Compact Fluorescent Lamps

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are a great way to reduce energy consumption at home and work. They are available as direct replacements for traditional incandescent lamps and require only about 25% of the power for equivalent light output. They also have a longer lifetime than incandescent lamps. (GE promotes their CFLs as lasting 10 times longer than regular soft white bulbs.)

Mercury
An early concern about CFLs was the mercury content. According to information in the July 2007 issue of Popular Mechanics, CFLs contain around 4 milligrams (mg) of mercury. They do need to be disposed of properly. However, a coal-burning electric power plant emits 10 mg of mercury to run an incandescent lamp over its lifetime. The corresponding mercury emitted to run a CFL for the same time is 2.4 mg. Plus, the CFL should be expected to last much longer than the incandescent. So the overall effect is that CFLs actually keep mercury out of the environment.

Here are some resources to learn more about CFLs:

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cfl

 

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