When customers walk into Brent Newman’s Design Lighting store, they’re all looking for something bright, he said.

That’s not a problem, but there are choices to be made.

An incandescent light is cheap, but it’s an energy hog that doesn’t last as long. A compact fluorescent lamp, or CFL, is easy on the electrical needs — and power bills — but can’t be dimmed and contains mercury.

Everyone wants efficient and environmentally friendly LEDs, Newman said, but those run around $100 each.

“They’re not to the point where they’re economically sane yet,” he said.

With choices and technologies changing, many people are putting a lot of thought into an everyday purchase. But many energy experts are emphasizing the new and improved compact fluorescent bulbs, which they say have gone down in price and up in consistency — although they still don’t work well with dimmers. Concerns about the mercury content of the bulbs remain, although recycling could help out there.

“As long as you recycle them, there’s no concern,” said Kendall Youngblood, residential sector manager with the Energy Trust of Oregon.

Manufacturers have dropped the level of mercury in CFLs in recent years, she said.

An average CFL bulb contained about 4 milligrams of mercury in July 2008 — a 20 percent drop from the year before, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program. That number is falling, and some lights contain just 1.2 milligrams of mercury.

When humans put additional mercury — a natural element — into the environment, it can be converted to a form of the metal that, in large enough amounts, can cause damage to the brain, heart and immune system as well as developmental problems, according to the EPA.

But consumers need to look at the bigger picture when thinking about mercury and light bulbs, Youngblood said. CFLs use about 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs — energy made at power plants. And power plants release mercury, too, she said.

“There’s more mercury going into the air when you light up an incandescent bulb than is located in your little CFL,” Youngblood said.

The problem with that argument, said Larry Tuttle, a former Deschutes County commissioner who is now with the Center for Environmental Equity, is that power plants are not actually reducing their output.

“That only works as a logical argument if, for every one of those bulbs, there’s a removal from the (power) production cycle,” Tuttle said.

And even if power plants did slow down their electricity generation and decrease mercury emissions because people switched to the efficient options, he said, using and then throwing away CFLs still adds mercury to landfills.

“Why would you want to add mercury at another location, simply because you’re removing it from another facility?” he said. “You still have to deal with the mercury at the disposal side, even if there are some benefits at the (power) production side.”

Recycling options

From talking with waste disposal staff in the Portland area, Tuttle estimates that about 75 percent of CFLs are dumped in the trash instead of recycled.

But consumers have recycling options. Home Depot stores accept burnt-out CFL bulbs for free, Youngblood said, as do many area hazardous waste disposal facilities.

Deschutes County holds hazardous waste collection days — including for CFL bulbs — on the second and fourth Friday and Saturday of every month at Knott Landfill, said Chad Centola, operations manager.

The current program started in May, and between May and December the county collected 300 pounds of the CFL bulbs.

“It seems like people are definitely aware of the fact that fluorescent bulbs pose some challenges,” he said.

Virtually 100 percent of the bulbs are recycled, he said — from the glass to the aluminium caps to the ceramics to the mercury itself, he said.

Tuttle said he still recommends people buy CFLs because of the energy — and energy bill — savings, but stressed that consumers need to recycle or dispose of them properly.

Energy efficiency

CFLs are significantly more energy efficient. An incandescent bulb works by heating a filament until it glows, producing light, but 90 percent of the energy used to power the bulb is released as heat.

“I’ve heard some folks talk about (incandescent bulbs) as little mini heaters,” said Maria Tikoff Vargas, spokesperson for Energy Star, which promotes energy-efficient products.

CFLs produce light through a chemical reaction of gases in the light’s glass tube, which causes a phosphor coating on the tube to light up, according to the EPA. Less energy is released as heat, so the fluorescent bulb is more efficient at producing light.

Energy efficiency is a cheap, easy way to help curb greenhouse gas emissions, Vargas said. If every home in the U.S. replaced an incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent one, it would save enough electricity to power 3 million homes for a year, she said.

Still, she added, not all CFL bulbs are equal.

“Most of them are made in China, and some are made much better than others,” she said, so she recommends looking for the Energy Star label, which indicates when products meet requirements for consistency and quality of light.

The bulbs have improved within the last several years, Youngblood said. There are now different shapes, including bulbs that are covered in globes to look more like traditional lights.

Whereas before it took awhile for the CFLs to warm up, and some people had problems with flickering bulbs, those problems have decreased. There are also warm and cool options for the light itself, she said.

“Some people with the old ones said you always felt like you were in a bad office,” Youngblood said. “The colors are just much better.”

The problem with CFLs, she said, is that manufacturers haven’t created a good bulb to use with dimmer switches.

While the majority of CFLs can’t be dimmed, consumers can buy the bulbs — but those often don’t fit into standard fixtures, said Newman, owner of Design Lighting.

Plus CFLs can have shortened life spans if they are turned on and off frequently.

“Compact fluorescent bulbs operate best in an environment where they’re turned on and left on for a long period of time,” Newman said.

Light-emitting diodes

That’s one of the reasons why people are looking forward to LEDs, he said.

“They’re completely immune from any damage from being turned on and off,” he said.

LEDs are also mercury-free, dimmable, more energy efficient than CFLs, and are supposed to last 20 years.

Red, blue or other colored LEDs are common in things like clock radios and electronics, but only in the last two years have white-light LEDs been available, Youngblood said. They look “gorgeous,” she said, but they cost $100.

“It needs to have a little more time to develop, and the price needs to come down,” she said.

Newman has heard from other light people that cheaper LEDs for regular household use could be available in a year — at which point he might have a more positive answer for the customers who ask him about LEDs multiple times a day.

“It’s a great technology. It’s just too darn early to really expect to be able to use them,” he said.

Pros: Costs less; fits in fixtures; dimmable; no mercury in the bulb

Cons: Uses significantly more energy, which means power plants must produce more electricity; shorter life

Pros: Uses about 75 percent less energy than incandescents; long-lasting; increased availability and styles; recyclable

Cons: Contains small amounts of mercury; does not work well with dimming fixtures; slightly more expensive

Pros: Uses less energy than CFLs; designed to last 20 years; doesn’t contain mercury

Cons: Costs about $100 for a floodlight; not available in most areas