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Mercury Contamination Vs. Energy-Efficient Lightbulbs
phyrebyrd writes "How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labor — unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health."
..find these energy efficent bulbs really irritating?
I'm all for saving the environment, but I hate the fact the bulbs have a 'warm up' period, and whatever 'colour' bulb I get, it still throws a nasty fluro hue.
Is that just me?
What's the pollution/contamination potential for LED-equivalent screw-in bulbs? (Including at the manufacturing level)
Once again we see that every environmental action involves a trade-off of some kind. Sometimes it means loss of job (as in the timber industry), sometimes it means annoyance and inconvenience (as with "low flow" toilets and showerheads), etc. But there is ALWAYS a trade-off. Contrary to what some environmentalists would have us believe, there is always a price to be paid for the "Green" life. And sometimes the price is ultimately more damaging to society and the environment than its worth.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
a 170 gram can of tuna containst aboul half the mercury as a CF bulb, and YOU EAT THE TUNA. this is either a scam or a fake article.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
If you buy the cheap ones at department stores, you will be disappointed. Go to a lighting specialist and pay a bit more.
I find this scare-mongering over mercury to be amusing. Have you ever broken an old-school tube flouro? You know, the ones with 10 to 100 times the mercury of modern Compact Flouro bulbs? Yeah.
Blar.
This is an urban legend propagated by conservative propaganda sites. Good thing we have editors to filter this stuff out for us...
c hange_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf
There is very little mercury in CFLs, you are in more danger of getting cut by the glass than you are of getting mercury poisoning.
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/
I switched my house to CFLs and started saving $15-20 per month. If everyone did this then the big power companies would see a dent in their bottom line and so they start spreading lies like this.
We have the best government that money can buy.
Not at all surprising that the manufs and retailers are pushing these. Nice profit stream for all of them. However, it's mind boggling (or unfortunately not, depending on your POV) that the enviros actually support this. Forget what happens if you mistakingly break on of these things, just wait 10 years when they will start going out in droves and start stock piling in our landfills. I'm sure the enviros will then start pointing fingers at the manufs and retailers.
No it isn't just you. About 50 people say this whenever the words "compact" "florescent" or "lightbulb" come up in an article. And the answer is spend more money. Yes, that's right... the cheapest possible bulbs kinda suck, big surprise. Some brands of compact florescent lightbulbs have no warm up period and give off perfectly balanced light in the visible spectrum and don't flicker at a visible frequency. Other brands take an hour to warm up, have green light, and flicker at 50Hz.
The challenge is finding the cheapest one that you can't tell from a "normal" bulb. Once you do... well then you RTFA for more worries, it seems.
Last year, a local middle school was locked down and a hazmat team was called in. The kids were kept locked inside for several hours after the normal release time, cause someone had inadvertently dropped and broken a mercury thermometer OUTSIDE the school.
Times have changed, I remember rolling around blobs of mercury on lab tables in school.
[Insert pithy quote here]
6x higher than very low state standards?
Just take a fan and blow out the room for a couple of days.
Test your net with Netalyzr
He's the Junk Science guy, which means that you ought to take this entire article with a mountain of salt. Even with the mercury in the CFL, you're ahead of the game when you consider the energy savings. A lot of electricity is produced with coal, and that puts out more mercury than the CFL contains over the life of the bulb.
But there's a lesson here - if you break a CFL, open the windows and clean it up yourself. Don't lick the floor where it broke. Don't gnaw on the pieces of broken glass. Don't scrape the coating from the inside of the bulb, dissolve it in vodka, and inject it into your neck. Use common sense.
There's no need to call the government to help you clean up a broken lightbulb. This woman deserves what she gets, just for wasting people's time. The bureaucrats probably don't want to mess with her house either, but they are *doing what they are paid to do* and if they didn't take care of the reported problem, someone could accuse them of not doing their job.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
will Walmart, Homedepot, etc be offering s drop off for old burned out CFLs(yes they do burn out too) like autozone does for old oil and batteries?
How long do we need to wait for reasonably priced LED light bulbs? I figure the electrical will be significantly less than even CFLs, so how do they stack up now? I mean, if CFLs are saving us 150 bucks a year in electricity, would LEDs save us that much more? If so, I assume at even their current price they'll end up saving us money over 10 years or so (plus you don't replace an LED bulb I assume).
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I got 6 for $10 at Lowes and these turned out a little brighter than the last batch I bought. Seems to me a drop cloth would be a reasonable precaution if working over carpet. People from California have posted that CFLs are recycled there. Is that happening elsewhere?s -selling-solar.html
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Light up your life with solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
i didn't know about mercury in bulbs... i do know about mercury in vaccines. (as thimerasol) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thimerosal
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ Ron Paul for President 2008 http://www.infowars.com/
Why are alkaline batteries and thermometers, not included in this article?
Also, it's the stupidity displayed by the authorities involved that is biggest public safety concern in my opinion!
Have you ever heard the term "Mad as a Hatter"? Maybe, but you probably do know who the Mad Hatter is.
Mad as a Hatter is a term that stems from "Hatters" (hat makers) using Mercury in the formation of hats. It was used in the process of removing hair from animal hides. All the hatters ultimately went insane or had the other symptons of mercury poisioning.
That's where the term comes from, and that's where the idea for the "Mad Hatter" came from for Alice in Wonderland. What does this have to do with the article? Nothing really, just trying to spread some random information.
The author of TFA is Steven Milloy, who publishes JunkScience.com. It is devoted to "debunking the global warming myth", telling the truth about virtues of dioxin and to other similar issues.
The site is an obvious propaganda mouthpiece.
Been using the fluorescent light bulbs for a few years now, and while they use less power, the do cost more, and unlike what is promised on the package, they need replacement as often as the incandescent kind, in my experience, so probably a wash in terms of lifetime cost.
From http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steve_M illoy
Steven J. Milloy is a columnist for Fox News and a paid advocate for Phillip Morris, ExxonMobil and other corporations. From the 1990s until the end of 2005, he was an adjunct scholar at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute.
One large grain of salt coming right up
and includes comments from several officials, saying that this incident was nothing to get worked up about.o m_content&task=view&id=7446&Itemid=31
http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=c
And for those who are concerned about CFL mercury in the waste stream -- CFLs are nothing more than smaller versions of the fluorescent tubes we have been throwing in our landfills since the 50s. That's right, every industial building and school in the US uses them and has for the last 50 years. So, the problem isn't new. And the white powder isn't mercury...it's the phosphor. That's not to say that recycling them wouldn't be a really good idea. It's being done commercially, but not yet for consumers in most places.
In a 'feel good' move, the premier of Ontario decided that his party will ban incandescent light bulbs by 2012. I am going to make me a business selling those in Ontario on the black market. CFLs can go screw themselves, I am not gonna use them.
You can't handle the truth.
Amazingly GE announced in February that they can produce "incandescent bulb to match compact fluorescents". Amazing what a bit of competition can do or is this just a scam to brake CFLs.
Wonder how long they have been sitting on this one? Anyone know if they have shares in the electricity companies?
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-6162567-7.html
According to the article, after breaking the lightbulb in her daughter's bedroom, Mrs Bridges called Home Depot which directed her to Poison Control hotline which directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, which sent a specialist.
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s ustainability/archive_2006/reduction_in_mercury.ph p?main=global&parent=4390&id=gl_en_news&lang=en
The specialist found an unacceptable quantity of mercury (six times the "safe" level), and directed Mrs Bridges to a cleanup firm that gave the U$ 2.000 estimate (way high in my opinion, is it that hard to clean?).
Insurance, as usual, won't cover it (sounds reasonable this time).
An interesting point is that each CFL contains five milligrams of mercury, and Maine's "safety" standard is 300 nanograms per cubic meter.
By comparison, according to Wikipedia, "the typical "fever thermometer" contains between 0.5 to 3 g (.3 to 1.7 dr) of elemental mercury."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-in-glass_the
She could have saved some money by reading this:
"Cleaning Up Small Mercury Spills, For spills of less than two tablespoons:" by the government of Michigan
http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3307_296
or this (PDF warning) http://www.newmoa.org/prevention/mercury/smallspi
Not every CFL has that much mercury:
http://www.lighting.philips.com/gl_en/news/press/
Still, it's good to be warned and be aware about the potential environmental hazard.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I went to an art-show/Earth Day event a couple blocks from my house Saturday (yes, our town has it a week late). They had representatives of various environmental and recycling organizations.
The sign-in sheet had a place to check a box "pledging" to convert one incandescent lamp to flourescent. So I asked about where to return them when they die. After all, safe and convenient disposal is a critical component of encouraging their use.
Man, you would have thought I was watching roaches scurry when the light came on.
Dump them in the trash? No! - that's illegal dumping of toxic waste.
Save them and take them to the thrice-yearly e-waste event? No! - they are specifically prohibited.
Take them to the recycling center a couple blocks from my house? No! - "We're supposed to be self-supporting and the permit cost would bankrupt us."
Pretty much the only option provided was to wait for the "convenient" once-a-month Saturday the waste facility is open, put the burned-out bulb in my car, drive a half-dozen miles to the waste facility (they were helpful in telling me how to get to the facility while dodging the most dangerous parts of Richmond), wait in line (start/stop engine repeatedly or idle constantly), fill out paperwork, hand them the bulb, drive a half-dozen miles back home.
If that's the best the powers-that-be can come up with, they shouldn't be surprised that CFL adoption is less than they hoped. With cans, bottles and electronics they tack on a recycling fee up-front. And any store that sells ni-cads is required to accept them for recycling. Seems like a couple ideas that should be considered for flourescents.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
This is how schizophrenic our society is. People in different camps, all with their little agendas, bark at each other without realizing how inconsistent and stupid they are. It is like the convservative republican pro-lifers who wouldn't think twice about putting someone on the death row, or the liberal pro-choicers who campaign to save the hungry dying children in Africa but could give a rat's ass about a child who is not born yet. Most of all individuals just take the easy way out and allign themsevles with a big horde of others for the protection and the comfy feeling of belonging and being able to think of things in terms of 'us' as opposed to 'I'. That means unquestionably addopting the default agenda without thinking about. And by 'horde' I mean not just a political party but also a company, organization or in fact, any community. (Yes... slashdot is also one such 'horde' with {linux, google, cowboyneal} = good, {sco,microsoft} = bad, {everything else} = funny / irrelevant).
Was it really hard for EPA to think, "Hmm, we are recommending this new product, it is easily breakable, I wonder what happens if someone breaks it...?" isn't that what they are payed to to do. Ironically enough, I wouldn't blame Wal-Mart. I know they don't give a shit about environment or other stuff like that, they just want to make an extra buck _now_ and with each one of those bulbs costing around $5, that is more than just an 'extra' buck. At least they are consistent...
As long as we are trying to spread random information ... the issue of mercury induced madness in hatters is a key element of the novel.
It's a media hype battle to the death. Your excessive energy use is going to destroy the Earth, so you have to install these bulbs, which contain evil mercury which will destroy the Earth. What should we do? Won't someone in the press tell us?
I'm moving outside into a tent until the press tells us how to avoid certain death.
