"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
.com...
On 12/31/2009 3:07 AM spake thus:

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:18:55 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

4) Does it take into account the addition of mercury to
environments where most of the energy developed is from hydro or
nuclear power?

No. CFL bulbs are poised to bring significant mercury pollution
issues to areas where there isn't any mercury pollution from nearby
coal plants because there AREN'T any nearby coal plants.

Do you have ANY idea how long florescent's have been in wide use?
Where do you see them? How about ALL large buildings being almost
completely lit with full sized florescent's which contain FAR more
mercury than CFL's? When you flip the typical light switch in a home,
maybe 1-4 lights are powered up. When you flip a switch in a
supermarket, there may be hundreds of lights lit up. All Florescent.

Any idea why they use florescent's ?

Of course he knows this; that's implicit in his arguments. He's not
stupid.

Thank you. I explained it to him in excruciating detail anyway, for it
seems not so implicit to him. I think he missed my earlier magnum opus on
CFLs. I even gave him a mnemonic so that he could spell flu-ores-cent
properly in the future.

What he's saying, which I agree with, is that the use of CFLs, primarily
for *residential* lighting (not commercial, which as you point out has
already been using fluorescents for many decades) will result in a
massive upsurge in the amount of mercury in transit out there, some of
which will escape into the environment. This is the 900-pound gorilla of
CFL usage which isn't getting nearly as much attention as it should, and
makes the claims that Don K. and others have made about how much CFLs
will result in *reduced* mercury emissions dubious at best.

I spent a good portion of my life in a SCIF helping build computer models
that tried to predict a number of important statistics based on various
nuclear attack scenarios. Once you become involved in something that looks
at every fort, factory, armory, hospital, police station, jail, power plant,
water plant, chemical storage plant, bridge, tunnel, etc, etc, in the
country, you begin to appreciate the complexity and arbitrary nature of such
models.

You can't build something like that without making assumptions and
invariably, many of them turn out to be well-reasoned, but dead wrong. A
lot of corrections to the model came after examining serious disasters that
in some ways simulated nuclear attacks. Hurricanes always broke the model.
So did earthquakes. It's humbling. And it's why I get verbose when people
claim things about similarly complex subjects with such unwavering
certainty. I've been down that road before and it's "a maze of twisty
little passages, all different." It takes more than magic words or wishful
thinking to get real answers.

In the "CFLs will save enough money to do X,Y and Z" argument the number of
variables is astounding. Part of the problem, I am discovering, is that
people believe the power grid is some sort of giant battery. They don't
understand the concept of base loads, peak loads, spinning reserves and grid
management. They believe, quite logically, if you save 50 watts switching
from TILs (Tungsten Incandescent Lighting) to CFLs on your home bill, that
represents *exactly* 50 watts' worth reduction in carbon/mercury emissions.
At least that's how I understand some of the claims about CFLs. I don't
blame people for thinking that way. I thought of it that way myself until I
started researching it.

I think the most important concept lacking in the discussion is the
"stair-step" function of power generation. Generators aren't capable of
responding quickly to demand. They have basically three modes: off, idling
and running. At best, CFLs are causing *some* plants to idle, at worst, all
that happens is that everyone's lights glow a little brighter and there may
be fewer summer brownouts. Dramatic savings? Maybe. Dramatic risks?
Certainly. No one doubts mercury is a neurotoxin. No one with a brain
unaffected by mercury or some other neural "nuking" agent, that is.

I'm sure you know that big, 200 ton coal plant turbines don't start and stop
on a dime. These beasties form the backbone of base load power generation.
The base load is power that gets generated to meet carefully projected needs
no matter what the actual load. If it isn't used, it isn't saved. It's
either shunted to some other part of the grid, entailing transmission
losses, or the plant operators boost the overall voltage in the system, or,
in grid failures, shunt it to huge resistor banks. At night the voltage at
my house peaks at 122VAC but in the summer, during the day, it can drop to
110VAC and even lower. I know because my UPSs beep when it does. They're
beeping more than ever before.

Usually, those type of adjustments are enough to balance the grid, but when
it's not enough, generators are added or dropped. The electric company
usually brings small diesel or gas generators on line when more power is
needed. Sometimes they bring on old, nasty coal plants that have been
exempted from the Clean Air Act because they are only occasionally used.
How do you know what's being saved where unless you know these important
details.?

You were wrong, and I'm man enough to admit it.

- a Usenet "apology"

There's no such thing as a Usenet apology. No one is ever wrong on Usenet.
They're merely misunderstood or misquoted. Or, as I heard someone complain
to a reporter once about a published quote: "That's what I said but it's NOT
what I meant!" It's the same reason why astonishingly more than half of
people surveyed believe they are better than average drivers. (-;

--
Bobby G.

"Josepi" wrote in message
...
Now tell us how reducing the load doesn't reduce energy usage and doesn't
reduce pollution of any type, nuclear, coal, petroleum, hydro-electric or
other. TOU load is not the only factor here.

See my other posts. Power generation is a stair-step function, not a
smooth, linear process. Power generated has to be used in real time, either
by shunting it to other power companies, raising the system voltage or
shunting it into resistor banks. Each is a "lossy" process that doesn't
result in a smooth, linear reduction in emissions as demand changes.

Your smokestack scrubber argument doesn't wash. OPG in Ontario has been
using scrubbers for decades and they are all about to be removed. I
suspect
the scubbers are not that effective and too expensive to implement.

Do you have a citation for that? I have not heard of OPG abandoning
scrubbers. I do know that power plant operators dislike them for a number
of reasons, least of which is the bite it takes out of profits to buy them.
I'm old enough to remember Detroit howling that forcing them to put
catalytic converters on cars would make them unaffordable. What a load of
crap. I wouldn't base my opinion about the worth of all scrubbers based on
a single utility's experiences with "decades" old technology.

LED lamps are too expensive and too dim-witted, yet. Expensive equate to
too
much production polution outweighing any lifetime benefits. The cost of
our
health insurance on increase spectacle coverage and accidents from people
falling down stairwells will outweigh any savings alone...LOL

You're not a native English speaker are you, Josepi? I suspect it's why
people give you a lot of trouble about your posts. I commend you for being
able to write as well as you do in a second language, if my hunch is
correct. I recently bought a set of Philips LED "stumblelights" with
motion detectors to provide enough light to reach every where in the house
without having to turn the main lights on. They are almost exactly the same
color temperature as warm CFL's and TILs, and they are quite bright enough
to light the path without "stumbling." No increase in eyeglass or health
insurance required.

