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Aiming to keep the focus on climate change legislation, President Barack Obama put in a plug for administration efforts to drastically reduce energy use by lamps and lighting equipment. In the past, the president emphasized using CFLs, LEDs and other low-energy bulbs to reduce the nation's carbon footprint. But today Obama asked American consumers to remove light bulbs altogether and use night vision goggles instead. "I know night vision goggles may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise." the president said, equipped with the high-tech eyewear. "Seven percent of all the energy consumed in America is used...

Remember all those TV segments and magazine articles that had a list of 10 things you can do to save the planet from the perils of global warming? More likely than not, one of things you were urged to do was to switch all you incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). And, if you didn't heed their advice, the government's forcing you to through the legislative process. Congress banned the incandescent light bulbs in the energy bill signed into law by former President George W. Bush on Dec. 19, 2007, which increases efficiency standards and effectively bans traditional...

They can help save money and the environment, but some say energy saving light bulbs are making them sick. The new compact fluorescent bulbs have become exceedingly more popular over the past few years—they use less energy and last up to 10 times longer. So Connie Hall, of Stacy, also decided to invest in them, too. But a week later, Hall developed a severe rash on her arm and neck. "I was kind of horrified really," she said. Already super sensitive to light, a symptom of her Lupus, Hall also became weak, tired and her blood pressure was high. But...

Researchers create mercury-absorbent container linings for broken CFLs Brown University engineering students Love Sarin (left) and Brian Lee display a nanoselenium-enriched cloth that can capture mercury vapor from broken compact fluorescent lamps. Brown has applied for federal patents covering the invention and plans soon to begin commercial negotiations. Credit: John Abromowski, Brown University With rising energy prices and greater concern over global warming, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are having a successful run. Sales of the curlicue, energy-sipping bulbs, which previously had languished since they were introduced in the United States in 1979, reached nearly 300 million last year. Experts expect...

Some big retailers are promoting compact fluorescent light bulbs as a way to save energy. But improper disposal of the bulbs creates a hazard, because they contain small amounts of mercury. Recycling them is about to get easier. Home Depot, the nation’s second-largest retailer, will announce on Tuesday that it will take back old compact fluorescents in all 1,973 of its stores in the United States, creating the nation’s most widespread recycling program for the bulbs. “We kept hearing from the community that there was a little bit of concern about mercury in the C.F.L.’s,” said Ron Jarvis, Home Depot’s...

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. -- It's a message being drummed into the heads of homeowners everywhere: Swap out those incandescent lights with longer-lasting compact fluorescent bulbs and cut your electric use. Governments, utilities, environmentalists and, of course, retailers everywhere are spreading the word. Few, however, are volunteering to collect the mercury-laced bulbs for recycling -- despite what public officials and others say is a potential health hazard if the hundreds of millions of them being sold are tossed in the trash and end up in landfills and incinerators. For now, much of the nation has no real recycling network for CFLs, despite...

Here’s your “Al Gore Global Warming Question of the Day:” Is it time to panic? If you’re a Cambridge Greenie who’s just broken one of your environmentally friendly compact fluorescent bulbs in the kids’ playroom - absolutely. If you’re a rational person who can actually read a thermometer - not so much. I fall into the second category, which is why I don’t spend $10 on mediocre, mercury-filled deathsticks known as CFLs. A recent front-page story in USA Today pointed out that these “spaghetti bulbs” as they’re sometimes known, give off lousy, unflattering light; don’t work with dimmer or three-way...

They may lower your bills, but don't really do much for C02: The U.S. Energy Star program says that if every home in America replaced one normal light bulb with a fluorescent...it would be equivalent to taking 800,000 cars off the road. Sure, that sounds like a lot, but it's less than 0.1 percent of registered cars worldwide. Plus, transportation accounts for only about one-fifth of global emissions anyway. Just the increase in the amount of coal that China will burn by 2020 will send as much C02 into the atmosphere as 3 billion Ford Expeditions, each driven 15,000 miles...

The energy bill to be signed by the president today is arguably the worst piece of energy legislation ever enacted into law. It will substantially increase the price of automobiles, increase highway fatalities, increase fuel prices, worsen air pollution, and force consumers to buy products (like super-efficient light bulbs) that they manifestly -- and for very good reason -- do not want to buy. It will transfer huge amounts of wealth from the consumer to the farm lobby in the course of promoting a dubious product -- ethanol -- that will make energy supplies less reliable and greenhouse gas emission...

We've been looking in to compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) to reduce energy consumption for lighting. Here's what we've learned so far. Manufacturers say that a 13-18 watt CFL produces light equivalent to a 60w incandescent bulb, an 18-22w CFL is the equivalent of a 75w bulb, and a 23-28w CFL is the equivalent of a 100w bulb. This is based on the "lumens" rating on the side of the box. In real life, CFL equivalent replacements do not seem quite as bright as incandescents, so you might end up replacing a 60w equivalent with a 75w equivalent and so forth....

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour -- unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health. Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). According to an April 12 article in The Ellsworth American, Bridges had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her...

In a few weeks the US Congress is likely to vote to phase out the standard incandescent lightbulb within a decade. The frantic race to see who can best appease the global warming alarmists will claim another victim, the friendly glow of the direct descendant of Thomas Edison's filament-based light bulb.   Why would the humble lightbulb, a staple commodity that has raised the standard of living throughout the world, be in the bullseye?  It was the incandescent electric light bulb that abolished the tyranny of the night. Our 19th and 20th century ancestors believed it one of the greatest...

Mercury is poisonous, but it's also a necessary part of most compact fluorescent bulbs some scientists and environmentalists are worried that most are ending up in garbage dumps. Mercury can also damage the kidneys and liver, and in sufficient quantities can cause death. some of the mercury emitted from landfills is in the form of vaporous methyl-mercury, which can get into the food chain "Disposal of any mercury-contaminated material in landfills is absolutely alarming to me," said Lindberg, emeritus fellow of the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "I have CFLs throughout my house," said Lindberg, who lives...

They have to be left on all the time, they're made from banned toxins and they won't work in half your household fittings. Yet Europe (and Gordon Brown) says 'green' lightbulbs must replace all our old ones. Every day now we are being deluged with news of the latest proposals from our politicians about how to save the planet from global warming. We must have 'a new world order' to combat climate change, Gordon Brown proclaimed yesterday. We must have strict 'green' limits on air travel, proposes David Cameron, so that no one can afford to take more than one...