Advantages and Disadvantages

of energy efficient light bulbs versus regular light bulbs

Haven`t all of you been in a situation where you needed to go out and make a decision on buying a light bulb. The big stores such as Walmark or Home Depot have a variety of bulbs available. The questions one may ask now is `Shall I buy a regular light bulb or Ìncandescent lamp`or an energy efficient light bulb called a `Fluorescent lamp`. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these light tools?

Let`s look at the Incandescent lamps first:
Regual light bulbs create light by running electricity through a resistive filament. This filament gets heated up to a very high temperature and therefore it glows and produces visible light. The quality of the light will have a warm yellow or plain white color. The problem with these light bulbs are that they are highly inefficient due to the energy imput that is emitted. It is proven that 98% of the energy imput is emitted as heat. Another fact is that these light bulbs have a life-span of about 1000 hours. They work very well with dimmers. An advantage of course is that most of the currently existing light fixures are desinged and shaped for these type of light bulbs. However regular light bulbs are certainly not energy saving.

Let us have a look now at the Fluorescent light bulbs:
These typ of light bulbs work by passing electricity through mercury vapor, which then produces ultraviolet light. The UV light will then be absorbed by a phosphor coating inside the lamp. The lamp then really glows or fluoresce. The heat which is generated by a fluorescent lamp is much less than ist incandescent counterpart. Of course enegry is still lost in generating ultraviolett light. Because the light needs to still be converted into white light. Another disadvantage is that if the lamp breaks mercury exposure can occur. Pricing is another factor that needs to be considerate, because they are typically 5 to 6 times the cost of a regular light bulb. But in return their life span is around 10-20,000 hours. Unfortunately they are not compatible with dimmers. They do not have a broad band of frequencies and therefore the quality of light seems to most people a little bit harsh and to bright. To prevent a release of mercury fluorescent tubes need to be recycled by special methods.

To summarize the two paragraphs we need to say lighting technology has gotten very far. It is up to us humans to decide if we want to use light bulbs that use a lot or only a little energy. The light bulb that uses less energy is certainly helping to save our planet.