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a...M-2-PC-/1.html

Let's face it: the general populace doesn't care about the "greenwashing"
part of the formula, only their pocketbooks and the capitolistist economic
system in place that hasn't made it feasible, yet.

Well, they *will* care when it's too late. It would have been a lot better
to just stop using asbestos as soon as we had a clue it was such a potent
carcinogen. But we didn't and we're STILL paying enormous costs to clean it
all up. Same with putting lead in gasoline. Boy, what a dimwit idea THAT
was and it went on for a long, long time. Yet people act as if it's
impossible that lamps containing mercury isn't a similarly dull idea.

Many other good points, noted.

Gee, thanks! (-:

--
Bobby G.

"Don Klipstein" wrote in message
...

stuff snipped

5) Does this alleged tradeoff work when you substitute LEDs for tungsten
bulbs?

Yes - once LED bulbs as good as CFL bulbs are available for where CFLs
are used.

Do you think that widespread adoption of CFLs will:

a) help LED development and pricing

b) hurt LED development and pricing or

c) have no effect?

My econ prof would assure me it's b), especially if utilities underwrite the
initial cost of CFLs and not LEDs. This is really just about cost, because
LEDs have really hit mainstream but most people don't know it. Many people
bought one a year or two ago, it was bad, they didn't look again.

I learned a valuable lesson from Bob Bass when I was grousing on line about
how I couldn't see LCD monitors from an angle. He said "You haven't seen
the newest ones" and darn it he was right. In the two years since I had
bought my monitor, amazing advances had occurred in LCD displays. The
speed, the angle of view, the contrast and brightness were incredibly
improved over my then "top of the line" display.

The same is true for LEDs. I was astounded at the light quality of Philips'
recent offering. So now it comes down to cost and denial. People don't
like admitting to themselves that they may have made a mistake. They don't
like to consider that they might embrace a poisonous technology over a more
eco-friendly one simply over cost. So they minimize the potential damage to
their peace-of-mind by several ways. First, they maximize the potential
benefit of the choice they've made. Second, they attack, often without
mercy, anyone who dares question their self-image as a socially
conscientious person. Third, they minimize any harm their choice might
entail. It's called "cognitive dissonance." You know that mercury in bulbs
is bad, but you want to believe you're still helping, thus you play up what
suits your argument and discard what doesn't.

http://www.learningandteaching.info/...dissonance.htm

"The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun beating its
legs but you're not helping. Why is that?"

(I thought you might need a quick pop movie quiz to 'lighten' the mood.)

Yes. LEDs provide the same alleged reduction in emissions, and they do
it
WITHOUT adding mercury to hundreds of thousands of homes in billions of
light bulbs.

Puh-leaze - how much mercury do CFLs add to homes?

One home or all of them? When you take a commodity like a light bulb, add
mercury, send 10, 20 or 100 bulbs out to a million homes, it adds up.
Ironically, Don, that's wonderfully simple indication that you're a victim
of cognitive dissonance. You apparently believe that "little things add up"
when it comes to reducing harmful emissions but discount that very same
theory when it's regarding the extent or implications of new vectors of
mercury pollution.

If anyone really cares about the environment, they won't
poison it further by using mercury-laced CFL bulbs instead of LEDs.

Until I can get LED bulbs for my needs, I am reducing emissions
including mercury by using CFL.

Well, it's clear from the passion of your argument that you *believe* that
you are reducing emissions. And who wouldn't want to help the environment
and not hurt it? To what extent your belief is *true* is the subject for
less passion and more detailed modeling. I would be more than happy to help
you analyze any of the studies making extravagant claims for CFL emission
savings for their soundness. I did work like that for close to 20 years
with much larger models. I suspect that anyone with a good sense of detail
knows how complex a model it would take to prove substantial savings and how
the "unintended consequence" costs in the future could easily outweigh any
benefit in the here and now.

6) Are CFL bulb makers serious about recycling used bulbs?

Hell no. We have deposit laws for mostly inert glass soda bottles but
NOT
environmentally hazardous CFL bulbs. Studies estimate that perhaps as
few
as 10% of all CFL bulbs get recycled.

They would be reducing net mercury contribution to the environment if
none of them were recycled.

This fascinates me. You state that as if we should just believe you. No
details. Just fiat. It also makes the completely erroneous assumption that
this is the proper way to clean up mercury, and not by making coal plants
recapture it. Present some numbers or a study and we'll work through them
and I'll can guarantee you I'll find assumptions that are probably not
valid.

The biggest fallacy in the CFLs save their weight in mercury is that it's
somehow impossible to scrub mercury at the stack so we're stuck with this
stupid tradeoff. There's that pesky cognitive dissonance again. What
happens when we finally stop believing this very "credit default swap-ish"
sounding mercury tradeoff nonsense and clean up the coal fired stacks? The
answer is simple. CFL's will then be the number one source of mercury
pollution in the environment. Brain squirming yet?

In order for you to believe you're really helping, you have to believe it's
impossible to clean up mercury at the source. You virtually have to believe
that to enter into a dubious "swap" agreement, swapping the alleged huge
savings in emissions by adding teeny bits of mercury to every corner of the
country, even those places running on hydroelectric. It's only a teensy
bit, right? The problem is that each teensy bit in 3 billion bulbs adds up.
But a number that large is really outside the realm of most people's
experience so they just discount it.

Those who want to help with increasing that 10% by recycling their dead
CFLs:

www.lamprecycle.org

Home Depot also accepts deasd CFLs for proper disposal.

Study after study shows that hardly 10% of fluorescent bulbs are recycled.
Having places where people can drive (using energy probably not factored
into the model!) their dead bulbs to is no guarantee that anyone but the
most green will actually recycle them. It's also no proof against some
minimum wage earner at Home Depot dumping them in a trash bin when the boss
isn't looking. But there's that cognitive dissonance. You know how bad the
American recycling rate is and where a lot of that mercury will end up.
People will care when they can't eat fresh trout, and we're closer to that
moment than you seem to believe.

