If you haven’t already heard about the switch to the new compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), you soon will. That’s because everyone—every business and private residence, as well as schools and government offices in the U.S.—will soon be required to exchange their incandescent lighting for CFLs.
   The last half of the 20th century could be called ‘the Fluorescent Age.’ No illustration of the modern day workplace would be complete without the ubiquitous rows and panels of fluorescent lights that covered virtually every ceiling in every office or shop across the industrial world. Meanwhile, in more private and comfortable places, such as homes and restaurants, incandescent tungsten lighting remained the light source of choice.
   Today, however, millions of the incandescent bulbs are being replaced in the guise of saving electrical energy and, subsequently, the future of the planet. Almost no one ever said they found fluorescent lighting more pleasant, for it simply doesn’t provide the full spectrum of light we get from the sun. But from the beginning it consumed less electrical energy and thus was a less expensive way to light an area. And now, to drive the demand for electrical energy down further, governments, including the U.S. Federal government and the European Union, have banded together to try to eliminate the incandescent lamp altogether. In the U.S., Congress has passed legislation that leaves you no choice: it mandates the phase-out of conventional incandescent bulbs starting in 2012, as part of initiatives to reduce global warming.
   But there is resistance to total conversion to fluorescent lighting. And with good reason. Fluorescent lighting has proven to be unhealthy. The light emitted can pose serious problems to those with certain health conditions such as Lupus.  For those people with Irlen syndrome, also known as Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome, the flicker of fluorescent lighting results in a form of dyslexia, preventing them from processing visual information properly. Among other health problems that fluorescents pose are migraine headaches and skin conditions. A study in The Lancet, the leading British medical journal, found that working under fluorescent lights doubled the risk of melanoma.
   Fortunately, these disorders seem to affect a small portion of the population, and many of them can be alleviated with filters and other adustments. But the worst aspect of fluorescent lighting—one that potentially affects all of us—is the fact that every fluorescent lamp contains what I regard as the most toxic element on earth—mercury. Fluorescent lighting is produced by an electrical current changing liquid mercury into a gas. When the excited mercury atoms return to their original energy level they release photons, producing light. The energy emanating from the mercury exchange in the lamps has a negative effect on the body. Kinesiologists understand why we are weakened when we are underneath fluorescent light.
   Each compact fluorescent lamp contains about 5 mg of mercury, which when replacing billions of lamps all around the world will account for many tons of additional mercury being introduced to the environment. And mercury is not degradable; it never goes away. It cycles through the environment, poisoning all forms of plant and animal life.
   Then there are the hazards of disposal, especially if you drop one and it breaks. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends a 19-step procedure to safely clean up while making sure you don’t release mercury into the environment (http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/index.htm). Please read it.
   What government and industry should be doing is not banning older technology, but promoting the development and implementation of new technology that will give us healthier, more efficient, and safer lighting. The type of lighting that will achieve that is not fluorescent bulbs of any configuration. The best choice in my opinion, may be light-emitting diode (LED) technology.
   This newer technology is undergoing very rapid development, and it won’t be long before LEDs will be able to replace both incandescents and fluorescents in all lighting applications. In fact, there is already a small town in Italy—Torraca—that is totally illuminated by LEDs. Even the streetlights are 54 LEDs bundled together into each lamp. The Bird’s Nest stadium, made famous around the world during the Beijing Olympic Games, is also lit by LEDs. I know of a new airplane that is lit—interior and exterior—exclusively by LEDs.
   According to my calculations, replacing incandescents and fluorescents with LEDs could save nearly $2 trillion in energy costs globally over the next decade and eliminate the need for as many as 300 thousand-megawatt power plants. And it would prevent the introduction of more than 50 tons of mercury into the environment, both by reduction of power plant emissions and the elimination of mining and refining of mercury for the manufacture of fluorescent lamps.
   We’ve known how essential sunlight is to health for a long time, but it’s been only in the last ten years that researchers have been studying how LEDs affect health. With sponsors such as NASA and the U.S. Navy, we are learning that LEDs have powerful positive effects on wound healing and cancer therapy, even restoring sight to experimentally-blinded laboratory animals. The reason why LEDs should be our first choice for lighting is that it is capable of producing virtually the same quality of light as the sun. To have ‘full-spectrum’ man-made light where we don’t have natural sunlight would have dramatic, positive effects on the health of the world.  And there are other important advantages. The average lifetime of an incandescent lamp is 2 years, and a CFL 5 years, but LED’s have an average lifetime of 25 years. LEDs are the most efficient and have the lowest running temperatures of any lighting available today.
   The technology doesn’t stop there. Next up are OLEDs, organic light-emitting diodes, that emit light in all directions and which can be manufactured in sheets to serve as ceiling panels or even windows. They promise to be even more efficient at producing light. Now that’s the kind of technology that governments should be encouraging and supporting.
   This government-mandated move to total fluorescent lighting by 2012 will save some energy, but its cost to the health of humans, plants, animals and birds is potentially devastating. Incandescent lighting has served us well for over a hundred years. Thank you, Thomas Edison. My advice is to not change from that technology until we have a better alternative. Compact fluorescent lighting certainly is not it.

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