I wonder why anyone pays attention to the media any more?
Its not like flourescent lighting is new. You dont dispose of them in 16,000 meters of soil, you recycle them!
And where was this philanthropist when flourescent bulbs were introduced into the market? I didn't see him calling for them to be banned.
As for breaking bulbs perhaps if this is enough of an issue they could put those bulbs inside some of that indestructable plastic that they package ear buds or compact flash cards in. You know, the ones which requires the jaws of life to get opened.
For that matter, the bulbs COME packaged in the very same material, you can sit there dropping it all day and it wont break. it would be rather trivial to make bulbs in a bubble of the same material which would make them virtually indestructable to accidental leakage short of running them over with your car or stabbing them with a ginsu knife, and decrease the environmental impact from accidental breakage to minimal levels. The recycling issue can be easily handled with regulations requiring deposits for the bulbs, similar to pop bottles. Since these bulbs save so much money on power costs there is some room to implement a robust solution and still make economic sense.
The new laws "against incandescents" are generally written to simply require a certain degree of efficiency. Manufacturers are free to use incandescence if they can figure out a way to do it efficiently (which being pretty much physically impossible will likely never happen). However, as it is, no one is mandating CFL, they are simply banning inefficient light sources. LED's can be used. and who knows what will be invented next.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Inventory gets broken all the time in places like Wal-Mart and Home Depot--including florescent bulbs. It would seem if there truly in a risk of mercury poisoning the retails selling the bulbs would be at the highest risk. To date I have never heard of any business evacuating a store because of a florescent bulb braking. Much less a Haz-Mat team performing the clean up.
If the author were really concerned about mercury, he'd spend his time worry about the mercury in dental amalgam. That mercury is in your mouth, it turns into vapor which is easily absorbed through breathing or through contact with food and saliva and probably has far more health consequences than breaking 100 CFL bulbs and walking through the mess with your bare feet.
If you get the Energy Star rated ones they will be replaced if they burn out within 2 years if I recall from the Energy Star fact sheet.
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Drink deeply or not at all."
Here is the FDA's chart on mercury concentrations for various kinds of fish. The lowest tuna concentration is canned "Tuna Light" with 118 PPB. However, there are 6 other listed can tunas on the list hat are above the 300 PPB max exposure limit listed in the article.
article tagged as FUD
As the Wikipedia page notes, this calculation changes because of two trends. Better environmental controls on coal plants make the mercury used in CFLs worse, while greater adoption of recycling makes CFLs better.
Aside from concerns about aesthetics (I don't like incandescent lighting much, but YMMV), this is really one of the last complaints about CFLs. The article was a poorly researched rant about how environmentalists are hypocrites and things which seem "green" really aren't. Sometimes that's true, but with CFLs, it's almost a no-brainer.
Take, for example, the EPA's factsheet on CFLs. It suggests that this person mentioned in TFA overreacted to the light bulb break. The instructions for cleanup are:
We're talking about 4mg of mercury here, compared with 500mg in a thermometer.
Basically, CFLs should be recycled to reap all of the environmental benefits. If you buy replacements for burned out bulbs (a rare event), just store the old bulb in the new packaging (they tend to be resealable). Wait until you have a number of them to recycle, and then do it. This isn't the first consumer item we should be treating like this: rechargeable batteries (especially lithium-ion) should be recycled as well. I have several dead laptop batteries which await eventual recycling. For that matter, items like CRT monitors have lead in them, and should also be recycled properly.
So the article is just FUD about what should be an easy choice for anyone who doesn't mind the aesthetics of CFLs.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
If you eat a can of tuna once a week then you'd consume as much mercury as eating a CF light bulb.
I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to eat tuna every week, but I'm pretty sure that more people eat tuna weekly than eat CF bulbs.
Of course if you run an Incandesant from a coal-burning power station then i'm sure you'll end up causing many times more mercury to be released into the environment.
Several people have mentioned getting "better" CFLs, for those of us who have had crappy experiences with the bulbs. Nobody has mentioned brands or models. My question, then, is for those of you who say we need to try the "better" bulbs, what are you talking about, exactly? "Better" doesn't tell me what I should be looking for.
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward
The problem is that the fluorescent bulbs have only so many power-on/off cycles in them. they last much longer if you don't turn them on/off all the time and just leave them on constantly. However, in a home environment that is less likely. Especially since people have been trained to shut off lights when leaving rooms to save electricity.
I really don't have a good solution to this problem. I don't know if there is, maybe automatic controls of the lights that don't turn off so much?
A quick search on this shows a lot of polarized information.. Depending on the writer's bias, CFLs are either evil and nasty or the savior of humanity. It's like getting news from Ann Coulter and Michael Moore.
The pro-CFLs say more mercury will be released by powering an incandescent bulb. But, not all power is from Coal plants, and what about the so-called "Clean Coal", which presumably reduces the amount of mercury pollution?
How does the 4-5mg of Mercury compare to other household or common industrial sources?
How about comparisons with recent improvements in incandescents, or improvements in LED lighting?
I already use CFLs. But, when I first bought them I wasn't aware of the possible hazards. I don't know what local options I have for disposal.
First off I have broken mercury thermometers with WAY more mercury than a light bulb... called poison control and they said "don't eat it; clean it up with rubber gloves and a rag and put it in a bag and throw it away and you will be fine".
Second, for people that say the CFLs don't last as long as advertised - it may be true, but they do use less electricity. If they do break before 5 or 7 years just call the number on the package... there is a number on the light bulb you read to them and they will send a new one in the mail. I got a multi-pack with 2 bad bulbs in it... one didn't work out of the package and another popped after about 2 months... they had bad ballasts. I called and they sent me new ones. No others have broken, but if they do I will call and get new ones.
Maybe there needs to be a combo bulb/fixture that uses LEDs to fill in during the warm up of the compact fluorescent?
You should be unhappy. The more unhappy you are, the greater your environmental virtue.
Think of it as penance for the world's energy sins. Let your suffering be a beacon to all the unbelievers, climate change deniers, and evil capitalists out there.
You are one of the virtuous greens. Your sacrifice means hope for us all. You have saved the planet.
The amount of mercury in a CFL isn't a significant danger. There's more mercury in the air from your local coal power plant (although over a much broader area than a bedroom).
She should follow the EPA and Energy Star's advice instead of Home Depot and local rip-off artists: Open a window, close the door, and stay out of the room for an hour or two. Then come in and clean the carpet with some wet towels if you're worried.
If she broke an old style thermostat (mercury switch) she shouldn't be this worried. And they contain something like a hundred times as much mercury.
Mercury is dangerous, but it's not *this* dangerous.
Environmentalists like CFL's because they realize there's less mercury in a CFL than the amount released into the air by a normal amount of coal power plants. It never ceases to amaze me how journalists believe environmentalists are unrealistic retarded wackos who want us all to sleep with the bears.
Some of them are just rational people who don't like waste.
Agreed, I have stopped buying them as they last no longer than a regular bulb and when they do go it is usually with a startling POP and spark from the base where the tube goes in. Also a puff of smoke - just that nice mercury being sent into the air...
They are also dimmer in the winter when the rooms are cooler 69-71F
She might be a nut. Apparently "She has talked with representatives from the CDC and DEP and spent roughly two to three hours a day over the past several weeks, talking on the phone and in person and contacting local papers to get the word out on what she believes are dangerous light bulbs." She was told they weren't a problem: "Officials have said that Bridges has little to worry about and she could easily clean up the bulbs by hand. State Toxicologist Andrew Smith said it would be unlikely that a person could contract mercury poisoning from the levels of mercury found in Bridges' daughter's room." The Ellsworth American article: http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=co m_content&task=view&id=7446&%20Itemid=31/
Maybe a little common sense is in order here?
Suddenly, it made sense why CFLs were equated with thermometers (which contain over 100 times the mercury, and for which safer, equivalent replacements exist), why the environmental impact of the mercury was not weighed against the impact of the energy gains, why the author would question why we want mercury in our bulbs but not in our fish, or why environmentalist was used as a pejorative.
Remember, if you're reading something that sounds mildly absurd, the author might have an agenda. That doesn't mean that he can't make valid points, but it helps you to know how much skepticism to have.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Although I never done a cost-benefit annalists on this, I have been running the original set of CFLs in my house for over 3 years, with only a single replacement due to a lamp falling over and the tube smashing. Before I was replacing 75 Watt incandescents at a rate of about 2 every 3 to 6 months. Modern CFLs of quiet, don't flicker, give a nice warm glow, and come one very quickly. I'm very happy and never going back.
And here I thought we had a new player for the Wpg Blue Bomber with a last name of Mercury who was a bad-*ss :-)
I see a few stating "It is a small amount" or "She could clean it up her self", etc.
Try this, CFL's are becoming more popular with growers (Weed). They are small, compact, put out a lot of light with vary little heat, and you can get them in a spectrum that is right for good growth and flowering. So, how would you feel about the bulb breaking over a grow of weed that you were going to smoke??? If you don't smoke weed, there is a good chance that some one you know does or that your kids will try it. Here is a point where this contamination could get directly into your system!!!
Just to up the ante a little, I have grown, I have grown with CFL's and they have broken over the plants! I personally got rid of the plants that this happened to because I was going to smoke them. But this was for personal use, I know a few people that would have finished the grow, sold the bud, and not cared!
I tried several brands that were terrible, but I really like the n:vision soft white bulbs at Home Depot (green packaging). The color is pleasingly warm, to my tastes. If you're considering CFLs, I'd suggest these as a decent, readily available starting point.
Maybe it is all a push from the mercury manufacters to use more since we banned the mercury thermometers as dangerous :(
:(
Or maybe the next push is for a mercury substitie like thermometers that only costs 6x as much. Then we can all pay like $20 per light bulb that we mastered at $.50 ages ago...
We are not allowed to sell mercury thermometers any more nor mercury blood pressure gauges but they now want to REQUIRE us to use CFLs with mercury in em, WTF ?!?!
Yes they only have a tad in them opposed to grams but the danger is in inhaling mercury vapor which certainly doesn't seem lessened in a bulb breaking.
I use and like the new lightbulbs, but if the mercury is an issue I would suggest just moving the problem to the source. It seems that most people who have thought about the issue are warming up to nuclear power as a CO2 friendly source for our power needs. Yes, there are downsides, but it seems like the least bad option.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Mercury, they dont come on right away and are dull and dim, they give off crappy light.. LED is the way to go.. they are 10 times more enegry efficent than CFL and last 4 times longer.
x .aspx
http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/inde
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
But bulbs with warmup times in the 2-minute range are not entirely uncommon, either. There are good ones out there, though. You can find bulbs that light up right when you flip the switch, come on at almost full brightness, reach full brightness in just a few seconds, don't hum, and don't make awful bluish light. It may just take you a while to find the ones that work for you.
My first CF bulb turns 10 this year. It was $35 when I bought it.
Hi Folks,
:) )
Look, an opportunity to vent.
I really wanted compact flourescents to be a good thing, but so far, I can't say that they have been.
I have been buying these bulbs for about 4 years now. I have a small number of bulbs that seem like they will never burn out. This is in stark contrast to the rest, which have not only bested some of my incandescents in a short lifetime contest, but several have failed in a fiery spectacular way that gives me pause about the safety of these devices.
