The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Plus there is mercury in them.

Isn't it true that the mercury *in* the CFL is less than the mercury
release by burning the additional coal that would be required if an
incandescent lamp were used instead?

On 8 Sep, 21:24, Andy Burns wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Plus there is mercury in them.

Isn't it true that the mercury *in* the CFL is less than the mercury
release by burning the additional coal that would be required if an
incandescent lamp were used instead?

Yes, but only if the power is generated by coal-fired power stations.
In France, where the majority of electrical power is generated by
nuclear plants, and in Norway, where near enough 100% is
hydroelectrically generated, fluorescent lamps increase the amount of
mercury released into the environment.

Sid

"Sidney Endon-Lee" wrote in message
...
On 8 Sep, 21:24, Andy Burns wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Plus there is mercury in them.

Isn't it true that the mercury *in* the CFL is less than the mercury
release by burning the additional coal that would be required if an
incandescent lamp were used instead?

Yes, but only if the power is generated by coal-fired power stations.
In France, where the majority of electrical power is generated by
nuclear plants, and in Norway, where near enough 100% is
hydroelectrically generated, fluorescent lamps increase the amount of
mercury released into the environment.

Are you sure, all those CFLs have stored up a lot of mercury that was
already in the environment.

Sid

On 08/09/2010 21:35, dennis@home wrote:

Are you sure, all those CFLs have stored up a lot of mercury that was
already in the environment.

It _was_ in nice stable mercury rich ores, in holes in the ground.

It _is_ in vapourisable metallic form in a bulb just above my head.

Andy

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
David Hansen wrote:

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:58:36 +0100 someone who may be Mark
wrote this:-

The main problem I find is that they are usually physically
bigger than the original bulb and will not go into many fittings.

Things like http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/MGGB7BC.html and
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/LAMLS11BC.html will go into
just about anything a GLS lamp would fit in.

5-10 years ago your point would have been valid.

Yes. I don't know what all the fuss is about. Some of our older ones are
a bit slow in getting going, but all have perfectly satisfactory colour.


Well, I have had them so dim and orange as to be useless.

Before they finally failed.

The other problem is as with most fluorescents, the spectrum is a series
of monochromatic lines, not a spread spectrum of normal black body
radiation. So they can make certain colours look unnatural.

Plus there is a certain amount of UV give off anyway.

Plus there is mercury in them.

Like windmills its a question of a really bad technology being thrust on
us because its allegedly 'green' in a case where its contribution is so
little as to be meaningless.



Nicely put ...

Arfa

"David Hansen" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 8 Sep 2010 02:38:49 -0700 (PDT) someone who may be
ScrewMaster wrote this:-

I fitted CFLs throughout the house in the mid 1980s. They were very
expensive then but the maths still worked in my favour regarding cost
(energy consumption + cost of bulb) over their lifetime compared to
incandescent bulbs.

That was my opinion too, in the days when the lamps cost £10 or so,
when that was a lot of money. Soon paid for themselves.


Interestingly the people who rail against them tend to be the same
people who rail against sustainable electricity generation, quoting
the book "Sustainable energy - without the hot air" in support. They
can't have read the book very much, or they would have read the bit
in it about energy saving light bulbs
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c9/page_58.shtml

"Generally I avoid discussing economics, but I'd like to make an
exception for lightbulbs. Osram's 20 W low-energy bulb claims the
same light output as a 100 W incandescent bulb. Moreover, its
lifetime is said to be 15 000 hours (or "12 years," at 3 hours per
day). In contrast a typical in- candescent bulb might last 1000
hours. So during a 12-year period, you have this choice (figure
9.3): buy 15 incandescent bulbs and 1500 kWh of electricity (which
costs roughly £150); or buy one low-energy bulb and 300 kWh of
electricity (which costs roughly £30)."

Even if one believes, like I do, that the equivalent ratings quoted
by manufacturers are "optimistic" they are not as "optimistic" as to
change the balance dramatically.


Which is all jolly nice if you only address the situation from the end-user
point of view. Things would change dramatically against the CFL argument, if
the hugely different energy and monetary costs of manufacturing, shipping,
and correctly disposing of them over the humble and simple incandescent
bulb, were genuinely factored into the equation. However, I suspect that
this would be so complex to do, that it's never going to *actually* get
done, so there will never be any true comparative figures. The general
public does not understand what is in a CFL, so has no genuine understanding
of what goes into making them, which is why the green mist brigade can get
away with only pushing the *apparent* end user power savings. As for them
being cheap to buy now compared to 10 years ago, they're not. They are being
hugely subsidised by money being collected from us all, as part of our
electricity bills.

And on the subject of sustainable electricity generation, the ugly noisy
windmills that are sprouting up all over the countryside to distract drivers
and cause more deaths on the roads have, I believe, been the subject of
studies which show that at best, each one will only just about pay the
energy costs used to build it and maintain it over its lifetime. A much
better solution would be to just build some more nuclear stations. If people
don't like the idea of building them on land, then build them out to sea,
instead of the wind farms. Nuclear power is by far and away the most
sustainable form of electricity production, whilst wind and solar are about
as far the other end of the scale in terms of practicality, as you could get
....

Arfa

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:21:56 +0100 someone who may be Andy Burns
wrote this:-

I can only conclude those who like them are colour blind to some degree.
Which quite a large percentage of the UK male population are.

Never had a problem with colour-blindness tests.

