Re: Anyone moved to LED Lighting?

[don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Don Klipstein)]

In article <4b36aadb$0$30847$822641b3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, David
Nebenzahl wrote:
>On 11/21/2009 9:28 PM Don Klipstein spake thus:
>
>>   Compared to incandescents, in USA on average CFLs actually reduce mining
>> of mercury-containing materials and transfering mercury to the
>> environment.  This is because about half of all electricity produced in
>> the USA is obtained by burning coal, a major source of mercury pollution.
>
>You know, we've only heard you say this here about, oh, 117,000 times.
>
>Your assertion (about CFLs resulting in less mercury contamination)
>contains a *major* fallacy. It implies that when one use a CFL instead
>of an incandescent light bulb, the electricity somehow, magically turns
>"cleaner", with less mercury emitted.

  Yes, less mercury is emitted, because you use 70-75% less electricity.

>If you run a CFL, your electricity *still* comes from the same
>mercury-spewing coal-fired power plant. You're just using less of it
>than if you use an incandescent bulb.

  That does get power companies to crank down their plants.  The nukes and
hydropower will be the last ones to crank down, because their load-related
operating costs are low.  (Most of the cost of nukes is unrelated to
load.)

>Now, it's true that if *enough* people used CFLs, *and* if the resulting
>power savings were enough for the power companies to say, "Hey, let's
>start shutting down our dirty old coal-fired power plants", then one
>could truly say that the use of CFLs reduces mercury emissions. But that
>hasn't happened yet. Nowhere near it. They're still burning lots of
>coal, and planning on building even *more* coal-fired plants.

  CFLs are merely slowing demand growth.  Most of the incandescents
that can be replaced with CFLs are not yet replaced with CFLs, the
population is growing, along with use of larger TV sets.  If all CFLs were
replaced with incandescents of same light output, the situation would be
even worse.

<SNIP from here>

 - Don Klipstein (don@xxxxxxxxx)