SHINING LIGHT ON BULBS’ APPEAL: Former RPI professor leads crusade to show incandescent lights are superior to CFLs.

Renowned lighting designer Howard Brandston, a retired Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor and a founder of RPI’s Lighting Research Center, is leading a crusade to save the incandescent light bulb.

From his farmhouse in the Columbia County hamlet of Hollowville, Brandston is almost singlehandedly trying to preserve Thomas Edison’s iconic invention so it is not relegated to the dustbin of history.

Brandston calls it a misguided energy conservation effort by the federal government to phase out incandescent light bulbs and replace them with compact fluorescent lamps, known as CFLs.

He said CFLs are far more expensive, their energy savings is insignificant and they pose potential health and environmental problems because they contain mercury, a toxic heavy metal.

Just another #Greenfail.