Re: Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs – A Tale From Dust to Dust

I'm assuming that CFL bulbs typically last for 8000hrs and that if 1 CFL bulb breaks prematurely, it gets replaced with a second bulb that lasts the full 8000hrs. I also assumed that the incandescent bulb will not break over 1000hrs.

"What we need instead is a fixed-cost factor for producing and disposing each type of bulb, and a statistical distribution of the ACTUAL lifetimes of a large enough number of bulbs to verify the lifetime figures."

I've listed the energy costs of making and recycling 1 CFL bulb and 1 incandescent bulb. These lifetime numbers come from the study by the Dutch researchers. But I agree that it would be best to have more data on the lifetime of a CFL...the same goes for everything ever studied. I'll gladly update this when I get more data.