We were stupid for buying into the idea of credit default swaps and we paid
dearly. They were the product of some of the smartest economists in the
world who believed they could eliminate risk from financial transactions.
But boy, weren't all those MIT eggheads all wet! We're repeating history
with this even harder to believe "adding mercury to subtract mercury"
canard. Who benefits? Power plant owners, because they don't have to buy
pollution control equipment as long as they've convinced people they can
solve the mercury pollution with a mercury swap and that somehow this the
right way to control emission, instead of at the stack where the actually
occur. It's sad that it doesn't take much to fool people anymore.

I challenge you to *really* work through the numbers with me. I can tell
you're a guy that doesn't like to make mistakes. That's good. You'll need
that brainpower to figure out that in the great scheme of things, CFLs could
quite easily end up doing more harm than good. And that's even if their
only crime was to slow the development and commercial acceptance of LEDs.
How could CFLs hinder LEDs? Well, if you've already stocked up on CFLs
you're not likely to want to buy LEDs until you've used them all up. That
lowers the demand for LEDs which in turn inhibits LED makers from reaching
large economies of scale and much lower prices.

--
Bobby G.

David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 12/31/2009 3:07 AM spake thus:

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:18:55 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

4) Does it take into account the addition of mercury to
environments where most of the energy developed is from hydro or
nuclear power?

No. CFL bulbs are poised to bring significant mercury pollution
issues to areas where there isn't any mercury pollution from nearby
coal plants because there AREN'T any nearby coal plants.

Do you have ANY idea how long florescent's have been in wide use?
Where do you see them? How about ALL large buildings being almost
completely lit with full sized florescent's which contain FAR more
mercury than CFL's? When you flip the typical light switch in a home,
maybe 1-4 lights are powered up. When you flip a switch in a
supermarket, there may be hundreds of lights lit up. All Florescent.

Any idea why they use florescent's ?

Of course he knows this; that's implicit in his arguments. He's not stupid.

What he's saying, which I agree with, is that the use of CFLs, primarily
for *residential* lighting (not commercial, which as you point out has
already been using fluorescents for many decades) will result in a
massive upsurge in the amount of mercury in transit out there, some of
which will escape into the environment. This is the 900-pound gorilla of
CFL usage which isn't getting nearly as much attention as it should, and
makes the claims that Don K. and others have made about how much CFLs
will result in *reduced* mercury emissions dubious at best.


How about we make CFL's RELIABLE so we don't send nearly as many of them
in the landfill?
CFL's are the LEAST reliable lighting in my house. And it ain't the
part with
the mercury that's failing.
8000 hours my a$$.
But there is a warranty. Just figure out the vendor...find your proof of
purchase...mail it in to the warranty center with $4.50 return postage
and they'll send you a brand new 99-cent light.
Disposal problem solved...

On Sat, 2 Jan 2010 07:05:12 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

"Don Klipstein" wrote in message
...

stuff snipped

5) Does this alleged tradeoff work when you substitute LEDs for tungsten
bulbs?

Yes - once LED bulbs as good as CFL bulbs are available for where CFLs
are used.

Do you think that widespread adoption of CFLs will:

a) help LED development and pricing

b) hurt LED development and pricing or

c) have no effect?

My econ prof would assure me it's b), especially if utilities underwrite the
initial cost of CFLs and not LEDs. This is really just about cost, because
LEDs have really hit mainstream but most people don't know it. Many people
bought one a year or two ago, it was bad, they didn't look again.

I learned a valuable lesson from Bob Bass when I was grousing on line about
how I couldn't see LCD monitors from an angle. He said "You haven't seen
the newest ones" and darn it he was right. In the two years since I had
bought my monitor, amazing advances had occurred in LCD displays. The
speed, the angle of view, the contrast and brightness were incredibly
improved over my then "top of the line" display.

The same is true for LEDs. I was astounded at the light quality of Philips'
recent offering. So now it comes down to cost and denial. People don't
like admitting to themselves that they may have made a mistake. They don't
like to consider that they might embrace a poisonous technology over a more
eco-friendly one simply over cost. So they minimize the potential damage to
their peace-of-mind by several ways. First, they maximize the potential
benefit of the choice they've made. Second, they attack, often without
mercy, anyone who dares question their self-image as a socially
conscientious person. Third, they minimize any harm their choice might
entail. It's called "cognitive dissonance." You know that mercury in bulbs
is bad, but you want to believe you're still helping, thus you play up what
suits your argument and discard what doesn't.

http://www.learningandteaching.info/...dissonance.htm

"The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun beating its
legs but you're not helping. Why is that?"

(I thought you might need a quick pop movie quiz to 'lighten' the mood.)

Yes. LEDs provide the same alleged reduction in emissions, and they do
it
WITHOUT adding mercury to hundreds of thousands of homes in billions of
light bulbs.

Puh-leaze - how much mercury do CFLs add to homes?

One home or all of them? When you take a commodity like a light bulb, add
mercury, send 10, 20 or 100 bulbs out to a million homes, it adds up.
Ironically, Don, that's wonderfully simple indication that you're a victim
of cognitive dissonance. You apparently believe that "little things add up"
when it comes to reducing harmful emissions but discount that very same
theory when it's regarding the extent or implications of new vectors of
mercury pollution.

If anyone really cares about the environment, they won't
poison it further by using mercury-laced CFL bulbs instead of LEDs.

Until I can get LED bulbs for my needs, I am reducing emissions
including mercury by using CFL.

Well, it's clear from the passion of your argument that you *believe* that
you are reducing emissions. And who wouldn't want to help the environment
and not hurt it? To what extent your belief is *true* is the subject for
less passion and more detailed modeling. I would be more than happy to help
you analyze any of the studies making extravagant claims for CFL emission
savings for their soundness. I did work like that for close to 20 years
with much larger models. I suspect that anyone with a good sense of detail
knows how complex a model it would take to prove substantial savings and how
the "unintended consequence" costs in the future could easily outweigh any
benefit in the here and now.

6) Are CFL bulb makers serious about recycling used bulbs?

Hell no. We have deposit laws for mostly inert glass soda bottles but
NOT
environmentally hazardous CFL bulbs. Studies estimate that perhaps as
few
as 10% of all CFL bulbs get recycled.

