Re: Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity; Energy-Savers a Turnoff for Wives

[Marc_F_Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 3 Jun 2007 10:58:31 -0400, "Robert Green"
<ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
<d_OdncoAp-qBSv_bnZ2dnUVZ_jidnZ2d@xxxxxxx>:

>"Robert L Bass" <no-sales-spam@bassburglaralarms> wrote in message
>news:d_GdnbcMSbYzWvzbnZ2dnUVZ_jqdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > Seriously, though, there are new technologies
>> > that make coal cleaner, but they aren't going to
>> > forced on the industry for years, if not decades.
>> > That's too late.
>>
>> And yet you insist that is preferable to doing
>> anything on the demand side, such as using
>> high-efficiency lighting.
>
>I'm not quite sure how you twisted the words I wrote into that particular
>contortion, but that's certainly NOT what I've been insisting.

Sure seems so to me too.

>I want the
>government to step in to help fix the problem, because it's a situation
>where commercial interests just won't do it for economic reasons.  Power
>generation is so essential to the health of the nation, and in so many
>ways, that it can't really be left to business to "get it right."

Yup.

>Instead of mandating that everyone switch to CFL bulbs containing mercury,
>the Feds and the country need to get serious about cleaning up smokestack
>emissions so no matter what light bulbs we choose, they don't cause mercury
>to belch >out at the smokestack.

How well did you do in multivariable/multivariate optimization ?

And what might the Feds do about the mercury that is atmospherically
transported  from outside the US? What if that is large compared to the
_actual_ environmental effects of mercury from CFLs ? Stumped yet?


>The CFL proponents confuse amelioration with solution.
>That's dangerous.

I, for one, am not confused. But in my professional opinion as an educator
and environmental scientist, I conclude that you are  ... ;-) That's not
necessarily a permanent condition, as long as you are up to a bit of
intellectual exertion ;-)

Having designed remedial actions for actual environmental pollution
problems, I know that in the great majority of cases, the very best that is
physically possible is amelioration. This is part of the classic "how clean
is clean enough ?" problem. And from what you have written, it is abundantly
clear to me that you are not knowledgeable enough to have a technically
useful opinion on the matter. Your opinions as a voter and consumer and
comp.home.automation participant and other roles doe matter, of course. And
sophomoric discussion is good ( at least when provided by sophomores ;-)

You reduce to rhetorical posturing some small part of a problem that you can
understand or know about and then confuse the part that you happen to know
about with the entirety of the problem.

>> > Perhaps "cleaner coal" would be a more accurate
>> > description.   As long as the true costs are masked
>> > (the environmental damage from mining and
>> > transport, as you've noted) the cost equations are
>> > always going to be easily manipulated.
>>
>> I guess you must agree that scrubbers, which do
>> nothing about mining and transportation, will not
>> solve the problem.
>
>"The problem" up until your last paragraph has been:  Is it a good idea to
>fight mercury with mercury?

This is a multi-variable problem. Nobody is "fighting mercury with mercury".
The point is to be optimally effective in *BOTH* reducing energy use and
minimization of mercury mobilized in the environment. Not all goals are
equally important or attainable. That's reality. With present technology,
CFLs in landfills is better than mercury spewed everywhere. Would you refuse
radiation therapy to save your life because it radiation would also make you
lose your hair?

>If you want to consider collateral issues
>there are certainly lots of problems with using coal for power.

You _fundamentally_ misunderstand the nature of the problems. These are not
"collateral" problems. they are inter-related, multi-variable problems.

>Yet we can all be assured that it's going to continue for decades, so we
>had better get to work, and quickly, to solve as many of those problems as
>we can as directly as we can.  That's bound to produce better results, in
>the long run, than 6% of the population using CFL bulbs in half the
>fixtures in their homes hoping that small number of bulbs is somehow going
>to reduce huge quantities of mercury from entering the air, the ground, the
>water and the food chain.

You have_already_ forgotten that the primary reason for using CFLs is to
reduce energy use and that it is an _*additional*_ benefit in another
complex, related problem that it _*also*_ reduces mercury contamination of
the biosphere.  Stop typing for a while and think on this.

The problem that Bobby is having was one that a hero of mine, L.B. Leopold,
helped us all grapple with in 1971 -- the very year I began working for the
research agency that he lead. (He was my boss's boss's boss's boss.)

Read Leopold, L.B.; Clarke, F.E.; Hanshaw, B.B.; Balsley, J.R., 1971, A
procedure for evaluating environmental impact: U.S. Geological Survey
Circular 645, 13 p. -- http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/cir/cir645.

(You can either look at the image of the paper hardcopy or use section-508
compliant Lizardtech.)

And(or) Google "Leopold matrix" and then follow the trail of how this 1971
qualitative methodology became progressively more quantitative. (Bobby's got
at least 35 years of catching-up to do).

... Marc
Marc_F_Hult
www.ECOntrol.org