Re: Anyone moved to LED Lighting?

[Bob Villa <pheeh.zero@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Nov 20, 3:02=A0am, "Robert Green" <robert_green1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> "Jeff Volp" <JeffV...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>
> news:HxCHm.141327$8m4.28654@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> > Except for the "intricately curved delicate glass tubes", 120V LEDs hav=
e
> > essentially the same production and noise issues as CFLs.
>
> That's a pretty big exception. As a guy who custom builds electronics by
> hand, I am sure that you realize that even one delicate step in a process=
,
> say soldering an SMD component to a circuit board by hand, can cause your
> reject rate to soar. Take a look at some of the spiral shapes of bulbs an=
d I
> think you'll realize that it takes some significant heat and tooling to
> create narrow but even diameter glass tubes that then must be twisted int=
o
> spiral shape, uniformly coated internally with phosphor, primed with
> mercury, and then sealed and capped with electrodes. =A0 Forgive me for t=
aking
> a technical note and turning it into polemic, but this is an important
> issue.
>
> Even if LED and CFL production costs were equal, manufacturing CFL's mean=
s
> increasing the mining for mercury and causing much more of the neurotoxin=
 to
> enter the world at large. It may very well turn out that =A0CFLs looked g=
ood
> on paper but turned out not to be so good when all costs are computed, ju=
st
> like biofuels.
>
> While one dot of mercury might not seem so bad, almost 300 million CFL's
> were sold in the United States last year (or so says the New York Times i=
n a
> Feb. 17, 2008, editorial). But what worries me is the even more staggerin=
g
> figure that CFL's are currently used in only 10% to 20% of the fixtures i=
n
> residential home. That could extrapolate into perhaps 3 *billion* CFL's
> getting deployed after the mandate's phased in. Even when you talk about
> micrograms per bulbs, that's a lot of mercury going into landfills,
> incinerators and eventually, the bloodstream of newborn babies.
>
> > That Lumform 4W MR16 LED gets too hot to touch, and is a very strong
> > radiator of 121KHz powerline noise.
>
> Both technologies have shortcomings, agreed, but fluorescent technology h=
as
> been around for a much longer time than LEDs and if such CFL problems had
> solutions, one would expect them to be uncovered by now. Some say
> fluorescents began in 1856 when Heinrich Geissler created a *mercury* <g>
> vacuum pump that was much more efficient than any other of the time. When
> current was applied through the "Geissler tube", it glowed. =A0Commercial
> fluorescents didn't really hit the market in force until after their debu=
t
> by GE at the 1939 World's Fair.
>
> Either way, that's a long head start for fluorescents to just now be almo=
st
> neck and neck with LEDs, a nascent technology that's only really been a h=
ome
> lighting contender for 10 years at most. Because it's difficult to sustai=
n
> an arc in a fluorescent tube at low power levels, CFLs will probably neve=
r
> equal tungsten or LED lights when it comes to smooth, linear dimming.
>
> My contention is that these subtle, but persistent CFL flaws (size,
> incompatibility with existing timers, photocell-controlled lamps, dimmers=
,
> X-10 and the like) mean that LEDs *have* to rule to roost, eventually.
> Competition is a fascinating thing, summed up by the old joke punchline: =
"I
> don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you!" Even very
> slight-seeming advantages can add up to a killer blow over the long haul.
> The CFL is running hard, but true LED "cold light" will win the race, eve=
n
> over a characteristic as lowly as higher resistance to breakage. All the
> studies I've seen say LEDs have much greater "room to grow" in both
> efficiency and cheaper production costs than CFLs and should surpass them
> very soon in both categories.
>
> > I read a lot about LEDs before trying those initial 12V MR16 landscape
> > lights. The DOE CALiPER reports on Solid-State Lighting indicate that
> > reliability and brightness fall-off are major problems for LED lighting=
.
>
> I agree completely. The current landscape of LED offerings is hauntingly
> reminiscent of the introduction of CFLs. Cheap, crappy products and
> hyper-expensive products dominated the landscape; the early adopters who
> tried them rejected them and developed long-lasting negative attitudes
> towards them. This has acted as quite a drag on their acceptance.
>
> The reports of CFL penetration say time and time again that people who tr=
y
> them and have issues like a smoky, stinky burnout are much more reluctant=
 to
> try them a second time. My wife hates both the occasional very spectacula=
r
> stinky burn-up and the frequent flickering and has had me stock up on
> incandescents for her sewing room and all the hallway and critical short
> on/off time lights that never last as long as the makers claim.
>
> As for reliability, that's not so clear cut. Take for instance an LED
> traffic light. Made up of many LED elements, they are far more reliable o=
n
> the whole than the tungsten bulbs they replace. CFL's are so wimpy, they
> need not even apply for this job! An LED element failure in a stop or tai=
l
> light still leaves a lot of other LEDs elements to continue to shine. Sin=
ce
> the LEDs can produce incredibly pure red light, there's no energy loss
> involved in filtering white light to get the red color.
