Compact Fluorescent Bulbs: NOT a Bright Idea!

We could say the same thing about incandescents consuming more energy. They are just light bulbs and account for only a small fraction of the energy usage. Even if CFL's did use half as much energy as normal bulbs (which is a big "IF"), it would not necessarily make a big difference in how much electricity is used.

It seems obvious you do not really know what you are talking about. Tungsten is barely poisonous at all compared to mercury. And tungsten is much less volatile than mercury. Tungsten is fairly resistant to corrosion so will essentially stay where it is in the land fill, whereas mercury will flow and leack and vaporise into the air. The lethal dosage for tungsten salts is 1000 mg per kilogram bodyweight. Keep in mind this in only for the salt which is much more easily absorbed into the body than the solid metal. Potential lethal dosages of elemental mercury are 30-50 mg per kilogram, but this is not even the main problem, because elemental mercury is converted to the much more toxic methylmercury in the environment.

Unfortunately for you, I know about science. Chemical researchers would never waste any time worrying about handeling tungsten in the laboratory, whereas mercury is completely different. If someone even breaks a thermometer now, the teacher tells are the students to clear away from the location and they sprinkle plenty of sulfur on the spill to neutralise it.

This is not true for all CFL bulbs. Some of them have more cracks in the inside phosphor coating than others, and there are also other variables such as thickness of glass, and power level.

And what about for people that are indoors under artifificial lighting for long periods of time? It is not good to be out all day in the direct sun either.
And what about for the tiny minority of people with serious skin sensititivity problems who avoid venturing outside in the daytime? Will they be denied a source of light in their homes? (some of these people are also even sensitive to the higher levels of blue light in LED's)

I can think of many situations where people work with their face very close to the light bulb, such as automotive mechanics under a car, some miners crawling in tight places, reading lamps.

Consumers still deserve the right to choose which type of lighting to buy. Most people have to put up with harsh fluorescent light all day in the work places. When they come home in the evening they shouldn't have to continue to put up with it in their own homes. I have been into offices in university administration buildings, only to find a few of the private offices with their overhead lights turned off and incandescent floor and desk lamps turned on inside.

 

One source written by an opthalmatrist and optometrists (Gary Heiting and Larry K. Wan) that suggested ways to reduce eye strain, gave this advice:

The EPA warned that that the amount of mercury in one CFL bulb is enough to contaminate up to 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels.

There was a case a while back where some thieves stole a sizable quantity of dental mercury amalgam for its silver content. They were all found dead after they had attempted to heat all the amalgam to vaporise out all the mercury, leaving the pure silver behind. They had been doing it in a basement without adequate ventilation. Mercury that has been vaporised is much more dangerous than mercury in liquid form, and certainly much more so than mercury within a solid amalgam alloy.

I find it just comical that the government has consistently been trying to ban electrical components that contained mercury, from thermometers to streetlights, then suddently decided it would force CFL's on everyone after it was decided an energy policy was "needed" to reduce energy consumption.

 

It is not all just a partisan issue. It was George Bush Jr. who signed the "efficiency" mandate into law. And many people who consider themselves environmentalists are opposed to the phase out, because they simply do not like CFL bulbs, and feel what is currently available in LED lighting is not practical for their households.

 

Well hang on there. Residential lighting, and only residential lighting, accounts for about 9% of our power usage in the US. Over all, I would not say a small fraction when you consider that is about 202 billion kwhs whereas refining gasoline in the US only takes about 48 billion kwhs. Note that is just the refining of oil into gasoline, not all other products. So to say a tiny fraction isn't entirely painting the whole picture, our electricity usage is made up of a lot of "tiny fractions" and if you reduce one of them by 50%, you are making some headway when you consider that would be 100 billion kwhrs.

No, I think it is you who doesn't understand what they are talking about. EVERYTHING is poinsonous. It's all just a matter of concentration. Mercury has a threshold for toxicity just like Tungsten does. Breath in or ingest enough of anything and you will die. Even too much water. So do you know how much Tungsten is in an incandescent bulb? Do you know how much leaches into the ground every time you throw one away and it breaks on the way to the landfill? You don't because you trust that incandescents are safe. And yet, you don't trust that CFL's are safe. Who told you incandescents were safe? Do you know anyone who has suffered mercury poisoning from a CFL? My point about the Tungsten was to be realistic about the threat posed by a substance. You are telling me to be real about Tungsten, fine, as long as you are real about the threat of Mercury.

