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| CFLs Causing Utility Woes |
| from the so-very-simple-that-only-a-child-can-do-it dept. |
| posted by timothy on Wednesday April 08, @17:50 (Power) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/08/2125250 |
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[0]dacut writes "We've seen [1]compact fluorescent lamps start to take
over shelf space at the local hardware store. Replacing a 60 watt
incandescent with a 13 watt CFL seems like a great savings, though
[2]many consumers are disappointed with the slow warm-up times,
lower-than-advertised lifetimes, and hassles of disposing the
mercury-containing bulbs. Now EDN reports [3]they may use more energy
than claimed due to their poor [4]power factor. Mike Grather, of
Lumenaire Testing Laboratory, 'checked the power factor for the CFLs and
found they ranged from .45 to .50. Their "real" load was about twice that
implied by their wattage.' The good news: you're only billed for the 13
watts of real power used. The bad news: the utilities have to generate
the equivalent of 28 watts (that is, 28 [5]VA of apparent power for you
EEs out there) to light that bulb. Until they fix these issues, I'll hold
on to my incandescents and [6]carbon arc lamps, thanks."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/04/08/2125250
Links:
0. mailto:[email protected]
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp
2.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/business/energy-environment/28bulbs.html?_r=1
3. http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/450043045.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volt-ampere
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_lamp
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