Me too.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000...#pt3-pb3-l1g54

On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 01:52:49 +0100 someone who may be "Arfa Daily"
wrote this:-

Which is all jolly nice if you only address the situation from the end-user
point of view.

It wasn't me who came up with those figures.

Things would change dramatically against the CFL argument, if
the hugely different energy and monetary costs of manufacturing, shipping,
and correctly disposing of them over the humble and simple incandescent
bulb, were genuinely factored into the equation. However, I suspect that
this would be so complex to do, that it's never going to *actually* get
done, so there will never be any true comparative figures.

Such figures will have been produced. Were I to make the time to
find some you would probably dismiss them in a sentence, so I'll not
bother. The figurs/links below are ones I had on my web browser
anyway, so they didn't take time to look up.

They are being
hugely subsidised by money being collected from us all, as part of our
electricity bills.

"The annual cost per bill for each scheme was £1.20 (EESOP), £3.20
(EEC1) and £9 (EEC2) excluding VAT".
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/DomesticEnergyPriceAnalysis.pdf

And on the subject of sustainable electricity generation, the ugly noisy
windmills that are sprouting up all over the countryside to distract drivers
and cause more deaths on the roads

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Having been to some of the largest wind farms in the UK I have a
little idea about noise. There is certainly some machinery noise if
one stands directly under the nacelle. By about 10 metres from the
base of the tower it is inaudible. Noise from the blades can be
heard further away, but by the time one is the height of the top of
the blade away one cannot hear it. With a large wind farm, if close
enough one can typically hear noise from the nearest turbine or two
but no others. From outside a wind farm the sound of tractors is the
loudest sound, then other motor vehicles, then humans speaking, then
sheep and then birds. The noise of the wind in the trees is louder
than the noise of the wind farm

Many things could "distract" drivers, including all sorts of things
in the countryside like fields, animals and buildings. The road
"safety" lobby used to remove "dangerous" trees, but campaigning has
reduced this. I did once go to the trouble of debunking one of the
well known anti-wind lists of deaths they claimed were caused by
wind generation. A handful of "distraction" deaths, half of which
were people crashing into lorries carrying parts of wind turbines.
If they had instead crashed into lorries carrying coal or parts of a
steam turbine would the same people have made a fuss about all those
people killed by coal generation? I very much doubt it.

have, I believe, been the subject of
studies which show that at best, each one will only just about pay the
energy costs used to build it and maintain it over its lifetime.

Instead of believing in "studies" why not take a look at the reports
Vestas commissioned. They are at the bottom of
http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/sustainability/wind-turbines-and-the-environment/life-cycle-assessment-%28lca%29.aspx

I imagine they will be dismissed in a sentence, but a few other
people who I have pointed to the reports have been open enough to
tell me that they covered everything they could think of and seemed
accurate.

Nuclear power is by far and away the most sustainable form of electricity production,

Ignoring all the other problems it can only be sustained until the
uranium runs out. The idea of extracting it from the sea is a
variant of perpetual motion machines.




--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000...#pt3-pb3-l1g54

Andy Champ wrote:

On 08/09/2010 21:35, dennis@home wrote:

Are you sure, all those CFLs have stored up a lot of mercury that was
already in the environment.

It _was_ in nice stable mercury rich ores, in holes in the ground.

No, you dug it up and burnt it to power your lights. Oh dear I'm
sounding like a greenie.

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:24:16 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Plus there is mercury in them.

Isn't it true that the mercury *in* the CFL is less than the mercury
release by burning the additional coal that would be required if an
incandescent lamp were used instead?

Only if you generate electicity by burning coal. Most of ours come
from gas.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:20:30 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:58:36 +0100 someone who may be Mark
wrote this:-

The main problem I find is that they are usually physically
bigger than the original bulb and will not go into many fittings.

Things like
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/MGGB7BC.html and
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/LAMLS11BC.html will go into
just about anything a GLS lamp would fit in.

These are very expensive and probably only available from specialists.

5-10 years ago your point would have been valid.

I have got some new ones that are still too big.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

On Thu, 09 Sep 2010 06:56:43 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 01:52:49 +0100 someone who may be "Arfa Daily"
wrote this:-

And on the subject of sustainable electricity generation, the ugly noisy
windmills that are sprouting up all over the countryside to distract drivers
and cause more deaths on the roads

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And the ear.

Having been to some of the largest wind farms in the UK I have a
little idea about noise. There is certainly some machinery noise if
one stands directly under the nacelle. By about 10 metres from the
base of the tower it is inaudible. Noise from the blades can be
heard further away, but by the time one is the height of the top of
the blade away one cannot hear it. With a large wind farm, if close
enough one can typically hear noise from the nearest turbine or two
but no others. From outside a wind farm the sound of tractors is the
loudest sound, then other motor vehicles, then humans speaking, then
sheep and then birds. The noise of the wind in the trees is louder
than the noise of the wind farm

Not my experience. When going on a walk in the countryside I heard
(or felt) a very disturbing low pitch sound well before I could even
see any wind turbines. As I approached it got worse and I left the
area as quickly as possible.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

"David Hansen" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 01:52:49 +0100 someone who may be "Arfa Daily"
wrote this:-

Which is all jolly nice if you only address the situation from the
end-user
point of view.

It wasn't me who came up with those figures.


But you were happy to quote them ...



Things would change dramatically against the CFL argument, if
the hugely different energy and monetary costs of manufacturing, shipping,
and correctly disposing of them over the humble and simple incandescent
bulb, were genuinely factored into the equation. However, I suspect that
this would be so complex to do, that it's never going to *actually* get
done, so there will never be any true comparative figures.