>
> > Progress is being made, and eventually another technology will superced=
e
> > CFLs. From my limited testing, the LEDs aren't there yet.
>
> Agreed. But they're close enough that the mercury element should make the
> decision between the two a no-brainer, at least if someone *really* cares
> about the environment. It's bad reasoning to believe that putting mercury=
 in
> perhaps 3 billion consumer bulbs will magically offset mercury in smokest=
ack
> exhausts. That's especially true now because the Feds are finally getting
> off their butts and invoking the *right* solution: enforcing mercury
> emission laws. Once that happens, the tradeoff fails.
>
> Far worse, we've created a brand-new mercury dispersal system that reache=
s
> every corner of the country, even areas where they get most of their
> electricity from dams or other non-coal sources and there was never any
> value to the trade-off to begin with. Do you really want grandkids with
> lifelong neurological problems because you want to save on your electric
> bill? Or your light bulb costs? Or because the color of the light isn't
> quite right? =A0I don't.
>
> What worries me the most is the cost of remediation if we eventually find
> that many more than 630,000 newborns a year have mercury levels way above
> recommendations. Lots of folks here know the incredible costs and issues
> involved in removing asbestos or lead paint from a home. Mercury abatemen=
t
> has the potential to make removing those two hazards look like child's pl=
ay.
> Who will pay for the care of kids born with brain damage because we didn'=
t
> realize CFL's were such a hazard? We will. With yet more tax dollars.
>
> Like climate change, these processes take time and I suspect that mercury=
 is
> only now entering the environment from pre-ban alkaline batteries that we=
nt
> into dumps years ago. What happens when the CFL bulbs start getting to du=
mps
> in big numbers? We just don't know, and so we should consider how deeply =
we
> get into something that could make the US one giant Superfund site. We pu=
t
> deposit requirements on innocuous glass soda bottles but not on "special
> needs recycling" hazardous material bearing CFL's. That's idiotic. =A0Whe=
n the
> choice was just CFL v. incandescent, the tradeoff worked, but now there's=
 a
> serious new contender, the LED, and it's far greener than the CFL because=
 it
> uses no mercury.
>
> On the whole, people have a hard time evaluating the threat of materials
> like mercury and carcinogens like asbestos and TCE because the cause and
> effect are sometimes years, even decades, apart. But the cancer statistic=
s,
> state by state prove that certain areas produce statistically meaningful
> clusters of deaths. Sadly, those clusters tend to be in areas with large
> manufacturing operations.
>
> http://www3.cancer.gov/atlasplus/new.html
>
> We already know that trace amounts of mercury can be very toxic, especial=
ly
> to the fetuses of pregnant women. They have been told each year that it's
> increasingly less safe for them to eat any fish at all. As far back as 20=
04,
> the EPA raised a red flag:
>
> "E.P.A. Raises Estimate of Babies Affected by Mercury Exposure - More tha=
n
> one child in six born in the United States could be at risk for
> developmental disorders because of mercury exposure in the mother's womb,
> according to revised estimates released last week by Environmental
> Protection Agency scientists. The agency doubled its estimate, equivalent=
 to
> 630,000 of the 4 million babies born each year, because recent research h=
as
> shown that mercury tends to concentrate in the blood in the umbilical cor=
d
> of pregnant women." Source:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/10/science/epa-raises-estimate-of-babi...
>
>
>
> > There is a brighter 12V MR16 LED available now, but it costs 3X as much=
 as
> the Feit
> > CFLs. It is hard to justify replacing an inexpensive halogen with a $20
> LED
> > having unknown longevity.
>
> It's not hard to justify if there's a hidden downside to CFLs: poisoning =
the
> next generation of Americans. Efficiency and longevity of LEDs has been
> increasing greatly in just the past few years. Here's a study done by
> Carnagie Mellon:
>
> http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/publications/pdfs/ssl/matthews...
>
> They concur that LED lighting still has a long way to go, but that it's
> closing ground fast and it's going to very rapidly overtake CFLs in nearl=
y
> every category when those eventual improvements arrive. That only makes
> sense since commercial fluorescent technology is at least 70 years old.
> CFL's may be a new form factor, but the technology is considered by some =
to
> outdate the tungsten filament bulb.
>
> Stokes at Cambridge discovered electrical fluorescence in 1852, which by
> some accounts makes it well over 150 years old. That's a lot of time for =
the
> damn things to remain so buggy compared to a simple incandescent bulb. An=
d
> it's precisely why they'll fail against LEDs. One of the most cynical
> touches in the film "Blade Runner" is Harrison Ford having to flick the
> glass bulb of a future fluorescent bulb to get it to come on. It's a
> prediction that even in the future, those damn fluorescent bulbs will not
> have improved very much.
