Questions Arising On Mercury In Compact Fluorescents

Patchw0rk F0g sends in an article from MSNBC on how some environmentalists are having second thoughts on compact fluorescent bulbs. Their relative energy efficiency is unquestioned. The problem is the mercury — enough in one bulb to contaminate 1,000 gallons of water, even in newer low-mercury bulbs. The EPA has an 11-step cleanup process to follow when you break a CFL in your home. The specialized recycling facilities that are needed are thin on the ground — about one per county in California, one of seven states where it is illegal to dispose of CFLs in the general waste stream.

Comments

LED lighting

[bhsx]

I really think LED will be the future of lighting in most situations. It's a long-lasting, mercury-free lightsource that can be targeted to any frequency. We are already seeing them used in Grow Light applications and other such things all the time. I think it will be a great day when we start seeing LED light installations just about everywhere we are using traditional lights today.

Re:LED lighting

[ArcherB]

I really think LED will be the future of lighting in most situations. It's a long-lasting, mercury-free lightsource that can be targeted to any frequency. We are already seeing them used in Grow Light applications and other such things all the time. I think it will be a great day when we start seeing LED light installations just about everywhere we are using traditional lights today. I agree. When I can buy a LED light that will put off as much light as my current 60 watt bulbs (with good color), I'll replace every light in my house with them!

Re:LED lighting

[kesuki]

LEDs are the best and worst thing to happen to the lighting industry.

On the one hand, they're Extremely bright for the electricity consumed, very good, they can come in any wavelength of color, for multicolored lights like Christmas lights, or for 'party bulbs' that with a little circuitry could produce a flashing swirl of rainbow colored light by switching various LEDS off and on... They're very small, and that means you can make any variety of decorator bulb configurations...

On the other hand, they NEVER BURN OUT. the MTBF on a LED is 300,000+ hours http://www.iddaerospace.com/design_development/faq_transition_flight_deck.htm

that's over 1305% longer than Compact Fluorescent Bulbs... in truth a LED can easily last 500,000 hours of use, the MTBF is just an estimate.... and forget them burning out from being switched on and off, Myth busters tried to do it, they tested every array of lighting combinations, and the LED array was happily blinking away 3 months later, when they finally pulled the plug on trying to get them to burn out from switching them on and off...

So, now what do you do? The government assumes that by 2012 LEDs will use 1/3 the watts per lumen VS Compact fluorescent bulbs... so it's not going to take environmentalists long to promote the usage of LED lighting...

So LEDS are a double edged sword for the lighting industry, on the one hand they're the best of the best for the environment, but on the other hand there is no turnover of bulbs. you'll be giving the LED bulbs to your grandkids before they have to replace them... For instance if you use a light 3 hours a day it will last statistically nearly 274 years. if like wal-mart you run the bulb 24/7/365 the bulbs will last an average of 34.2 years. 34.2 years.... yeah you might forget how to change a light bulb, once you get used to LEDs.

Re:LED lighting

[glavenoid]

I'd much rather support the LED industry rather than Fluorescent lighting, simply for the lighting quality. Some of us can not physically handle fluorescent lighting...

Re:LED lighting

[Hatta]

Besides, who is going to complain about street lights that last centuries?

Depends on their proximity to my bedroom window.

Re:LED lighting

[mh1997]

The MTBF is just an estimate.

No, the MTBF is a Mean, and is very predictable. If it were an estimate it would be the ETBF.

Re:LED lighting

[Firethorn]

When I can buy a LED light that will put off as much light as my current 60 watt bulbs

For me, I'd add in a cost justification as well. I'll do it when they reach a cost that justifies their purchase over a incandescent or CFL bulb.

LED house lights are a lot like electric cars...

They're just too expensive at the necessary light levels for a home. Flashlights, being both dimmer on average and portable w/limited power supplies are a different justification.

For the disposal thing, I'd say to allow them into recycling trash. At the very least, properly manufactured CFLs should drop the number of bulbs tossed in the trash by a factor of 10-20.

Re:LED lighting

[Belial6]

Yes, cost is a concern, as lifetime can be dramatically shortened for various reasons. Remember when the CD was supposed to last 100 years? Things like power surges can burn out an led. If they are $200 a pop, you can forget about using them outside. There are already people that will steal a $0.50 light bulb. You can bet that they will be happy to start snagging $200 bulbs. Of course, with how easy that would be, maybe they would stop stealing copper. There is also the issue of opportunity cost. Today, solar panels on the roof will pay for themselves plus some. Why doesn't everyone have them? Because, sometimes the question isn't whether it is cheaper or not, but whether it is cheaper right now.

The price of the unit should be the simplest and most accurate answer of the three questions anyway, so I still want to know.

Re:LED lighting

[MightyYar]

I would bet that they make more money on the CFLs. Walmart sells a 6-pack of GE 60-watt replacement CFLs for $9.88 ($1.65/bulb). Meanwhile, the traditional GE bulbs cost around $0.50. So, yeah, assuming that on average you were buying 6 traditional bulbs and now you are only buying one, on the surface of things they are missing out on sales of $3.00 vs $1.65. On the other hand, they can now use 6x less warehouse space, 6x less shipping, 6x less shelf space at stores (no wonder Wal-Mart loves them!).