You neglected to note that the mercury in CFL's over time becomes less volitile because of the function it performs in the bulb. Again, do you know how much tungsten you ingest regularly? I don't. It's rarely measured in your local water supply. I'm sure you aren't worried about Tungsten, just like I am not worried about mercury. Given each blub contains 4-5 mg of mercury, and a lethal does on the low end is 30 mg per kilo, and I'm about to give away my weight on the internet, I would have to break and inhale the mercury from 516 CFL's to get a lethal does on the low end of the threshold. Oh by the way, we DO check our water supply for mercury...not tungsten, but mercury is covered.

Agree to disagree.

Well that would be the case if mercury was still used often in lab equipment thermometers, but it hasn't been for a while. The thermometers I used in lab in college were all non-mercury. The only place it's still common is in meteorology thermometers and in small quantities, fever thermometers. Most other places, it's been greatly reduced or phased out. As for handling tungsten, it is safe to directly handle, but if you ingest it or inhale the powder, it can harm you and kill you in the proper quanities, like any chemical substance.

My source said it was an average based on testing, which means they should have tested a wide range of bulbs and accounted for those known variables. If you don't think that's good enough, then you are going to be disappointed by an scientific analysis.

Those people I don't have an answer for, other than we don't seem to care much for tiny minorities so why should we care about this one? I mean, gays can't marry because the majority doesn't agree with it, and some small religious groups can't legally posses hallucinogenic drugs even though it's part of their religious expression, basically my point is the world is full of tiny minorities. The easiest solution for them would be to cover thier skin as they would in daylight, or to use glass between the bulbs that filter out the UV light.

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/what-you-need-to-know/lighting/resources/fs1.aspx

And in all those situations, minus the reading lamp with is accounted for in my link above with a cover, the light bulb is the least of their concerns. Miners aren't worried about the UV from a bulb, trust me. And I'm pretty sure miners have many other options to use other than CFLs. These efficiency standards don't apply to everyone. Working under a car is much more dangerous than working near a UV bulb, which again could be screened with a filter to reduce the UV.

Says who? Why does anyone deserve this right? That goes against the free market, which doesn't allow choice but rather elminates all non-efficient choices. Lighting isn't a right guaranteed by anything. There is no liberty robbing going on here. To try and make it such an issue is foolish and unfounded.

Harsh light? What is that? Light that is insulting? The term "harsh" is meaningless when it comes to lighting. It's a judgemental term used by people who just don't like them. Why don't you just say that? Instead of trying to hide behind science and then claiming the rest of us don't know anything about science just say what you are saying right here, you just don't like CFL's. Go on, I won't be bothered by it. It will be one of the few true and reasonable things you have said in this entire thread. You don't like CFL's. OK. I mean, you are going to have to deal, but you know I don't like AK 47's in the hands of the same people who watch the Jackass movies, but you know what, I just live with the fact that one day, they may accidentally shoot me. That's life. It's not about getting our way all the time whether it's with our lighting or what recreation our neighbors choose to engage in.

 

The EPA never said that about CFL's. It was a reporter on MSNBC who attributed it to Stanford University, who does not know who the researcher is or anything about it.

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/article/2012/feb/22/bob-marshall-and-light-bulbs/

According to the calc in the source, it would take nine bulbs to pollute 6,000 gallons of water.

Yes, in a basement without adequate ventilation. Also notice the key word in your sentence, a SIZEABLE quantity.

As for your final statement, the government was banning the liquid or quicksilver form because, are you ready, it easily vaporizes unlike the solid powder mercury from the bulb.

That said, it could of course be inhaled, but even that amount will not harm you, so again, you are worried about nothing.

Also I would like to note that you seem unconcerned about other sources of mercury such as burning coal, dismissive of those claims in fact, and yet you are so worried about theives who steal mercury and CFL's. Again, you can try and hide behind reason, but they aren't adding up to anything other than you just don't like CFL's. No, they aren't perfect. Yes, they have drawbacks envrionmentally but they outweigh the drawbacks of incandescents. That is proven beyond a doubt. You not liking CFL's doesn't change that anymore than me telling you this changes the fact that you don't like CFl's.

 

Many people? How many? What percentage? What study supports this? Everyone I know who cares about the envrionment uses them. Does my ancedote trump yours?

 

[Q

sure it’s given. As long as a warmist troll anounced it’s given it is given and it makes sense. “Google refuted it”, ladies and gents, isn’t it a wonder how minds of atheists work?

