Questions Arising On Mercury In Compact Fluorescents 560
Patchw0rk F0g sends in an article from MSNBC on how some environmentalists are having second thoughts on compact fluorescent bulbs. Their relative energy efficiency is unquestioned. The problem is the mercury — enough in one bulb to contaminate 1,000 gallons of water, even in newer low-mercury bulbs. The EPA has an 11-step cleanup process to follow when you break a CFL in your home. The specialized recycling facilities that are needed are thin on the ground — about one per county in California, one of seven states where it is illegal to dispose of CFLs in the general waste stream.
Three questions. (Score:2, Interesting)
Not New News (Score:5, Interesting)
This was on the BBC [bbc.co.uk] some months ago.
They were relatively reassuring about the health implications:
Something to be aware of, but not hugely worrying.
Probably the biggest mistake (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'm dead (Score:3, Interesting)
Migraine etc. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Same old story (Score:3, Interesting)
Wikipedia has a fuller discussion on this point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Mercury_emissions [wikipedia.org]
Look overhead (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are in an office or school, look overhead and determine what type of lighting you have. There are a lot of places where it is fluorescent lighting in the long tube format.
Said tubes also contain mercury. But few, if any people, seem to consider these as part of the mercury contamination controversy.
If these tubes aren't a problem because they are disposed of properly, couldn't the CFLs be put into the same disposal chain?
And if the tubes ARE a problem because of improper disposal, shouldn't they also be mentioned along with the CFLs?
Re:Three questions. (Score:4, Interesting)
It cannot be made nontoxic (despite what the amalgum "alchemists" of dentistry will tell you.)
The ADA will lie to their graves about Mercury's toxicities in the body from the mouth and lungs the lungs. HCL acid, AKA "stomach acid", does a great job of dissolving swallowed Mercury fillings and their residues readily dispersing the Mercury into the bloodstream.
Definitions of harmless vary.
Mercury vapor is heavier than air, it will not just float away.
Please read the MSDS for Mercury..., any questions?: http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/M1599.htm [jtbaker.com]
Gallium OTOH is a much more expensive and LESS toxic alternative in some devices, but not all.
Re:The Future (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm dead (Score:2, Interesting)
I was about 12 years old kid and could buy about 100grams on a lab near by, and at that time I was planing to make an "inteligent" air joystick for my ZX-Spectrum computer.
I was planing to use a mercury bouble inside a plastic egg box (from bouble gums or so) with some metalic screws sticked around in the axis direction so this screws would have the mercury bouble closing the electric contact...
I did not complete the project, after this I got a commodore amiga and later an analog joystick.
But still played with mercury boubles in my hands for about a month or so.
I was tempted to put it in the mouth but was afraid it could be dangerous, so I didn't try (thanks god).
I don't think I have any health problem, but now I that know it was very dangerous, I'm courious what consequences it might had..
Today, I'm a very distracted person (always have been, even way before my first mercury contact:) and I also easily forget many things, but I guess google play a role in this (I always find what I need there:)
What the article forgets... (Score:3, Interesting)
Further perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
If you eat 11oz of Yellowfin each week, you'll consume the same amount of mercury as eating 1 CF lightbulb each year, or 4oz of swordfish each week.
Re:LED lighting (Score:3, Interesting)
LEDs are very sensitive to heat. Current fixtures for incandescent bulbs are designed to limit heat conduction, because all the heat coming off a bulb would damage the wires and probably cause a short. Although LEDs are far less heat-generating than incandescents, they still give off some and it needs to be taken away.
Hardly an insurmountable problem, but one that keeps LEDs from being an immediate solution.
There's also an intriguing possibility of using laser diodes for general lighting. These are even more efficient than LEDs. A lens can diffuse the beam, and they currently exist in red, green, and blue forms that could be combined into the proper color temperature. The one problem as yet is that green and blue laser diodes are still very expensive, though they're coming down.
the common wisdom (Score:4, Interesting)
You could make the same argument about low-flow showerheads or toilets or plumbing fixtures in general (how long to those last).
People still remodel, new houses are built, old houses are destroyed, people break them, someone will come up with a new lighting mechanism (maybe that aluminum foil micro plasma lighting [physorg.com] will become popular), and people will go through another replacement cycle.
LED's blink too! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Do the math (Score:3, Interesting)
Wind? Not enough of it unless you're using LED or CFL lighting, etc.
Solar? Ditto.
Hydroelectric? Ditto.
Nuclear? Heh... Maybe clean if you're talking Migma Fission or a Pebble Bed, but otherwise...
Scrubbing coal stacks? They're already doing it and the Mercury's still getting into the atmosphere.