They would be reducing net mercury contribution to the environment if
none of them were recycled.

This fascinates me. You state that as if we should just believe you. No
details. Just fiat. It also makes the completely erroneous assumption that
this is the proper way to clean up mercury, and not by making coal plants
recapture it. Present some numbers or a study and we'll work through them
and I'll can guarantee you I'll find assumptions that are probably not
valid.

The biggest fallacy in the CFLs save their weight in mercury is that it's
somehow impossible to scrub mercury at the stack so we're stuck with this
stupid tradeoff. There's that pesky cognitive dissonance again. What
happens when we finally stop believing this very "credit default swap-ish"
sounding mercury tradeoff nonsense and clean up the coal fired stacks? The
answer is simple. CFL's will then be the number one source of mercury
pollution in the environment. Brain squirming yet?

In order for you to believe you're really helping, you have to believe it's
impossible to clean up mercury at the source. You virtually have to believe
that to enter into a dubious "swap" agreement, swapping the alleged huge
savings in emissions by adding teeny bits of mercury to every corner of the
country, even those places running on hydroelectric. It's only a teensy
bit, right? The problem is that each teensy bit in 3 billion bulbs adds up.
But a number that large is really outside the realm of most people's
experience so they just discount it.

Those who want to help with increasing that 10% by recycling their dead
CFLs:

www.lamprecycle.org

Home Depot also accepts deasd CFLs for proper disposal.

Study after study shows that hardly 10% of fluorescent bulbs are recycled.
Having places where people can drive (using energy probably not factored
into the model!) their dead bulbs to is no guarantee that anyone but the
most green will actually recycle them. It's also no proof against some
minimum wage earner at Home Depot dumping them in a trash bin when the boss
isn't looking. But there's that cognitive dissonance. You know how bad the
American recycling rate is and where a lot of that mercury will end up.
People will care when they can't eat fresh trout, and we're closer to that
moment than you seem to believe.

We were stupid for buying into the idea of credit default swaps and we paid
dearly. They were the product of some of the smartest economists in the
world who believed they could eliminate risk from financial transactions.
But boy, weren't all those MIT eggheads all wet! We're repeating history
with this even harder to believe "adding mercury to subtract mercury"
canard. Who benefits? Power plant owners, because they don't have to buy
pollution control equipment as long as they've convinced people they can
solve the mercury pollution with a mercury swap and that somehow this the
right way to control emission, instead of at the stack where the actually
occur. It's sad that it doesn't take much to fool people anymore.

I challenge you to *really* work through the numbers with me. I can tell
you're a guy that doesn't like to make mistakes. That's good. You'll need
that brainpower to figure out that in the great scheme of things, CFLs could
quite easily end up doing more harm than good. And that's even if their
only crime was to slow the development and commercial acceptance of LEDs.
How could CFLs hinder LEDs? Well, if you've already stocked up on CFLs
you're not likely to want to buy LEDs until you've used them all up. That
lowers the demand for LEDs which in turn inhibits LED makers from reaching
large economies of scale and much lower prices.


MEGO!

While you have a lot of good points these ones are absolute crap.

I have been inside shut-down 200 tonne turbines and they didn't fall apart.
This is done on a regular basis to make sure they stay healthy.

Power compmaies do not turn up the voltage at nights. The voltage rises due
to less VA draw online and the line losses become a smaller factor of the
delivered voltage.

Excess generating capacity has nothing to do with voltage, at any time. The
voltages are maintained (regualted) at the generator, at the high tension
line receiving point, at the dustribution station and manually at your yard
trensfomer somtimes. The government specs are plus or minus 10% at any
voltage level.

Yes some utilities do reduce the voltage during over peak times. This is to
keep the peak load down to a manageable level to avoid having to drop
customers off, preserving the system from failures. It is still done withint
the 10% rule mandated.


"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
Also remember

that at night, voltage in most systems is at its highest because of the
excess generating capability, at least compared to the daytime load. Does
having 122VAC at your outlet instead of 110VAC really translate into a
substantial emission savings? I doubt it, but it's one of the ways power
plant operators cope with varying demand.


You can't simply shut down a 200 ton turbine: if they aren't kept spinning
their main shafts will deform and become unbalanced and they'll shake
themselves apart.


Then there's the power factor issue to consider. Are you really saving
money when the power company boosts the voltage at night to compensate for
the lower demand?


--
Bobby G.

I was willing to provide some cites and continue with the converstaion until
you raise the ad hominem attacks.

Troll harder....think!

"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
"Josepi" wrote in message
...
Now tell us how reducing the load doesn't reduce energy usage and doesn't
reduce pollution of any type, nuclear, coal, petroleum, hydro-electric or
other. TOU load is not the only factor here.

See my other posts. Power generation is a stair-step function, not a
smooth, linear process. Power generated has to be used in real time, either
by shunting it to other power companies, raising the system voltage or
shunting it into resistor banks. Each is a "lossy" process that doesn't
result in a smooth, linear reduction in emissions as demand changes.

Your smokestack scrubber argument doesn't wash. OPG in Ontario has been
using scrubbers for decades and they are all about to be removed. I
suspect
the scubbers are not that effective and too expensive to implement.

Do you have a citation for that? I have not heard of OPG abandoning
scrubbers. I do know that power plant operators dislike them for a number
of reasons, least of which is the bite it takes out of profits to buy them.
I'm old enough to remember Detroit howling that forcing them to put
catalytic converters on cars would make them unaffordable. What a load of
crap. I wouldn't base my opinion about the worth of all scrubbers based on
a single utility's experiences with "decades" old technology.

LED lamps are too expensive and too dim-witted, yet. Expensive equate to
too
much production polution outweighing any lifetime benefits. The cost of
our
health insurance on increase spectacle coverage and accidents from people
falling down stairwells will outweigh any savings alone...LOL

You're not a native English speaker are you, Josepi? I suspect it's why
people give you a lot of trouble about your posts. I commend you for being
able to write as well as you do in a second language, if my hunch is
correct. I recently bought a set of Philips LED "stumblelights" with
motion detectors to provide enough light to reach every where in the house
without having to turn the main lights on. They are almost exactly the same
color temperature as warm CFL's and TILs, and they are quite bright enough
to light the path without "stumbling." No increase in eyeglass or health
insurance required.

