Sneaky CFL replacement

I just don't know quite how to feel about this! After a few years of seemingly logical replacement of hotel and office lighting with compact fluorescent light bulbs, a problem has arisen.

It seems that demand for the bulbs, while slacking in store sales, goes way up when the bulbs are just a few twists away.

Office and hotel mangers have begun to complain about CFL theft in a big way.

While the bulbs save a ton of money over their lifetime in energy costs, they don't save money when they disappear after a few months and need to be replaced.

The alternative, it seems, is to either stop using CFLs or use theft-proof fixtures that need a special key to be replaced. We assume the key is only held by the maintenence staff.

It's good that we've got these solutions now, since LED bulbs, just around the corner, promise to be even more expensive, while saving more energy in the long run.

The good news is, the more CFLs offices and hotels buy, the more CFLs there are in the world.

However, it seems odd that hotel-goers and office workers, not known for their levels of extreme poverty, are the ones stealing the bulbs. It seems to me that they could afford to save money the old-fashioned way: by making a modest investment in slightly more-expensive bulbs at WalMart.

Via MT.GOV