10 Questions for . . . Ed Hammer, CFL Inventor

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Associate Editor Kimberly Janeway speaks with Ed Hammer about his 1975 invention, the compact fluorescent lightbulb, and why it took so long for this innovation to reach the marketplace. Hammer (shown with the first CFL) has worked in the lighting industry for 50 years and holds more than 40 patents.

How do you feel about being called the father of the CFL? And does Edison inspire or haunt you?
"Father of the CFL" is a nice title—I'm fine with that. I wasn't haunted by Edison. I wanted to make the world a better place; it's still my goal.

What led to your invention?
I was a senior physicist at GE Lighting in Cleveland and was working in fluorescent lighting in 1973, when we had the energy crisis in this country. As a result, we designed a bulb commonly called the F-40 Watt-Miser, the first energy-efficient linear fluorescent lamp. That said, I thought we might as well get a replacement for the 100-watt incandescent lamp. That type of lighting is very, very inefficient.

What did you envision as a replacement for incandescent bulbs?
I thought if we could get a fluorescent replacement, we'd get more efficient lighting. I was also thinking compact and to get it to look like an incandescent I would make it spiral and bend it with certain geometry, but it wouldn't be easy. My colleagues gave me many reasons why it wouldn't work.

From conception to prototype took up to two years, and my first compact fluorescent lightbulb was good. It's on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Today's spirals look very similar to the first one.

You invented the CFL in 1975. Why did it take so long for it to reach stores?
A number of reasons. There wasn't enough money for GE to do the CFL. It got delayed. Time goes on and there were other projects. In 1985 we tried to do the CFL, but bending it was very difficult because there wasn't automated equipment. GE thought the CFL was a good bulb but too expensive to make. The bending was done manually and the other parts were automated. The only place in the world where CFLs could be made and sold at a reasonable price was China. In the end, GE wasn't the first to bring CFLs to market.

Were there any problems with the first CFLs?
One big problem was that they operated with a high-frequency electronic ballast. People complained they were having problems with their TVs and they'd take them back to the store. The output frequency of the CFLs was the same as the frequency from the televisions and was causing interference. Once we identified the frequencies being used, the remote-control people designed around it. Interference is no longer a problem, but that slowed down sales of CFLs.

LED lighting is coming of age

Even though a revival of the musical "Hair" is taking place in New York City through the end of August, this is not the dawning of the age of Aquarius but of LED lighting, as we reported in our May 2 Buzzword: Solid-State Lighting story and as The New York Times covered in the July 28 news story "Fans of L.E.D. Say This Bulb's Time Has Come."

LEDs have achieved widespread commercial use in traffic lights, street lamps, and other applications. But General Electric, Osram Sylvania, and Royal Philips Electronics are now looking into residential applications. (A Philips iW MR LED is shown.)

As with any emerging technology—pay attention, all you alpha geeks—price is a big issue in how fast consumers will adopt them. LED bulbs cost upward of $100 each. Even if as claimed they last 100 times longer than traditional incandescents and best compact fluorescent lightbulbs for longevity, that's likely a tough sell, especially given the slow economy. But their prices will inevitably drop, making LEDs something worth keeping an eye on.—Daniel DiClerico

Essential information: Read our report on undercabinet lighting, which covers LED fixtures.

Vintage Consumer Reports: Lightbulb testing

The big round object in the photo at right isn't some early satellite or a giant fitness ball. It's an integrating, or Ulbricht, sphere that we used for an August 1965 report on incandescent lightbulbs to check the quality and quantity of their light output.

Each bulb—we tested five major brands—was suspended in the center of the sphere, whose sides were coated with a specially formulated high-reflectance white paint. A precisely regulated current lit each bulb while a photoelectric cell and meter measured the light output in lumens. We ran the test on the bulbs when they were new and after they had burned for 500 hours.

Our testers chose the 500-hour milestone because most of the tested bulbs had a claimed life span of 750 hours. Some of the bulbs burned out far short of their advertised life, while others well exceeded it. But most lasted just about 750 hours.

Forty-three years later we're still testing lights, though now they're compact fluorescent lightbulbs. We covered CFLs in an October 2007 report and continued to test them for months. Read the results of that testing in this update. Our follow-up tests revealed that some low-priced CFLs aren't lasting as long as manufacturers claim.—Gian Trotta

Essential Information: Watch our video on CFLs, right, and read about Home Depot's new CFL-recycling program.

