05-12-2008, 10:14 PM
[quote Article Accelerator]CFLs are also much more of an environmental hazard. Um, no they're not. the only environmental hazard associated with them is mercury emissions if you break them. Each CFL contains such small amounts that the extra emissions from coal-fired plants to generate the excess electricity used by a halogen/incandescent far exceed CFL mercury levels (and mercury in CFLs can be recycled too). The mercury present in regular tube fluorescents and mercury vapor lamps (duh) is present in much greater amounts per unit of light output than CFLs.
[quote Article Accelerator]If you dim PAR20s, the energy consumption advantage of CFLs is largely negated (depending on the dimming level, of course).
Not even close. You would be basically unable to see if you dimmed an incandescent/halogen down to the energy consumption level of a CFL. The degree of dimming does not correspond directly to energy use. At full power, an incandescent/halogen uses roughly 4 times the energy of a CFL. But, when you dim an incandescent/halogen to 1/4 power, you get much less than 1/4 the light output.
That said, CFLs are problematic in small-sized recessed fixtures since 1) many of them won't fit; 2) the overheating issues mentioned above; 3) the dimmable ones especially are often only available in bulky sizes that won't fit the fixtures.
[quote Article Accelerator]If you dim PAR20s, the energy consumption advantage of CFLs is largely negated (depending on the dimming level, of course).
Not even close. You would be basically unable to see if you dimmed an incandescent/halogen down to the energy consumption level of a CFL. The degree of dimming does not correspond directly to energy use. At full power, an incandescent/halogen uses roughly 4 times the energy of a CFL. But, when you dim an incandescent/halogen to 1/4 power, you get much less than 1/4 the light output.
That said, CFLs are problematic in small-sized recessed fixtures since 1) many of them won't fit; 2) the overheating issues mentioned above; 3) the dimmable ones especially are often only available in bulky sizes that won't fit the fixtures.