I can't tell you how much of a no-brainer I used to think these things were. Now, even ignoring any mercury issues, I am no longer convinced that these devices are living up to their billing.
In short, buyer beware. If I were going to begin a switch to CFLs today, I would plan on tracking every single bulb with regard to manufacturer, usage, lifetime and failure mode. In fact, I wish everyone would do that, because I firmly believe there is misinformation being diseminated about these devices that independent, real-world data could bring to light. (er, no pun intended, but if it works for you...
Finally, yes, it's a sample size of one. It's just my experience. I could be having bad luck.... but I no longer think so.
Stan
It is inevitable, LEDs are efficient, are not fragile, and can last several decades.
High output LED manufactures such as Phillips/Lumileds who makes Luxeon stars and emitters, are going to thrive in the next 10 years.
Yes.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Last time I looked, regular boring old school light bulbs were $0.37 each for a 75 watt edison base. At ten times the cost, and only five times the lifespan, I can't see CFTs as desirable other than to actually lower the burden on our power plants. Jack the price of AC another ten cents a kilowatt/hour and maybe this point of diminishing return will shift a bit towards the CFTs' favor. Look out, here come the plug-in hybrids!
Anybody up for the math? Assume a kilowatt hour of juice costs 5 cents, a normal light bulb lasts a year, a CFT lasts 5 years, that my children eat mercury for breakfast, and the price of rice in China is constant.
Disclaimer: I've only had one cup of coffee so far today.
"I stomp in clown shoes where daemons fear to tread."
Ive seen this circulating the blog already, and did a little investigating. Turns out some aspects of this story are less then credible.
Lets start with the source of the article, one Steven Milloy - you can see his name is on that particular version of it, as well as some others. A quick background check, placing his name into google, reveals that Steven Milloy is a quite enthusiastic campagigner against climate-change reducing initiatives - ironicly, he labels it 'junk science' - as well as opposed to environmental concerns in general. His wikipedia page goes into more detail. He also runs junkscience.com - just your plain old astroturf site, that will label any part of science junk for a suitable fee. And yes, I checked its the same Stephen Milloy. The attribution at the end of the article confirms it.
I could spend a lot of time going into Milloy's record as a producer of scientific articles ranging from dubious to outright false, but lets not get distracted into the ad-homs here. Instead, how about a look at the criticism of the CFL scare from denialism.com - as the site points out, the level of mercury in a CFL is tiny - 5mg. Not to mention that CFL is just a new packageing for an old technology - the older tube-lights run on exactly the same princible and have been in use for a long time now. Have there been any major safety concerns about those? They contain much more mercury than a CFL, due simply to their larger volume. Thermometers contain a whole lot more than either - and who finds that they need to call in the hazmat squad if they break a thermometer?
The $2000 cleanup incident seems to be just an overreaction - an extreme case of 'better safe than sorry.' Or, this being america, perhaps 'better safe than liable.'
I've been using them for 2 years now over incandescents, and I can assure you that in my house they've outlasted any incandescents I've ever used. Not sure why, but an incandescent was lasting at most 3 months in my home. The CF's have lasted over 2 years with the exception of one.
Saved $15-20 per month!? Wow, you use a lot of light.
$15 gives something of the order of 150kWh or more(?) - so you are saving about 5kWh per day? If a normal person, sleeping at night, needs lights for about 6 hours a day, to save that much they would have to have been running an average of well over 1kW of incandescent lighting during darkness hours? That's enormous.
I hope you have some unusual circumstance like a huge family or something, not just the typical burning all the lights in every room, even when they're empty.
They still discuss about their FEAR-of-energy-efficient-light-bulbs... (!)
I thank God for NOT being able to receive US television...
...of CFLs being a dangerous source of mercury. The fact is, that old style tubes in landfills comprise more
'dangerous mercury' than every CFL ever created.
Mercury is bad yes, but this is a non-issue...there was no out-cry over the tube flouros. There were no discernable effects from the much higher rates of mercury in those tubes, why should there be from the CFLs? It smells to me like this is the work of an anti-earthist who wants to save a few nickles.
Blar.
Probably not a clean power supply.
Try tightening the connections on the wires in the switch/lamp/outlet.
I re-wired a lamp and it made a huge difference in the life of my bulbs.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
We looked at buying some CFL bulbs the other day. My wife is a little paranoid about some things, including mercury, so she isn't too sure about using the CFL's. But I thought it's interesting how on the boxes they say that they contain mercury, and to dispose of them properly. How do you dispose of mercury properly? I once had a mercury thermometer that broke open and made a mess, so I called around to a few places, not wanting to just drop it in the trash. No one could tell me how to dispose of it. The best answer I got was to take it to my local waste transfer station where I left a bag of contaminated items, including carpet, with a pile of what looked like chemical cleaners and stuff. I think I even had to pay a small fee.
A few months later, my kids fried our microwave oven. Again, I tried to find out what the best way to dispose of a microwave is. Noone would give me a straight answer. I don't even know what exactly is in a microwave, but I'm sure there's some stuff that shouldn't be in the groundwater supply. I ended up tossing it in a dumpster, because I couldn't get any answers.
I think it's great that Wal-mart and others are pushing CFL's, but I wish there was more information available about how to get rid of old bulbs like this. And batteries. Global Warming is important, but I think that slowly poisoning our soil and water isn't a good thing, either. But the manufacturers wash their hands of it all by saying "Dispose of Properly". So how do I dispose of it?
Oh, forget CFL's or even incandescent lights. I have recently discovered the awesomeness that are oil lamps. Incredibly dim, incredibly wasteful, and they make me feel oh-so-1700's. It's the kind of lighting the Founding Fathers would have chosen!
The word is "no." I am therefore going anyway.
The National Incandescent Light Board - Helping to keep America in the dark since the invention of the light bulb.
Of course, it goes without saying that ALL flourescent lights contain mercury.
Bad Flourescent lights! Bad! Bad!
It also goes without saying that burning fosil fuels, especially coal, realease mercury into the atmosphere, and the more energy a light bulb uses, the more mercury it releases.
Bad incandescent lights! Bad! Bad!
Welcome to the conundrum of modern technology.
"We've got like two types of pollution, bad and worse. Which one you want?"
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Some people may want to change their lifestyle to lower their footprint, that's nice. However, I choose a lifestyle that I enjoy. Will I do things that reduces the impact with no cost to me... maybe... recycling is annoying, and doesn't save me money, so it's not a high priority... maybe I'll do it one day, but we use SO few recyclable items it's not worth the effort to store recycling bins. Maybe as the kids get older it will become worth it, but it doesn't make sense with our usage. CFL however, especially in lights that we leave on for hours at a time? Been doing so. About to replace the lights in the kitchen, starting to with the bathroom vanity globe lights (actually burn whiter, cooler, etc.), and when you use bars of 6-8 lights, works fine.
Will I put them in the dining room? We tried them to reduce heat, but the ugly color they throw off made it not fun to sit in there. Likewise I tried them in our sitting room, don't like them, so out they came.
However, if you want me to get used to being in a darker house? Why, because you tell me to? Go to hell, I like my lifestyle, bust my ass to support it, and don't want to give it up because you want me to.
Please move out of your parents basement or one room apartment and get a real house. Then you'll find out how expensive it is to light a home.
IKEA started this program for free, but you do know that auto parts companies did NOT want to accept old oil, right? The government forced them to do so. I suspect WalMart and HomeDepot, being American-owned will do jack and shit until legislation forces their hand.
But I could be wrong...I hope I'm wrong...
Blar.
This is a Canadian right wing newspaper put out by the neocons at CanWest Global. Don't believe the anti-hype, this is all a concerted disinformation campaign being put on by the conservatives.
Salut,
Jacques
Do you know WHY the auto places don't want to take people who walk in's old oil?
Because they have no real control over what is in that bottle. The person carrying it says it's oil. It looks like oil. But if there's a high enough water content, it can contaminate the waste oil holding tank, which makes it expensive to get it hauled away.
I was in auto repair a few years ago. We could get waste oil hauled away for free - nobody paid us for it, but we didn't pay to get rid of it, either. If the water content was over some percentage (tested before they started pumping) then we would be charged by the gallon to be rid of it.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
I like compact fluorescents, but I do notice their color, flicker, and startup time, even on the expensive ones. (Often, the flicker and startup time is great at first, but gets worse over time.) I use CFs in ceiling fixtures which usually have 2 bulbs inside: I put one incandescent and one fluorescent in each. I save half the power, and the incandescent fills in the flicker and startup time very nicely. Plus, having one wasteful incandescent in there encourages me to turn the lights off when I'm not using them.
I can't really understand why, perhaps a knee-jerk reaction against the self-righteous tone environmentalists usually assume, but the article seems to be written more as an argument against using CFL rather than a simple report on the compromise. It takes an easy and fitting swipe at the idea of banning incandescents as a start, but after flirting with the idea that it might be an economic conspiracy perpetrated by Walmart and Home Depot, the second half of the article is basically a rant about the fact that CFL's are highly recommended, despite their mercury, by the same people who fret about mercury contamination from other sources.
Now as many slashdotters know, because this has been discussed multiple times before, this journalist doesn't know what he's talking about with respect to the latter two points (I agree with him on the foolishness of legally banning incandescents). Although CFL's cost on around 3-5 times as much as incandescents, they're also rated to last 5 times as long (although noisy power or heat can reduce that), meaning Walmart sells the same gross value and the user invests the same amount over long time periods...not counting the reduced power bill.
And flat out contrary to his contention that environmentalists ignore the mercury content in CFL's, the EPA did a study examining the amount of mercury contained in CFL's versus that contained in fossil fuels. They found that the adoption of CFL's reduced the net mercury released into the environment because of the power saved, which means less coal burned, taking into account the fraction of power that comes from coal. Furthermore, this study did not take into controlled bulb disposal, which is mandated in some US states for large volume users of fluorescents and further reduces the release of mercury.
The two valid subpoints he has are first that the bulbs are a point-source of mercury. I mentioned proper disposal above, but contamination in the case of breakage is a compromise that's been with us as long as fluorescents have, even longer actually with mercury thermometers. The second is that they are manufactured mostly in India and China, which are beyond our environmental controls. Of course, that assumes the plants over there are releasing harmful amounts of mercury into the environment, is irrelevant to his financial argument of cleanup costs to the US economy, and is largely irrelevant to the general case for using CFL's, assuming the mercury can be acceptably controlled at both manufacture and disposal.
With the author apparently either ignorant or picking and choosing facts to present at will, it seems his position as publisher of junkscience.com is quite ironic. He's certainly not helping readers make an informed decision in this case.
...I can't afford the cleanup.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
How much more energy does it take to actually manufacture these CFL bulbs? We already know their usage involves the potential problem of mercury contamination down the road, but if it takes 50x the amount of raw energy to manufacture these things, how can we justify the 2-3x increase in efficiency? Has anyone read any articles that shed more light on this? BTW, I've always wondered this about solar cells as well - do they have positive net energy?
