Quote of the Day--For once, it's not my fault edition

From the Washington Post:

"I have heard time and again that a husband goes out and puts the bulb into the house, thinking he is doing a good thing....Then, the CFL bulb is changed back out by the women. It seems that women are much more concerned with how things look. We are the nesters."

Wendy Reed, director of the federal government's Energy Star campaign explaining why American households have been slower to adopt compact flourescent lightbulbs than most developed countries*.

*as you'll recall I took the CFL plunge sometime back--and my wife hasn't switched them back yet.  What's taking the rest of you so long?

Comments

[Mark C R UK]

I think its the incident marginally increased cost of the CFLs.

q.v. American protests during WWII over fuel rationing.

Americans are unbelievable when it comes to purchasing the cheapest thing. Neglecting the cost over an entire life-cycle!

Good news is that Americans are getting better... Wal-Mart for one is making moves in this area.... to educate people on clean-tech - and why it benefits them and everyone else!

[justakim]

Ok, a bare incandescent HURTS less than a bare flourescent. I'd use flourescent if there's no way to shield the extent of the full bulb; we had some that were longer than the usual and didn't fit into the lampshade. Bare bulbs suck.

[PaulS]

Actually, the Color Rendering Index for typical inexpensive CFLs is still not very good, only 80 or so instead of 95 for an incandescent. That's better than old vanilla fluorescent tubes, but you don't really want it for artwork or fabric work. And it wouldn't surprise me if this aspect of the color (which has nothing whatever to do with how "warm" or "cool" it is) annoys some people, even if others can't tell the difference. Lots of things are like that.

So maybe it would be wise to hoard some incandescents for that bed lamp, on account of meddling ban-everything politicians who get votes by pretending to save the world by saving 0.1% on energy consumption.

Also, some people may hear the ballast whistle. The operating frequency should be inaudible, but you can't expect much of a ballast when the whole bulb only fetches thirty or forty cents, if that much, at the factory gate. Some specimens may have electronic instabilities causing them to whistle in a manner audible to folks who haven't blasted away their hearing with chronically loud music.

[Mark C R UK]

I've never heard these sorts of things with my Philips CFL energy savers.

I suppose if you buy from a company with good-excellent Quality Control these issues don't come up.

Infact, to be honest - depending on the fixture I've now find the CFLs to be superior to incandesents.

Maybe the electronic companies / retailers (Wal-Mart, B&Q here in Europe etc) should be targeting women more with "education" material.............