It seems that pressure is building in Germany to reverse the ban o the incandescent lamp. Hot on the heels of a recent statement against the CFL and in favour of incandescent lamps by a group of noted artists comes an article critically testing and assessing the CFLi on the market.

How environment friendly are energy-saving lamps?

Ergonomic, a research institute that focuses on the ergonomics of the workplace as well as social ergonomics has undertaken a study entitled “How environment friendly are energy-saving lamps?” as a response to the EU Parliament’s decision to phase out incandescent lamps.

The study begins by taking a look at the eco-balance of energy-saving lamps and stating how superficially and badly decision-makers (politicians) on the issue are informed. It then goes deeper into the energy actually consumed by energy-saving lamps to generate light, explaining the physics of how energy is transformed into light and the fact that transformers and ballasts also play a role in the cumulative energy balance. The efficiency of compact fluorescent lamps depends largely on how they are used – and the ambient temperature.
The author then criticizes the way luminous flux and luminous efficacy are measured.

The next main section of the study is dedicated to the quality of light generated by energy-saving lamps. The author addresses spectral composition and colour rendering properties. One diagram shows the dramatic difference between the solar spectrum and that of a typical so-called energy-saving lamp. One key point the author makes is that the political decision to phase out the incandescent lamp is blatantly ignoring the most important job artificial light has to do: to render colours correctly. He also touches on the role of gloss and sparkle within our visual environment, and points out how detrimental simply substituting compact fluorescent lamps for incandescent light sources is for our visual perception of the world around us and elements within it. Example images show a jeweller’s shop in Istanbul and a restaurant in a luxury hotel looking bland, unwelcoming and uninteresting.

Poorer quality compact fluorescent lamps are more likely to give rise to problems with flicker. Lamp life is a foggy issue. Related to frequent switching and the environment in which the lamp is applied, luminous efficacy can decrease substantially after the first 1000 hours. The lamp industry tells a more positive story, the layperson not being able to evaluate or differentiate between the data provided.

The author draws our attention to the energy involved in actually manufacturing the lamps, information which was not considered – or blatantly ignored – by the EU commission. The issue with mercury and how to deal with dead lamps is dealt with in detail and reflects deep concern – as does the whole topic of electro-magnetic fields and their incalculable impact on human health. This has been studied by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, who are unable to give a green light for all makes of compact fluorescent lamp and require further investigation to be made into UV radiation in particular.

The study continues by referring to the effect of light on human health and the relevance of the discovery of the third receptor in the eye in 2002. Politicians and other ‘experts’ who are not aware of or informed about this, are not in a position to make decisions regarding which light sources are most suitable for human beings of different ages.

The author closes with some comments on the world ban on mercury and the conflict with energy-saving lamps, which also contain lead, antimony, barium, arsenic, yttrium, phosphorous compounds, zinc and beryllium silicates, cadmium bromide, vanadium compounds, thorium, etc., which are hardly ever mentioned – apart from the fact that a large part of the lamps is not recyclable.
The study refers to the tables of data on compact fluorescent lamps on the market compiled by “Stiftung Warentest” and concludes that the phasing-out of the incandescent lamp was decided by a political commission without sufficient ecological appraisal of the alternative.

www.ergonomic.de
www.ergonomic-institute.eu

Full illustrated article in German PDF

Via PLDA Greenpages
Autor Kevan Shaw