Edison Electric Institute promotes energy efficiency

Just as consumers are getting socked by skyrocketing energy costs, the nation's power companies are paying more for fuel. The Energy Information Administration's recent short-term energy outlook, for instance, noted that escalating fuel costs are making it more expensive for utilities to generate electricity.

But you could end up footing the bill. "Within the past few weeks," the EIA report stated, "a number of utilities have requested permission from State regulators to raise electricity rates in response to rapidly increasing delivered fuel costs for power generation." Residential electricity prices are projected to rise by an annual average of about 5.2 percent in 2008 and 9.8 percent in 2009, up significantly from the 2.2 percent increase in 2007.

The electric utilities are aware of the challenges facing themselves and their customers. So on July 10, the Edison Electric Institute hosted a lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. A six-member panel of EEI representatives addressed journalists to discuss "the effort underway to transform the role that energy efficiency plays within the electric power sector," according to the event program.

The EEI is the association of U.S. shareholder-owned electric companies, and its agenda is to ensure that its members turn a profit. So when EEI President Thomas Kuhn talked about the pressure the industry is under to "meet the growing demand for electricity in an affordable and reliable manner, and to supply it with minimal impact on the environment," I took his comments with a grain of salt.

Still, whatever their motive, many  power companies are pushing energy efficiency, largely by teaching their customers how to use less electricity. That puts them in an interesting pickle, because every kilowatt that customers don't consume affects their bottom line. It's akin to the tobacco industry being forced to tell smokers that its products will eventually given them cancer or kill them. Of course, that didn't exactly end cigarette sales.

Similarly, the electric industry is hardly on life support—nationwide consumption is projected to climb 30 percent by 2030. But the power companies try will need to find a model that sustains their own growth and the planet.

Buzzword: Solid-State Lighting

What it means. Solid-state lighting, or SSL, could be the next big thing in residential lighting. SSL refers to a type of bulb—or lamp, in industry parlance—that uses the movement of electrons through a semiconductor material to generate light. The semiconductor is in a solid block form, hence “solid state.”

Because there’s no filament that heats up (and eventually burns out), SSL is up to 50 times more efficient than incandescent bulbs, claim manufacturers. SSL is also said to last as much as 10 times longer than compact fluorescent lighting and contains none of the potentially harmful mercury that has brought CFLs image down to earth and made recycling them a hassle.

Why the buzz? SSL has existed for decades under the name LED, short for light-emitting diode (the semiconductor material involved is a diode). But LEDs are not the only kinds of SSL. For example, laser technology is a form of SSL, and organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, are on the horizon. As a result, the lighting industry is transitioning toward the more all-inclusive solid-state lighting moniker. “Within the broad category of TVs, you have several options, including LCD, plasma, and OLED. Similarly, solid-state lighting refers to anything that is not a conventional gas-based lighting technology,” says Govi Rao, chief executive officer of Lighting Science Group (LSG), a manufacturer of lighting equipment.

The switch to SSL might also have to do with the marketing of LEDs, which are still leading the way in this technology. For years, LEDs were limited to commercial use, for example in traffic signals and airport signage. The fact that they couldn’t generate pure white light kept them out of the residential market, except as the red indicator lights on electronic devices. But manufacturers are getting closer to a perfect white LED; LSG, for one, just launched a line of replacement LEDs (shown). Unfortunately, no matter how good the technology gets, some consumers will always associate LEDs with Lite-Brite. By giving the lights a different name, manufacturers can in a way reintroduce them to consumers.

Whatever its name, SSL is still years away from wide residential use. But it’s making steady inroads, including for undercabinet lighting. We’re currently testing these task-lighting fixtures for our August 2008 special kitchen section. Five years ago, we wouldn’t have covered SSL, but this year, it’s a theme in the story. Without giving too much away, we’ll just say that the purported efficiency of SSL is pretty solid.—Daniel DiClerico

Recent home-product-related CPSC recalls

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recently announced these home-related product recalls. Click on each item for detailed information from the CPSC.

To learn how to stay informed about product recalls, read “CPSC steps out with million-consumer march.” And be sure to subscribe to the Consumer Reports Safety blog for the latest on product-safety news. See all recent product recalls here.

