Originally Posted by Besoeker

OK.
I questioned whether new power stations would be required for the production of CFLs and you asked for supporting information on why I should have raised that question/doubt. Fair enough.
My first thought, an obvious one I suppose, was that, if the CFL consumes less energy in use than the bulb it replaces, that reduction should be set against the energy used to produce it. That’s why I asked the question.

Anyway, a little bit of arithmetic, some inferred data, and a little bit of qualified assumption.
I can buy a CFL for £2.00 from a retailer.
That price pays for production and the margin made by every link in the chain that gets it from the manufacturer to the retailer. The original manufacturer might get £1.00. That includes any profit he might make, cost of materials, cost of labour, cost of manufacturing plant – and energy. All out of £1. A reasonable assumption would be that the energy cost for production is less than £0.50 and possibly very much less than that. At most efficient UK production* 50p is the production cost for about 20 kWh.

Looking at the other side of the picture…
Compared to a conventional 60W tungsten filament lamp an equivalent CFL will save about 47W. Over a projected life expectancy of around 10,000 hours that amounts to 470 kWh. Compared to the cost of 20 kW h production.

Even if the cost of electrical production in China was just one tenth of that in UK CFL production would consume much less energy than they save in operation.

In short, CFL production wouldn’t need more power stations.


*Based on BWEA figures.