A ticking toxic time bomb (was Re: Digital Tools Help Users Save Energy, Study Finds)

["Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Lewis Gardner" <lgardner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4792912f$0

> >>>>Robert Green wrote:
> >>>>>(and I KNOW you're old enough to remember the exhaust of a
> >>>>>high compression 1960's V-8!),
> >>>>
> >>>>All other factors being equal a higher compression engine would have
> >>>>lower emissions due to increased efficiency.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>That's way beyond niggling.
> >>
> >>Blah, blah, blah...

> > You've gone non-sequitur on us Lewis.  There was NOTHING in the phrase
"high
> > compression 1960's V-8" that implies any of the absolutely bizarre
things
> > you've claimed.  It was a phrase meant to evoke the image (and smell) of
a
> > certain type of muscle car of an age gone by.  Yet you believe it's
evidence
> > that I either claim to be an expert on engines or that I was making some
> > sort of comment on compression ratios and engine efficiency.
>
> A lot of words prove nothing.

Yes, that's true.  Ironically, it's *especially* true of your incredibly
inventive but ultimately impotent attempt to twist my words into something I
never said.  I used to have great respect for your detailed knowledge,
Lewis, but now I?m just feeling sorry for you having to resort to this type
of debating trickery.  It?s a sign of sheer desperation.

> I boils down to this:

You do indeed "boils" Lewis.  Quite frequently, too.  (-:  You?re boiling
over now.  A Freudian slip perhaps?   It could be a sign telling you to slow
down a little and actually read what I wrote rather than trying to twist my
words into what thought you saw.  At least I hope that's all you?ve done.  A
less charitable reading would be that you?re deliberately twisting my words
into lies just to try to make me look bad because you can't attack the facts
head on.

> You claim A=B

That's rather simplistic, and sadly, somewhat characteristic of your
arguments so far.   I never made any such specific claim.  Your inability to
express yourself any more fully forces readers to divine what you really
mean from your arithmetic annotation.

My analogy *should* be far too simple to misunderstand.  It appears from the
replies that nearly everyone but you ?got it" so I?ll try to boil it down to
one concise sentence, just for you.

?Car exhaust got cleaned up, power plant exhausts can too.?

As far as I can tell, you?ve implied this analogy is not valid, but you?ve
never offered any proof.  Instead, you?ve wandered off in the weeds
discussing engine compression minutia when it clearly has little to do with
anything in this thread other than an ill-conceived attempt at personal
disparagement.  It's obvious you're hoping that by throwing some stink on
me, you can muddy my message.  I'm confident your attempt will completely
backfire on you.

When someone shifts from a main topic to a minor one, it sends a strong
signal to intelligent readers that they are deliberately being led astray.
Such sidetracks from the main topic rarely serve their intended purpose.
They often do just the opposite.  Such obvious end-runs usually make people
wonder if the only flaw you could find in my claims about CFLs was some odd
micro-tangent about engine compression.   I assume you really didn't want to
help my case THAT much.

> I point out that you don't know $h!t about A so therefore your internal
> combustion engine analogy obviously questionable.

Lewis, face it.  You didn?t point out any such thing.  You manufactured a
lie and tried to hang it around me, but you?ve made *such* an awful mess of
it you've actually helped me.  That *can't* feel good.  Ironically, you've
never really questioned the analogy of ?we cleaned cars, we can clean power
plant exhausts? in any meaningful way.  Instead, you?ve chosen to take the
low road and respond with a personal slam.  You say ?You don't know $h!t
about A? but you?ve never even bothered to define A for us. We?re now left
the task of divining what you?re talking about when you say the analogy
fails.

Let's begin that process.  Are you saying even though we cleaned up car
exhausts that cleaning up power plant exhausts is impossible?  If you?ve
said that, my apologies.  Maybe it got lost in the ?Sh!t" insults you?ve
been slinging. What I did see was that you continue to choose to ignore the
excruciatingly simple and obvious analogy I am making.

Let's decompose the analogy, phrase by phrase.  We cleaned up car engines
although car makers insisted it was impossible.  Is that something you take
issue with?  If so, please tell us.  Aren't car exhausts much cleaner now?
Didn't Big Auto whine like a roomful of abandoned puppies when it was forced
on them?  If you can't find fault with that part of the analogy, lets move
down.

"Therefore we *can* clean up power plant exhausts."  (That's the *real*
therefore, not the "you don't know $h!+" red herring about engine
compression you've been furiously trying to insert into the discussion as
annoyingly often as my wife?s little dog Rascal tries to hump my leg.)

