Re: the light bulb police are coming

[Marc_F_Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 12:38:50 -0400, Marc_F_Hult
<MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
<dt7gv2llvj5nd1cse9occ6ti1gna07chc2@xxxxxxx>:

>On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 14:44:53 GMT, nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote
in
>message  <45f807f9.1876216421@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
>>GE announced their HEI (High Efficiency Incandescent) a few weeks ago but I
>>do not recall seeing anything. Here's a URL with a few details.
>>
>>http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/ge/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070223005120&newsLang=en&ndmConfigId=1001109&vnsId=681
>>
>>If they can deliver on their projected efficiency, it really alters things.
>>Efficiency that matches CFLs, fitting the same fixtures as today's
>>incandescents, no hazardous waste disposal issue

[snip]

>
>Let me repeat:
>
>-- Readily available (not a specialty item)
>-- Various styles (floods, pars, bulbs, candelabra, etc)
>-- Cheap $1.70 each for 60 watt equivalent
>-- INSTEON/PLC friendly
>-- Better choice of light color than incandescents (daylight, white, warm)
>-- Dimmable (but not to zero and not officially)
>-- 800 number on lamp for warranty
>-- Smaller than the 60 watt incandescent they replace
>
>What's left to complain about and misrepresent besides hazardous waste
>(another topic for another day)?
>
 [snip}

Heck. Let's do it now:

Even if disposed of improperly, CFLs reportedly put _less_ mercury in the
environment than the mercury in the coal used to make the electricity for
equivalent incandescent use. (Burning of coal is by far the largest source of
mercury pollution in the Northern Hemisphere.)

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

What's more, if the CFLs are _improperly disposed_ of (not recycled) they are
typically disposed of in landfills (at same volume cost as incandescent
lamps) so the mercury is much less mobile in the environment than the mercury
sewn in the air by coal-fired power plants.

(I proposed and designed and lead the first National Research Project on
hazardous waste in ground water for the US's leading water resources research
agency. I have decades of real experience in this field).

And if CFLs are properly recycled, as ALL fluorescent and other mercury vapor
lamps should be -- not jist CFLs --   they effectively contribute *far* less
mercury in the environment than incandescent lamps.

So the hazardous waste / mercury 'issue' is but another misrepresentation by
folks who have no expertise and even less objectivity.

... Marc
Marc_F_Hult
www.ECOntrol.org