Such figures will have been produced. Were I to make the time to
find some you would probably dismiss them in a sentence, so I'll not
bother. The figurs/links below are ones I had on my web browser
anyway, so they didn't take time to look up.


I'm sure that there are figures out there, but it is doubtful whether any
would actually be *truly* accurate, because many hundreds of processes and
shipping routes would have to be factored in, which would be an almost
impossible task to do accurately. Every last one of these processes is
valid, and contributes - however insignificantly - to the total energy
budget consumed by the manufacturing and transporting of a CFL before it
ever gets to your light fitting, and the proper disposal and recycling of it
after a fails anything from a day to 10 years after you install it. It is
this 'hidden' energy cost that is conveniently ignored by the advocates of
the technology. A conventional light bulb on the other hand, uses only a
fraction of the material and manufacturing processes and shipping routes, so
it would be comparatively easy to produce *true* manufacturing and disposal
costs, for that particular technology.



They are being
hugely subsidised by money being collected from us all, as part of our
electricity bills.

"The annual cost per bill for each scheme was £1.20 (EESOP), £3.20
(EEC1) and £9 (EEC2) excluding VAT".
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/DomesticEnergyPriceAnalysis.pdf


But that's still millions and millions being collected in to subsidise a
substitute technology that has not, despite what you think and say, been
well received over the last 30 years by the general public at large. If
everyone thought it was so good and necessary, they would be happy to pay
the extra. Instead, only a small minority *do* think it's ok, which has led
to a slow and unenthusiastic take-up at the 'real' price, necessitating this
nannying by the back door on price, and legislative banning, to try to
persuade - read *force* - people to buy them.



And on the subject of sustainable electricity generation, the ugly noisy
windmills that are sprouting up all over the countryside to distract
drivers
and cause more deaths on the roads

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Oh dear ...



Having been to some of the largest wind farms in the UK I have a
little idea about noise. There is certainly some machinery noise if
one stands directly under the nacelle. By about 10 metres from the
base of the tower it is inaudible. Noise from the blades can be
heard further away, but by the time one is the height of the top of
the blade away one cannot hear it. With a large wind farm, if close
enough one can typically hear noise from the nearest turbine or two
but no others. From outside a wind farm the sound of tractors is the
loudest sound, then other motor vehicles, then humans speaking, then
sheep and then birds. The noise of the wind in the trees is louder
than the noise of the wind farm

Many things could "distract" drivers, including all sorts of things
in the countryside like fields, animals and buildings. The road
"safety" lobby used to remove "dangerous" trees, but campaigning has
reduced this. I did once go to the trouble of debunking one of the
well known anti-wind lists of deaths they claimed were caused by
wind generation. A handful of "distraction" deaths, half of which
were people crashing into lorries carrying parts of wind turbines.
If they had instead crashed into lorries carrying coal or parts of a
steam turbine would the same people have made a fuss about all those
people killed by coal generation? I very much doubt it.

have, I believe, been the subject of
studies which show that at best, each one will only just about pay the
energy costs used to build it and maintain it over its lifetime.

Instead of believing in "studies" why not take a look at the reports
Vestas commissioned. They are at the bottom of
http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/sustainability/wind-turbines-and-the-environment/life-cycle-assessment-%28lca%29.aspx

I imagine they will be dismissed in a sentence, but a few other
people who I have pointed to the reports have been open enough to
tell me that they covered everything they could think of and seemed
accurate.


I'm sure that you will dismiss the newspaper that this :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6954565.ece

appeared in as being another rag that just tells lies to its readers, but
this article is just one taken at random, from many. Just because you can't
hear the subsonic noise that these things make after a visit or two to wind
farms, don't be so arrogant as to dismiss the miseries of people who have to
live near the dreadful things, and put up with the noises that they *do*
make under different weather conditions, every day - and more importantly
night. The amount of power that they generate for the amount of disruption
that they cause, is vanishingly small. What did it say at the bottom of the
article ? Three and a half gigawatts for 250 of them, was it ? That is a
joke in the grand scheme of things. And to suggest that they are no more
distracting to drivers than a field of cows, is such crass nonsense, I can't
believe you even said it.


Nuclear power is by far and away the most sustainable form of electricity
production,

Ignoring all the other problems it can only be sustained until the
uranium runs out. The idea of extracting it from the sea is a
variant of perpetual motion machines.


That's like saying when electricity generation was first invented, we'd
better not do it, because it will only work until the coal / gas runs out.
The amount of uranium used is very small and lasts a very long time. The
latest nuclear sub built by this country, employs a reactor which uses only
a couple of kilos of the stuff, but has an equivalent power output to that
required to "power a city the size of Portsmouth" according to the naval
commissioning engineer that was interviewed about it on the programme about
building the sub. Of course uranium will *eventually* run out, but in the
meantime, it is the most viable alternative to fossil fueled generation
plants. Joke technologies like wind and solar, are only valid in the minds
of the 'save the earth' brigade. In terms of effective use of resources,
they're not even on this planet, let alone in the right ball park ...

Arfa






--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000...#pt3-pb3-l1g54

"Andy Champ" wrote in message
. uk...
On 08/09/2010 21:35, dennis@home wrote:

Are you sure, all those CFLs have stored up a lot of mercury that was
already in the environment.

It _was_ in nice stable mercury rich ores, in holes in the ground.