WTF. How are you using those incandescents? I have some bulbs that have been in place for 7 years. Granted, those in particular only get used for about an hour a week. I have others that have been in place for 3 years and get used two to three hours a day.
My house is now seven years old. I replace regular bulbs with CFLs when the regular bulb blows.
In the time I've had my house, I've replaced almost all of the regular bulbs. The first one blew maybe a year after I moved in.
I have only had one CFL die so far. This is for my front porch light; the angle of the nearby street light casts my front porch into complete darkness, so we leave a light on 24/7 so that it's lit when we get home from work after dark. This light I replaced with a CFL the day I moved in, and it burnt out about three years later. It's replacement has been on for four years without a problem. (In general, I only turn it off once a year, on Halloween, so kids don't come knock while we're out somewhere.)
The power an 11W CFL uses 24/7 is about the same as a 40W incandescent burning just in the evenings, but I don't have to worry about forgetting to turn it on. It's also worked through 105+ degree heat and cold down to about 25.
I'm just one statistical point showing that CFLs can be long-lasting and durable, more so than incandescents. So, with your point to the contrary, now we're even.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
http://www.nema.org/lamprecycle/epafactsheet-cfl.p df
Also, from the lightbulbs that I buy:
All fluorescent bulbs contain small amounts of mercury that is energized by the lamp and in turn causes the phosphors inside the lamp to glow and create visible light. The amount of mercury in a CFL's glass tubing is very small and would fit on the tip of a ball point pen or about 1/750th of that found in an older household thermostat. Inexpensive CFL bulbs, like those found in home improvement and discount stores, contain mercury in elemental form or as mercury vapor which pose a risk of the mercury being released if the bulb is broken. All BlueMax(TM) CFLs are made with special amalgam technology where the mercury content is held within the amalgam fill of the bulb and will not "spill out". This amalgam fill/alloy structure is the same as is used in dentistry for tooth fillings.
BlueMax(TM) CFLs actually present an opportunity to prevent mercury from entering our air, where it most affects our health. The largest source of mercury in our air comes from the burning of coal to produce electricity. A CFL uses 75% less energy than an incandescent light bulb and lasts up to 10 times longer. A power plant will emit 10mg of mercury to produce the electricity to run an incandescent bulb compared to only 2.4mg of mercury to run a CFL over a period of 5 years.
didn't people used to intentionally consume liquid mercury? I'm certain I've read that this was fairly common in England until just a 100 or so years ago.
If you are going to laugh at future improvements, you need to go with CFL. It may be difficult to get people to recycle, but it will also be difficult to make coal plants reduce their emissions by 70%. The coal plant emission reductions have been on the books for years but they keep getting pushed back. Environmental groups back CFL because it reduces mercury now.
It would be best to have both reduced emissions and recycling. Mercury pollution is so bad that it's dangerous to eat fish. Reducing the need for electricity is a good idea, unless you like to waste your money on things you could have for cheaper. Reducing the amount of poisons released to enjoy your life style is also a good idea.
I've replaced all of my low occupancy lighting with CFL. Bathroom utility lights, hallway lights, garage and porch lights are easy targets. It's not the money it saves me it's the legwork of constantly replacing ever crappier incandescent lights that made it worth while. I'm hardly there anyway, so why not? High occupancy and quality lighting areas get incandescent, halogen where possible. Bathroom vanity, bedroom, den, kitchen and office space are going to stay incandescent for quality of life reasons. There are better ways to reduce your electric use, but CFLs the path of least resistance.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I do use a drop cloth when painting but have not had a lot of trouble changing light bulbs. Thanks for the complement, but I doubt my insight is the most penetrating.
Don't know how you figure LEDs are 10x more efficient than CFLs?
l amp
f l/
LED bulb lumens/watt average from the table you reference: 32 lumens per watt (low of 15.5, high of 62.5)
CFL lumens per watt: 60 lumens per watt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_
Philips PL-C 27watts 1325 design lumens = 49 lumens/watt
http://www.nam.lighting.philips.com/us/ecatalog/c
Looks to me like CFLs are the clear winner on lumens per watt.
wow. thanks for pointing that out. I was starting to worry. But after seeing your comment, I can now assume that there is no mercury in CFLs. I mean, that was you're point, right? - that the author is a liar and made the whole thing up and CFLs are actually filled with cinnamon and happy thoughts?
I mean, you *didn't* just commit the logical fallacy of attacking the messenger but making no substantive point at all to dispute the message. Right? Right?
Incandescents don't last much longer in my house either - turns out it's cos the main's voltage is a little on the high side. In the UK it's now supposed to be 230V (was 240V) and I routinely measure up to about 255V. That means resistive loads (such as incandescants) will dissipate about 23% more power* than they're designed for.
* approximating the bulb to have constant resistance, (255/230)^2 = 1.23
An incandescant bulb running off a coal fired power plant will release more mercury into the evironment than a landfilled CF bulb. Eating tuna every day for a year will cause you to ingest more mercury than eating one CF bulb each year.
Environmentalism has to be about tradeoffs. Nobody claims that a biodiesel car doesn't cause pollution, or that a hybrid isn't contributing to global warming. The point is that they cause less damage.
CF bulbs cause less CO2 and less mercury to enter the environment than regular bulbs (at least as long as we're using coal power). It can be very slightly dangerous if you break one in your house, but it's still less dangerous than breaking a regular fluorescant tube in your house.
This article is scaremongering at its worst because he expresses the risk in scientific terms instead of relating it to things that laypersons can understand.
Just put the mercury in your teeth. We are assured by the American Dental Association that this is the one safe place to put what the EPA says is a highly toxic metal.
In the United States, where most electric power comes from coal, a CFL will result in about 1/4 the mercury emissions of an incandescent bulb. This document from the Energystar program notes that the mercury emissions reduction is greater than the amount of Hg in the CFL bulb itself: http://tinyurl.com/2elryb (pdf)
a bel/compact%20fluorescent
So while it may be an issue to consider proper disposal of a broken (or whole) bulb, reducing overall mercury emissions in the environment probably outweighs the disadvantage of having some mercury in each bulb.
In shameless self-promotion, I also discuss some of the issues around CFLs on my blog:
http://moldybluecheesecurds.blogspot.com/search/l
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
No, as my other posts in this thread indicate I am perfectly capable of disputing the points on a scientific basis. The fact that the author is a known shill for big energy is merely an interesting sidenote.
Precisely - total release is lower with CFLs. It can be a point-source release, which is an issue. NEMA tells people who break one to sweep up the fragments (no vacuum) and use paper towels.
Note that a broken CFL has 5mg; a broken old-style thermostat has 500-2000mg.
My grandmother used to praise me for being a great "light turner-offer".
In addition to replacing light bulbs (personally I'd rather wait for better LEDs), why not have more automated light switches, that turn themselves on and off as necessary, when there are people in the room? The sensor technology for these still has a way to go, but 20 years ago I replaced bathroom light switches with motion-activated ones, and except for the occasional waving-hands-wildly-from-the-toilet episode, they've been great. Now I'm living in rentals and they don't offer this (or much of anything in the way of energy savings, even tho I'm the one paying the electricity bills).
Now if I could only afford to convert my Pinzgauer to biodiesel...
The issue is when you take 5mg of mercury and multiply it by the number of people who just toss these in landfills. Let us take a reasonably small number of say 40,000 bulbs in your local landfill that is 200,000 mg of mercury. I can assure you that 200,000 mg could easily leach into your local water supply if the land fill is poorly designed or overused (which happens frequently).
Ah but burning coal, which many powerplants burn to produce energy, releases mercury too. By using CFLs people don't use as much power and therfore not as much coal is burned. Niether this article nor you mention this. If it's just concern for mercury then a comparison of how much mercury is released by burning coal for the power to light incandescents and CFLs vr how much mercury is in CFLs needs to be done. However it's not so simple because by using CFLs greenhouse gas emissions are also cut, then there the pollution from coal mining.
I bet an overall analysis, ROI or TCO, of incandsescent lights and CFLs will conclude CFLs are better. Oh, also you mention about CFLs ending up in landfills however some places take them for recycling. I can't vouch for it but here's a business that recycles and makes equipment to recycle CFLs, Air Cycle.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I've had the same CFs in my house for 15 years. Your house has wiring problems or you're a lair.
How much would they have had to pay to properly clean up that set in the 40-year-old Virgin where they burst like a dozen long fluorescents?
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
I mean, it's not like there is a deposit fee like with beer cans. What would someone gain by putting extra water in their motor oil?
I think the seller and the manufacturer of these products need to pay for their reclemation no matter how many assholes we have trying to mess with the system. Jerks contaminating the tank are part of the cost of doing business.
Blar.
I live in California and I have never seen anything about recycling CFLs. If we don't know that we are supposed to be recycling them, and if they don't make it extremely easy for us to recycle, how does anyone expect any of them to actually be recycled.
On the other side of this: Talked to my uncle who is a chemist who specializes in molecular contamination for Goddard and he feels that the 5 milligrams listed as being in each CFL sounds a bit high. As far as the localized environmental contamination from a single bulb breaking, he wondered why they didn't open a window. That would take care of gaseous mercury. As far as the small droplets of mercury, he brought up the interesting fact that mercury has such a high surface tension that as the droplets become smaller the surface tension keeps the mercury from evaporating. If there is carpet in the room, the mercury would work its way down under the carpet into the mat where he felt that it wouldn't effect the rooms occupants.
The real issue here seems to be the long term environmental damage from the disposal of billions of CFLs.
BTW - Has anyone independently confirmed the quantity of mercury that each CFL contains? This story makes the situation sound real bad but I would like to be sure that they are that toxic before we start pushing the bandwagon back the other direction.
If the latter, take care that lions don't move in.
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguidelines/mercuryv apor/recognition.html
Now, what sort of concentrations are generated from a spill of 5mg in an average sized bedroom?
FTFOA:
EXPOSURE LIMITS
* OSHA PEL The current Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) permissible exposure limit (PEL) for mercury vapor is 0.1 milligram per cubic meter (mg/m(3)) of air as a ceiling limit. A worker's exposure to mercury vapor shall at no time exceed this ceiling level.
* NIOSH REL
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has established a recommended exposure limit (REL) for mercury vapor of 0.05 mg/m(3) as a TWA for up to a 10-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek. NIOSH also assigns a "Skin" notation, which indicates that the cutaneous route of exposure, including mucous membranes and eyes, contributes to overall exposure [NIOSH 1992].
* ACGIH TLV
The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) has assigned mercury vapor a threshold limit value (TLV) of 0.025 mg/m(3) as a TWA for a normal 8-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek and considers mercury vapor an A4 substance (not classifiable as a human carcinogen). The ACGIH also assigns a "Skin" notation to mercury vapor [ACGIH 1994, p. 25].
* Rationale for Limits
The NIOSH limit is based on the risk of central nervous system damage, eye, skin, and respiratory tract irritation [NIOSH 1992].
The ACGIH has not published documentation for the current TLV for mercury vapor. The 1991 Documentation of Threshold Limit Values (6th edition) discusses the basis for the prior TLV of 0.05 mg/m(3), but does not discuss the current TLV for mercury vapor [ACGIH 1991, p. 881].
