I just wanted to share this site with everybody.  Inhabitat.com is a blog that provides a ton of fascinating content about sustainable design, architecture, and technology.  The homes and commercial structures featured are brilliant in design and function.  I originally discovered the site while browsing for articles passive solar housing.  However, far beyond building, Inhabitat showcases a whole array of design, including fashion, gadgets, transportation, household products, and lighting.

I read the feeds every day and am always amazed and heartened by the innovation happening out there these days to protect our planet for future generations.  Yet, when you look around, environmental sensibility still seems to be a fringe element.  I hope that sites like Inhabitat.com help spread the beauty and common sense of sustainable design.

Some recent favorites: 

• Electric cars can be fast
• A bizarre concept for a 2-MILE-HIGH  vertical eco city
• Beautiful prefab homes like this one
• Wind-powered swirly lights for your back yard
• The rise of solar power

Unfortunately, a lot of the innovations featured are rather expensive or targeted as high-end luxuries.  A lot of the technology is emerging and will become more affordable as it becomes more mainstream.  However, I’d like to see more cool designs and sustainable products available at prices that everybody can afford.  After all, protecting the environment only works if we can all participate, not just the few top percentiles of consumers.

To that end, I believe Inhabitat.com helps by generating interest in sustainable design.  The more people who catch on, the more demand and innovation.  Hopefully, this technology becomes ubiquitous.  It has to.

I’ve been giving Compact Fluorescent Lamps a try since early this year. They use far less wattage than incandescent bulbs, prompting Australia and Canada to begin phasing out incandescent bulbs to reduce energy consumption. A 14 Watt CFL outputs the same light as a 60 Watt incandescent bulb, and lasts up to 10 times longer. According to the math on the packaging, the electrical costs you save on one bulb over its lifetime pays for the bulb fivefold. Just reducing the environmental load of power generation is enough for me to get the warm fuzzies, so the cost saving is icing on the cake.

There is some controversy, though, about the “greenness” of these bulbs. As with any fluorescent bulbs, CFL’s contain mercury, about 4mg per bulb. So in order for this mercury to not pollute the environment, every you must recycle every bulb (See recycling information links below).

Consider the fact that coal-burning power plants release mercury into the atmosphere. Over the five-year lifetime of a CFL, the mercury emissions via coal-generated power are 2.4mg, plus 4mg in the bulb, for a total of 6.4mg. Equivalent five-year usage of incandescent bulbs causes 10mg of emissions. (US EPA, 2002) Of course, 4mg of that mercury is trapped in the bulb and can be recycled and needn’t ever be released to the environment! Conversely, you can’t recycle what goes up the smokestack once it’s release to the atmosphere.

I believe there needs to be more incentive for people to recycle their CFL’s. People get lazy, you know. It would be great if there was a deposit on each CFL, like with bottles and cans, maybe 50 cents or so? And how about more green energy?

Well, anyway, I’ve tried several brands of bulbs with mixed results. The earlier bulbs had a barely perceptible flicker to the light that I found a bit jarring. One bulb even had an annoying hum, but others of the same brand were fine.

I recently purchased several varieties of BlueMax CFL’s that I am quite pleased with! There is no detectable flicker or hum. Good fluorescent lights use three or four colored phosphors to blend into white light. Sunlight consists a full spectrum of colors. BlueMax bulbs use six phosphors in order to more closely simulate natural sunlight. After, comparing these CFL’s side by side with two other brands, I agree that the light is more natural.

I purchased two varieties, Daylight Spiral and Sunset Spiral. The Daylight bulbs have a color temperature of 5900° Kelvin, which approaches daylight. The Sunset bulbs are closer to the warm glow of standard incandescents at 3000° Kelvin. I much prefer the Daylight bulbs for my office.

Recycling information links:
http://www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling/
http://www.lamprecycle.org/