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a...M-2-PC-/1.html

Let's face it: the general populace doesn't care about the "greenwashing"
part of the formula, only their pocketbooks and the capitolistist economic
system in place that hasn't made it feasible, yet.

Well, they *will* care when it's too late. It would have been a lot better
to just stop using asbestos as soon as we had a clue it was such a potent
carcinogen. But we didn't and we're STILL paying enormous costs to clean it
all up. Same with putting lead in gasoline. Boy, what a dimwit idea THAT
was and it went on for a long, long time. Yet people act as if it's
impossible that lamps containing mercury isn't a similarly dull idea.

Many other good points, noted.

Gee, thanks! (-:

--
Bobby G.

Obviously, none of you are going to convince each other.
Especially with the name calling and general nonsense messages which harm
your personal credibility.

--
Bill Fuhrmann

All points: agreed. Good note.

Let's see, we have
the posting style troll
The spelling troll
The grammar troll
The my point is more important than yours despite no the topic troll
The you're an idiot troll

LOL


"B Fuhrmann" wrote in message
...
Obviously, none of you are going to convince each other.
Especially with the name calling and general nonsense messages which harm
your personal credibility.

--
Bill Fuhrmann

In article , Robert Green wrote:
wrote in message

stuff snipped

Do you have ANY idea how long florescent's have been in wide use?

YES, I do have SOME idea HOW long. And I even know how to spell the word
correctly, too. It starts, ironically, like the disease "Flu" - that's the
mnemonic I use. Flu -ores -cent. Three separate words in one. Aren't you
glad you asked so nicely? (-: You got smarter. You wouldn't want to
present yourself as knowledgeable in a subject you can't spell. People
might not find you credible.

http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Fluorescent (checking to make sure it's not
Brit variant)

Obviously you missed my post where I described in deadly dull detail when
FLUorescents were discovered and came into wide use. The basic principle
was revealed over 150 years ago when Stokes at Cambridge discovered
electrical fluorescence in 1852. Fluorescents came into commercial use at
the NY World's Fair, 1939 when GE introduced the Lumiline bulb after decades
of patent battles and research.

Does being in "wide use" make the mercury in them any less poisonous? Of
course not. Consider this: In 1939, along with the miracle of fluorescent
lighting, we were using the miracle substance asbestos everywhe in car
brakes, in houses, in schools, even in cigarettes. Did the fact that it was
in "wide use" for a long time everywhere mean it was not a deadly
carcinogen? Of course not. "Wide use" is proof of nothing except "wide
use."

Asbestos causes one of the nastiest cancers known to man, mesothelioma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesothelioma

We were stupid about asbestos for the longest time but we got smart,
eventually, only after enough people died. People in very different walks
of life, from toll booth attendants who breathed brake dust filled with
airborne asbestos to roofers that worked with asbestos shingles, have died
horribly because we dragged our heels. It's cost billions of dollars to
clean it up and it's still not done. Can we do better with another poison,
mercury, now that we know it's a fast growing health problem? Maybe. I
hope so. But I suspect, once again, a lot of people will sicken and die
before we buy a clue.

It would seem just based on experience with asbestos alone that people might
consider we've been wrong before and we may well be headed down the wrong
path again with fluorescent lighting. But people are contrary cusses. They
know smoking causes lung cancer (especially if they smoked Kent with the
asbestos-filled Micronite filter) but they smoke anyway. People have
difficulty evaluating distant threats.

SNIP from here

At this point, it apears to me that most people who died horrible deaths
from asbestos inhaled visible clouds of the stuff, such as by being
shipyard workers, insulation deplyment workers, etc. or housewives thereof
doing laundry of clothes outright dusty with asbestos.

I hear the word "mesothelioma" mostly in radio ads by lawyers.

Need I say more here?

- Don Klipstein )

In article , Robert Green wrote:
"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...
On 12/31/2009 3:07 AM spake thus:

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:18:55 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

4) Does it take into account the addition of mercury to
environments where most of the energy developed is from hydro or
nuclear power?

No. CFL bulbs are poised to bring significant mercury pollution
issues to areas where there isn't any mercury pollution from nearby
coal plants because there AREN'T any nearby coal plants.

Do you have ANY idea how long florescent's have been in wide use?
Where do you see them? How about ALL large buildings being almost
completely lit with full sized florescent's which contain FAR more
mercury than CFL's? When you flip the typical light switch in a home,
maybe 1-4 lights are powered up. When you flip a switch in a
supermarket, there may be hundreds of lights lit up. All Florescent.

Any idea why they use florescent's ?

Of course he knows this; that's implicit in his arguments. He's not
stupid.

Thank you. I explained it to him in excruciating detail anyway, for it
seems not so implicit to him. I think he missed my earlier magnum opus on
CFLs. I even gave him a mnemonic so that he could spell flu-ores-cent
properly in the future.

What he's saying, which I agree with, is that the use of CFLs, primarily
for *residential* lighting (not commercial, which as you point out has
already been using fluorescents for many decades) will result in a
massive upsurge in the amount of mercury in transit out there, some of
which will escape into the environment. This is the 900-pound gorilla of
CFL usage which isn't getting nearly as much attention as it should, and
makes the claims that Don K. and others have made about how much CFLs
will result in *reduced* mercury emissions dubious at best.

I spent a good portion of my life in a SCIF helping build computer models
that tried to predict a number of important statistics based on various
nuclear attack scenarios. Once you become involved in something that looks
at every fort, factory, armory, hospital, police station, jail, power plant,
water plant, chemical storage plant, bridge, tunnel, etc, etc, in the
country, you begin to appreciate the complexity and arbitrary nature of such
models.

You can't build something like that without making assumptions and
invariably, many of them turn out to be well-reasoned, but dead wrong. A
lot of corrections to the model came after examining serious disasters that
in some ways simulated nuclear attacks. Hurricanes always broke the model.
So did earthquakes. It's humbling. And it's why I get verbose when people
claim things about similarly complex subjects with such unwavering
certainty. I've been down that road before and it's "a maze of twisty
little passages, all different." It takes more than magic words or wishful
thinking to get real answers.

