Lawrence wrote:
On Apr 18, 6:48 am, "Joseph Meehan"
wrote:
frank.logullo wrote:
From: "lee houston"
Subject: compact flourescents, mercury hazard?
Date: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 5:10 PM

Seems a bit extreme? Mercury hazard and/or yellow jounalism?

Yes it is extreme, and I would not even call it journalism.

Yes there is mercury in them, a very very small amount. All
fluorescent lamps have some. A number of years ago technology and
regulation reduced that amount to almost nothing. The Cf's have
even less.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia 's Muire duit

According to the link:

http://www.nema.org/lamprecycle/epafactsheet-cfl.pdf

The CF's have about 4mg per bulb. While this is alot less than
previous appliances it is far more than nothing.

I did see that 4mg figure and I have even seen some smaller figures. In
the context of the original story, 4mg is almost nothing. That was being
totally blown out of reality.

According to the
article the real source of mercury is the powerplants used to power
the bulb.

You are certainly right there.


The CF's ultimately used less total mercury due it's lower consumption
of power. It's easy to see why the mercury in the lamps can be
dismissed when you figure how much of it we are just spewing into the
sky.

Since the hazards of mecury are well known I don't understand why it
can't be eliminated at these power plants. Surely the technology
exists to remove such a dangerous material from the smokestacks. God
know I love cheap power as much as anyone but don't care to be
poisoned in the process. Thankfully I don't live near a coal fired
plant but I'm sure that someone does.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia 's Muire duit