http://www.physorg.com/news91171489.html

One --- Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

OMG! How will one power an EZ Bake oven without an old fashioned light bulb?

The proponents are forgetting part of the environmental cost of Compact Fluorescent Bulbs. The manufacturing process uses more dangerous chemicals and the bulbs themselves are loaded with mercury. They are treated as hazardous waste and will require special disposal in order to prevent the mercury from contaminating the landfills and then the watertables.

CFL bulbs do contain mercury but only in trace amounts, and the reduction in mercury vented into the atmosphere from coal power plants as the result of the energy savings more than makes up for the mercury contamination from the bulb itself.... and that assumes that none would be recycled (which wouldn't be that difficult)

check out nema (dot) org/lamprecycle/epafactsheet-cfl.pdf

Although fluorescent bulbs do contain trace amounts of environmentally unfriendly chemicals there are recycling devices out there that separate the tube’s glass and metal shards from its chemical components, collect them into bags and filter mercury vapour and phosphor dust through filters.

Whether or not CFL's contain large or trace amounts of mercury, the simple fact is people are going to throw them away in the regular trash. Old habits die very hard.

Recycling them is good, but it won't be fully effective. Some of the mercury saved from going into the atmosphere will be put into the water table where it would seem to do more harm.

My understanding is that CFL's get 'dim' over a few years, thus you need more of them to produce the same amount of light...reducing any energy savings you are getting. I'll find out...as I just switched most of my house over to CFL's ;-)

LED's are going to be the wave of the future eventually.

Franjo Hannaman invented the modern tungsten filament bulb NOT Edison.

Easy Question, Easy Answer..... How many members are there in the government that make the laws?

Global warming and environmental degradation - pollution, etc. are just symptoms of the real problem no one wants to admit. Over population. Until you address ways to manage a sustainable population of humans on this planet, addressing all of these popular media symptoms are a waste of time and effort and will logically never succeed. Its like trying to control a forest fire's smoke without putting out the fire.

Don't look now, but your food supply - the worlds food supply is totally supported by fossil fuels and petroleum based fertilizers. There is no way the current world population can be fed naturally. Even the darling organic foods are mechanically harvested, processed, packaged and stored using fossil fuel based energy and materials. When fossil fuels become to expensive to find and to produce, the last thing you will be worrying about is is how efficient your light bulbs are and whether the temperature was a degree warmer, or cooler this year. Misdirection and misinformation is such a wonderful tools of the politicos - so they don't have to address the really difficult problems.

The "Big Problem" in Australia will be whether the electricity grid will be improved so that the CFL bulbs actually last as long as advertised. As Australia is such a large country with a small population, electricity transmission lines are long, and with peaks in demand comes brown-outs etc.
Some people have found CFL bulbs lasting less than a month.

Who bought the little weasel this time?

First, there is NO WAY that CFLs last 10,000 hours!!! I've had them in my home for several years now, and I can tell you, they only last about a year, at best. And that is in an urban setting with reliable electric voltages.

Second, from late fall through winter to early spring incandescent light bulbs are NOT energy-inefficient, because during those seasons the "waste" heat is not wasted. It is used to heat the house!!!

Third, if an incandescent bulb is broken, it's no big deal, because they only cost 50 cents or so. But a CFL is several dollars. A good rule of thumb is: money = energy. The CFL costs more because it takes much more energy to make it. (Keep that in mind the next time you price an "energy efficient" car.)

Fourth, the light from CFLs just doesn't look as nice as the light from incandescents. It is especially hard on skin tones. Restaurants and retail establishments know this quite well, and prefer not to use fluorescents, because it cuts down on their business.

Fifth, most CFLs won't work with dimmers, or during brown-outs.

Sixth, CFLs can develop an annoying hum.

Seventh, CFLs don't come in fancy shapes and small sizes suitable for ornamental lighting such as candelabras and chandeliers (not to mention night lights).

Despite all these drawbacks, I like CFLs for some uses, and I use them. But I would be angry if they were the only choice.

Whats not clear in the announcement is the view on low wattage halogen downlights. They are actually incandescent bulbs but I don't believe there is any immediate way to insert a more efficient light in the fitting. Do they expect people to actually rip out and replace the whole fitting?

I'm amazed that the Natl Gov of Australia has the power to do such a thing.

I thought Aussies were a more independent lot.

Guess not.



Arthur

Florescent bulbs have a hard-to-notice yet still present flicker (it flickers at the rate of the alternating current). This causes the light to be somewhat sickly, and it actually causes eyestrain, fatigue and illness.

Great idea more goverments should adopt this position. All the light bulbs in my house have already been converted. The would save the country huge amounts of electricity and therefore reduce the amount of co2 produced

Well thank goodness I don't live in Australia! I have photosensitive epilepsy and the ONLY artificial light I can cope with are traditional light bulbs. Fluorescents flicker and halogens set my epilepsy off too.

I hope the Australian government realise that by 'banning' traditional light bulbs they're automatically making many places - even people's homes - inaccessible to those affected by photosensitivity. Surely that's illegal??