Blow my Bulb

I installed a new website http://bmb.lcd.lu on the problems with CFL’s and incandescent lamps. European regulations will forbid sales of the 100W bulb from September 2009 on; the arguments are the low efficiency of the traditional lamp, and how much electrical power will be saved by forcing all households to switch completely to CFL’s. I understand that CFL’s are irreplaceable in a professional environment; in many household applications their frequent on/off switching makes this less sure. The numbers and claims of the CFL pushers floating around are sometimes extravagant, as are the given lifetimes. To test this problem of resistance to frequent switching, I build with two colleagues a device which does just this: switching until death occurs! The whole experiment is visible at http://bmb.lcd.lu.

There are a couple of various comments and articles on the site; during the next weeks many more will follow.

I am not an enemy of the CFL, but one of political enforced decisions, that should be left at the discretion of the individual person.