Province Mulls Phasing Out Incandescent Light Bulbs
Posted February 21, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s hard to believe that a movement that started Down Under may be about to come up over in Ontario.
And it could affect nearly every household in the province, including yours.
Ontario’s Environment Minister admits she can’t rule out instituting a ban on old fashioned light bulbs in order to save energy and help the environment.
Laurel Broten is examining a move made by the Australian government, which will phase out the incandescent bulbs in favour of compact fluorescents. The new style of bulb is guaranteed to last up to seven years before you’ll need to replace it.
“We’ll take a look at a host of options that might be available to us to help Ontarians better understand that we’re entering into a new era,” Premier Dalton McGuinty vows.
The newer bulbs consume far less juice, which should lead to a reduction in electricity use – and a chance to finally place pollution generating coal fired plants into cold storage, a promise the government made but hasn’t been able to keep.
Still, not everyone’s a fan. The bulbs tend to produce a bright light that some people don’t like.
“I think it’s very harsh in your eyes,” a consumer named Janie Couture ventures. “It’s not easy to live with it.”
They’re also more expensive, which each one costing about $4-$7 a bulb, compared to as little as 50 cents for an incandescent.
Most believe it’s worth the money, even if it’s only a temporary solution to our ongoing power drain.
“We see it as a stopgap or a stepping stone … until L.E.D. lighting or solid state lighting comes along,” agrees Doug Grand of Sescolite Creative Lighting.
L.E.D’s may be the real future. They consume 80 to 90 percent less energy and manufacturers are working on a bulb that will last 100,000 hours.
But be prepared to possibly pay even more for those, because you likely won’t be replacing them very often.
The new fluorescent bulbs are designed to give the same amount of light but use a lot less energy to do it. Here’s a brief chart of just how big the reductions can be:
Old bulb: 100 watts
New bulb equivalent: 29 watts
Old bulb: 60 watts
New bulb equivalent: 15 watts
Old bulb: 40 watts
New bulb equivalent: 10 watts
CFL Basics
How long do they last?
About eight times longer than the old bulbs.
How much will you save?
Replace a 100-watt bulb with a 25-watt CFL version and you’ll wind up with a $30 electricity saving over the life of each bulb.
How much energy do you save?
CFLs use about 66% less than incandescent bulb
Are there any problems with the CFLs?
Just a few. If you turn them on and off a lot, you’ll shorten their lifespan. And they all contain mercury, which means you won’t be able to just throw them away. They will need to be taken to a waste disposal area. Check the box to see what’s in the kind you’re buying.
According to Chris Winter of the Conservation Council of Ontario:
“All CFL bulbs contain between 2 to 5 mg of mercury. The best advice is to look for high quality bulbs with less than 3 mg of mercury and to be sure take old bulbs intact to a hazardous waste depot when they burn out (probably seven years from now, by which time we hope the province will have a better collection system in place for all household hazardous waste).”
How much can you actually save?
For an online calculator that lets you see how much energy an old fashioned bulb burns in your home every day, click here.