Most of the stuff in CFLs was in thermometers and barometers and is
recycled.

It _is_ in vapourisable metallic form in a bulb just above my head.

A very small amount of it.

If you break a tube while its on just hold your breath while it cools down
to a metal.
The metal is actually pretty safe compared to other forms it can take.

"David Hansen" wrote in message
...


Having been to some of the largest wind farms in the UK I have a
little idea about noise. There is certainly some machinery noise if
one stands directly under the nacelle. By about 10 metres from the
base of the tower it is inaudible.

10m from the base is about 1 extra metre from the nacelle!

8

Nuclear power is by far and away the most sustainable form of electricity
production,

Ignoring all the other problems it can only be sustained until the
uranium runs out. The idea of extracting it from the sea is a
variant of perpetual motion machines.

You can only extract energy from the wind when its there.
Of course climate change will change wind patterns so you may have to move
all the wind turbines to somewhere the wind still blows.

Oh and it is sustained by the fusion reaction in the sun which will be
useless once all the hydrogen has been used up.

David Hansen wrote:
On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 01:52:49 +0100 someone who may be "Arfa Daily"
wrote this:-

Nuclear power is by far and away the most sustainable form of electricity production,

Ignoring all the other problems it can only be sustained until the
uranium runs out. The idea of extracting it from the sea is a
variant of perpetual motion machines.


Thorium from the sea, mostly.

Then breed the uranium.

Mark wrote:
On Thu, 09 Sep 2010 06:56:43 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 01:52:49 +0100 someone who may be "Arfa Daily"
wrote this:-

And on the subject of sustainable electricity generation, the ugly noisy
windmills that are sprouting up all over the countryside to distract drivers
and cause more deaths on the roads
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And the ear.

Having been to some of the largest wind farms in the UK I have a
little idea about noise. There is certainly some machinery noise if
one stands directly under the nacelle. By about 10 metres from the
base of the tower it is inaudible. Noise from the blades can be
heard further away, but by the time one is the height of the top of
the blade away one cannot hear it. With a large wind farm, if close
enough one can typically hear noise from the nearest turbine or two
but no others. From outside a wind farm the sound of tractors is the
loudest sound, then other motor vehicles, then humans speaking, then
sheep and then birds. The noise of the wind in the trees is louder
than the noise of the wind farm

Not my experience. When going on a walk in the countryside I heard
(or felt) a very disturbing low pitch sound well before I could even
see any wind turbines. As I approached it got worse and I left the
area as quickly as possible.

Yep, them things do wuther!!

subsonics carry for MILES.

Mark wrote:
On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:24:16 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Plus there is mercury in them.
Isn't it true that the mercury *in* the CFL is less than the mercury
release by burning the additional coal that would be required if an
incandescent lamp were used instead?

Only if you generate electicity by burning coal. Most of ours come
from gas.

Just.

You would be surprised at how much coal and nuclear we still have.

Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

[snip]

The amount of uranium used is very small and lasts a very long time.
The latest nuclear sub built by this country, employs a reactor which
uses only a couple of kilos of the stuff, but has an equivalent power
output to that required to "power a city the size of Portsmouth"
according to the naval commissioning engineer that was interviewed
about it on the programme about building the sub. Of course uranium
will *eventually* run out, but in the meantime, it is the most viable
alternative to fossil fueled generation plants. Joke technologies like
wind and solar, are only valid in the minds of the 'save the earth'
brigade. In terms of effective use of resources, they're not even on
this planet, let alone in the right ball park ...

Unfortunately this is correct. I say unfortunately because it means that
there is no "magic bullet" in terms of replacement energy sources. I
have a niece in the windmill business and she is quite clear that each
of the eco sources can only provide about 10% each of our overall
requirement. And that with a huge investment.

Nuclear is the only sensible way, while we research fusion. Deuterium
can be extracted from the sea, in the long run.

Even if nuclear only buys the west 100 years, that's still a hundred years.

Coal bought us 100 years. Gas and oil bought us another hundred years.

At today's population levels to use reewables would destroy teh planet
as people over fished, over farmed and over everytuhunged everywhere.

'The Deserts of Iraq aqnd North Afrca are the result of 3,000 years of
Organic farming"

In article ,
David Hansen wrote:
On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:21:56 +0100 someone who may be Andy Burns
wrote this:-

I can only conclude those who like them are colour blind to some
degree. Which quite a large percentage of the UK male population are.

Never had a problem with colour-blindness tests.

Me too.

Change that for taste, then.

--
*It ain't the size, it's... er... no, it IS ..the size.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:28:50 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Mark wrote:
On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:24:16 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Plus there is mercury in them.
Isn't it true that the mercury *in* the CFL is less than the mercury
release by burning the additional coal that would be required if an
incandescent lamp were used instead?

Only if you generate electicity by burning coal. Most of ours come
from gas.

Just.

You would be surprised at how much coal and nuclear we still have.

I'm surprised about coal -- still about 30%. Nuclear is at 20%, Gas
at 40%.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

Mark wrote:
On Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:28:50 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Mark wrote:
On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:24:16 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Plus there is mercury in them.
Isn't it true that the mercury *in* the CFL is less than the mercury
release by burning the additional coal that would be required if an
incandescent lamp were used instead?
Only if you generate electicity by burning coal. Most of ours come
from gas.
Just.

You would be surprised at how much coal and nuclear we still have.

I'm surprised about coal -- still about 30%. Nuclear is at 20%, Gas
at 40%.