Plus, all of the sudden maybe the GE brand name means something again. Before the CFL craze, I was buying no-name lightbulbs at Walgreens in a package of 12 for $2. That's less than $0.17 per bulb! GE was probably really worried that they would have to compete with that, which would give them only one stinking dollar of revenue for 6 bulbs! I mean, who cares how long they last when they cost so little? On the other hand, when you are making a more expensive purchase, you might even do a little research to see what kind of bulbs are the best. You might pick up GE over the no-name brand, "just to be safe".

I think the only ones with a "net loss" are the power companies, as you are now using 5 times less electricity. That's where the cost savings is to the consumer, not in buying fewer bulbs.

Of course, if you have electric heat, then CFLs are a folly in the winter time :)

Re:LED lighting

[OldAndSlow]

Sorry, 300,000 hour MTBF is certainly an estimate. 300,000 / 24 *365 = 34+ years. So the only way this is a measured MTBF is if someone lit off a batch of them in 1973, and they all failed within a few months of each other late last year.

MTBFs get estimated all the time. MTBFs of this size are almost always estimates.

Other home dangers!

[lancejjj]

There's a much more substantial danger with asbestos. cigarette smoke. CO from your furnace, or from your attached garage. Radon. Electricity from the wall socket. And lead paint. These things seriously injure or kill thousands per year.

And now you tell me that mercury from my breaking-lightbulbs spree will kill my family tree? Good God!

The amount of mercury in a modern lightbulb is thousands of times less than what is found in a mercury thermometer or a thermostat. And let's not even begin to discuss the amount of mercury within traditional fluorescent bulbs and the amalgam in some fillings.

Good grief

[Itchyeyes]

Honestly, this is my biggest problem with the environmental movement in the US today, it's never satisfied with even the slightest amount of progress. Fossil fuels are unacceptable because they pollute, but so is wind power because it interferes with migration paths. Incandescent bulbs are inefficient but we can't use CFL's because they contain mercury. We want the fuel efficiency that diesel engines already offer but we can't buy them in the US because of sulfur emission regulation. Everything has trade-offs. Sometimes you just have to pick the lesser of the two evils and go with it.

Re:Good grief

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I'm really enjoying all the stuff you're making up and then attributing to environmentalists, and then dismissing the environmentalists because of all the stuff you made up about them.

Why not just realize that "environmentalists" is just another name for a huge number of individuals, with different levels of knowlege and different goals. Making generalizations about such a large number of people - especially such amusingly wrongheaded generalizations - doesn't help much, except to identify faulty thinking processes on your part.

Re:Good grief

[CrazyJim1]

I was just talking about this today. I told my dad that some environmentalists are against wind power because it hurts birds. He said,"Why don't we just go back to living in caves." I said,"I think that is the idea that some of them have."

Re:Not New News

[Itninja]

"If you smash one bulb then that is not too much of a hazard. However, if you broke five bulbs in a small unventilated room then you might be in short term danger."
Like when a heavy bag of groceries smashes an entire box of new CFL's in the backseat of the car while making a sudden stop? Good thing that can never happen...

Programmed Obsolescence

[drooling-dog]

No problem; they'll just do what the printer ink cartridge manufacturers do: Build in a chip that commits suicide after some specified period of time. That could be in hours of operation, or even calendar time. In the latter case, you're virtually renting them.

Lamplighters, Mantles, and the Grand Scheme

[camperdave]

Back in the long ago, streetlamps were powered by gas. Every evening, a person called a lamplighter would come and light the streetlight. (The bars sticking sideways out of lampposts were not decorative. They were there so a lamplighter could lean his ladder against them so he could climb the pole.) Every morning he would go around and extinguish the streetlights.

Gas lights did not use an open flame for lighting (well, they did, but not for long). They used a special cloth "wick" called a mantle. This mantle glowed brightly when heated by the gas flame. Over time, the mantles would disintegrate, and new ones would have to be installed.

Now there were two once vibrant sectors of the lighting industry that have been virtually eliminated by progress. Sure, a few thousand people lost jobs. There were better, cheaper, safer alternatives, so people used them. The same thing will happen with the incandescent bulb makers, and the fluorescent bulb makers. LEDs are a better, cheaper, safer alternative. A few thousand people will be put out of work, and once vibrant sectors of the lighting industry will fade away. Sure, a few companies will hang on, doing specialty work, but count on GE, Sylvania, Philips, and their ilk closing a lot of bulb factories in the future.

Re:-1 missing the point....

[MightyYar]

I think I've heard that argument applied to asbestos...

Thing is, 100 years from now, they will still be hitting the dump. I don't know if the arsenic claim is true, or even worth worrying about. But I do know that "they never get thrown away" is not a very good rebuttal :)