Taking the Measure

Have we entered the lighting-efficiency Twilight Zone? Andrew Leonard, in his “How the world works” column for Salon, seems to think so: “You are traveling through another dimension—a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. That's how ‘How the World Works’ feels after striving to parse the implications of an article that adds new complexity to the ever popular debate over which is better: compact fluorescent or incandescent light bulbs.”

The Twilight Zone, perhaps, or maybe the Land of Oz, with Dorothy chanting,” Incandescents, fluorescents, LEDs, oh my!” and the wizard exhorting us, "Bring me the filament of the Wicked Incandescent Bulb of the West"—such bulb having been invented, of course, in the western hemisphere. (In this formulation, the compact fluorescent, or perhaps the LED, is Glinda the Good Bulb of the North, I guess, but let’s not push the allusions too far.)

Before getting to the article that seems to perplex Leonard of Salon, let’s recap what’s been happening in the RBI electronics blogosphere. Paul Rako at EDN in a green-baiting post called “LED lighting—yet more green BS” takes issue with environmental claims for LEDs; Rako nominates the CFL for the Glinda role. Paul Scheidt, a product marketing manager from Cree Solid State Lighting, send a response, which Rako’s posted in “Cree on my LED lighting post.”

In the article that Leonard in Salon comments on, Toronto Star columnist Tyler Hamilton questions the whole idea of the switch away from incandescent lighting. He asks, “…is it wise to outright ban the old Edison light bulb in Ontario? Across Canada? A year ago this writer would have had one answer: Definitely. But the answer, it turns out, shouldn't be so clear cut.” Hamilton cites a paper titled "To Switch or Not to Switch: A Critical Analysis of Canada's Ban on Incandescent Light Bulbs," by Michael Ivanco, a senior scientist at Atomic Energy of Canada, and professor Bryan Karney and graduate student Kevin Waher from the department of civil engineering at the University of Toronto.

Hamilton derives these suggestions from the paper: “If you live in Alberta, which relies heavily on fossil fuels for both its power generation and home heating, then switching to CFLs always makes sense…. [But] In provinces such as Manitoba and Quebec, which rely primarily on emission-free electricity, you can come to the opposite conclusion. Using clean hydropower to light up an incandescent bulb and fill your home with residual heat during the winter will release fewer greenhouse gases than using a natural gas furnace to provide that same amount of heat.”

Leonard at Salon comes to this conclusion: “’To Switch or Not to Switch’ does not appear to be available online, so it's hard to get a sense of how rigorous the argument is…. And the calculus varies considerably if you move from the frozen tundra down to, say, California's Great Central Valley during the summertime. In that scenario, the heat from light bulbs only adds to the load of your air conditioner -- no matter what is fueling the grid. In every scenario, a different solution. The 21st century could turn out to be hard for absolutists.”

I don’t think so. If you live in a place with clean, cheap hydroelectricity, install electric heating. And even if you’re stuck with a legacy fossil fuel heating system and can’t afford to convert, you should know, as various commenters have pointed out, a light bulb is poor at distributing heat where you want it, so you’re better off supplementing your fossil fuel system with an electric space heater.

This 21st century absolutist says, if energy savings (and not aesthetic considerations) is your main concern, install CFLs, whether you live in El Azizia or Quebec City. When the CFLs you install today burn out, take another look at LEDs.