Yes I can. Here is why:
None of your 3 links submit credible measurements of 50 tons.
I don’t have to click on any them. It is self evident reality that scientists have no clue whant measurements mean.
I offer you, sceptical and not so sceptical ladies and gents, but still ladies and gents, to click on the links and see I am right – NO MEASUREMENTS. Don’t I know subjects of my demonstrations (who are not ladies and gents) very well? Don’t I express my warm feelings towards warmists as to my pets? Anyone wants to pet one? They bark loud but all they need is to be fed and petted.

Isn’t it a wonder how minds of believers in evolution work? In their minds they pointed to my lies and refuted them. This is ladies and gents another demonstration of perception of reallity by blind believers.

Here ladies and gents we see another confirmation that warmists cannot understand basic points even if the points are bolded red for them and repeated time after time.

Let me try the 3rd time.

You have not responded to the point repeated twice in 2 sentences you quoted even when the points were repeated and bolded red twice for you. It was demonstrated that 5 mg of HG in a CFL are more hazardous in a room of as basement than alleged 50 ton up somewhere in the air. Greenies keep on spinning away from basic realities. Understand? Yes? No? It does not matter how you keep on spinning, twisting, making up strawmen, little personal insults etc. The bottom line is that you have not made attepmt to react to the reality bolded and colored red for you, and the repeated.

As to the 2nd point about $90 per hour

muti-hours were given.

Multi hours mean at least 3 hours. It may be more but for the sake of the proof (rounding the numbers) I take only the minimum number 3.

3x$90=$270

Each dollar today equals .3077 gal of oil ( I mean fuel oil #2) or so many ounces of gold or so many kg or lb of coil.
Thus basic aruthmetics brings the result:

$270 equals 83 gal of oil.


Should I explain how to find x in the given task:

1=.3077
270=x


You can convert $ in another hard currency such as gold or coal. Some people preffer silver coins. Personal preferences make no diffrence as long as they can be converted and cashed out

Most of oil is burned in this real world. 83 gal of fuel oil is burned in order to make 1 proper disposal. Government charges even more than I do.

Understand now? Yes? No? It is 4th grade math.

You have missed all the points again. How do you imagine me being in charge of crooks and charlatans?

Let me know when you prove your 83 gallons an oil to dispose of one CFL bulb by the way, I'm sure NASA will want to look at it first but it would be great if I could take a peep. I will continue to rely on information from research until proven otherwise.

Any chance of abstaining from mindless ad homs and insinuations, or in other word insults instead of engaging in a debate? I do not expect it from Warmista and just demonstrate to mentally stable people that they shouldn’t expect any intellectual decency or honesty from mindless trolls coming together to bully decency and reason out of PF. AWG is a lie told by bullies, no different from trivial fascism, if to use the definition given by Hemingway to fascism.

I showed 2 times how it takes $83 to make one disposal. AH and I nave demonstrated how CFLs are more hazaruos than coal, that the whole idea of not giving a choice and imposing CFLs is scientific or in ather words is another exhibition of fascist ideology. And grenies have continued on their way with the same idelology, the same fanatical beliefs. We did not make a dent in tin foiled hats. In the same speech Hemingway outlined the only way of stoppng fascism... He was right.

 

This is a good point.

Another example: environmentalists complain about ground level ozone levels from photochemical smog, but at the same time banned CFC's to protect the ozone layer. Ozone high up in the upper layers of the atmosphere is good, but down where humans are it's bad.

Similarly, a small ammount of mercury vapor accumulating inside a room can be more threatening to one's health than more mercury vapor dissipated out in the atmosphere.

Supporters of the light bulb phaseout often claim that regular incandescent bulbs result in more mercury. This assumes that all the electricity comes from coal (which it does not), and ignores concentration of those mercury emissions. Our society can keep the old incandescent bulb and not have any mercury pollution. But it can never get rid of mercury pollution so long as there are CFL's.

And it does take energy and fuel to properly recycle the mercury in CFL's (not that many people even do it).
Supporters cannot really claim that CFL's reduce CO2 emissions unless they have made some effort to calculate how much energy is consumed per CFL bulb that is recycled.

CFL's may likely not be any "greener" than toxic sludge!

 

http://www.akdart.com/cfl.html

About the claim that CFL's save money: many governments and state utility companies are subsidizing these bulbs, so they actually cost more than people are paying for them in the store. If CFL's save the consumer so much money, why do they have to be subsidized?