In the "CFLs will save enough money to do X,Y and Z" argument the number of
variables is astounding. Part of the problem, I am discovering, is that
people believe the power grid is some sort of giant battery. They don't
understand the concept of base loads, peak loads, spinning reserves and grid
management. They believe, quite logically, if you save 50 watts switching
from TILs (Tungsten Incandescent Lighting) to CFLs on your home bill, that
represents *exactly* 50 watts' worth reduction in carbon/mercury emissions.
At least that's how I understand some of the claims about CFLs. I don't
blame people for thinking that way. I thought of it that way myself until I
started researching it.

I see it as even more due to transmission and generator winding losses
that are mostly though significantly short of entirely due to
"real"/"resistive" component of current.

I think the most important concept lacking in the discussion is the
"stair-step" function of power generation. Generators aren't capable of
responding quickly to demand.

Not even the oil and natural gas ones?

They have basically three modes: off, idling
and running.

They don't have to run at "full output power".

At best, CFLs are causing *some* plants to idle, at worst, all
that happens is that everyone's lights glow a little brighter and there may
be fewer summer brownouts. Dramatic savings? Maybe. Dramatic risks?
Certainly. No one doubts mercury is a neurotoxin. No one with a brain
unaffected by mercury or some other neural "nuking" agent, that is.

Appealing to chemophobia, while switching from incandescents to CFLs on
average actually reduces (or slows increase of) mercury pollution?

I'm sure you know that big, 200 ton coal plant turbines don't start and stop
on a dime. These beasties form the backbone of base load power generation.
The base load is power that gets generated to meet carefully projected needs
no matter what the actual load. If it isn't used, it isn't saved. It's
either shunted to some other part of the grid, entailing transmission
losses,

Fairly small actually!

or the plant operators boost the overall voltage in the system, or,
in grid failures, shunt it to huge resistor banks.

Where do you get that - can you cite this?

Meanwhile, the shorter-term fluctuations are handled by cranking up and
down oil and gas fueled power plants. Longer term change in projected
power requirements will affect the construction schedule for coal-fired
power plants.

I think I do well enough snipping from here

- Don Klipstein )

In article , mike wrote:
David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 12/31/2009 3:07 AM spake thus:

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:18:55 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

4) Does it take into account the addition of mercury to
environments where most of the energy developed is from hydro or
nuclear power?

No. CFL bulbs are poised to bring significant mercury pollution
issues to areas where there isn't any mercury pollution from nearby
coal plants because there AREN'T any nearby coal plants.

Do you have ANY idea how long florescent's have been in wide use?
Where do you see them? How about ALL large buildings being almost
completely lit with full sized florescent's which contain FAR more
mercury than CFL's? When you flip the typical light switch in a home,
maybe 1-4 lights are powered up. When you flip a switch in a
supermarket, there may be hundreds of lights lit up. All Florescent.

Any idea why they use florescent's ?

Of course he knows this; that's implicit in his arguments. He's not stupid.

What he's saying, which I agree with, is that the use of CFLs, primarily
for *residential* lighting (not commercial, which as you point out has
already been using fluorescents for many decades) will result in a
massive upsurge in the amount of mercury in transit out there, some of
which will escape into the environment. This is the 900-pound gorilla of
CFL usage which isn't getting nearly as much attention as it should, and
makes the claims that Don K. and others have made about how much CFLs
will result in *reduced* mercury emissions dubious at best.


How about we make CFL's RELIABLE so we don't send nearly as many of them
in the landfill?
CFL's are the LEAST reliable lighting in my house. And it ain't the
part with
the mercury that's failing.
8000 hours my a$$.
But there is a warranty. Just figure out the vendor...find your proof of
purchase...mail it in to the warranty center with $4.50 return postage
and they'll send you a brand new 99-cent light.
Disposal problem solved...

In my experience, the 99 cent or $1 ones in single-packs account for a
lot of CFL problems, while being unreturnable - also in my experience,
disproportionately lacking UL "listing" for "self ballasted lamp", the
"FCC ID" usually required of line-voltage-powered self-ballasted lamp
having electronic ballast, or even usually the FTC-required statement of
light output in lumens (and in my experience falling short significantly
in the few cases they do). Along with in my experience above-average
rates of DOA, early failure, spectacular early failure, and notable
malfunctions.

These problems in my experience are from CFLs of "dollar store brands",
not so much a problem of ones with "Energy Star" logo or of "Big 3 brands"
(GE, Sylvania, Philips).

- Don Klipstein )

In article , Robert Green wrote:
"Don Klipstein" wrote in message
...

You may be interested in this (spurred by your supplied links elsewhere)
LEDs may be just as bad as CFLs for health damage due to spectral
content.

http://www.international-light-association.eu/PDF/
Artificial%20Light%20and%20Health%20PLDC07.pdf

Except this stuff on blaming health problems by melanopsin peaking at
460 nm being stimulated by CFL's blue peak (436 nm) is BS. An equivalent
amount of daylight has more stimulation of the blue color sensors in the
eye (peaking at 445 nm), as indicated by daylight appearing more blue.

Some people are doomed to stay inside for most of their lives because of
their sensitivity to UV. So saying CFL's aren't any more harmful than the
sun is actually confirming they are indeed harmful to those people.

But typical home lighting is at a couple hundred to a few hundred lux
ballpark, give-or-take, while direct sunlight is upper 10,000's to around
100,000 lux. The typical home CFL lighting has intensity a couple orders
of magnitude less than that of direct sunlight, along with a less harmful
spectrum in this area.

There are any number of biological systems that depend on light. The
full-spectrum light boxes you wrote about are thought to work via the eye
and brain, simulating summer light in the winter months and (hopefully)
reducing depression that's well known to be more of a problem in the winter
months than in the summer.

Please keep in mind the known and suspected photoreceptors!

Some people believe SAD (Seasonal Affective
Disorder) is due to the overall reduction in daylight hours, others believe
it's the absence of the very bright, white light of summer that does the
trick. The people I know that use them, swear by them. A case could be
easily made the benefits are purely placebo effects, but I doubt it. Since
we share so many genes with so many other animals, it's not hard to believe,
that we, like them, are sensitive to daily and seasonal changes in light.

A brief search through the Merck manual at:

http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec18/ch214/ch214c.html

lists the following drugs as having potential photosensitive effects:

SNIP a list of drugs where direct sunlight is a couple orders of
magnitudes worse than fluorescent indoor lighting

Most of us have taken at least one of them; others, many more. For a long
time, nearly everyone poo-pooed the idea that CRT's were harmful to some
people and caused serious skin ailments. But anyone who has owned a CRT has
likely noticed that they are often the dustiest item in the room.

