CFLs: Lighting the path to energy efficiency?

Unless you’re a die hard canadian football fanatic, you probably know that CFL stands for Compact Fluorescent Lamp, and you may also know that around the world, governments are banking on this technology making our old incandescent lightbulbs a think of th past. Canada and Australia have both mandated a ban on incandescent light bulbs (by 2010 and 2012 respectively).

The good news is that CFLs are far more efficient (roughly 3 times) than incandescent light bulbs, and can last much longer (varies, but on the order of 10 times longer). I would still like to see a full life cycle analysis of CFLs which take into account energy and materials used in manufacturing (they are much more complex pieces of technology). One of the drawbacks which has had the greatest attention is the fact that CFL bulbs contain mercury, which, if disposed of impoperly, becomes an airborne, easily absorbed toxin which can pass directly into our bodies and into the food we eat, as well as bioaccumulating in the food chain. The need to combine large scale use of CFLs with an extensive recycling program is therefore crucial. Fortunately, the technology to safely recover the mercury from used fluorescent lamps is fairly simple, and will hopefully be adopted through take-back programs by major retailers. However, mercury contamination due to accidental breakage may still be a concern- see Fox News’ piece of, ahem, reporting on the subject (if you can really take anything from Fox News (or the CEI, source of this story) seriously, which I can’t).

For a more enlightened (ouch, bad pun) illustration of the facts associated with CFLs, Clean Nova Scotia has an excellent page here. In particular, treehugger.com provides an insightful response to mercury concerns:

“Ironically, compact fluorescent bulbs are responsible for less mercury contamination than the incandescent bulbs they replaced, even though incandescents don’t contain any mercury. The highest source of mercury in America’s air and water results from the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, at utilities that supply electricity. Since a compact fluorescent bulb uses 75 percent less energy than an incandescent bulb, and lasts at least six times longer, it is responsible for far less mercury pollution in the long run. A coal-burning power plant will emit four times more mercury to produce the electricity for an incandescent bulb than for a compact fluorescent.”

While I think more policy action needs to be taken to encourage new technologies, I acknowledge that government light bulb bans could be seen as jumping onto a technological bandwagon before all the ramifications are clear (full life-cycle impacts for example, possibility of mercury exposure due to breakage) . However, because of these decisions, we should see a lot more focus on addressing these concerns as well as other possible efficient lighting solutions. Besides CFLs there are other promising technologies such as LED lighting, which will get a needed boost from the light bulb bans (not to mention the world of possibility in natural lighting through good design…).

As a side-note/rant: What I would like to know is how all these right wing, (purported) ‘free-market’ advocates like the CEI (who also generally take the view that technology, rather than behavioural change, will save us from the effects of our own consumption) think new solutions will be found if we persist in clinging to old technologies without providing incentives for new ones to develop? Their answer no doubt will be ‘market forces’ but this simply ignores the facts that existing markets are flawed in that they don’t account for all the externalities they create.