Utility companies in California are spending over $548 million over seven years to subsidize consumer purchases of compact fluorescent lamps. These utility companies are granted a monopoly by the state, and these subsidies are coming straight out of people's electric bills in the form of higher rates. To state the obvious, a monopoly means that the state government does not allow other companies to wire electricity to people's homes. So unless you're willing to stop using electricity completely, or install expensive solar panels with a storage battery (not really a realistic alternative for several reasons), there is no way to get out out of having to be forced to pay for other people to buy mercury-laden CFL bulbs.

And many utility companies in the UK were heavily subsidising them too. These bulbs were not as "cheap" as everyone thought. The CFL's also have to (or should be) recycled because of the mercury. The consumer should have to pay for this too. When the state or utility companies pay for recycling, it is just another form of subsidising the CFL.

Most of those who have switched to CFL bulbs and have found they barely make any difference in the monthly electric bill. Lighting is actually only a small part of a typical home's energy consumption.

 

In a nutshell, both CFL and LED bulbs are often a bad deal for the consumer.

Thanks, government for ramming a bad deal down our throats.

 

Many people have had bad experiences with the "energy saving" CFL spiral bulbs:

 

Has anyone seen this video? There was a conspiracy to make the normal incandescent bulbs burn out faster so the companies could sell more.

[video=youtube;uXt9HT50X1c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXt9HT50X1c[/video]

You can buy incandescent bulbs on the internet that last longer than CFL bulbs, with lifetimes over 10,000 hours.

 

No, you are mistaken. Perhaps your source actually said it was that lighting accounts for 9% of the residential power consumed?

People's homes consume less than 21% of the USA's energy consumption (source: http://www.energystar.gov/ia/business/challenge/learn_more/ResidentialHomeImprovement.pdf ) And lighting consumes only 12 percent in of the energy in homes, according to the DOE's Buildings Energy Data. So what is 12 percent of 21 percent?

And you cannot just look at how much energy all lighting consumes either, like so many environmentalists supporters of the phase out misleadingly present in the statistics for their argument. Street lights are typically sodium vapor, which is extremely efficient, so banning incandescent bulbs would really not save very much power. And while lighting consumes 25 percent of the energy in commercial buildings (DOE's Buildings Energy Data again), most commercial building use primarily fluorescent and metal halide light, not incandescent bulbs, so again, getting rid of normal incandescent bulbs would not save much energy.

 

In most environmental "stakeholder" meetings, the usual suspects are: the EPA, state and local enviro agencies, environmental extremist groups, and the regulated community (business). That's it. Notice who is missing?

The consumers. The poor schmucks that have to pay for these regs and live with them. They get no say.

Banning the incandescent is another example of this. The consumer was not consulted.

 

Most folks want a good environment and some regulation is not a bad thing however, this is a government-corporate scam. It's a typical liberal-socialist ploy, create a problem where none ever existed then, set up some federal program to 'fix' it....Collect tax dollars.

 

Taxation may not be the best thing, but it is far better than making a certain type of product illegal.
At least with taxation you have the choice to still buy something if you absolutely need it. Many people, including myself, would still buy regular incandescent bulbs even if they were three times as expensive as a CFL. It's not just about the money. We are talking about two different products that put out two different types of light.

When the American government wanted the match factories to stop using white phosphorous in their matches, which was causing their workers to develop a condition known as "Phossy-Jaw", they did not ban the white phosphorous. Rather they put a small 2% tax on it that made it cheaper for the match companies to switch to another safer form of phosphorous (phosphorus sesquisulfide). (the Hughes-Esch bill imposed the tax on matches after 1913) It only took a 2% tax to get the match companies to switch, not government imposed regulation, not a ban.

If the new substitute had not been completely adequate to fully substitute for the white phosphorous, the match companies would not have switched. The market was allowed to decide that the tiny inconvenience of switching out the white phosphorous was worth it. So here's something to consider: would consumers have similarly all switched over to CFL's if only a 2% tax were imposed on regular incandescent bulbs? No, of course not. CFL's are just a poor substitute in most situations.

 

That is an example of a REAL problem solved by government regulation which is the way it SHOULD work however, the incandescent vs. CFL is a made-up problem perpetrated by the enviro-whacko lobby.

 

Those spiral CFL bulbs catching on fire is not an extremely uncommon occurence:

Apparently CFL bulbs seem to burn out really fast when they are put in ceilling fans for some reason, perhaps because of the continuous vibration or the circuitry wiring through the motor, which would expose the bulb to continuous power fluxuations. It has also been reported that CFL bulbs have lower lifespans when put into upside down fixtures.