Probably removing dust from elsewhere!

It turned out that once the Swedes, notorious for their stringent
consumer protection laws, actually did the research, they found the
claims credible. They discovered that sitting in front of a CRT with its
high voltage components acting as a attractant, caused people's hands,
arms and faces to be showered with microscope dust particles and those,
in turn, clogged skin pores with all sorts of airborne irritants,
resulting in sometimes serious skin ailments.

In my heavy Usenet experience with a CRT monitor, this is news to me!
Can you post a cite?

I mention this only to point out that there are many things that seem highly
unlikely until someone bothers to design
the proper experiments to prove or disprove a contention. Another thing to
consider is the manufacturing process. It's pretty obvious to me, at least,
that Chinese manufacturers vary greatly in their adherence to quality
control principles. Bearing that in mind, what happens to the UV output of
a fluorescent bulb with a thin, defective or non-existent phosphor coating?

The UVC that is the main UV emission by low pressure mercury vapor arc
- is reliably mostly absorbed by the coating - that is necessary
for the phosphor to produce visible light with good efficiency.

UVC is also very highly blocked by the glass tubing unless the
glass tubing is made of an expensive specialty glass to pass it.

UVB is also mostly blocked by glass not specifically designed to pass it
at extra cost, and low pressure mercury vapor only weakly produces UVB and
UVA.

That little bit of UVA gets through glass well - but it is
"blacklight-range" rather than "tanning range" UVA. It is mainly 365-366
nm wavelength.

CFLs with color rendering index around 82 and color temperature at least
3500 K even have a phosphor component absorbing and making use of some of
this UVA.

It spikes tremendously. Why? Because fluorescent bulbs are designed to
emit short wave UV radiation that strikes the phosphor coating, causing it
fluoresce and converting the UV to visible light waves. With bad or thin
phosphor, there's less material to impede the UV emissions. So I'm not at
all surprised that the research varies tremendously. The items under
investigation do, too.

--
Bobby G.

- Don Klipstein )

In article , Robert Green wrote:
"Don Klipstein" wrote in message
...

stuff snipped

5) Does this alleged tradeoff work when you substitute LEDs for tungsten
bulbs?

Yes - once LED bulbs as good as CFL bulbs are available for where CFLs
are used.

Do you think that widespread adoption of CFLs will:

a) help LED development and pricing

b) hurt LED development and pricing or

c) have no effect?

My econ prof would assure me it's b), especially if utilities underwrite the
initial cost of CFLs and not LEDs. This is really just about cost, because
LEDs have really hit mainstream but most people don't know it.

LEDs are just now barely hitting mainstream for home lighting, maybe
comparable to CFLs as of 1989 or so. Subsidizing a couple or 3 dollars
can easily take away a majority of the retal cost of a CFL. (Heck, I see
promo packs of CFLs worth having at big-name home centers at less than $2
per CFL even without utility subsidy!)

Many people
bought one a year or two ago, it was bad, they didn't look again.

Bought one or two *what*? LED "bulb"? CFL? Dollar-store stool specimen
CFL?

I learned a valuable lesson from Bob Bass when I was grousing on line about
how I couldn't see LCD monitors from an angle. He said "You haven't seen
the newest ones" and darn it he was right. In the two years since I had
bought my monitor, amazing advances had occurred in LCD displays. The
speed, the angle of view, the contrast and brightness were incredibly
improved over my then "top of the line" display.

The same is true for LEDs. I was astounded at the light quality of Philips'
recent offering.

I saw those at Home Depot, with energy efficiency about 2/3 of CFL and
cost 7-10 times that of CFL, though with life expectancy 5-7 times that of
CFL.

So now it comes down to cost and denial. People don't
like admitting to themselves that they may have made a mistake. They don't
like to consider that they might embrace a poisonous technology over a more
eco-friendly one simply over cost. So they minimize the potential damage to
their peace-of-mind by several ways. First, they maximize the potential
benefit of the choice they've made. Second, they attack, often without
mercy, anyone who dares question their self-image as a socially
conscientious person. Third, they minimize any harm their choice might
entail. It's called "cognitive dissonance." You know that mercury in bulbs
is bad, but you want to believe you're still helping, thus you play up what
suits your argument and discard what doesn't.

The bulbs with mercury in them on average still actually reduce mercury
pollution in comparison to incandescents. So far, they still have
significantly better energy efficiency and much better cost-effectiveness
in all areas than the latest warm-color LED ones that I saw at Home Depot,
though I am impressed by how far LEDs have advanced so far.

http://www.learningandteaching.info/...dissonance.htm

"The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun beating its
legs but you're not helping. Why is that?"

(I thought you might need a quick pop movie quiz to 'lighten' the mood.)

Yes. LEDs provide the same alleged reduction in emissions, and they do
it
WITHOUT adding mercury to hundreds of thousands of homes in billions of
light bulbs.

Puh-leaze - how much mercury do CFLs add to homes?

One home or all of them? When you take a commodity like a light bulb, add
mercury, send 10, 20 or 100 bulbs out to a million homes, it adds up.

Except these bulbs have an impressively high rate of keeping their
mercury within themselves.

Ironically, Don, that's wonderfully simple indication that you're a victim
of cognitive dissonance. You apparently believe that "little things add up"
when it comes to reducing harmful emissions but discount that very same
theory when it's regarding the extent or implications of new vectors of
mercury pollution.

How do you think that CFLs emit mercury within homes? I would think
that the over-99.6% that leave their homes unshattered do not do so at
all, and the small fraction of a percent otherwise emit little as far as
mercury goes.

If anyone really cares about the environment, they won't
poison it further by using mercury-laced CFL bulbs instead of LEDs.

Until I can get LED bulbs for my needs, I am reducing emissions
including mercury by using CFL.

Well, it's clear from the passion of your argument that you *believe* that
you are reducing emissions. And who wouldn't want to help the environment
and not hurt it? To what extent your belief is *true* is the subject for
less passion and more detailed modeling. I would be more than happy to help
you analyze any of the studies making extravagant claims for CFL emission
savings for their soundness.