>
> > People harp on the mercury used in CFLs. Mercury has been used in
> > fluorescent lighting for decades.
>
> Yes, that's true. Asbestos also saw incredibly widespread use before peop=
le
> realized it was a potent carcinogen. Use for decades really doesn't mean
> safe. It takes a long time for waste in dumps to percolate. It takes even
> longer for experts to "put it all together" as in the case of asbestos,
> whose use continued many years after its lethal effects were *very* well
> known. There's already a lot of mercury seeping into the ground in
> landfills. While most of the environmental mercury currently does appear =
to
> come from power plant emissions, those are relatively easy fixes. Why did=
n't
> Obama and Congress spend the stimulus money on scrubbing dirty power plan=
t
> stacks and not on million dollar "retention" bonuses for fat cat bankers?
>
> While most mercury in CFL's appears just a trifling few milligrams, some
> sources claim that 5mg of mercury can contaminate 6,000 gallons of drinki=
ng
> water. This site talks about some of the common sense things we so easily
> overlook:
>
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694819/
>
> "It's kind of ironic that on the one hand, the agency [EPA] is saying, 'D=
on'
> t worry, it's a very small amount of mercury.' Then they have a whole pag=
e
> of [instructions] how to handle the situation if you break one . . ."
>
> When you start to talk about 2 or 3 billion light bulbs, that 5mg (or eve=
n
> 1mg in the newer bulbs) becomes a significant amount in the aggregate.
> Couple that to Americans and their incredibly low recycling compliance (l=
ast
> I checked it was 6% or so), it's very likely to spell serious trouble,
> especially if the conclusion that only 5mg of mercury can contaminate 6,0=
00
> gallons of water proves true. I haven't read the paper they're referring =
to,
> but based on EPA's schizoid recommendations on CFLs, I have no reason to
> doubt it.
>
> > One report I read said the mercury used in fluorescent bulbs is much le=
ss
>
> than the
>
> > amount that would have been released into the environment by burning co=
al
>
> to
>
> > produce an equivalent amount of incandescent light.
>
> That's only because the EPA under Bush was basically prevented from clean=
ing
> up the dirtiest of the coal plants. Didn't the "indirect approach" of the
> Feds giving money to the banks that created the financial meltdown have
> little effect on the foreclosure rate? That should tell us that indirect
> methods tend to be political creations that can't be relied upon. Clean u=
p
> the stacks and the alleged tradeoff that people so frequently tout turns
> into nothing more that a new vector for getting toxic mercury into every
> garbage dump in America.
>
> Do we really want to condemn 10's of thousands or more children to living
> with birth defects because we want lower electric bills or we want a
> slightly warmer-colored light no matter what the environmental cost? Not =
me.
> It's bad enough that we're laying the cost of the bailout, two failed war=
s
> and a fraud-riddled Medicare system on them. Must we poison them, too?
>
> > As we move away from carbon based fuels, that tradeoff will diminish.
> >And it is even better with LEDs. But do we know for sure that trace
> > elements used in LED production will not also turn out
> > to be harmful to the environment?
>
> The Mellon study referenced above, among others, looked at those very
> questions by examining every step of the process and how much power it us=
ed.
> Look on page 25 for the graph that compares production costs of CFL,
> incandescent and LEDs. Scientists are a lot better at accounting for the
> real costs of items these days, looking at the entire life cycle of a
> product to determine what it costs, money and environmental hazard-wise, =
to
> produce items like LEDs and CFLs.
>
> A lot of Pacific ocean mercury comes from the stacks of the Chinese coal
> plants powering the manufacture of CFL bulbs. The US stood poised to lead
> the world in developing LED technology, but instead, we're shoring up ban=
ks
> that caused the mess we're in.
>
> Ironically, those banks, with lots of help from the same Congress that's
> mandating the new bulbs, have turned that wonderful, "seems like a good
> idea" invention called the credit card into the near downfall of the worl=
d's
> economy. Not every new idea is a good idea and some of them, like giving
> women estrogen to prevent breast cancer, turned out to be EXACTLY the wro=
ng
> thing to do. Actual studies, rather than "feel good, should work" guesses
> showed that the treatments actually increased the risk of breast cancer a=
nd
> they were stopped.
>
> Nothing I've seen in the literature so far suggests that LED bulbs contai=
n
> anything as near as toxic as mercury. In the past LEDs contained arsenic
> compounds, but most of the newer diodes do not. Because the world is
> generally awakening to the idea that little amounts of poison add up, App=
le
> stopped using arsenic in its LCD panels in 2008. Remember, LEDs fulfill t=
he
> same promise as CFLs of reduced power plant emissions, but they do it
> without the insane tradeoff of involving a known deadly poison whose leve=
ls
> are so high pregnant women are told not to eat tuna.