[video=youtube;bubJX-m_HSs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bubJX-m_HSs[/video]

 

Ihad a CFL burnout this week. Fortunately, I caught and turned off the power.

Why is it the consumers are never consulted?

 

The Unholy Alliance between Philips and the Greens

An unholy alliance (discovered by Elsevier journalist Syp Wynia) between a large multinational company and a multinational environmental organization succeeded in their lobby to phase out, and ultimately by 2012 forbid, the sale of incandescent bulbs – not only in the Netherlands but in the whole of the European Union. The multinational company wanted to develop a new market for products with a high profit margin, and the environmental multinational wanted to impress the citizens of Europe with the imminent catastrophe caused by anthropogenic climate change. That would also be of benefit to its battered public image.

Philips started lobbying to phase out the very product on which its original success is based. They started this campaign ten years ago. Their line of thought is clear: banning incandescent bulbs creates an interesting market for new kinds of home lighting, such as “energy savers” (CFL’s, compact fluorescent lamps) and LED’s (light emitting diodes). The mark-up on these new products is substantially higher than that on old-fashioned incandescent bulbs.

Energy savers (CFL’s) were introduced on the market in 1980, but they never succeeded in gaining wide acceptance from consumers. Despite their reduced power consumption, most consumers found their light too "harsh" and unnatural to light their homes. On top of that they were slow starters, annoyingly taking a few seconds just to come on while flickering, and then taking several minutes to reach full brightness.

Multiple government campaigns, aimed at promoting the idea that energy savers contribute to the well-intentioned goal of reducing the energy consumption of households, failed to convince citizens.

The spectre of catastrophic climate change offered a new opportunity for the strategists and marketing specialists at Philips headquarters. They changed their marketing concept and jumped on the Global Warming band wagon. From that moment on, energy-saving bulbs could be put on the market as icons of responsibility toward climate change. This would give Philips a head start in the CFL end LED business. The competition would be left far behind by aggressive use of European patent law.

In 2006, Dutch legislators caved in under the combined lobbying pressure by Philips and Greenpeace. A parliamentary majority in The Hague embraced the idea of banning incandescent bulbs and ordered the Dutch Environment Minister, Jacqueline Cramer, to lobby for an extension of the ban to all states in the European Union.

 

Another site the deals with the issue:
http://sound.westhost.com/articles/incandescent.htm

1 milligram of mercury can contaminate 5,300 liters of water. Many CFL's containt 5 milligrams of mercury.


There is plenty of misleading information out there claiming that regular bulbs result in more mercury emissions, but this assumes 100% of the electricity is produced by coal and that filtering is not used, unrealistic assumptions to say the least. And it fails to take into account the waste mercury discharged into the environment from the CFL factories in China. Incandescent bulbs do not actually contain any mercury.

If these CFL bulbs were any other type of mercury containing product, they would have immediately been banned or regulated out of existence. It seems many environmentalists are going to great lengths to try and defend these bulbs, despite the fact that they turned out to be not very "green" in many ways.

A german team of scientists discovered that CFL's can give off small ammounts of other carcinogenic chemicals, both when first turned on, or when left on for extended periods of time.
http://www.ecotrekenergyinfo.com/energy-saving-light-bulbs-contains-carcinogenic-chemicals.html

 

Most of those CFL bulbs are not as "efficient" at saving power as one may think.
http://ecmweb.com/lighting-amp-control/hidden-costs-cfls

They might use fewer Watts, but they can also distort the alternating frequency of the electic current in the power lines, leasing to additional power losses in transmitting the electric current outside the home.

 

Few people outside the engineering profession understand power factor.

 

Basically what that link was saying is that a typical CFL will cause more power to be wasted in the power lines, requiring more electric power to be produced. This is wasted power that never actually reaches the CFL itself, nor does the household directly have to pay for it.

If you switch out all your light bulbs with CFL, it may lower your monthly electric bills, but it will eventually end up raising my electric bills, even though I absolutely refuse to use CFL's in my home (assuming we both have the same utility company).

And of course, if the utility company is subsidizing the local cost of these CFL's, like many companies have done, then the more CFL bulbs you buy, again the higher my electric bills, but this is another separate issue.

End the subsidies, both direct and indirect! The user of a CFL should pay the full cost of making and operating his "high efficiency" light, including compensation for all the environmental damages from production in China, and the costs of proper disposal.