Natural Gas? Maybe- but they're only used to build backing plants to backfill demand; they're expensive
as all get out to fire up. Primary power is Coal and Hydro in most places.
You don't have a clean power source that can handle the capacity for incandescents right at the moment
and we don't look like that unless you've got some magic Zero Point Energy based solution that'll do
the job, you're not going to see what you're glibly claiming can be done anytime soon.
Re:Programmed Obsolescence (Score:5, Interesting)
Additionally, a lot of people are looking at LEDs like regular lights. They are not. They can be flexible, shock resistant, and sealed tight. They are ideal for putting light in places where we've never been able to put bulbs before. In floors. In counters. In sinks. In walkways. In door frames. As desk surfaces. You can make your slightly raised door sills out of a low-brightness LED so that they are visible to people going through. These aren't things you will ever want to replace. While very energy efficient, I think that large-scale LED production will significantly change how we light things, and those changes will necessitate "bulbs" that never burn out.
Of course, there will still be LED "bulbs" shaped like light bulbs, which fit into a standard socket. And I'm sure that some brilliant company will do as you say, and program in death. But the strips of "TruSun Dimmable"(tm) LEDs you have installed around the perimeter of your room when you re-do the ceiling won't have this "feature". They will be there for your grandkids to see.
Incandescent bulbs soon to become extinct (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure urban environments will do fine with recycling. I wouldn't want to bet on that in rural China if I got my water from local wells. Or rural Mississippi for that matter.
The latest energy bill signed by President Bush requires the phase out of incandescents to either begin or be complete ( I don't recall which) by 2012.
Re:Good grief (Score:3, Interesting)
Around here, we have the Sunrise Powerlink that local groups have been opposing. The state of California has mandated that utilities get 20% of their electricity from renewable resources by 2010. To that end, there will be a pair of massive new solar thermal powerplants (contracted to Stirling Energy Systems) developed out in the desert. Now, in order to get that power to market, for the sake of cost and transmission efficiency it needs to go as short a route as possible. But in order to do that it has to cross Borrego. The local environmentalists can't be having with that, of course.
When this happens, it's no longer NIMBYism. It's BANANA: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.
Re:LED lighting (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.wattworks.com/LED%20LR6.htm [wattworks.com]
The problem with most LED lighting to date is that they're terrible for wide area illumination, like a parking lot light. Their beams are very directional. Plus, even though they state a long life, they can begin to dim very early on. I've gone through several, albeit cheap, LED flashlights a year because of this. Even with new batteries, they are about 1/2 as bright as a new unit within a couple months. I hope this bulb is not like that.
Re:LED lighting (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't this almost the case currently with fluorescent light bulbs? The average fluorescent light bulbs is supposed to last seven years, as compared to a duration of just several months for an incandescent bulb. When fluorescents became widely available, surely manufacturers knew that meant people would be buying fewer lightbulbs, and yet we're not hearing about light bulb companies going out of business, despite fluorescent users buying bulbs once every seven years, as opposed to, say once every seven months.
Fluorescent light bulbs certainly cost more, but they certainly pay for themselves in the long run, meaning a net loss to the light bulb companies.
Re:LED lighting (Score:3, Interesting)
How many watts does it pull?
What sized incandescent would you compare it to?
Re:LED's blink too! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Same old story (Score:2, Interesting)
The issue of how to dispose of CF bulbs is important, but the article linked to in the
The lack of good disposal options is points to a clear lack of state and national leadership on the issue. I would support any system over the current "see no evil" approach, from requiring manufacturers or stores to take back the burnt out bulbs to curbside pickup, though it would make sense for the purchase price to include the recycling cost however it is done.
Another issue is the lack of labeling on the packages. Shouldn't the package itself tell you what to do when you break a bulb? Shouldn't the package give guidance on disposal or recycling?
We can do better than what we are currently doing here while we wait for LEDs to save us.
-Jon
Laser diodes == BAD (Score:5, Interesting)
> be combined into the proper color temperature.
That won't work. There is a good reason white LEDs aren't just tri-color LEDs without seperate leads. See the slashdot story from this weekend about the artist exploiting the monochromatic light of LEDs to produce interesting effects when illuminating paintings. If you mix primary colors to get yellow paint, paint something with it and shine a yellow LED on it you see black. Oops! Guess that is why white LEDs use a deep blue or UV LED with a fluorescent coating inside the package. A LASER diode would of course be an even more extremely monochromatic light source than a normal LED, plus the unexpected problems of illuminating ordinary scenes with coherent light.