HEALTH HAZARD INFORMATION
* Routes of Exposure
Exposure to mercury vapor can occur through inhalation, and eye or skin contact.
* Summary of toxicology
1. Effects on Animals: Mercury vapor can damage the kidneys, liver, brain, heart, lungs and colon in experimental animals. It is also mutagenic and can affect the immune system. Rabbits exposed for a single 4 hour period to mercury vapor at a concentration of 28.8 mg/m(3) developed severe damage to the kidneys, liver, brain, heart, lungs, and colon [Clayton and Clayton 1981]. Rabbits exposed to 0.86 mg/m(3) for 6 weeks had significant brain and kidney damage, which resolved on cessation of exposure. Exposure to 6 mg/m(3) mercury vapor caused severe damage to the kidney, heart, lung, and brain of rabbits; however, dogs exposed to 0.1 mg/m(3) for 83 weeks had no microscopic indication of tissue damage [Clayton and Clayton 1981]. Mercury may injure the kidneys through an autoimmune mechanism [ACGIH 1991]. Mercury was mutagenic in eukaryotic cells [ACGIH 1991].
2. Effects on Humans: Mercury vapor can cause effects in the central and peripheral nervous systems, lungs, kidneys, skin and eyes in humans. It is also mutagenic and affects the immune system [Hathaway et al. 1991; Clayton and Clayton 1981; Rom 1992]. Acute exposure to high concentrations of mercury vapor causes severe respiratory damage, while chronic exposure to lower levels is primarily associated with central nervous system damage [Hathaway et al. 1991]. Chronic exposure to mercury is also associated with behavioral changes and alterations in peripheral nervous system [ACGIH 1991]. Pulmonary effects of mercury vapor inhalation include diffuse interstitial pneumonitis with profuse fibrinous exudation [Gosselin 1984]. Glomerular dysfunction and proteinuria have been observed mercury exposed workers [ACGIH 1991]. Chronic mercury exposure can cause discoloration of the cornea and lens, eyelid tremor and, rarely, disturbances of vision and extraocular muscles [Grant 1986]. Delayed hypersensitivity reactions have been reported in individuals exposed to mercury vapor [Clayton and Clayton 1981]. Mercury vapor is reported to b
The mistake was calling in the DEP in the first place.
EPA says "If a CFL breaks in your home, open nearby windows to disperse any vapor that may escape, carefully sweep up the fragments (do not use your hands) and wipe the area with a disposable paper towel to remove all glass fragments. Do not use a vacuum. Place all fragments in a sealed plastic bag and follow disposal instructions above."
I wonder if she has a thermostat in the house, with a mercury tilt switch? How about a digital (or quartz) watch, or any other device containing batteries containing mercury? Maybe a crib monitor?
Every now and then I've had an alkaline or nicad battery burst and release fumes. Should I have called the EPA and got a cleanup? Should I quit using battery-powered devices?
NYC has a rechargable battery law that states any retailer that sells rechargable batteries must accept them for recycling. I'd imagine cities can do the same with CFLs.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
The standby power consumption of a TV set is the power needed to keep the REMOTE CONTROL receiver and associated microcontroller running all the time. If this wasn't done, then your remote wouldn't be able to turn the set on, because the circuitry that receives the signals from it would be dead.
The "instant on" story goes back to when TVs contained vacuum tubes, and required a minute or more to produce a picture from a cold start. Manufacturers discovered that if you kept the tube filaments warm all the time, startup time was greatly reduced. The fact that such circuits wasted gobs of electricity and burned down more than a few homes didn't matter much....
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
If you trust the Bush Administration's EPA, you can believe what they say:
---------
The State of Michigan has prescribed steps to clean up a small mercury spill, below. This was likely drawn up before these flourescent bulbs became common. Still, here are the last two steps they prescribe when cleaning up spills of less than two tablespoons...
21. REPLACE BROKEN DEVICE WITH A MERCURY-FREE alternative: For a detailed listing of mercury-containing devices and alternatives see: -link-
22. INVENTORY ALL REMAINING MERCURY-CONTAINING DEVICES AND REPLACE THEM WITH MERCURY FREE ALTERNATIVES: The best way to address a mercury spill is to prevent it from ever happening in the first place. For additional pollution prevention ideas and assistance contact the DEQ's Environmental Assistance Center at 800-662-9278.
Seriously, I've been looking at CFLs for serveral years, and I have yet to find a package which lists both the color temperature in Kelvin and CRI (color rendering index, or how close the spectrum comes to mimicing blackbody radiation at the defined color temperature), plus the time to 90% brightness. I'd like to see an EMI/RFI rating (one of mine floods my IR system with EMI and makes it unusable for about 2 minutes after startup), as well as a dB rating - but that's probably asking too much.
Those seem like pretty good measures of how "good" a lamp color and performace will be, but nobody puts them on their lables. Without spending a boatload on "test lamps" there's no way to tell - and even if you do find a "good" brand there's no guarantee that the next time you need a lamp you can get one which matches the others in your house. And yes, they burn out before 14 years is up - simple probability states that it will happen eventually, experience suggests it happens quite a bit more often due to power issues, etc.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"A few months later, my kids fried our microwave oven. Again, I tried to find out what the best way to dispose of a microwave is."
I'm sure the nuked cat was easier to get rid of.
I get burned out bulbs all the time. They last longer than incandescents, but don't let the "8000 hours" fool you. I'm just too lazy (and $2 isn't enough) to save all my receipts and keep track of when I bought each bulb in my house.
Of the 5 or so I've owned, 2 of them shattered within the first month of use, and I did not know about the health risks. Fuck these bulbs.
Mad as a hatter!
It is a shame the "journalist" didn't do the 15 minutes of research I just did. (2K costs seemed a bit extreme) from:
p df
http://www.nema.org/lamprecycle/epafactsheet-cfl.
"If a CFL breaks in your home, open nearby windows to disperse any vapor that may escape, carefully sweep up the fragments (do not use your hands) and wipe the area with a disposable paper towel to remove all glass fragments. Do not use a vacuum. Place all fragments in a sealed plastic bag and follow disposal instructions above."
Peace
200,000 mg = 200 grams, the weight of just more than half a can of soda pop. Mercury is 13.54 times denser than water. 200g/13.54 = 14.77 centiliters of mercury, about half a liquid ounce in total volume. In the grand scheme of tens of thousands of gallons of captured liquid runoff in a typical landfill, that's literally a drop in the bucket, and a tiny one at that. And this mercury has to become methylated to become bioavailable. It is likely that some of this will go through this process. And it's likely some will not.
And if your landfill has problems containing their liquids, whose bacterial content alone is far, far more potentially devastating than your potential mercury problem, your local environmental protection agency will shut them down until it's addressed. Fines are steep for this sort of mismanagement.
Is this mercury a problem? Maybe. But let's not let big, scary numbers like "200,000" incite fear where there should be none. And let's not "point source" this problem either. Do you have any idea of how much less coal is likely to be burned using these bulbs? I'd say that the mercury emissions from the coal burned to provide electricity for an equivalent amount of light from older incandescent light bulbs eclipse the mercury that could potentially escape from these bulbs. It's got to be a fair amount of the 48 tons or so that the USEPA claims coal fired plants in the US alone emit each year.
This is yet another case of TANSTAAFL - "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch".
I remember years ago watching a program about Amazonian gold miners. They were extracting gold from sediment by mixing in mercury, which would bind to the tiny particles. Once they had a nice blob of amalgam, they would burn off the mercury with a blowtorch, leaving behind a nugget. They were evaporating gallons of mercury each, and breathing it - I can't imaging what they were doing to their own health, as well as their environment. It was appalling.
If you like one, go back and get enough to set up your home.
While I suggest buying a pack of lights once good ones are found I also suggest that instead of replacing all of the lights at once instead replace them as incandsescent light burnout. If a light is used a lot then it would be long before it needs to be replaced and if it's not used often or for very long then switching before it burns out may not make much sense.
I first started doing this when others kept saying how much more expensive CFLs were. So I stated telling them to just replace the most frequently use lights then slowly change the rest.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I've made recommendations before, but since we're not talking about anything that's objectively measurable, what you want and what I want are going to differ widely. What I currently recommend is that you buy a bunch and try 'em out. If you don't like the color, put them in your attic/garage/basement/closet/shed where you'll occasionally need light, but aren't too concerned about the decor.
What you're asking is along the lines of "how do I find clothes in my favorite color?" without telling us what color you like. The answer is "go look at a bunch of clothes."
Now, if you're talking about reliability, and the wiring in your house is good... I don't know what to tell you. My first CF bulb turns 10 this year, and the only two I've ever had burn out was connected to a bad circuit. What's around the house is a mishmash of bulbs-- some, like the first one, were as much as $35 when new. Others came in six-packs for $10. There's probably a half-dozen brands and ten different types inside and outdoors. They just don't burn out for us.
During the 1950's more than HALF the world's mercury was being pumped around a building in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Mercury dissolves lithium, and the US Govt wanted several tons of Lithium 6 isotope to make H-bombs with.
Due to a bit of carelessness, something like 200,000 pounds of mercury went missing. Some went as vapor into the air, some into the water, and a lot leaked from joints and pumps in the lithium works.
Now 200K pounds is enough, by current standards, to make everybody in the USA a drooling imbecile, or everybody in Tenessee a mouth-breathing moron, or everybody in Oak Ridge a politician.
Apparently none of those things have come to pass.
So just maybe we should turn down the hysteria about breaking a 10cc tube with a smidgen of mercury vapor in it.
Of course you want to keep in mind that sourcewatch is owned by prwatch which has a very leftist agenda (see directors profiles). I'm not saying ole Milloy is legit or anything but I think it's worth pointing out that your citation is not without heavy bias. Ed.
The issue is when you take 5mg of mercury and multiply it by the number of people who just toss these in landfills. Let us take a reasonably small number of say 40,000 bulbs in your local landfill that is 200,000 mg of mercury.
...
There was a similar issue with atomic fluorescent lighting.
Back in the post-WWII heyday of civilian atomic energy there was a design for a nuclear-powered fluorescent lamp replacement. Basically a fluorescent tube with a small amount of radioactive material in it to stimulate the fluorescent material.
External ionizing radiation is small to nil - far less than the X-rays from the era's TV sets (and that was BEFORE color TVs, with the multi-kilovolt electrons slamming into the shadow-mask just behind the screen).
No power needed: Stays lit for decades, cover it with a shield when you want darkness. Make it out of the radioactive by-products of power reactors, which otherwise would have to be disposed of.
Would have been quite safe - individually. But then somebody calculated what the radiological environment would have been in a warehouse full of 'em
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Breaking a CFL bulb isn't really "spilling" mercury, since there's no liquid mercury in there. This link has info specific to cleaning up broken fluorescent bulbs: http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/WPIE/FluoresLamps/#CleanBr eak
Wow, whoever wrote that article sure does hate "environmentalists," who apparently all think with one mind and disagree on nothing and can be painted with a single brush.
