energy they use as heat. Energy efficient light bulbs are obviously the better choice in this respect, but I have some reservations about the accuracy of the calculated savings.

In the summer when you don't need to heat your home the heat energy is indeed wasted (and may even add to the costs of air conditioning), but in the winter that heat is no longer wasted, it is in fact heating your home for you. My concern is that this fact is often overlooked when people calculate the 'savings' of a energy efficient bulb.