Which rather invalidates 'most of ours comes from gas' doesn't it?

On 09/09/2010 06:56, David Hansen wrote:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Having been to some of the largest wind farms in the UK I have a
little idea about noise. There is certainly some machinery noise if
one stands directly under the nacelle. By about 10 metres from the
base of the tower it is inaudible. Noise from the blades can be
heard further away, but by the time one is the height of the top of
the blade away one cannot hear it. With a large wind farm, if close
enough one can typically hear noise from the nearest turbine or two
but no others. From outside a wind farm the sound of tractors is the
loudest sound, then other motor vehicles, then humans speaking, then
sheep and then birds. The noise of the wind in the trees is louder
than the noise of the wind farm

Many things could "distract" drivers, including all sorts of things
in the countryside like fields, animals and buildings. The road
"safety" lobby used to remove "dangerous" trees, but campaigning has
reduced this. I did once go to the trouble of debunking one of the
well known anti-wind lists of deaths they claimed were caused by
wind generation. A handful of "distraction" deaths, half of which
were people crashing into lorries carrying parts of wind turbines.
If they had instead crashed into lorries carrying coal or parts of a
steam turbine would the same people have made a fuss about all those
people killed by coal generation? I very much doubt it.


Personally I don't find the odd turbine or two unnattractive. I have
doubts over the numbers required through - the UK peak consumption is
something over 60GW, which means (surely I've got this wrong?) 30,000 of
those 2MW units, each of which is as tall as St Paul's Cathedral.

Hang on, 25% load factor. Make that 120,000, and hope we don't have a
day with less wind than average, or a nationwide gale. That's something
like one every mile over the whole country.

We've got a fair spread of turbines around the country; do you know
what's the lowest load factor they've produced country wide? Because
that's an input into the calculation of how many we'd need.

have, I believe, been the subject of
studies which show that at best, each one will only just about pay the
energy costs used to build it and maintain it over its lifetime.

Instead of believing in "studies" why not take a look at the reports
Vestas commissioned. They are at the bottom of
http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/sustainability/wind-turbines-and-the-environment/life-cycle-assessment-%28lca%29.aspx

I imagine they will be dismissed in a sentence, but a few other
people who I have pointed to the reports have been open enough to
tell me that they covered everything they could think of and seemed
accurate.


"It will generate approximately 113,000 MWh during a 20 year period,
which is 20 years."

I read it, even if their editor's didn't. That's a rather more generous
load factor than experience would suggest. (though it doesn't
invalidate their arguments; but see above)

Nuclear power is by far and away the most sustainable form of electricity production,

Ignoring all the other problems it can only be sustained until the
uranium runs out. The idea of extracting it from the sea is a
variant of perpetual motion machines.


There's plenty of uranium to last us until we have fusion. Depending on
the numbers you believe we might need to do a bit of breeding and
reprocessing though, which is a rather messy business. We've got so
much U238 that the Yanks are sticking it in bullets to fire at the
Iraqis - it's only U235 that's scarce.

There's more uranium in coal station smoke than seawater.

Andy

On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:40:55 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On Tue, 7 Sep 2010 09:58:53 +0100 someone who may be "Arfa Daily"
wrote this:-

There's money to be made for sure, as so many people still hate CFLs.

A loud but small group claim they hate CFLs, the silent majority get
on fine with them.

A bit like "Tarnation Street Farm" perhaps?

I just got back from a few nights in an alpine B&B in Northern Italy.
Over half of the landlord's CFl's had failed, and as I discovered
during a thunderstorm at 3-30 am, the survivors took a seeming
eternity to warm up which SWMBO found to be molto scary due to the
Hammer House of Horror/Psycho effects.

Derek.

On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:17:27 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:43:04 +0100 someone who may be Tim Streater
wrote this:-

SWMBO dislikes them, but it's mainly prejudice because we have some that
take a while to crank out the lumens. Are more recent ones better in
that regard - faster starting?

In round terms they can either start rapidly or last longer. Some
are marketed as rapid start, such as
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Lighting_Menu_Index/Lamps_and_Tubes_Index/Lamps_Energy_Fast_Start/index.html

To be more accurate all this says (aside from the very obvious
salesman's puff in the name they have chosen for it) is...

"Instant ‘flicker free start’, with no switch delay" ...

I.E. Does not exhibit the flickering traditionally associated with old
fashioned glow switch starters, and this is all it says. It is silent
on the matter of mercury needing to be vapourised inside the glass
envelope everytime the lamp starts from cold and how long this
takes,and the performance of the phosphor when cold, amongst other
effects.

Derek


should one want to use it in say a toilet or on the stairs.

On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:26:18 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Huge wrote:

David wrote:

A loud but small group claim they hate CFLs, the silent majority get
on fine with them.

A "majority" *so* silent in fact, as to be completely invisible.

I've used CFLs for well over 20 years in every room apart from the
lounge where I have always used a dimmer[1]. I really don't have a
problem with them being a little slower to reach full brightness, it's
not as though they emit NO light for the first few seconds, and in the
bedroom I like the fact they don't shock your eyeballs with the full
100W when you reach for the pull switch in the small hours.

Rather than have the whole room gloomy we use the traditional method
of having small lights where only a little light is needed such as
bedside lights, thus avoiding the need to get out of bed and struggle
across to the light switch by the door, in the dark, stubbing toes
en-route.

Remember also that using full size CFL's in glimmering mode is quite
wasteful of energy and materials.