So, this d-bag makes it sound as though the EPA will be declaring your house a Super Fund site if you break a few CFLs. Completely and totally untrue, of course, since the Fund is primarily concerned with large, industrial and waste sites. Additionally, the Fund hasn't had any new tax revenue in years (thanks, Congress!) so it's completely funded currently by the fines it's able to levy and enforce. If you were to encounter any legal issues at all regarding a few broken CFLs would come from your state's EPA counterpart (the Maine DEP, for example). Highly unlikely, unless you're a CFL warehouse that burns to the ground. The average home owner has little to fear on that front. One thing that should be considered, however, is that the EPA's jurisdiction ends where your shopping trip begins when it comes to pollutants and hazardous material. Though they have the jurisdiction over producers and manufacturers who create household products with hazardous substances, their jurisdiction does not extend past the manufacturer. So, they can monitor a CFL manufacturer and take enforcement against them if they handle their mercury inappropriately (read: send it to the landfill), they have no jurisdiction over the 1000s of household user who tosses their CFLs in the trash to send it to the dump. Of course, if the dump becomes extremely contaminated, it'll eventually get added to the Super Fund list and will become jurisdictional again...but only the big commercial and industrial users of the dump who can be tracked down will be held liable for clean up costs. If you consider the fact that between .5% and 1% of all household garbage contains regulated hazardous substances and only a very few municipalities have the resources to offer readily accessible hazardous material disposal services, this 'gap' in jurisdiction is sort of scary. Perhaps it's more scary that so many of the household products we use contain such hazardous substances and people simply aren't aware of it.
I just don't understand how some people have such poor results, I have several CFL bulbs that are approaching being 20 years old. These are bulbs that are in my basement, so they're not used contantly, but there are many days where they'll go through 6 or more power on/off cycles (the parents turn the lights off training) and there also many occasions where they'll be left on for days at a time when I'm not using the basement (lakcing constant parent nagging, I have slipped a little) typically during the week, I'll notice light out of the basement window when coming home at night. 20 years even under light use is pretty impressive to me. And of the bulbs that were origionally installed I think I've replaced more because of physical damage than "burn outs".
For those unfamiliar with superfund it requires, and pays for, cleanup of truly hazardous sites in the U.S. ranging from large-scale toxic spills (e.g. Love Canal New York) to military disposal sites and deliberate poisoning of the drinking water with nuclear waste (e.g. Project Chariot).
Such waste has often been produced by or with the support of the federal government in communities that have little resources to combat the problems. Dismissing it out of hand is only possible for those who've never been exposed to it and who don't care about the lives of others.
But then of course there's this:
CEI is a neoliberal thinktank that has been outspoken against any governmental environmental policy including action on global warming once stating that: "reducing these levels [Creenhouse gas emmissions], even in "baby steps," would "result in the deaths of more people in the U.S. than global warming would worldwide"
See also:
The above was taken from ElWiki
I'm curious on the flicker. Most modern CF bulbs have ballasts that run in the 10-kilohertz range. The phosphor coating, on the other hand, has a much longer response time. So assuming you can actually see things flickering at 10kHz... you STILL wouldn't see flicker, since the phosphors wouldn't have time to dim each cycle.
If you can see them flicker, movies and television must look like a series of photographs being leisurely swapped to you.
Warmup time is definitely a real issue for some bulbs, though. I kinda like it in the in the morning. Gives my eyes time to adjust. The rest of the time, it's annoying.
I want good environmental LED lights dag nabbit.
Hang around for a few years. Last time I looked LED assemblies are comparable in efficiency to incandescents.
In the last year or so some white-light LEDs were manufactured which slightly beat CFs - but they're still way too expensive to build into lamps.
Meanwhile the efficiency of the LEDs is improving rapidly and mass production will bring the price down. Expect to see first efficiency, then price/service-life crossovers at the fixture level some time in the next few years.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
OHWAIT. No, they don't. Those power plants are still creating the same amount of waste, you're just able to go "I'm saving the world!" and pat yourself on the back when you look at your light bulbs.
Unfortunately dispite the energy efficiency gains in some areas, as with CFLs, there are greater energy "needs" now. The number of appliances and other energy users grows in the average house and many of these items are always on now. For instance even though they are turned off my tv, dvd player, and stereo are still using power. Because of this I got a power strip to plug these items into which I can then turn off. One switch actually turns them all off, and not just on standby.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Nick Goslingo m_content&task=view&id=7446&Itemid=31
http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=c
Nice fallacy, Strawman or whatever.
In CA its against the law to put florescents in the regular trash. Those are rules made by Democrats and environmentalists.
I checked the archives page at the Ellsworth American, and there isn't any April 12 article on this subject. I suspect this is one of those crap articles the National Post comes out with once in a while, like the time they claimed the Iranian government was making Jews wear yellow stars.
Check it out- search for "Brandy Bridges"
http://www.ellsworthamerican.com/ea_archive.html
Furthermore, privateeye.com lists no "Brandy Bridges" in Ellsworth. It is possible that Brandy M. Bridges (age 27) of either Stockton Springs or Prospect Harbor could be this person- she is the only match who lives in that part of the state.
You can't just throw it in one can?
You don't have curbside collection of recyclables? Everyplace I've lived since the 1980s, if not the 1970s, has collected recyclables curbside. While I like this what I don't like is that they raise your taxes to pay for it, I recall walking along the side of roads collecting recyclables then taking them down to the recycling center and getting paid by weight for what I collected. Making you pay to pick up recyclables then collecting money from the recyclers is double dipping. And if they aren't collecting from the recyclers then I don't know what to say other than perhaps they need to go to a business school. Simply even if a person isn't getting paid for recycling curbside recycling should pay for itself!!!
FalconShould there be a Law?
I think there's probably something wrong with how you are using them. Enclosed fixtures? Recessed lighting?
I've got of order 20 compact fluorescents in the house. Since January, I have replaced 2. That's consistent with a 4 year lifespan. All of the ones that needed replacement were in enclosed fixtures. In open fixtures, I don't think I have ever replaced one that failed. I have replaced older ones that are getting dim or that don't match the lighting color of the newer ones.
The are more expensive than incandescent, but in California they are heavily subsidised. The local drugstore has GE 60W equivalents at 3 for $3.99. The incandescents are 3 for $2.99.
Support SETI@home
Fuck off you arrogant little shit. I have a house and my own family in it. 150W of incandescent light gives you a very bright room. Even if a family of 4 are each in their own room, each lit brightly, that's a max of only 600W. In reality, our typical high end of usage is about equivalent of 300W incandescent, i.e. 80W fluorescent, and much less when the kids go to bed. A very high end estimate what we save by going fluoro is $4/mo.
....about Steve Milloy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy It's obvious that this guy is just a shill for Big Oil & Big Tobacco companies. ...and another nutbar from Fox News no less. 'nuff said.
45 watts {6} * 10,000 hours {5} = 450,000 watt-hours saved by switching
4.35 * 10^10 {4} / (2.931 * 10^14 * 3) {1,2} =
So switching one 60 watt bulb with a 15 watt CF will save 22 milligrams of mercury from entering the atmosphere. So you keep the mercury in 4.5 CF bulb from entering the atmosphere for each CF bulb you use to replace an incandescent. If you don't break the bulbs (like the author) you can recycle them and save it all.
However I don't know if concentrated mercury levels in a landfill would be a worse problem than diffuse levels in the air if they aren't recycled. Also I don't know about the 10,000 hour rated life of CF bulbs, they never seem to last that long for me. Most I've seen rate themselves at 8k hours or less. If the current rule mandated by the EPA actually lowers levels to 15 tons per year, that will bring the value down to 7.5 milligrams, comparable to the mercury in a CF bulb.
Now that I've wasted all that time, I found an EPA fact sheet with a graph showing similar results, but I don't know where they get their numbers from...
Steven Milloy is hardly one who should be taken seriously on environmental / health issues. Read more about the offer of the article by visiting wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_MilloyEnergystar.gov has a PDF file up about CFLs and describes that the broken glass is more dangerous to you than the mercury and provides the following disposal advice:
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/--------- If its possible it will happen, If its impossible it will just take longer
Mercury is a natural mineral, it has a natural distribution in the soil.
In fact, Wikipedia states that the mercury distribution in the soil is 70ug/kg. Soil weights about 1500 kg/cubic meter.
That means natural soil has ~0.10 kg of mercury per cubic meter - 21 light bulbs worth.
While I consider myself an environmentalist, we must recognize the absurdity here. Considering the lifespan of a CF bulb,the diffusivity of bulb disposal, I'd doubt you'd contribute sufficient mercury beyond natural levels is high unlikely.
That isn't even factoring the offset mercury from coal burning power plant as a result of using mercury. (which itself is from a natural distribution of mercury in decomposed plant and animal matter)
According to nescaum.org coal-fired power releases about 48 tons of mercury per year. TFA claims that each CF bulb contains about five milligrams of mercury. Through the magic of google's calulator, we can easily convert units: 48 short tons = 43,544,867,520 milligrams
If we could cut US coal-fired power emissions 10% by replacing incandescents with lower-power CF bulbs, we'd reduce mercury emissions by roughly 4,350,000,000 milligrams. At 5 milligrams per CF bulb, this is equivalent to 870 million CF bulbs. If all of these ended up being disposed of by incineration (sending the CFs' mercury into the atmosphere) we'd come about even in total mercury emitted at that energy savings level.
Of course, it's hard to say if the 10% emission reduction could really be achieved. I certainly don't have time to account for all those variables. However, it looks like the folks at energystar.gov have done the work. They claim that there is a net mercury emission savings due to the power savings of about 10 milligrams. (Or five milligrams, I'd say, if the CF is not properly disposed at its end-of-life.)
On the whole, so long as we still use a lot of coal for power, it looks like CFs are probably a good tradeoff.
(Also, for what it's worth, TFA is quite the hatchet job. It's either not written from anything like a neutral POV or the author failed to do his homework, I found all my numbers in five minutes with three google searches. I also found, in the energystar pdf, the recommended method for disposing of a broken CF. It involves a broom, a ziploc, and a damp paper towel... materials which should cost a good deal less than $2000 in most cases.)
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Further to this, the author of TFA is the junkscience guy for FOX. Here is the wiki on him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy which basically says he's a professional liar.
The amazing thing is that dentists are still allowed to use Mercury-Amalgam fillings. If you have more than a few of those silver fillings in your mouth (holler all you Mountain Dew fans), there is a substantial amount of mercury vapor released inside your mouth every time you chew something. Break a lightbulb --> HAZMAT truck. Get a cavity --> Put a silver/mercury amalgam permanantly in your head.
It's hard to tell the cool to chill, my favorite hotel room has a view to an ill.
Commercial 4 foot and 8 foot flourescent tubes are availible in coated plastic, so if broken, mercury doesnt leak out..make it manditory that all tubes be coated and that there is manditory recycling laws that stipulate recycling of dead tubes/compact tubes etc. What we really need is development of LED bulbs that utilize the newer technology of recoveting the 99% of light that LEDs produce that gets trappped in the existing design of the LED device (there was an article about this a couple of years ago and how a new device design paradigm soved this problem and produced LEDs with 99% more light output for the same current input)
Turns out that burning coal produces mercury vapor too, and the power savings of the CFL result in less mercury being released.
l ay%20articles/16Powerplay.Mercury.CFL.html
http://www.cityofberkeley.info/sustainable/Powerp
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
For a century or so silver has been recycled out of photographic processes by putting steel wool filter in the drain. No moral superiority had to be expended in this recycling effort. Why? Because it makes sense.
