CFLs are superior to Incandescent light bulbs

Based on his round 1, it looks like his argument will be based around Safety (health effects and hazards), Aesthetics (ideal soft warming light), Cost, and Convenience. I have no argument that CFLs are "safer" than Incandescents, so I will not present a safety argument, the same goes with convenience. Instead, I will defend against any safety and convenience arguments he makes with my R3. Along with those arguments, I will also put in Efficiency (though that could be considered a subcategory of cost, since the two often go hand in hand). 1)Cost. This is probably going to be my main argument for CFLs (unless we have some uber environmentalist voters, then for them, efficiency is going to be the main, but they all tie together). It should come as no shock to anyone reading this that CFLs have greater upfront costs than their incandescent older siblings. However, to think that the upfront cost is the only cost associated with them would be like thinking that the only cost of a new car is the sticker price (in other words, wrong). Here, we will look at 3 CFLs and 3 Incandescents. I will try to make it so the 3 represent the cheap, middle, and premium qualities of each. If my opponent can suggest better examples for the Incandescents, please let me know and I will re-run the numbers using those instead. These numbers will also be calculated multiple times, since some numbers have questions as to what you should use. For example, for lifespan, should we use the expected life hours? Or the actual length of the manufacturer's warranty (if there is one)? Should compare based on the Watt equivalent? Or match up the Lumens? I will run them based on all of these. Here are the light bulbs I've selected for CFL, low quality [1], middle [2], and premium [3] and for Incandescent is [4][5][6]. The two different ways these will be measured, is what is the cost of the live of a bulb per 100 hours of use, and how much does it cost to light a room with 5,000 lumens per 100 hours (since a bulb that is technically cheaper, but produces less light is not really better). Okay, so let's look at these different light bulbs. First thing we might notice, is that the only Incandescent bulb to have a warranty is the premium one. And if we assume that I cherry picked that (which could be possible, after all, I'm arguing against them), then we can search through the 60W section of the Incandescent bulbs to see that the when sorted from cheapest to most expensive, the "premium" that I selected was the cheapest to actually have a warranty, while every single CFL has a warranty. Though, I still hold, that my opponent may go through and select any 3 bulbs that he feels better represents the three categories. So, for CFL 1 [1], we find that is has a lifetime of 10,000 hours, and over that life time costs of $15.77 ($1.77 for the bulb, $14.00 of total energy at 10 cents per kWh). This comes to 15.77 cents per 100 hours. If we use the warranty (3 hours a day for 15 months, or 1,400 hours), we get 26.64 cents per 100 hours. For CFL 2 [2], it has a lifetime cost of $15.23 over 10,000 hours (because it is 13 W, rather than 14 W of CFL 1). That costs 15.23 cents per 100 hours, or 23.14 cents per 100 hour by warranty (3 hours a day for 24 months, or 2,200 hours). For CFL 3 [3], it has a lifetime cost of $22.40 over 12,000 hours. That comes to 18.67 cents per 100 hours, or 43.91 cents per 100 hours of warranty. Now, let's move on to the Incandescent bulbs. For Incan 1 [4], we find that it has a lifetime of 5,000 hours. That comes to a total lifetime cost of $30.69, or 61.38 cents per 100 hours. This bulb has no warranty, so that cannot be compared. For Incan 2 [5], we find that it has a lifetime of 10,000 hours. That comes to a total cost of $60.80, or 60.8 cents per 100 hours. It also has no warranty. For Incan 3 [6], it goes back down to 5,000 lifetime hours (but it has a warranty). It comes to a cost of 65.78 cents per 100 hours, or 80.64 cents per 100 hours of warranty. Now, it should be pointed out that "lifetime" is not just some number a company can make up and slap on the package. It is basically the LD50 for light bulbs (how long until 50% of bulbs burn out under normal circumstances), as you can see if you place your mouse over the "? " next to "life hours" in any of the links. From this first calculation, it is clear that Incandescent bulbs are almost 4 times as expensive as CFLs. Now going to the other test of lighting a room with a given number of lumens, this will actually bend more to the CFL's favor because the CFLs, produce more lumens than there Incandescent counterparts. Running through the calculations again, we find that the three CFLs get 65.71 cents per 100 hours, 84.61 cents, and 100.90 cents (respectfully). The Incans come out at 590 cents per 100 hours, 633.33 cents, and 548.17 cents (respectfully). So the light the same area, they turn out to be much more expensive. 2)Efficiency Now, much of the efficiency shows up in lowering the cost of the CFLs versus Incandescents because they use less energy, and the energy cost of light bulbs is the biggest cost (for example, with Incan 1, the light bulb only cost 69 cents, but the energy spent over the life of the bulb was $30.00). But one of the things with efficiency is the cost savings that cannot be directly calculated, but we know can exist based on basic economic principles (like supply and demand). One way this can help everyone, is that the lower the demand for energy, the more the cost goes down. Since CFLs demand less energy, they actually lower the cost of energy (a single bulb is too insignificant to cause an effect, but tens of millions would). By lowering demand, and lowering price, that makes all other electrically devices more cost efficient as a result. On a personal home level, this means a lower electric bill, and so more money for various other activities, while in companies, this means a lower overhead cost of doing business, which (also according to supply and demand) will marginally decrease the price of goods. Since we live in a world where everything is driven by energy, the cost of energy is in everything. Lowering that cost of energy through the use of efficient means will result in everything dropping in price. 3)Aesthetics This is really completely subjective and there really isn't any way to measure this. Personally, I like their shape (not too fond of the ones that imitate bulbs rather than spirals), but really, I use lamp shades and such to customize my lighting so you don't really see the bulbs anyway. With this, I will pass to my opponent for his R2 and await his response to my arguments, along with what he has to say about safety and convenience. [1] . http://www.1000bulbs.com... [2] . http://www.1000bulbs.com... [3] . http://www.1000bulbs.com... [4] . http://www.1000bulbs.com... [5] . http://www.1000bulbs.com... [6] . http://www.1000bulbs.com...