On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:33:47 -0800, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

On 11/21/2009 9:28 PM Don Klipstein spake thus:

Compared to incandescents, in USA on average CFLs actually reduce mining
of mercury-containing materials and transfering mercury to the
environment. This is because about half of all electricity produced in
the USA is obtained by burning coal, a major source of mercury pollution.

You know, we've only heard you say this here about, oh, 117,000 times.

Your assertion (about CFLs resulting in less mercury contamination)
contains a *major* fallacy. It implies that when one use a CFL instead
of an incandescent light bulb, the electricity somehow, magically turns
"cleaner", with less mercury emitted.

If you run a CFL, your electricity *still* comes from the same
mercury-spewing coal-fired power plant. You're just using less of it
than if you use an incandescent bulb.

Now, it's true that if *enough* people used CFLs, *and* if the resulting
power savings were enough for the power companies to say, "Hey, let's
start shutting down our dirty old coal-fired power plants", then one
could truly say that the use of CFLs reduces mercury emissions. But that
hasn't happened yet. Nowhere near it. They're still burning lots of
coal, and planning on building even *more* coal-fired plants.

Oh, I think you can count on the fact that there will be fewer new
coal burning power plants built. CFL's will certainly be able to take
credit for some of that. And, in fact, existing power plants in some
areas may be able to take part of their capacity offline resulting in
fewer mercury emissions as well.

None of this really addresses either energy consumtion or pollution,
though. The underlying problem for both is TOO MANY PEOPLE.

We don't need more generating capacity, or new sources of energy. We
need to reverse population growth, and stop spending so much money and
effort on making people live longer.