Can you really buy a flat screen TV with the money you supposedly save with CFL light bulbs?
The Department of Energy is sponsoring Ad Council ads to promote CFL light bulbs. Coming on the heels of House Republican efforts to repeal the looming incandescent bulb ban, one of the ads features a couple throwing over a cliff stuff (like a flat screen TV) that they allegedly could have bought with the money saved by CFLs.
But as pointed out by Energy and Environment News,
DOE says upgrading 15 traditional incandescent bulbs to efficient options could save households about $50 a year in energy costs.
I don’t know whether President Obama or Nobel Prize-winning Energy Secretary Steven Chu have been to a store recently but $50 won’t buy too many TVs — or much else of significance.
Moreover, the energy savings of CFLs have been significantly exaggerated as California utility PG&E recently learned.
I bought CFLs about 5 years ago to replace all the incandescent bulbs in my house. Half of them burned out within a year. Now only 1 remains in service and that’s in the laundry room where the light is used only a few times on weekends. They absolutely failed for outdoor use because it gets below freezing here in the winter; they wouldn’t light up at all. So last year I bought a case of 60 and 100 watt long life light bulbs from Halco. Hopefully that will last me until there are economical alternatives to CFLs. Maybe I should have bought two cases of each…
Maybe someone will run a contra-ad featuring the same couple throwing money, homes, cars, foods, clothes and pets over the cliff that they could have saved or bought if they hadn’t handed the government over to the greens and Skyrocket Obama.
I tired the CFLs back in the mid 90s because I had a large electicity bill. There were 0 savings, they cost a lot, and the don’t last as advertised either. People who jumped on that bandwagon recently are finding out the same thing (see, e.g., Glenn Reynolds). Even if there is a tiny theoretcial savings, a 23-month payback on a two year product isn’t exactly statistically significant, let alone spendable. One might like the better light, simplicity, and live in Canada where waste heat indoors really isn’t.
Then you would have to hock your flat screen TV *and* your Chevy Volt to pay for the clean-up after you break one CFL and let the mercury out.
I don’t want my taxpayer money going to promote CFL bulbs which are poluting our environment with mercury, the CFL light bulbs are an inferior light source and it’s not worth the environmental cost! Women, I respect your right to chose and defend yourself with a gun, but join me in respecting our right to chose the light bulbs we use, the toiliet we flush, and the gun that I want to purchase to defend myself and loved ones. Don’t let the Gvernment take our freedom away one by one!
I don’t care (or believe) how much we would suposedly save. My main concern with CFL bulb is the mercury ! ! ! How many people dispose of them properly?
$50 dollars mightl buy you a gallon of gas once Obama and Steven “higher energy prices are good” Chu are done with them.
Hah, well said Tom!
Uh, if a flat screen TV uses the same amount of energy as a refrigerator, why would a green group like the Department of Energy want us to purchase a power hungry device? Why not used the saved money, if there really is any, and send it to a candidate that will eliminate the DOE, and EPA? That would reduce a lot of hot air and CO2.