>
> > There are companies working on a new generation of lighting. One is sti=
ll
> > based on CFL technology. Only time will tell whether one of these becom=
es
> > dominant in the marketplace.
>
> Sometimes, the marketplace isn't the best determiner of what's good for
> society. That lesson seems abundantly clear in the aftermath of the curre=
nt
> financial mess we're in. If we know that mercury is toxic and that
> scientists believe great improvements in LEDs are coming, does it make se=
nse
> to push a bad technology like CFLs forward by government mandate? This is
> toxic stuff and George Orwell wouldn't be surprised at how easily we now
> swallow big lies like "adding mercury will take away mercury." Here's how
> the indirect solution is working out in the real world:
>
> <"MONDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) -- A study involving more than 6,000
> American women suggests that blood levels of mercury are accumulating ove=
r
> time, with a big rise noted over the past decade.
>
> "Using data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's
> National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a researcher f=
rom
> the University of California, Los Angeles, found that while inorganic
> mercury was detected in the blood of 2 percent of women aged 18 to 49 in =
the
> 1999-2000 NHANES survey, that level rose to 30 percent of women by
> 2005-2006."> Source:
>
> http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_88506.html
>
> From two to thirty percent in just five years is an OUTRAGEOUS jump and i=
t's
> a clear indication that something's very, very wrong with the current way=
 of
> doing business. But we never seem to learn that some problems can mushroo=
m
> incredibly quickly and go way out of control. Human mercury levels in wom=
en
> of childbearing age has jumped from nearly insignificant to nearly 30% of
> all such women.
>
> Pretending that adding more mercury in the form of CFL's to every home an=
d
> garbage dump in America will reverse that trend is just not credible. I'm
> very sadly *not* surprised, though, because what I've seen pass for truth=
 in
> the last ten years is pretty scary. Rumor becomes instant fact, especiall=
y
> when people want to believe something's true. =A0 There was an article in=
 the
> news the other days about how Congressmen from both parties put items in =
the
> record that had been written by lawyers working for the drug lobby.
>
> I believe that instead of counting on CFLs we should clean up the mercury
> spewing coal power plants (here and in China) and put some serious DOE
> research money into improving LEDs to the point where they easily surpass
> CFLs. I just saw an item about Sharp's new dimmable AND color tunable LED
> light bulbs, two areas where CFLs fall pretty short.
>
> http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/090611_2.html
>
> "The models DL-L401N/L LED Lamps offer extremely economical operation, an=
d
> can be run for approximately 11 hours at a cost of only one yen!" (-:
> (That;'s $0.011 US)
>
> It just doesn't make sense to so fully embrace a poisonous technology whe=
n a
> very close substitute is available, and its cost is dropping almost daily=
 as
> light output is increasing. It would drop even more if people's dollars w=
ent
> to supporting a rapidly evolving technology with great promise like LEDs
> instead of buying into the mostly bottomed-out CFL technology that requir=
es
> toxic materials to operate.
>
> Fortunately, the "deal with the devil" involving CFL's is getting more an=
d
> more exposure:
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=3Dcfl+mercury+problem
>
> and I believe that the mercury issue alone will be enough to doom CFL's a=
nd
> in very short order. If the EPA finds it to be a serious source of human
> mercury contamination (something they may be forced to do should the trac=
e
> amounts of mercury in Americans continue to climb) they could easily ban =
the
> sale of CFLs just the way they are banning incandescents. I don't believe
> that's a very far-fetched scenario based on experience with chemicals lik=
e
> chlordane and DDT:
>
> http://cfpub.epa.gov/eroe/index.cfm?fuseaction=3Ddetail.viewInd&lv=3Dlist=
...
>
> Installed my first set of Philips LED "stumble lights" today! =A0They are
> surprisingly warm white and put out almost enough light to light up the
> stairway with a single four diode strip. =A0I'll probably use two or even=
 four
> since they can be slaved together, run off very low voltage and have buil=
t
> in motion sensors. =A0It's qualities like these that will spell doom for
> CFL's, the eight-track of home lighting.
>
> Sorry for the length, but there's a lot about CFLs and mercury that peopl=
e
> need to consider.
>
> So, Jeff, how will your XTB products help me overcome the issues I'm goin=
g
> to doubtless face in switching from CFLs to LEDs? =A0(-: =A0 I made an
> interesting discovery the other day. =A0One of the nVision CFL bulbs that=
 had
> been flashing madly when off when connected to an X-10 module suddenly
> stopped flashing.
>
> --
> Bobby G.
>
> xpost to comp.home.automation,alt.home.repair

Why not write a book while you're at it! 8^)

bob_v