Video: CFL Light Bulbs in Plain English (Revised)

Wow. I've seen all the video's, and this is the best one yet.

You guys are getting really good at this.

About 30 seconds into this video I couldn't wait to forward this to my entire family.

Keep it going.

Love the "Boo! and Yeah!" signature move.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7016020.stm

I had to come to this page to watch the video because i couldn't see it in google reader. Could you maybe embed the youtube next time? I know you guys are fans of google reader anyway! ;-)
Love your work.

Really fantastic. Definitely want to show that to the nieces and nephews too -- besides enjoying the video, I am sure they'll get good lessons out of it.

I love your videos. They're super high impact. -IF- the environmental word is not yet out on CFLs... a highly successful video like this could do more harm than good. (I'm not saying the word is fully in, but i'd venture a guess that it's not hands down at this time)

Great video again! and thanks for providing a dotSUB version. Dutch translation has been added.

Once again a great video.

The question we should start with though is why are we burning coal when there are better, more efficient fuels to use, such as geothermal, wind, solar, water.

Yes, we, individually can use less electricity, but it is not an incentive for the coal industry to reduce the amount of coal they burn and sell as energy to others.

CFLs do need to be disposed of properly, they should not go in a regular garbage. In Canada, you can usually return burned out bulbs to the store where you made the purchase. The company then ensures responsible disposal.

I'm sure this is beyond the conversation you were hoping to generate with the video, but it inspired me nonetheless.

Good work guys.

http://www.northwestenergystar.com/files/9537CFL_Disposal_Kit_5th_ed_v2....

Big fan of your wiki bit, and glad to see the idea spread to more commonplace technologies. CFLs simply make sense, and your video explains why perfectly. Added to my Delicious bookmarks (which as you note also make perfect sense.)

Thanks for making sense, I guess. It's a rare trait these days.

Interesting theme and very many comments are here. It's nice that people are worried about there home that is called Earth

i teach th 8th grade and i just watched your video about CFL's and i love how they are cross-curricular. I can show this video to my students and they have learned about math, science and how it applies to the real world. They can write reactions and answer comprehension questions to complete the lesson! Thanks for the wonderful information to pass along!

It is good to calculate the environmental impacts and balance the gains and losses each option offers. Three Things:
1. Mercury from the "buzzing blue fluorescent tubes" can be 100% recycled, just make sure you don't break them before they are in the vacuum machine. For CFL, I expect the same. It is a cost issue, polluter pays not yet.
2. Mercury and some other emissions from power plants waft about and settle on Earth all the way up the food chain. Dolphins for example. The Japanese still catch a few for research/food and the meat is said above legal limits for human consumption.
3. The largest human health impact of mercury comes from dental amalgam fillings - Booo! where still in use, and from vaccine that contains Thimerosal as a preservative - Double Booo!! becasue it gets injected to babies and suspected of causing or contibuting to disease like autism.

Now, if you make your choice for or against CFLs , it is a more informed one. BTW, My home is 80% FL or CFL which also reduces cooling cost. Yet I do not find a ban on incandescents justified. I estimate incandescents have lower overall impact where used only for short time, like walk-in closets, cabinets, staircases and home toilets. There, 750 h go a long way, whereas some CFLs suffer reduced lifetime from frequent switching or overheating in enclosed lamps. Read those instructions.

You should point out that the extra energy used by regular bulbs makes heat, and on a hot day that's a problem. Don't throw CFL's in the garbage, recycle them so the mercury is recovered. Also, don't use CFL's with most dimmers or electronic daylight detectors, try halogen bulbs instead. Regular incadescent bulbs are still best for the closet and the refrigerator. Flashlights are available with LED's, but screw in LED's are still too expensive. The buzz you hear in old flourescent tube fixtures is the iron slats in the magnetic ballasts. If you go in a modern building, you don't hear the buzz, because the magnetic ballasts have been replaced with electronic ballasts.

Nice video! We are a non-profit that gives out CFLs throughout Philadelphia so people can try them out and release how great they are. We have a lot of issues with people and mercury misconceptions, as I can see you do. Yes people throw away CFLs all the time, they need to be educated, that is one of the major things we do when someone gets one of our bulbs.

you can easily complicate things but by watching these videos, it all makes sense. thanks

It's perfect to teach people everything with this kind of presantation.

Buhar Kazanı

I think CFL bulps is chiper because my electricity bill is decrase after I use them.

Thank's

Oto kiralama

I think teachers teach students energy saving, environment polutions by this way. This is very good video. I prefer this video to my wife to teaach our childern energy saving.

I think there's been something left out and have to agree with Christian Nally on this one: gotta go LED. No mercury there.

Finished result speaks for itself, you did a fantastic job. We're really pleased with the result. And, it was a pleasure working with you.

cool idea
thanks.

Love the video, but I would love it more if it also covered LEDs. CFLs are the next VCRs!!

Lecturer explain people what he/she has in shor time by this method. In clasic presantation you spend lots of time to learn something to people. But in this way you spent much less time for same thing.

People easyly learn everything by this way. For example I learn savings on energy costs for this video in a shor time. And I will use CFL rest of my life...

I was just punking around the internet and was linked here from educational sites. It all clicked so easily that I decided to start a classroom wiki for my students to collaborate and am using a link to your site for collaboration. Thanks for making wikis make sense in a way that even my students can understand and enjoy.

You need another very important update regarding the proper use of CFL's. They MUST NOT be used with a dimmer switch fixture. One home in Maryland sustained $165,000 in damages via an in home fire that the cause has been determined to be a CFL bulb in a fixture with a dimmer switch, I am looking to find info that 3 way lamps are also not safe with CFL's. Please check thse issues & update a really good video. Thanks!

The poster of "Not always energy savings" correctly identifies the displacement of a portion of his electric heating energy by accounting for the use of the incandescents' waste heat. However, in this situation, the big energy waster is the direct electric (resistance) heating. Reducing heat losses by making the home better insulated and more airtight would likely reduce the bill and CO2 more than replacing the bulbs. Switching to a heat pump could lower energy cost to 1/4 or better and recover the investment in a few years. Where possible, I would do both.

This would leave more of the clean hydropower for others on the grid to displace some of the energy now generated by fossil or other unsustainable fuels. All emissions end up in one atmosphere: ours.

True_ CFLs contain trace amounts of mercury, but so does coal. In fact, for the 12-month example in the video, incandescent light bulbs cause more mercury to be emitted to the air from the coal-electricity conversion than is contained in the CFL (about twice as much).
Still, CFLs should not go into landfills. Many counties now collect CFLs separately for proper disposal. If your county does not have a CFL collection program, ask "Why not?"

Last week I dropped a cfl light bulb and it shattered. Being ignorant to the mercury hazard, I vacuumed up the broken glass, and took what was left with me to the lighting store to find a replacement bulb.

The windows were open when the bulb broke, and I did wipe up the floor with a damp paper towel (to make sure there weren't any small peices of glass remaining on the floor). Have I put my self and my pets in danger?

I will not install another cfl, until I know the REAL truth. I don't want to have to call a Hazmat team every time I break a light bulb.

CO2 more than replacing the bulbs. Switching to a heat pump could lower energy cost to 1/8 or better and recover the investment in a few years.

araba kiralama

Nice video. Thank you very much.

Nice Video. Thanks for your effort.

Paintball

I always use some complicated and diffucult presentations to teach people something and convince them. Thanks

Good video, thanks a lot

thank you nice video very nice