Originally posted by: LuckyStrike
Al Gore says we need these ...
Groan. Like Albert had anything sensible to say on the subject, or practically anything else. These won't do anything worth the effort to reverse environmental trends, if the environment may be in danger, but you can save money.
When you work it out, it is the cost of the power that lights the light bulb which swamps the cost of the light bulb. And compact fluorescents use something like 1/4 the power.
An ordinary light bulb's life span is 2000 hours or less, and the bulb costs maybe a quarter or fifty cents. But what does the power cost?
These are ballpark, but realistic, numbers to give you the idea:
Let's say you save 50 watts.
50 watts X 2000 hours = 100 kilowatt hours. At $0.10 per kilowatt hours, that $10. So does it make any sense to use $0.25 light bulbs if you can save enough to pay for the expensive ones before the cheapo burns out, and the expensive one will last 3 to 10 times as long? I used to buy compact fluorescents when they were like $15 AR.
Of course if the expensive light bulbs are free AR, you don't have to figure that out, which is why the government would subsidize things like this. I don't know for a fact they are subsidizing this one, but it would be typical behavior.