[1] I did try a couple of the self dimming CFLs but they're not
brilliant, the colour spectrum varies with the light level, they buzz at
low brightness, one has died quickly (i.e. within 2 years).

Derek

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:20:30 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:58:36 +0100 someone who may be Mark
wrote this:-

The main problem I find is that they are usually physically
bigger than the original bulb and will not go into many fittings.

Things like
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/MGGB7BC.html and

(A golf ball lamp)Not a serious contender when it comes to lighting a
whole room.

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/LAMLS11BC.html will go into
just about anything a GLS lamp would fit in.


How do you know ? Dimensions and light output not consistent.

5-10 years ago your point would have been valid.

That's odd, that (pdf) data sheet hasn't changed since 30/10/2005

Derek

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:24:16 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Plus there is mercury in them.

Isn't it true that the mercury *in* the CFL is less than the mercury
release by burning the additional coal that would be required if an
incandescent lamp were used instead?

I've heard that said. But in the one instance it goes up the
smokestack at Drax 25 miles away and 850 feet high to be carried away
by the stratosphere, and in the other the mercury is in a glass
envelope above the worktops on my kitchen ceiling.

Derek

On 7 Sep 2010 15:06:59 GMT, Huge wrote:

On 2010-09-07, Scott M wrote:

[3] And anyone who says it's not just about saving money really doesn't
understand the side-effects of these things.

But it's a religion to greenies. It has nothing to do with rationality.

IMHO it's more to do with Mr Philip getting his Gloeilampen Fabriek
closed so he can make more money selling CFL's from China.

Ditto Tungsram

Derek

In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
Huge wrote:
On 2010-09-07, Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
David Hansen wrote:

On Tue, 7 Sep 2010 09:58:53 +0100 someone who may be "Arfa Daily"
wrote this:-

There's money to be made for sure, as so many people still hate CFLs.
A loud but small group claim they hate CFLs, the silent majority get
on fine with them.
A "majority" *so* silent in fact, as to be completely invisible.
Mainly
because they're inside your head.

I agree. I had hoped to use them in places where they might be
appropriate, but have foud them to be expensive and unreliable, and
certainly with early ones, very slow to start and very poor light output.

They are somewhat better these days, but they are still crap compared
to almost anything else.

And, in terms of green issues, almost completely irrelevant.

In terms of my personal green fooprint, when I look at what has REALLY
made a difference..

- Not having kids.
- developing and using the internet.
- buying good stuff seldom.
- Not buying stuff at all.
- insulating the house.
- not taking foreign holidays.

Lightbulbs simply don't feature at all.


So not taking foreign holidays includes Bangkok then ...

--
geoff

On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:05:55 +0100, Tim Streater
wrote:

In article ,
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

I know many many people who hate them. They are a substitute technology for
one that worked right in the first place.

Mmmmm no it didn't. Not really. What you want is visible light. So you
heat something up to a point where its peak output is in the infra-red,
with the tail of the curve being in the visible region. Hardly
efficient, is it.

No lamp can be described as efficient if the light it produces is not
fit for the purpose for which it is required.

A lamp which produces a dozen or so practically monochromatic spectral
lines is useless for many purposes involving fine work or colour
matching, even if the spectra can be chosen so that the eye, using
tri-stimulus colourimetry, percieves the light to be the same colour
as daylight. Suite materials, yarns and dyes etc are never matched
with fluorescent light, and for that matter neither is cloth
"invisibly" mended.

I want something that produces a band of frequencies in the visible,
with nothing beyond. Anything else is a hack.

It's not what we need, natural daylight is not like that.

Derek

On 10 Sep, 01:03, Derek Geldard wrote:
On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:05:55 +0100, Tim Streater

wrote:
In article ,
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

I know many many people who hate them. They are a substitute technology for
one that worked right in the first place.

Mmmmm no it didn't. Not really. What you want is visible light. So you
heat something up to a point where its peak output is in the infra-red,
with the tail of the curve being in the visible region. Hardly
efficient, is it.

No lamp can be described as efficient if the light it produces is not
fit for the purpose for which it is required.

A lamp which produces a dozen or so practically monochromatic spectral
lines is useless for many purposes involving fine work or colour
matching, even if the spectra can be chosen so that the eye, using
tri-stimulus colourimetry, percieves the light to be the same colour
as daylight. Suite materials, yarns and dyes etc are never matched
with fluorescent light, and for that matter neither is cloth
"invisibly" mended.

Not entirely true, fluro is used in colour critical applications, can
get better than 90 CRI with linear tubes.
But at a very cool colour which really dosen`t suit living spaces.

Everyone know involved with lighting , whatever they sell for a day
job, use halogen at home....

Cheers
Adam

I want something that produces a band of frequencies in the visible,
with nothing beyond. Anything else is a hack.

It's not what we need, natural daylight is not like that.

Derek

Andy Champ wrote:
On 09/09/2010 06:56, David Hansen wrote:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Having been to some of the largest wind farms in the UK I have a
little idea about noise. There is certainly some machinery noise if
one stands directly under the nacelle. By about 10 metres from the
base of the tower it is inaudible. Noise from the blades can be
heard further away, but by the time one is the height of the top of
the blade away one cannot hear it. With a large wind farm, if close
enough one can typically hear noise from the nearest turbine or two
but no others. From outside a wind farm the sound of tractors is the
loudest sound, then other motor vehicles, then humans speaking, then
sheep and then birds. The noise of the wind in the trees is louder
than the noise of the wind farm

Many things could "distract" drivers, including all sorts of things
in the countryside like fields, animals and buildings. The road
"safety" lobby used to remove "dangerous" trees, but campaigning has
reduced this. I did once go to the trouble of debunking one of the
well known anti-wind lists of deaths they claimed were caused by
wind generation. A handful of "distraction" deaths, half of which
were people crashing into lorries carrying parts of wind turbines.
If they had instead crashed into lorries carrying coal or parts of a
steam turbine would the same people have made a fuss about all those
people killed by coal generation? I very much doubt it.