Recall of 346,000 DeWalt cordless drills due to fire hazard (shown)

Recall of 50,000 North American Breaker Co. counterfeit circuit breakers due to fire hazard

Recall of 43,000 Lenox covered warmer dishes due to fire and burn hazards

Recall of 38,250 Manttra Inc. pressure cookers due to burn hazard (shown)

Recall of 8,500 Intermatic digital timers due to shock hazard

Recall of 90,000 L G Sourcing, Inc. incandescent torchère lamps due to fire hazard

Recall of 6,300 A.O. Smith exhaust fan electric motors due to fire hazard

Recall of 1,300 Wick & Petal Co. jar candles due to fire hazard

Recall of 185,000 Pottery Barn round and egg-shaped decorative Candles due to fire hazard

Buzzword: GFCI

What is it? A receptacle-type GFCI—ground-fault circuit interrupter—resembles a standard duplex wall outlet except that is equipped with a reset button (often red) and a test button (often black). When you plug a fixture or appliance into a GFCI-protected outlet, it monitors the electrical current flowing on the hot and neutral electric conductors. If the GFCI detects an imbalance in current flow, it cuts off power within a few hundredths of a second, thereby reducing the risk of electrical shock or electrocution. The National Electrical Code requires GFCI protection on all outdoor outlets, for countertop outlets in kitchens and bathrooms, and in wet or damp locations like basements and garages—basically anywhere that electricity and water might mix.

You can provide GFCI protection to an outlet and any connected outlets downstream using a receptacle-type GFCI (shown) or to an entire circuit with a circuit-breaker-type GFCI installed in the electric-service panel. If you are using electricity in a damp or wet location where the possibility of electric shock increases, use a portable GFCI device if the receptacle you are using for power is not GFCI protected

Why the buzz? Charles Dalziel, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, invented the GFCI in 1961. Today, these life-saving receptacles are in the news because Underwriters Laboratories, which sets the national standards for electrical goods, recently uncovered some faulty 15- and 20-amp 125-volt wall GFCIs from several manufacturers. Under rare conditions, these defective receptacles won’t trip when a fault occurs. No injuries have been reported, according to UL, and a product recall has not been issued.

The UL announcement is a reminder that you should test the GFCIs in your home each month and more frequently for those in spots with sustained high temperatures (above 90°F) and high humidity (above 93 percent):
• Push the reset button on the GFCI.
• Plug a lamp into the GFCI and turn on the lamp.
• Push the test button on the GFCI. The lamp should turn off. If it doesn’t, hire a licensed electrician to replace the GFCI.
• If the lamp does turn off, push the reset button. The lamp should turn on. If it doesn’t, hire a licensed electrician to replace the GFCI.

Testing a GFCI circuit breaker is similar, but first you must identify which receptacles the device protects. Plug a lamp into one of the receptacles you believe is protected and shut off the circuit breaker. If the lamp goes out, it is on that breaker’s circuit. Then turn the breaker back on and push the test and reset buttons as described above.—Daniel DiClerico

Cut down on "standby power" usage

Each year, the average American household spends almost $1,400 on electricity to run appliances, power electronics, light the home, and much more. A chunk of that total, $110, is wasted as “standby power”—electricity that’s used even when appliances and electronic equipment are not active, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

That $110 might not seem like a lot of money to you, but it adds up to $11 billion each year and more than 108 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh)—or about 8 percent of the annual electricity consumption by the more than 105.5 million U.S. households.

And as American consumers fill their homes with more energy-hungry equipment—mammoth flat-screen TVs, legions of computers, and ever-more audio, video, and cellular equipment, which together can draw hundreds of “phantom” kWh per year—it’s not very surprising that the amount of standby power we use is projected only to increase.

The good news is that government and industry efforts are under way around the world to curb standby power through regulations and product-design changes. The International Energy Agency, for example, estimates that design changes alone could cut standby power by as much as 90 percent without sacrificing features that consumers want.

Some changes are already happening in this country. Last year, the state of California became the first place in the world to introduce mandatory standby requirements for various electronic devices. The new standards require a 90 percent reduction—from 5 watts to 0.5 watts—in standby power drawn by external power-supply cords for things like laptops and cell-phone chargers.

Manufacturers are also designing increasingly more products that qualify for the government’s voluntary Energy Star program, which requires that products meet strict standards for both standby power and active modes.

In the meantime, if paying for—and wasting—energy you’re not using sits as poorly with you as it does with me, you might want to consider simply pulling the plugs on some of your electric devices.

But such a move doesn’t always make sense for gear like a microwave oven or DVD player since they use standby power to light up displays and store programming information—nor is it very convenient. Instead, think about plugging in your computer and any peripherals you might have into a single power strip. I find that doing so alleviates any hassle because it means I only have to flick a single switch.—Kristi Wiedemann, Science and Policy Analyst, GreenerChoices.org

Essential information: To find out how to identify standby-power hogs in your home and learn practical tips for reducing electricity waste, check out “Is your home wasting watts?” on our free environmental Web site, GreenerChoices.org.