Let's try this a different way: You say that my car/power plant exhaust
analogy is questionable yet you fail to question it, favoring the more
whimsical "I don't know shi+" argument.  If you find my simple analogy
faulty, then you must believe that a country that could build an A-bomb or
put a man on the moon can't solve the problem of power plant emissions.  Or
perhaps you have an agenda here you're not revealing?

Let's review this, Lewis, because it seems so incredibly odd that a smart
guy like you isn?t getting the point and instead goes on and on about your
?compression obsession.? Your intransigence leads me to believe there?s a
hidden agenda here.

Big Auto said we couldn't clean up auto exhausts without tremendous costs.
Big Energy says the very same thing about coal plant exhaust.  Big Auto had
overseas competition to put the lie to their claims and force them to clean
up their cars.  Big Energy has no such competition and thus no real pressure
to clean up their exhausts.

Would you care to address that relevant analogy instead of the irrelevant
and highly insistent one you've invented about engine compression being
somehow relevant to CFLs?

Your determined attempts to sidetrack the main issues have me wondering what
?s really jerking your chain.  Didn?t you write that you live in a coal
producing state?  If so, doesn't that mean you have a BIG dog in this hunt
other than power plant exhaustsl?

Aren't a lot of coal-state residents anti-coal no matter how cleanly it
burns?  Don?t many residents of states like Kentucky and W. Virginia
consider clean coal fired plants abhorrent?   I would guess that clean
burning of coal means accelerated depreciation of your property?s worth.
That's because destructive mining operations will likely increase once new,
cleaner burning plants are approved?  Aha!  Maybe that?s why you?re so fond
of such a faulty technology as CFLs . . .

It?s unfortunate you and others happen to live where the coal is.  Everyone
can understand why some such residents want electrical conservation at any
price, even if it means spewing mercury all over the landscape in billions
of consumer light bulbs.  It's easy to see why someone whose beautiful state
has been ransacked by irresponsible mining might think: "After all,
coal-fired electricity is raping our states, why not give all the consumers
of that electricity a taste of the environmental damage we suffer to help
make that power for them.?

I'm all for conservation, but if it's not done correctly it can be worse
than the problem it's trying to cure.  I even use CFLs, though I dislike
them, because I know I will recycle every last one properly. I worry that
we'll find out that even very low mercury exposure is dangerous.  It?s
something we?re just discovering about lead levels.  We have been way too
optimistic and permissive about how much lead is tolerable, who says we
fully understand the dangers of mercury?

I worry that in the future we'll have to spend billions to scrub out the
mercury we ?hopefully? added to lights bulbs by the billions.  I fear that
we?ll end up needing to build the CFL equivalent of a ?rabbit proof fence?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit-proof_fence

when the real solution for Oz was to never have introduced rabbits in the
first place.

In 1859 Thomas Austin imported 24 specimens from England and released them
on his Victorian farm. At the time he had stated: "The introduction of a few
rabbits could do little harm and might provide a touch of home, in addition
to a spot of hunting."[1]

By 1894 rabbits had spread across the entire Australian mainland, ruining
crops and doing incredible harm.  Sound familiar?  An idea whose
consequences were not fully thought through.

I worry that once we finally get to scrubbing the power plant stacks, we?ll
find that the biggest source of mercury in the environment then becomes
CFLs.  I wonder if the sharp rise in autism isn't linked to the rising
levels of mercury in our environment?

<<Autism study prompts fears over mystery environmental factor>>

"In their findings published last week, Californian health officials said
that autism cases had increased six-fold over the past 15 years."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/18/waut18.xml&s
Sheet=/portal/2003/05/18/ixportal.html

http://tinyurl.com/3cmhot

> I can also point out that modern landfills tend not to pollute
> groundwater nearly as much as you seem to believe since the leachate is
> collected and treated.

I see.  All CFLs will go only in "modern" landfills.  That makes sense.  You
see, when you get to the real details, it?s just obvious to everyone how
well this is going to work.  All CFLs will be sent to only modern landfills.
I don't know how I could have missed that.

For someone so insistent that every watt saved is a good watt, it seems that
you?re claiming bad landfills don?t exist or aren?t an issue and that trash
dumping doesn't happen.  Do you really believe that substantial quantities
of mercury from CFLs won't get into the environment in bad ways?

> Since many items in the waste stream are toxic
> CFLs are only small part of this problem and are likely to remain so as
> recycling efforts start to kick in.

Did the man who so obviously believes that "every little bit counts" really
just write that??  Is it fair, then, to say that the "every little bit
counts" theory *doesn't* apply when it's a "little bit" of mercury in each
of millions of bulbs destined for who knows where?  Doesn?t that at least
hint of a bit of a flip-flop? You seem to be saying: since there's so much
junk in the waste stream anyway, why care about a little more mercury in a
billion light bulbs that wasn't there before?

