CFL v. Tungsten - what are the REAL costs? (was Re: N:Vision CFL's)

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Marc_F_Hult" <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

Thread subject changed to reflect the descent into a grammatical, rather
that a substantive, quibble and to spare the poor people looking for purely
technical information about the N:Voice bulbs.

> >> [Mercury discussion unrelated to subject deleted]
> >
> >[More that just "mercury" discussion unrelated to subject restored!!!!]
> >
> ><<I was referring to what happens in areas that use no coal.  It
complicates
> >the mercury equation in Norway, at least.  They were putting no mercury
in
> >the environment before but the use of CFL bulbs gives them a recycling
> >issue.
>
> First a response to the substance of the discussion in brief:  As I posted
in
> part earlier, this is incorrect in part:

Yes, I could have written more precisely and said "for every tungsten bulb
replaced by a CFL in Norway they are adding mercury to their environment
where they were not because they do not generate much electricity from
coal."  I had hoped that meaning was self-evident from the context.  I'll
remember to write for you accordingly and as if a team of editors and
Philadelphia lawyers were going to parse my every word.  Or not.  (-:

Is it possible a man with a CV as long as my arm didn't know that we were
talking about tungsten v. CFL replacement cost equations?  I am going to
rein in your very impressive dissertation and return the original subject:
attempting to compute the true costs of switching from tungsten to CFL
bulbs.   Should I believe that I am going to save (up to) $154 as one
N:Vision bulb package proudly proclaims, or are there other costs that might
not appear until years from now?

When a *tungsten* bulb is replaced with a CFL, there is mercury in that
latter that has to go somewhere, eventually.  Household-use tungsten bulbs
do not need mercury to function.  Or is that in dispute?  Tungsten bulbs may
(or may not) put mercury in the air indirectly depending on whether they are
powered by certain types of (very popular) old coal burning power plants.
True?

[As a political aside, do you think we could have put scrubbers on every
dirty coal power plant in the US with the money we've spent bombing and then
repairing the Iraqi infrastructure?  How many US lives might be saved or
improved if we cleaned up our own backyard first? What a tragedy. /sermon
over]

If those plants are powering air-conditioners during very hot days and not
CFL's, perhaps the mercury-by-proxy figures bandied about by both sides in
the debate are difficult to assess without knowing a lot more details of
actual electrical consumption.  It seems to me there's so much hypothecation
in producing at least part of the "savings claims" model hat you'd be
terrified by the thought of that herd of "hippos" wandering about the field.

Consider well-meaning scientists with their gypsy-moth and cane toad
solutions.  They didn't look far enough into the future with their models.
They made assumptions that sounded good at the time but ended up very badly.
I'm merely recommending caution in the wholesale dumping of tungsten bulbs
by Congressional fiat.  Stents were touted as the greatest advance ever in
cardiac care.  A new study shows they have almost no perceptible effect
reducing heart attacks but doctors have been inserting expensive stents in
people for years, proclaiming it would save them from future attacks.  It
wasn't until actual long-term performance information became available that
the miraculous solution was discovered to be a colossal waste of time and
money.

I believe the indirect mercury contribution of tungsten bulbs can (and very
much should) be caught at the smokestack.  No matter how "less dangerous"
the mercury embedded in CFL's is compared to airborne mercury, it's still
highly toxic and incredibly dangerous to pregnant women.  I am worried where
the directly embedded mercury will go.  Will John Q. Consumer recycle
responsibly?  I'm not sure that banning tungsten bulbs, as the Aussies have
done, is the proper solution to the problem for the US, in part because of
the mercury recovery issue.

That *doesn't* mean I believe CFL's shouldn't be used.  I obviously use a
mix of both incandescent and CFLs.  I'd like to use more, but CFLs have
technical issues with X-10.   I want to make sure that there's nothing
better on the horizon that doesn't add mercury to the landfills.  I also
believe the law should attend to the massive polluters before coming after
John Q. Citizen.  The problem is the power plant owners have lobbyists with
buckets of money and fight new regulation in a way private single citizens
never could.

Dave and I both appear to believe that proper smokestack scrubbing is likely
to catch more mercury pollution than depending on human beings to recycle
responsibly.  As I have said before, the payback equations *can't* be
completed until we know where those bulbs *really* end up and what it might
cost to recover the mercury.  Predicting whether people will responsibly
recycle seems awfully hypothetical to me.

Well meaning people often get into the worst trouble of their lives assuming
they know how others will behave in the future.  John Brown was certain that
blacks would join his rebellion once he started it for them.  They never
came and he got himself hanged for that bad guess.  Kennedy assumed the
Cubans would join our CIA forces and revolt and overthrow Castro at the Bay
of Pigs.  Whoops!  Bush assumed that the Iraqis would embrace democracy and
the US like a long lost brother.  Nyet!

I just don't have as much faith as you do that CFL's will be responsibly
recycled here in the US.  Our public works departments constantly sends out
flyers urging us not to put car batteries, paint and other toxic material in
the trash.  I don't think they'd do that quite so often if people were
universally "good" about recycling.  If not for the mercury, I'd embrace
CFL's fully as long as I could still buy tungsten bulbs for my porchlight.
But I'd hate to jump wholesale to a problematic solution when it's entirely
possible a mercury-free one is in the wings.

For Norway, a country much colder than ours, a further complication is that
tungsten bulbs give off more heat than CFLs and likely lessen the heating
bills of homes that use them.  I know that's true in my own house, so it
causes me to seriously doubt I will save $154 using this one bulb.  I'll
save *something* if the bulbs last as long as claimed, but my contention is
that the manufacturer's numbers are very, very optimistic as far as
longevity goes.  One of the new N:Vision bulbs has something rattling around
loose it the electronics bay.  It works, but who knows for how long?

The most important issue has hardly been touched upon, and I think it's one
central to Dave's argument as well.  In some cases a stopgap measure like
switching to CFL's merely *delays* the implementation of the correct
solution like smokestack sequestration.  I stand quite fully by my
contention that the model is more complex than most people realize.  That's
especially important when you replace a relatively environmentally-benign
product (tungsten bulbs) with one containing a known lethal and very
troublesome poison, mercury.

> 2)  Norway has been the atmospheric dumping ground for Europe's
mercury-laden
> soot for centuries. Their soil and aquatic environments are loaded with
> mercury.
>
> 3) and there are other sources in Norway including thermometers,
thermostats,
> and a sunken Nazi U-boat with 65 metric tons aboard.

OK, isn't there a rule that says when you mention "Nazis" the thread has to
end?

(-:

--
Bobby G.