May: Electrical Safety Month

I’ve occasionally been confounded by some of the less noteworthy days, weeks, or months in recognition of a certain person or group or even a food, for example. I have absolutely no issue with events designed to raise awareness of health matters, be it cancer, diabetes, or hypertension, or those that recognize key figures or moments in our history. But in this supersized land of fast food, do we really need a National Hamburger Month?  And what’s the purpose of Pets Are Wonderful Month? (Before you write, let me just say that I’ve been known to grill many different types of burgers, and I love our cat, Nellie, and crayfish, Nemo.)

I’m definitely a supporter of National Electrical Safety Month, which takes place every May, despite its clunker of a name. As Consumer Reports found in “Hazard in Aisle 5,” an excellent investigative story from a few years back, “Dangerous products that violate federal safety standards are finding their way onto store shelves as U.S. authorities struggle, and often fail, to protect you.”

For National Electrical Safety Month, the Consumer Product Safety Commission wants you to be aware that U.S. stores are filled with bogus electrical products—circuit breakers, power strips, extension cords, batteries, and the like—whose shoddy manufacturing could results in dangerous, even fatal, fires, explosions, shocks and electrocutions.

The CPSC reports that it has recalled more than 1 million counterfeit electrical products in the past few years, including mislabeled, undersized extension cords that overheated and circuit breakers that did not trip when they should have. "We are very concerned about unsafe electrical products," said Nancy Nord, acting chair of the CPSC, in a release. "Our priority is to keep consumers safe by preventing potentially dangerous counterfeit products from getting into the marketplace in the first place."

A big concern for you as a consumer is that it’s tough to identify counterfeit products. While a product might carry a seemingly real certification mark, say from Underwriters Laboratories, the logo and the product could be a fake.

For more information on National Electrical Safety Month, including information on how to avoid buying dangerous counterfeits, go to the Electrical Safety Foundation International's Web site.

In the meanwhile, don't forget that Sunday, May 13, is Mother's Day. You can bet my mother, wife, sisters, and sister-in-law will be appropriately recognized.—Steven H. Saltzman

A darker side of compact fluorescents?

Claims that compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) use about two-thirds less energy and last up to 10 times longer than their incandescent cousins have earned them center stage of energy-saving efforts like the EPA’s Change a Light, Change the World initiative and Wal-Mart’s declared mission to sell 100 million CFLs this year and the giant retailer’s participation in the 18seconds.org campaign.

If CFLs deliver on those claims, it’ll be a while before you’ll have to decide what to do with a spent bulb since CFLs last so long. But when a CFL does burn out or accidentally break, it’s important for you to know what to do with the bulb, for environmental as well as health reasons.

CFLs contain a small amount of mercury, a neurotoxin that can cause brain and kidney damage at high exposure levels. While an intact bulb doesn’t pose a danger to you, disposing of spent CFLs improperly can add mercury to landfills, where the toxin can potentially contaminate soil and groundwater. That’s why recycling a bulb at the end of its life in accordance with the hazardous-waste laws in your town is so essential.

If a bulb does break, don’t handle it and take these precautions when cleaning it up.

It might seem as if the use of CFLs is simply swapping one problem with another. But according to the EPA, replacing incandescents with CFLs actually results in less mercury in the environment. That’s because most of the electricity in the U.S. comes from coal, which emits mercury when burned. Since CFLs require less electricity than incandescents, mercury emissions would actually decline.

In the long run, producing efficient lighting without toxins like mercury should be a goal for the lighting industry.—Kristi Wiedemann, Science and Policy Analyst, GreenerChoices.org

Essential information: Visit GreenerChoices.org for the latest news on environmental issues and expert advice on ways to save energy and money everyday. And look for our compact fluorescent light bulb report in the October 2007 issue of Consumer Reports, on sale in September.

Hard-wiring made easy

Installing lighting fixtures or wall-mounting a flat-panel TV without unsightly exposed wiring usually is a job best left to an electrician. FlatWire, however, is designed to allow homeowners to get a pro-look job on their own. The manufacturer makes several different products, including versions for low-voltage electrical wiring and lighting and a range of audio/video applications. (A 110-volt version is due out next year.) Once you've covered the thin-profile wire with drywall tape and joint compound and then painted it, for example, the FlatWire is nearly invisible. You can order directly from the manufacturer. By later this year, it might be available at retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s.—Ed Perratore