[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Real cost comparison of xenon verses fluorescent verses LED lighting

[David Bergman]

Thanks Reuben. Interesting to see the comparisons of mercury in the 
lamps vs mercury output from energy production. (I hadn't heard, 
either, and am skeptical that the mercury in CFLs gets used up in 
their lifespan.) And of course this comparison would vary in other 
countries where they don't use as much coal generated power.

I'd still love to see an overall LCA comparison of different sources 
including embodied energy of production and disposal. The electronics 
in fluorescent and LED lamps must have higher impacts than the 
simpler incandescent lamps. The question is how they stack up against 
the in-use energy savings. I'd be willing to bet they still come out 
ahead, but by how much?

David

At 12:31 PM 5/27/2007, Reuben Deumling wrote:
>This is from a different list. I'm afraid the NRDC reference is pretty
>juvenile, especially the "By the time CFLs burn out, little mercury
>remains." But it may be useful to know how these folks go about
>answering your question.
>
>See: http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/05spr/asknrdc.asp for a quick run of
>the numbers. Of course, this is on a systems basis rather than looking
>at the broken bulb in your house. It seems like there are standards on
>the horizon for reducing the mercury content in CFLs. I know that
>there is currently a huge range in the amount of mercury in the bulbs
>as many CFLs are "hand doped."
>- - - - -
>Have a look at:  http://www.nema.org/lamprecycle/epafactsheet-cfl.pdf
>
>Reuben Deumling
>
>On 5/27/07, David Bergman <bergman at cyberg.com> wrote:
>>
>>We also discussed overall life cycle costs -- comparing the total
>>cradle to grave impacts of, say, 100,000 hours of incandescent, LED
>>and CFL lighting including production and disposal impacts. None of
>>us knew of any such analysis. (One question was whether the mercury
>>in fluorescents and CFLs was offset by the decreased mercury output
>>resulting from less energy consumption -- dependent on the energy
>>source, of course.)
>
>
>David
>DAVID BERGMAN ARCHITECT / FIRE & WATER LIGHTING + FURNITURE
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