[no subject]

Pretending that adding more mercury in the form of CFL's to every home and
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, especially
when people want to believe something's true.   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, and
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 when 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 went
to supporting a rapidly evolving technology with great promise like LEDs
instead of buying into the mostly bottomed-out CFL technology that requires
toxic materials to operate.

Fortunately, the "deal with the devil" involving CFL's is getting more and
more exposure:

http://www.google.com/search?q=cfl+mercury+problem

and I believe that the mercury issue alone will be enough to doom CFL's and
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 trace
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 like
chlordane and DDT:

http://cfpub.epa.gov/eroe/index.cfm?fuseaction=detail.viewInd&lv=list.listByAlpha&r=188248&subtop=381

Installed my first set of Philips LED "stumble lights" today!  They are
surprisingly warm white and put out almost enough light to light up the
stairway with a single four diode strip.  I'll probably use two or even four
since they can be slaved together, run off very low voltage and have built
in motion sensors.  It'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 people
need to consider.

So, Jeff, how will your XTB products help me overcome the issues I'm going
to doubtless face in switching from CFLs to LEDs?  (-:   I made an
interesting discovery the other day.  One of the nVision CFL bulbs that had
been flashing madly when off when connected to an X-10 module suddenly
stopped flashing.


--
Bobby G.




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