Personally I don't find the odd turbine or two unnattractive. I have
doubts over the numbers required through - the UK peak consumption is
something over 60GW, which means (surely I've got this wrong?) 30,000 of
those 2MW units, each of which is as tall as St Paul's Cathedral.

Hang on, 25% load factor. Make that 120,000, and hope we don't have a
day with less wind than average, or a nationwide gale. That's something
like one every mile over the whole country.

We've got a fair spread of turbines around the country; do you know
what's the lowest load factor they've produced country wide? Because
that's an input into the calculation of how many we'd need.


0.3% Calculations on over all windspeed in the whole county show there
are days when all windmills are essentially becalmed, with just a few at
one end or the other idly turning. Turbine output below the design
plateau speedspeed is proportional to windspeed cubed.


The Dames, who have more peak windpower capacity than their actual grid
total load, see at best about 6% average contribution of windpower. Some
years 8%, some years 4%.

Half the time they are switched off, because no one wanst the power.

The other half they aren't producing near enough.

Its a complete farce.

have, I believe, been the subject of
studies which show that at best, each one will only just about pay the
energy costs used to build it and maintain it over its lifetime.

Instead of believing in "studies" why not take a look at the reports
Vestas commissioned. They are at the bottom of
http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/sustainability/wind-turbines-and-the-environment/life-cycle-assessment-%28lca%29.aspx


I imagine they will be dismissed in a sentence, but a few other
people who I have pointed to the reports have been open enough to
tell me that they covered everything they could think of and seemed
accurate.


"It will generate approximately 113,000 MWh during a 20 year period,
which is 20 years."

I read it, even if their editor's didn't. That's a rather more generous
load factor than experience would suggest. (though it doesn't
invalidate their arguments; but see above)

Nuclear power is by far and away the most sustainable form of
electricity production,

Ignoring all the other problems it can only be sustained until the
uranium runs out. The idea of extracting it from the sea is a
variant of perpetual motion machines.


There's plenty of uranium to last us until we have fusion. Depending on
the numbers you believe we might need to do a bit of breeding and
reprocessing though, which is a rather messy business. We've got so
much U238 that the Yanks are sticking it in bullets to fire at the
Iraqis - it's only U235 that's scarce.

There's more uranium in coal station smoke than seawater.


Plenty of it around for current needs anyway.


Andy

The Natural Philosopher writes:

The Dames, who have more peak windpower capacity than their actual grid
total load, see at best about 6% average contribution of windpower. Some
years 8%, some years 4%.

But there is nothing like a Dame!

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
@ m i l l r t
. p l u s
. c o m

Derek Geldard wrote:

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:24:16 +0100, Andy Burns

mercury release by burning the additional coal

it goes up the
smokestack at Drax 25 miles away and 850 feet high to be carried away
by the stratosphere

I did have a brief google to see whether they attempted to scrub some of
it from the flue gasses, but couldn't see much evidence they do, or even
whether it's in the form of mercury vapour, or if the furnace turns it
into various compounds ... methylmercury did get the occasional mention
as a worry.

If they *did* recover it, what commercial uses does it have now it's
banned in thermometers and barometers (presumably tilt switches too),
apart from making CFLs?

"Adam Aglionby" wrote in message
...
On 10 Sep, 01:03, Derek Geldard wrote:
On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:05:55 +0100, Tim Streater

wrote:
In article ,
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

I know many many people who hate them. They are a substitute
technology for
one that worked right in the first place.

Mmmmm no it didn't. Not really. What you want is visible light. So you
heat something up to a point where its peak output is in the infra-red,
with the tail of the curve being in the visible region. Hardly
efficient, is it.

No lamp can be described as efficient if the light it produces is not
fit for the purpose for which it is required.

A lamp which produces a dozen or so practically monochromatic spectral
lines is useless for many purposes involving fine work or colour
matching, even if the spectra can be chosen so that the eye, using
tri-stimulus colourimetry, percieves the light to be the same colour
as daylight. Suite materials, yarns and dyes etc are never matched
with fluorescent light, and for that matter neither is cloth
"invisibly" mended.

Not entirely true, fluro is used in colour critical applications, can
get better than 90 CRI with linear tubes.
But at a very cool colour which really dosen`t suit living spaces.

Everyone know involved with lighting , whatever they sell for a day
job, use halogen at home....

Cheers
Adam

I want something that produces a band of frequencies in the visible,
with nothing beyond. Anything else is a hack.

It's not what we need, natural daylight is not like that.

Derek


Just taking up the colour spectrum issue. Going back to the P.O.S. CFL that
I bought to fit in my new hallway lampshade that started all this. Up until
last night, despite the fact that it splutters to life - that really is the
best description - and the light output that it gives is nothing like
adequate for about the first minute, I had left it in place, but switched on
most of the time so that I didn't have to wait for it to start pretending to
be a light bulb. So there's the 5 minutes at 60 watts versus 5 hours at 11
watts argument, neatly encapsulated in unthinking reality, immediately ...