Me, I demonstrate outside Italian restaurants, trying to get more respect for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So far I haven't tried to enlist the coercive power of the state to assist me in this crusade, but it's only a matter of time.
We should think carefully before choosing, however passively, to be governed by the most passionate believers.
--
phunctor
FSM!
Ho ho ho!
That Gaia b****
Has got to go!
Coal isn't all carbon, you know.
Please have a look to the ongoing discussion about CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs) that is going on this mailing list....
Let's do some math!
d f
- a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs= ooc&q=BTU+to+kilowatt+hour&btnG=Search
F luorescentFAQ.html
/ co2report.html
/ colmain.html
x .htm
"For bituminous coal it is assumed that 16 pounds of mercury per trillion Btus is emitted; for anthracite coal, 18 pounds per trillion Btus (USEPA 1997a);"
www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r02104/600r02104chap4.p
"1 BTU = 0.00029307107 kilowatt hour"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox
293,071,070 KWH per 16 pounds Hg, that makes 18,316,942 KWH per pound of HG,
that makes 40.3819444 KWH per milligram Hg released from coal-burning utilities in the US
So, one 15watt CF lasts 6000 hours, conservatively, and so compared to 60 watt incandescents, it saves 45 watts * 6000 hours = 270,000 watt hours or 270KWH of juice,
270 / (KWH per mg Hg released) = 6.6861565 miligrams of Hg not emitted to power the CF (as compared to an incandescent, and assuming that your power comes from coal)
This is 270 KWH generated (i.e. raw BTU content of coal), and Hg "emitted" (unsure if scrubbers and cleaned coal have been accounted for)
Assuming that coal to your light socket involves a 50% loss, then it's more like 500KWH saved, or 12 miligrams of Hg kept out of the environment.
"The mercury content of compact fluorescent bulbs varies between 2 and 15 mg per bulb, depending on the model."
http://www.productstewardship.net/productsMercury
So, I'm not convinced that even if you just throw your CF in the trash that you have actually put more Hg into the environment than you've taken out. Of course, we should dispose of CF's responsibly (I'm sitting on a pile of about 6-7 dead bulbs).
More links:
According to
http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?catnum=2&catid=106
it takes 1 pound of coal to generate 1 kilowatt hour
According to the DOE, one kilowatt hour from coal releases 2 lbs of CO2
www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report
"according to Environmental Protection Agency figures released in 1984, average values of uranium and thorium content have been determined to be 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm"
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text
"Approximately 75 tons of mercury are found in the coal delivered to power plants each year and about two thirds of this mercury is emitted to the air, resulting in about 50 tons being emitted annually" (which, in turn, is about one third of all domestic mercury emissions)
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/control_emissions/inde
I have a copy of Joan Miro's Mercury Fountain in my house. Do I need to call the EPA when I'm ready to trash it?
a den1.htmla /fundmiro/calder.html
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/pix/bar/miro/Alm
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/spain/barcelon
You make a good point. Particularly since most lightbulbs end up being made in countries with poor pollution control.
I expect to also find that producing a CF bulb creates more pollution than creating a conventional bulb, but that the increased life and energy efficiency make up for this.
The problem was that this article cherry-picked its talking points instead of doing some kind of scientific analysis.
Of course not.
Guess what... a thermometer has 400 times more mercury than a CFL . So do many of your other household products you use every day.
Can we go back to saving energy and the air now? I don't want to die of skin cancer by 2012.
Thanks.
you are mistaken in assuming that mercury is a noble gas.
I don't know anyone who would think mercury is a noble gas. Most people's idea of mercury is a silvery liquid metal that's found in thermometers and thermostat tilt switches. Also most people know it's poisonous.
The thing most people DON'T know is that fluorescent bulbs contain mercury.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Here in Europe, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive (aka WEEE) comes in to effect very soon with exactly this effect. Suppliers of electrical equipment will be required to take it back from the consumer for recycling at the end of its life. In practice, what this means is that most suppliers will sign up to a third-party scheme that will do this for them, though some larger companies may do it themselves.
Regardless of how bullshit this article is, I bemoan the big push for CFL's. They are lame.
= 1142
http://www.productdose.com/article.php?article_id
See above link for comparison (perhaps not incredibly current numbers, but there is an Excel spreadsheet so you can work it out yourself) of different light bulb types for cost-efficiency.
I will not buy CFL's. I'm going with LED's. They will last next to forever, use way less power, and they won't pollute the way CFL's do.
I'm really pissed that the Canadian gov't is banning incandescents and pushing CFLs. They should be pushing alternatives, not a particular product. If there was market push for LED the prices would go down and the business case would improve hugely, especially when you factor in lifespan.
'Contaminated' just means above 'safe' levels. 'Safe' levels for drinking water are levels where long-term consumption is considered safe.
That doesn't mean that drinking 10 gallons of water that is contaminated to just-barely un-safe levels is going to hurt you.
paintball
Steven J. Milloy is NOT a scientist but industry-paid hack, is a columnist for Fox News and a paid advocate for Phillip Morris, ExxonMobil and other corporations. For years, Milloy has been scamming people on Fox News and on his junkscience site.
This guy has been bought and paid for many times over by companies like Phillip Morris and Exxon Mobil.
This report from the Union of Concerned Scientists documents how Milloy, headed a nonprofit organization called the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, which had been covertly created by the tobacco company Philip Morris in 1993 to manufacture uncertainty about the health hazards posed by secondhand smoke. Milloy also served as a member of the small 1998 Global Climate Science Team task force that mapped out ExxonMobil's disinformation strategy on global warming. Between 2000 and 2004, ExxonMobil gave $50,000 to Milloy's Advancement of Sound Science Center, and another $60,000 to an organization called the Free Enterprise Education Institute (a.k.a. Free Enterprise Action Institute), which is also registered to Milloy's home address.
ExxonMobil also gave $130,000 to Milloy's "Free Enterprise Action Institute" between 1998-2005. The organization is registered under Milloy's name and home address.
Milloy is also the former director of the "National Environmental Policy Institute". Yet another industry front group providing disinformation on climate science to which ExxonMobil gave at least $75,000.
As others have stated, Milloy never mentions the large amounts of mercury being released from coal-fired power plants that has resulted in levels of mercury so high in lakes and streams of New England that state health agencies have to warn pregnant women and young children not to eat too much fish caught from these waters. Milloy never mentions that his friends in the power industry (and unfortunately the current administrators in the EPA) fought tooth and nail to prevent the installation of equipment on the power plants to remove the large amounts of mercury released to the air.
As has been pointed out, the mercury in the CFL bulbs (unlike that being released from power plants) is contained and the bulbs can be recycled. Should we eventually move to other solutions with less potential for mercury contamination like LED bulbs. Absolutely! But LED bulbs are even more expensive now than CFLs.
What people like Milloy do and have done for years is nothing less then criminal: Take money from industry to lie and confuse Americans about the dangers of smoking, concerns about global warming, and other health, safety, and consumer issues.
It's just stupid to call the EPA for help. I cannot believe that anybody in his right mind would ever call the Government first to ask about hazardous clean-up. Any reasonably well informed person would first check out the clean-up costs and then decide whether to call the Government. I strongly suspect that this person knew that calling the EPA (or its state equivalent) would result in impossible red tape. The reason for calling would be to create fodder for a political argument. Steve Miloy is well known for his libertarian political agenda. That being said, I am a libertarian too. I CHOOSE to buy wind power for my home, because I find pleasure in not burning as much coal. If need be, I would pay a premium for nuclear power for 100% of my electricity for the same reasons. I CHOSE to install many CFLs years ago because they save money, put out less heat, and are better for the environment. In the past year or so, CFLs have become economically cost effective vs. incandescent bulbs for typical home use. That is why they are becoming popular - they save money and are "green." Outfits like Wal-Mart and the Government are into mandating CFLs because they like to shoot fish in a barrel. Nobody will complain loudly about being forced to do something they would do anyway, so why not. The Government likes to make laws and rules - it's what they do. Mandating CFLs won't peeve anybody too much and the Pols can appear "green." Take things like seatbelt laws, the 40 hour work week, and minimum insulation ratings in new homes. These are all things that the Government mandated about the time they were already becoming accepted practice. Those laws just gave the Pols the opportunity for taking credit for something that was happening anyway. Like most things out of D.C. CFL mandates are just a smokescreen.
The carbon footprint is bad but the energy footprint is worst. For everything manufactured needs energy to get manufactured and all things creates waste. All waste needs to be processed in some ways so that takes energy. Sure a incandescent lamp may give off less light than Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) but creating that lamp with mercury and other materials and end of life processing will take more energy than the incandescent lamp ever used in it existence. This is sort of like the Hummer versus the Prius energy comparison.
We need to look at the total energy cost, from getting the raw materials to end of life processing of all objects before we should cast judgment of which technology is better than the other for the environment. Many companies play the marketing game to show only that part they are saving the environment but on the other hand they damage the environment in other ways they don't advertise.
FRAUD ALERT
The Financial Post article is typical scientific fraud, in my opinion. They apparently want you to read their publication so that you will see the ads, and they don't care how they get you to do it. They don't hire writers who understand the issues apparently, and they don't give their writers enough time to do research.
Look at these paragraphs from a June 20, 2006 article from the Oregonian newspaper, Mercury rules give kiln a pass, which is now available only to paid subscribers.
"As Oregon, with federal prodding, clamps down on mercury emitted by a Portland General Electric coal-fired power plant in Boardman, it leaves unregulated an Eastern Oregon factory that is a far larger source of the toxic compound.
"The state's biggest industrial source of airborne mercury is a cement kiln run by Kansas-based Ash Grove Cement Co. in the town of Durkee. Unaffected by federal laws aimed at coal-fired power plants, it released 632 pounds of mercury into the air in 2004, the last year when records are available, compared with 151 pounds emitted by PGE's facility."
Yes, compact fluorescent bulbs should be given to some agency to recycle them. But broken compact fluorescents are a small contribution to the total amount of mercury in the atmosphere, which is rapidly increasing by thousands of tons each year since China is increasing the number of coal-fired plants.
This is the guy from junkscience.com, he's not objective.
p df
Now according to the EPA (allegedly) http://www.nema.org/lamprecycle/epafactsheet-cfl.
"A power plant will emit 10mg of mercury to produce
the electricity to run an incandescent bulb compared to only
2.4mg of mercury to run a CFL for the same time"
So you're still ahead, since the DFL only has 4mg in it.