As for recycling "start(ing) to kick in" this is the hopeful part I love so
much.  Obviously, you don't ride the Amtrak corridor often.  The trains run
right next to the waterways and along the tracks are miles and miles and
tons and tons of household waste.  There's no liner.  There are no leaching
ponds.  When it rains, all that crap just washes right into the river.
Although I don't ride on other trains often, from what I see in those 200
miles, there's a lot of trash that doesn't make it to the trash dumps, let
alone the recycling center.

I'm afraid I tend to believe my eyes and the report I cited in the
Economist.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9249262

Both my eyes and the experts say we shouldn't depend on Americans to recycle
responsibly because all the indicators say that they don't and they won't.
We know from all the evidence that many of those bulbs will NOT be recycled
and their mercury content will escape.  I wish that wasn't true, but it is.
Once you accept that sad fact, it's easier to see why fighting mercury at
perhaps 500 power plants is better than dumping mercury into billions of
light bulbs that previously were not toxic.

> You may convince some with your long winded rambles

"Long-winded rambles" You?re a veritable font of personal jibes today, aren?
t you?  And yet you read every word and remember them in the sort of detail
only my 8th grade English teacher, Miss Mayefsky ever did.  I'm so
flattered!  Your visceral reaction to my words, your diversionary tactics
and your attempts to portray me as some sort of idiot reflect more on you
than me.  I really had expected better from you.

As for "long-winded" I am afraid that details, quotes and citations take
space.  I don't expect people to believe me because I'm some self-appointed
net expert.  I expect them to read the article URLs I post and come to their
own conclusions.  Sadly, I think the conclusions are inescapable.  Fighting
mercury with mercury or carbon emissions with an easily-gamed carbon credit
trading system are inherently mistaken solutions to serious problems.

They're mistaken because they are indirect "hopeful" attempts to solve the
problem. The battle is at the power plant smokestacks, not with schemes that
"hope" recycling gets more serious in this country.  Worse, still, there are
some very powerful interests determined to resist every attempt to fix the
problem correctly - at the smokestacks of coal fired power plants.

>  but you will never convince me that more efficient lighting is a bad
idea.

Ah, Lewis the Adventurer. You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all
alike, playing some sort of strange game with the truth. This time, instead
of purporting I?m trying to pose as some sort internal combustion engine
expert I never claimed to be, you're now trying to propose that I am against
efficient lighting.  Or to be more precise that somehow, because I don?t
believe CFLs are the right solution that I must therefore believe that all
efficient lighting is bad.  That?s perilously faulty logic.

I *strongly* believe in more efficient lightning.  I just don't believe
we're doing the right thing in this country by legislatively mandating one
particular form of efficient lighting that creates an incredibly widespread
mercury toxicity vector that didn't exist before.

What I DO believe in is efficient lighting that doesn't ask us to accept a
little bit of neuro-toxic material in every one of billions of bulbs.
Sometimes, as the Brits did with the seagoing clock, the gov?t has to do
things like offer significant prizes to the person who comes up with the
better light bulb.  Why aren?t the Feds doing enough?

Once CFLs become mandated, it puts a damper on development of other lighting
technologies.  Those technologies, like LEDS, don't require we widely
disperse toxins into every place on earth where light bulbs are used.  There
are plenty of other nascent illumination technologies that need to be
explored before we start FORCING people to use CFL bulbs by passing laws.
And there are plenty of other ways to save energy that don't involve
expensive, buzzing, flickering, slow-starting, electrically noisy, hard to
dim, oversized, under-powered and toxic CFLs.

> Unfortunately most good conservation ideas need legislation to make them
work.

Which is why I suggest everyone write their representatives and ask them why
a project like FutureGen:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/weekinreview/03revk.html?ref=science>

got axed.  That article said: "there was much enthusiasm five years ago when
the Bush administration said it would pursue ?one of the boldest steps our
nation has taken toward a pollution-free energy future? by building a
commercial-scale coal-fire plant that would emit no carbon dioxide . . .
With the budget of the so-called FutureGen project having nearly doubled, to
$1.8 billion, and the government responsible for more than 70 percent of the
eventual bill, the administration completely revamped the project. . . .
Plans for the experimental plant were scratched."

Here's where to write, BTW:

https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

http://www.senate.gov/reference/common/faq/How_to_contact_senators.htm

We can fund 100's of billions of dollars for wars in Iraq but can't scrape
up a few billion to help clean the air every American breathes.  What's
wrong with this picture?