But last night, I finally gave up on it for another reason entirely. Our
hallway has a dado rail about half way up. Above it, we painted the walls in
a colour called calico. It's a sort of pale but rich creamy tone. Below the
dado, we have put wallpaper. The background is an almost identical colour to
the paint. The pattern is leaves, with a very subtle textured gold finish.
Hard to describe and not sound tacky, but the missus has a designer's eye
for this stuff, and it really does look lovely. Then, one of our daughters
came round last night, for the first time since we did it, and immediately
declared that she didn't like the colours. We asked her what she meant, and
she said that she didn't like the green of the leaf pattern, and she would
have thought that we could have found a paint that matched the background
colour of the wallpaper a bit better than the one we had got. And you know
what ? Under that light, she was absolutely right.

I immediately removed the CFL, and committed it to the junk box, where it
can languish until I decide to use it for lighting the loft, or to chuck it.
I took a standard 60 watt incandescent bulb from another little-used
fitting, and put that in the hallway instead. "Ah", said the daughter,
"that's better" ! And you know what else ? It was ... Much better ...

Arfa

On Fri, 10 Sep 2010 09:55:28 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:


I immediately removed the CFL, and committed it to the junk box, where it
can languish until I decide to use it for lighting the loft, or to chuck it.
I took a standard 60 watt incandescent bulb from another little-used
fitting, and put that in the hallway instead. "Ah", said the daughter,
"that's better" ! And you know what else ? It was ... Much better ...

So, you tried to do some painting under the light of a CFL and you
were confused by the result ... ?

Whenever I'm doing any decorating I fit some f-off big incandescent's
in a couple of places and take the shades off and make very sure I
have /plenty/ of light to work by (or better still, real daylight).

But then I take them out and am happy with CFL's (including life span,
brightness, start-up-time, energy consumption, price and running
temperature) for the rest of the time.

Oh, and if our daughter didn't like the colour of the decor ... ;-)

Cheers, T i m

T i m wrote:

On Fri, 10 Sep 2010 09:55:28 +0100, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

I immediately removed the CFL, and committed it to the junk box, where it
can languish until I decide to use it for lighting the loft, or to chuck
it. I took a standard 60 watt incandescent bulb from another little-used
fitting, and put that in the hallway instead. "Ah", said the daughter,
"that's better" ! And you know what else ? It was ... Much better ...

So, you tried to do some painting under the light of a CFL and you
were confused by the result ... ?

Whenever I'm doing any decorating I fit some f-off big incandescent's
in a couple of places and take the shades off and make very sure I
have /plenty/ of light to work by (or better still, real daylight).

But then I take them out and am happy with CFL's (including life span,
brightness, start-up-time, energy consumption, price and running
temperature) for the rest of the time.

I think you've misunderstood the thrust of what Arfa was saying.

You seem to think the problem was that he painted *by* the light of a
CFL and consequently got the thickness not quite right or uniform.

I don't think that's the case. They probably did the painting itself
by daylight, and the finished job looks great in daylight, and since
they know it's OK, they don't particularly notice that at night, by CFL
illumination, the colour balances look a bit odd. But the daughter,
seeing it for the first time in the evening by CFL illumination, spotted
the apparently poor colour balance immediately, and it was corrected
by deploying a "proper" lightbulb.

Basically all he's saying is that CFLs have (or at least *his* CFL has)
such a bad colour spectrum that it messes about with our perception of
colours.

Andy Burns wrote:
Derek Geldard wrote:

On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:24:16 +0100, Andy Burns

mercury release by burning the additional coal

it goes up the
smokestack at Drax 25 miles away and 850 feet high to be carried away
by the stratosphere

I did have a brief google to see whether they attempted to scrub some of
it from the flue gasses, but couldn't see much evidence they do, or even
whether it's in the form of mercury vapour, or if the furnace turns it
into various compounds ... methylmercury did get the occasional mention
as a worry.

If they *did* recover it, what commercial uses does it have now it's
banned in thermometers and barometers (presumably tilt switches too),
apart from making CFLs?

Its used in all sorts of things in very small amounts: what they are I
cant recall hough.

On Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:33:04 +0100, Ronald Raygun
wrote:


I think you've misunderstood the thrust of what Arfa was saying.

It's not unknown. ;-)

You seem to think the problem was that he painted *by* the light of a
CFL and consequently got the thickness not quite right or uniform.

Indeed.

I don't think that's the case. They probably did the painting itself
by daylight, and the finished job looks great in daylight, and since
they know it's OK, they don't particularly notice that at night,

Ok.

by CFL
illumination, the colour balances look a bit odd. But the daughter,
seeing it for the first time in the evening by CFL illumination, spotted
the apparently poor colour balance immediately, and it was corrected
by deploying a "proper" lightbulb.

Ok.

Basically all he's saying is that CFLs have (or at least *his* CFL has)
such a bad colour spectrum that it messes about with our perception of
colours.

And you could well be right as I can't think of the last time I
actually considered / compared 'colours' of things and not sure I
would do so under any form of artificial light (other than stuff
designed for the purpose etc) in any case?

Also, any woman, with their excess of colour receptors (or whatever it
is that makes them see more colours than us guys) not liking the
colour of something can find / action a solution for themselves. ;-)

(And why I blatantly refuse to answer any of the 'Do these shoes go
with this top' type questions, ever).

Cheers, T i m