People should look at the reality, rather than the sci-fi fantasy of environmental spin. Take the statement: "As each CFL contains five milligrams of mercury, at the Maine "safety" standard of 300 nanograms per cubic meter, it would take 16,667 cubic meters of soil to "safely" contain all the mercury in a single CFL." 300 ng/m3 is a standard for mercury concentration in air, not soil. Mercury is an element found naturally in soil. The concern for human exposure is primarily ingestion, and perhaps inhalation, by pregnant women. There is virtually no other human health concern. No one is likely to eat from a floor. So if the window had been opened, with a fan directed out, the inhalation "safety" level would have been reached in a short time. Second, the Maine "safety" standard is set at a level to protect against exposure over a lifetime, with added orders of magnitude of intended to cover uncertainty, and still cause not even a possibility of harm. So the 300 ng/M3 level is unrealistic in any case for a temporary exposure. Third, the standard is based on the toxicity of methyl mercury, which is produced in the guts of fish, and not elemental mercury, which is used in CFLs, and is much much less toxic. So a spill of mercury from a CFL, even in the highly unlikely even that all of the mercury was released, is not a circumstance worthy of panic.
There a couple things I've noticed that havn't really been addressed here yet, and that's power factor. Compact florencent lights have horrible power factor by comparison to the incandecent lights. Which while it means that people who are using the lights pay less, the power plants will have to supply even more than what's being paid for, which could mean that there is the need for more power generation, and bigger power line gauges. Another issue is that since it's a throw away product, they use the cheapest components in them, this means that there's a much higher chance of spectacular failure. People with dimmers can't use CFLs either, since while it'll look like it might work, it'll draw around 5 times as much current (even if the dimmers are set to 100%), which could pose a serious fire hazard. Other issues include that CFLs still generate a lot of heat, even though they do generate less, and because of the cheaper components, the enclosure has to be properly ventalated, which could result in people having to pay a hell of a lot more just to replace all their recessed lighting and other fixtures. There's also a lot of other places where CFLs are impossible to use, like in an oven for instance, where the CFL would pretty much melt right away. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be used, I just think there's a lot of hurdles that need to be beaten before they will actually be liable yet. http://sound.westhost.com/articles/incandescent.ht m check out this lovely little website.
My biggest fear is that we're simply shifting energy consumption to the manufacturing/disposal part of the product lifecycle
Oh, absolutely we are. Crack open a CFL sometime, take a look at the ballast. In a Philips 24W (about 100W tungsten equivalent) I found two integrated circuits, a bunch of discrete semiconductors (mostly diodes), an inductor, a transformer, and about ten electrolytic capacitors... all stuffed onto a tiny PC board with lead solder connections. Manufacturing energy? Non-negligible. Recycling? Separating all those different materials would be a nightmare. And this is to say nothing of the out-of-sight, out-of-mind production of the mercury-filled arc tubes, conveniently occurring in third-world countries with no laws.
If the manufacturers really cared about saving the planet - or if environmentalists were actually intelligent enough to know what they're talking about - they'd demand that the ballast and the arc tube (the spiral) be fitted with standard connectors, so that I can reuse a good ballast with a new bulb, brand be damned. As it is, as a safety measure, the ballasts tend to be designed to fail catastrophically when the arc tube is worn out, rather than to let the bulb flicker until you get around to changing the tube (like normal fluorescents).
I don't hate fluorescent lighting. I think it's great. But compact fluourescents (otherwise known as "self-ballasting") are a manufacturing and disposal nightmare, at least as much due to the integrated ballast as the mercury in the arc tube.
(and why the hell are these "green" bulbs sold in plastic blister packs?).
Ha! You've clearly never worked retail. I hate those packages too, but they're there because every idiot will want to open the package to see if the light bulb base will fit into his oh-so-special-bought-it-at-Wal*Mart-in-1997 table lamp. The package could have a flashing neon sign saying that, "Yes, Lester, this light bulb will fit into the table lamp you, YES YOU, bought at Wal*Mart ten years ago!" and our intrepid Les would still need to open the package, test it in his lamp, then put the open package back on the shelf and pick up a still-sealed package. With these horrible packages, retailers at least have the satisfaction of knowing that attempting to open with package without proper tools (ie. in the store) will likely result in a painful cut.
During a stint at a large home improvement chain, I'd occasionally see red marks on the shelf or floor where someone had demonstrated a blister-package opening technique where one hand was used to support the package while a pocket knife was used to puncture it.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Spill toxic mercury into the environment, or go to jail for using an incandescent bulb...? I wish the environmentalists would figure what's safe and what's not BEFORE they start telling us what to do.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I have a distinct memory of being four or five years old and accidentally breaking a mercury thermometer in my parents' bathroom. I remember being fascinated by all the tiny little mercury beads that formed on the carpet, and also how ticked off my parents were about it. But my mom just grabbed our "tank" vacuum cleaner and sucked up all the beads. Sure, it's not exactly environmentally friendly, but it didn't cause us any great distress and certainly didn't cost $2000 to clean up. And I think CFLs are less easily shattered than incandescents anyway. They're pretty solidly built.
I believe that IKEA accepts CFL bulbs for recycling. There is usually a container for them and used batteries near the exit, in the returns department.
You are wrong. The link points to a mailing list used by radio enthusiasts and ham radio operators: their nerves have been for sure fried by exposure to radio frequency fields.
Excuse my ignorance, but WTF are you talking about?
but how about just damping a big towel and dumping it over the crash site right away? Contains vapors to rug and towel. If you want, put plastic over it, cut it all out, then call whoever can take mercury contaminants.
:)
And besides, everyone says that mercury is a heavy metal, so won't it just work it's way down to the Earth's core in a bit?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Like hell they need replacement as often.
I've been using them in every room for every light fixture of a 3-story house for 10 years. I have maybe 12 dead ones so far. Average life seems to be 5-7 years, maybe longer.
By contrast, the one fixture we had with miniature bases, even though it's on less than most of our other lights, has gone through ten bulbs in that time, and it only has three sockets to begin with.
You're not even within an order of magnitude of making sense.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
One reason not to recirculate might be microbial growth.
Also, ironically, flushing the system once a month might violate EPA regulations which may regulate in PPM rather than total contaminants released.
I recently called the harzardous waste disposal place in Los Angeles, and they told me microwave ovens don't have hazardous materials, so you can just throw then in a dumpster.
The author of the original article is a hack writer and spokesperson for several industries. Google the name, for chrissakes. Don't let /. get a reputation for bogus stories.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
Thank you for pointing out the obvious yet overlooked fact that we have been using mercury-filled light bulbs for decades. The traditional 4' tubes found in offices, schools, shops, and homes contain as much or more mercury than CFLs.
The author of the original story, Steven Milloy, has been identified as a corporate hack. By the angle of the article, it really sounds like he has a "corporate sponsor" providing financial backing. It would be interesting to see what industry has a financial interest in suppressing CFLs.
I live in Florida, so our heater (heat pump) is rarely on, while our AC is rumbling most of the year. I have started replacing my incandescents with CFLs not because of the energy saved from lighting, but my theory that CFLs will cut down on my AC requirements.
Does anyone know of an easy way to calculate the difference in heat output between incandescents and CFLs?
I can still hear tube televisions whine, but I've only got two out of maybe 30 CFLs that produce any noise I can hear. I put those two in the garage door opener a few years ago, where I don't give a crap if they buzz.
I can't see any rainbows on newer sequential DLPs in general. Somewhere in the race to speed up the color wheels, they passed my threshold.
The solution is actually quite simple: use cheap incandescent bulbs where the light is often switched on/off, like home corridors (this also have the advantage of immediately giving maximum lighting, and power consumption is almost negligible); use fluorescent ones in those rooms where you spend longer periods of time.
Also, it's better to avoid the very cheapest CFDs, as the electronics inside them is of low quality and the failure rate is somewhat higher.
You know what I love? I love that people honestly think waste oil gets recycled. It gets thrown into commercial boilers by the hundreds of tonnes, and it's burned. I know, I design control systems for boilers (among other things).
1) Is conserving energy more environmentally sound than preventing mercury pollution?
In some cases, the answer clearly is no. Mercury is highly poisonous, it persists in the environment (it doesn't ever break down), and it can't be practically cleaned up once it is dispersed. If renewable energy, such as wind or solar, is wasted, the environmental harm is relatively limited and it stops when the wasting stops. Even if mercury-containing coal is being burnt, it is easier to scrub the power-plant exhaust at a single point of pollution than to collect mercury diffused out over the environment (and the emitted carbon dioxide can be recovered by vegetation, although the environment may now contain tens of millions of years of released carbon-dioxide storage). Mercury and radioactive wastes are both truly horrible prospects as pollutants. Earthjustice calls mercury emissions "one of the most toxic pollutants emitted" (In Brief, p. 20, Spring 2006, "Cement Kilns Spew Mercury, Government Stands By"). Already the public is warned not to consume tuna, etc. very often due to mercury despite the dietary benefits of seafood.
In your article we read that various new energy efficiency technologies have saved billions in electricity costs including "high-frequency ballasts for fluorescent lamps are saving the United States around $5 billion worth of electricity and natural-gas costs" (p. 25). If it were to turn out that the cost of cleaning up mercury pollution exceeded $5 billion a year and, that once spread through out the environment, mercury becomes essentially irretrievable at any cost, then the energy savings would not be a net savings but a huge pollution mistake.
Some environmental groups have worked for years to remove sources of mercury pollution from the waste stream such thermometers, thermostats like in cars, etc. to protect us from environmental exposure such as through fish and so forth. Fluorescent light bulbs could quickly reverse this important progress.
2) Are fluorescent bulb the best way to conserve energy?
Incandescent bulbs are often called inefficient; however, the energy they use goes about 1/2 to light and 1/2 to heat. In homes, equipped with electric heat, in the winter incandescent bulbs are 100% efficient, because heat produced by the an incandescent light bulb offsets heat the electric furnace would have had to produce; they also offset heat a fuel-burning furnace would have had to provide. In the summer, ventilation or an air conditioner will have to dispose of the excess heat; however, in the summer, in a house with good natural lighting including solar tubes, less lights are needed than in winter.
In my area fluorescent bulbs were promoted as an easy way to conserve energy -- people had to make no changes in their lifestyle e.g. they could keep on burning a porch light and street lights all night, or illuminating their house while they are out, or illuminating rooms they don't occupy and at light levels they don't actually need. Both reducing unneeded lighting or use of fluorescent bulbs has the potential to reduce energy use, but reduced energy use would reduce coal-burning and accompanying mercury releases, unlike use of compact fluorescent bulbs which create a new source of mercury pollution.
Does it take more energy to manufacture a fluorescent tube and to dissemble it safely than the excess energy used by an incandescent? Their high price suggests it probably does. If you go a mile out of the way to deliver the (single) bulb to a recycler (to avoid breaking one at home in storage), how does that fraction of a gallon of gas alone compare to the energy the incandescent would have wasted over its life time?
The purported long life of compact fluorescent bulbs has not proven true for us. We had to return several to the store when they w
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Okay, so the story's a few days old and everyone here's pretty much already given it the vivisection it so richly deserves. But there's a bit more from Pharyngula at ScienceBlogs. Notably, it points out that Milloy quotes his source out of context and ignores the portion of the article that says the whole thing was absolutely unnecessary and Bridges could have easily cleaned the bulb up herself.
But hey, apparently a scaremongering blog post from a right-wing shill who deliberately misleads his audience is obviously good enough for Slashdot.