> To put you on the right track:

Poor Lewis.  It's not me that's sidetracked on the CFL issue.  That would be
your near constant excursion from the main thread regarding some imagined
claim about engine compression in a discussion about saving energy.  And
here you go again, just like clockwork!

> All other things being equal a higher compression engine will pollute

(Great Caesar's Ghost!  Not another round of this "engine compression"
lunacy.  And you have the audacity of accusing *me* of ranting when
everything you write seems to involve your unusual obsession with
compression.  Lewis, you need to get a grip.  Here - I'll help you.  Snip,
snip - red herrings thrown back into the ocean.)

You're persistent, but you're making me feel embarrassed for you.  Out of
all the statements I've made, you choose to keep going back to engine
compression as if it's some hidden pirate treasure.  It has really nothing
to do with anything other than what I've said at least five times already.
It is, however, obviously a way for you to try to avoid answering the hard
questions like "Does CFL use really save power during peak loads when
conservation is most important?"

Your debating technique ironically closely parallels those of power plant
lobbyists.  Instead of focusing on the need to clean up power plants, both
of you focus on something tangential.  You've chosen engine compression as
your magician's object of misdirection, they've chosen CFLs.  Neither
smokescreen can change the fact that power plant smokestacks are where the
pollution comes from and that's where it needs to be controlled.  Now.
Directly.  And not by -*hoping* Americans are going to magically change
their long-standing history of being bad recyclers to become recycling
angels.  Since the main point is not, apparently, getting through, I'll try
it once more.

The analogy was that 1960's engine polluted so much you couldn't stand
behind them for very long without passing out.  That's no longer true.

There.  That's it.  Very simple.  That 1960's engine could be high, low or
mid compression ? it doesn?t matter which since it's basically irrelevant to
anyone but you.  The point was those old cars were incredible polluters.
But not anymore.  Unbelievably, you?ve twisted that simple statement like a
pretzel, attempting to discredit me as an internal combustion engine expert
I *never* claimed to be for saying something I never said.  How twisted is
that?

Did you get near any red Kryptonite, Lewis?  That might explain this Bizarro
world you?ve entered into. In truth, your obsession with compression is
beginning to make you look a little monomaniacal.  And angry.  And unable to
address the fundamental truth of the real issues at hand.

But that's OK.  I don't mind the repetition.  It's an important aid to
comprehension.  You might be making people wonder, though: If you are as
astute in as many fields of human knowledge as you want us to believe, you
might realize you?re providing a wonderful forum for my "rants"  that I
probably wouldn?t have without you.

For my part all I can say is thanks!  Your decision to focus on off-the-wall
issues and personal criticisms merely makes the important points I've made
seem more unassailable.  Gosh, Lewis, I just couldn't do this without you.
Really.  (-:

> If you can begin to comprehend this you understand why I take such
> exception to your ill informed rants.

?If I can begin to comprehend??  Is that your shorthand for ?hey stupid??
Unfortunately, what *anyone* can comprehend from your condescending comments
is that you've taken this thread down to the typical CHA basement level of
civility, Lewis.  I know you're a good guy at heart but this is way beneath
you.  It's a shame you have to rely on pejoratives like "rants" and "you
don't know $hit" while attacking me on some microscopically tangential
"engine compression" issue you've invented pretty much out of thin air and
total desperation.

These deliberately diversionary and divisive techniques mostly serve to
bankrupt your arguments, not enrich them.  Your "exception taken" is only
meaningful to me in as much as you offer cogent responses to the actual
issues at hand and, as a result, an exchange of ideas can occur.  If ?taking
exception? means boiling over in your own vitriol and splashing a little on
me in the process, it?s of no concern to me other than showing you're out of
gas.  And facts.

Most everyone knows when people are out of facts, they resort to attacking
the poster.  Is that really the impression you wish to convey?   People are
smart.  They'll can read between the lines.

They?ll read articles like this:

www.livescience.com/environment/070709_cfl_mercury.html

?They?re very efficient, but once they?re used up they become a ticking
toxic time bomb," said Leonard Robinson, chief deputy director of the
California Department of Toxic Substances Control." Who goes on to say
"probably more of these are making it into the trash than are being
recycled"

Eventually, people might begin to wonder if we?re not poisoning the future
in a well-meaning, but somewhat misguided attempt to save electricity.  What
happens when we finally do the right thing and scrub the stacks?  Then our
major source of environmental mercury pollution is likely to be CFL bulbs.
Not a very smart thing to have done to ourselves.  Let?s look at *all* the
alternatives (LED and enhanced tungsten, for starters) before we start
passing laws mandating a single solution that?s got serious toxicity issues.

--
Bobby G.