Or the sounder ones that I have cited in my postings within the past few
years?

Google does archive those, anhd my authorshyip is .

I did work like that for close to 20 years
with much larger models. I suspect that anyone with a good sense of detail
knows how complex a model it would take to prove substantial savings and how
the "unintended consequence" costs in the future could easily outweigh any
benefit in the here and now.

6) Are CFL bulb makers serious about recycling used bulbs?

Hell no. We have deposit laws for mostly inert glass soda bottles but NOT
environmentally hazardous CFL bulbs. Studies estimate that perhaps as
few as 10% of all CFL bulbs get recycled.

They would be reducing net mercury contribution to the environment if
none of them were recycled.

This fascinates me. You state that as if we should just believe you. No
details. Just fiat.

Based on CFL-vs-incandescent power requirement, and based on USA
nationwide average mercury emissions per KWH from the USA-nationwide
fraction of power generation being achieved by burning coal.

Looks like I gotta cite along lines of what I have cited befo

Not that this one is one I cited before, but I think it tells the story
somewhattruthfully:

http://www.ecmag.com/index.cfm?fa=ar...rticleID=10261

It also makes the completely erroneous assumption that
this is the proper way to clean up mercury, and not by making coal plants
recapture it. Present some numbers or a study and we'll work through them
and I'll can guarantee you I'll find assumptions that are probably not
valid.

How about slowing the construction schedule for new coal plants?

The biggest fallacy in the CFLs save their weight in mercury is that it's
somehow impossible to scrub mercury at the stack so we're stuck with this
stupid tradeoff. There's that pesky cognitive dissonance again. What
happens when we finally stop believing this very "credit default swap-ish"
sounding mercury tradeoff nonsense and clean up the coal fired stacks? The
answer is simple. CFL's will then be the number one source of mercury
pollution in the environment. Brain squirming yet?

No, if and when we accept a significant cost increase for electricity
for the scrubbing you advocate (which increases attractiveness of CFLs),
we still have the 4-foot fluorescents in most of USA's lighting since
1960's!

In order for you to believe you're really helping, you have to believe it's
impossible to clean up mercury at the source. You virtually have to believe
that to enter into a dubious "swap" agreement, swapping the alleged huge
savings in emissions by adding teeny bits of mercury to every corner of the
country, even those places running on hydroelectric.

I did say nationwide, as-a-whole, or along such lines. And the
hydropower-supplied regions of northeastern USA and nearby parts of Canada
are shortly downwind of a lot of coal-fired power plants!

It's only a teensy
bit, right? The problem is that each teensy bit in 3 billion bulbs adds up.
But a number that large is really outside the realm of most people's
experience so they just discount it.

Except that so far, CFLs on a whole get to reduce it.

Those who want to help with increasing that 10% by recycling their dead
CFLs:

www.lamprecycle.org

Home Depot also accepts deasd CFLs for proper disposal.

Study after study shows that hardly 10% of fluorescent bulbs are recycled.

Snipped from here is that changing from incandescent to CFL reduces
mercury pollution even if the recyclingrate is zero.

Having places where people can drive (using energy probably not factored
into the model!) their dead bulbs to is no guarantee that anyone but the
most green will actually recycle them. It's also no proof against some
minimum wage earner at Home Depot dumping them in a trash bin when the boss
isn't looking. But there's that cognitive dissonance. You know how bad the
American recycling rate is and where a lot of that mercury will end up.
People will care when they can't eat fresh trout, and we're closer to that
moment than you seem to believe.

However, even if the recycling rate of expired CFLs is zero, switching
from incandescents to CFLs will reduce mercury pollution of our trout.

We were stupid for buying into the idea of credit default swaps and we paid
dearly. They were the product of some of the smartest economists in the
world who believed they could eliminate risk from financial transactions.
But boy, weren't all those MIT eggheads all wet! We're repeating history
with this even harder to believe "adding mercury to subtract mercury"
canard.

By adding less than subtracting!

Who benefits?

How about those who eat trout?

Power plant owners, because they don't have to buy
pollution control equipment as long as they've convinced people they can
solve the mercury pollution with a mercury swap and that somehow this the
right way to control emission, instead of at the stack where the actually
occur. It's sad that it doesn't take much to fool people anymore.

I challenge you to *really* work through the numbers with me. I can tell
you're a guy that doesn't like to make mistakes. That's good. You'll need
that brainpower to figure out that in the great scheme of things, CFLs could
quite easily end up doing more harm than good. And that's even if their
only crime was to slow the development and commercial acceptance of LEDs.
How could CFLs hinder LEDs? Well, if you've already stocked up on CFLs
you're not likely to want to buy LEDs until you've used them all up. That
lowers the demand for LEDs which in turn inhibits LED makers from reaching
large economies of scale and much lower prices.

I don't stock up on CFLs for usual home use to have on hand beyond a
$10 6-pack. (I have many other CFLs that I purchased for testing
purposes to extent beyond that of typical Americans, and the ones I like
I will make use of until LED lighting with nice warm color and CRI at
least 82 gets more cost-effective than CFLs were in 1990. I hear that
incandescents are what my fellow Americans are stocking up on.)

--
Bobby G.

- Don Klipstein )

You might want to read your own posts and add them to your list.

--
Bill Fuhrmann

"Josepi" wrote in message
...
All points: agreed. Good note.

Let's see, we have
the posting style troll
The spelling troll
The grammar troll
The my point is more important than yours despite no the topic troll
The you're an idiot troll

LOL


"B Fuhrmann" wrote in
message
...
Obviously, none of you are going to convince each other.
Especially with the name calling and general nonsense messages which harm
your personal credibility.

--
Bill Fuhrmann

Thanx. I forgot.

The nonsense troll.



"B Fuhrmann" wrote in message
ernet...
You might want to read your own posts and add them to your list.

--
Bill Fuhrmann

"Josepi" wrote in message
...
All points: agreed. Good note.

Let's see, we have
the posting style troll
The spelling troll
The grammar troll
The my point is more important than yours despite no the topic troll
The you're an idiot troll

LOL


"B Fuhrmann" wrote in
message
...
Obviously, none of you are going to convince each other.
Especially with the name calling and general nonsense messages which harm
your personal credibility.

--
Bill Fuhrmann