Re:LED lighting (Score:2, Interesting)
And there's no such thing as waste heat in the winter. Sure, you're only using 12W. Which means that you'll need another 48W worth of heat to catch up to the incandescent. In my part of the country, electricity is cheaper than oil (due to several nearby hydroelectric dams). Which is why I prefer Halogen lamps most of all. They put out twice as much light output as a standard incandescent for the same power, with a better spectrum, and at higher temperatures. Oh, yes, they last much longer than regular incandescent bulbs too. The one sitting next to me is at least two years old.
CFLs would raise my energy costs.
Re:LED lighting (Score:4, Interesting)
Right now I only use fluorescent bulbs in the basement and some places where everybody forgets to turn the light off - usually places where it doesn't matter what someone/something looks like. But still I have around 2000 W of light running in the evenings, even though my house isn't really a big place. I just love my old 80's halogen lamp pointing to the ceiling, thereby providing warm, indirect light in the entire room. This lamp sucks 1000 W alone. I would replace it if it wasn't for the fact that no other light source is able to fill this particular room with light in a better way (better as in more pleasing to the eye). I don't blame LED or fluorescent for not being able to provide similar light - it's simply because they work differently than halogen or normal light bulbs. But I think the manufacturers could do a lot more to make their products resemble the warmth and density of traditional electric light-sources. Heck even bulbs heating carbon wires are still available on the market - they were state of the art over hundred years ago and some people still buy them for their friendly red glow. They were replaced by carbon wires because they were easier to manufacture and way more efficient.
Re:Programmed Obsolescence (Score:1, Interesting)
Environmental Justification. (Score:5, Interesting)
If your electricity comes from coal, the power saved by a CFB prevents a greater amount of heavy metals (including mercury) from being dumped into the air, water and ground downwind of the coal plant. I like eating fish, how about you? This argument won me over, I hope it was not a lie designed to sell me a bunch of expensive light bulbs.
The service life of CFBs and regular bulbs makes me suspicious. CFBs do not last much longer than incandescent bulbs used to. I've had 2 of 12 burn out over a year or so despite the 5 year promise on the box. Incandescent bulbs used to be that good and halogen incandescent bulbs still last longer than CFBs. Ask yourself when the last time you changed your car headlights was.
Mercury in CF's not that big a problem (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was a child at the pediatrician's examining room (40+ years ago) they used blood pressure meters (whatever they were called) that used MERCURY in them, much like a thermometer. The mercury went up and down in a vertical glass tube driven by air pressure in the arm cuff, indicating blood pressure. I saw one that was BROKEN with the mercury pooling in the bottom of the case. The doctor saw it was broken and removed it from the room, and came back with another of the same model that wasn't broken, and of course measured my blood pressure with it.
In a high school science class there was a plastic squirt-bottle of mercury, and a girl had put a drop into the palm of her hand and was playing with it, pushing it around with a finger. The teacher came in and saw what she was doing, and he calmly but firmly told her "When you're through playing with that, carefully put it all back into the bottle, and before you eat lunch, be sure to was your hands very, very thoroughly." I was rather interested in playing with it myself, but after hearing the teacher say that, it reminded me that mercury was Not Safe, that a very small amount ingested could kill (MUCH less than what that girl held in her hand!) and I lost any interest in touching it. Thinking about it now, I'd be surprised if there is ANY such mercury in high school science classes or labs thesedays that isn't left over and long-forgotten from decades ago.
As an adult an aquaintance told about remodeling old houses and taking the mercury out of old nechanican thermostats (they used mercury in a glass tube that tilted one way would connect two wires stuck into the tube, turning on the heating system. The tube was mounted on a spiral of bimetallic metal, which would change the tilt with temperature). He told of putting the mercury into a jug, that they had collected the mercury from dozens of those things, then someone stole the jug (one can only hope the thief disposed of it properly).
Mercury is indeed dangerous to human health, and it's good to know that "CF's have such-ahd-such amount of mercury in them." As I've grown older, optimizing my health and safety have become more important to me (I don't drive drunk, because, well I don't drink - I quit smoking 16 years ago, always wear my seat belt, eat healthier, get some exercise, etc) but the amount in CF bulbs is not a particular worry for me, and doesn't stop me from buying and using them out of fear that one might break with me in the room.
Re:Further perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
Coal and gas electric (Score:3, Interesting)
Even in the US 50% of electricity is generated with coal. Yes, it's bizarre that it is still so, but it's true.
In the rest of the world the situation is considerably worse. Where were your lamps made? I don't think the steel poles that streetlamps are made from come from an area where nuclear and hydro are the predominate source of electricity. It's highly doubtful that the lamps at your local hardware store are made in such a place.
And then there's the fact that smelting of steel isn't done with electricity. They pile the steel scraps into a huge chimney that's mostly full of coal, light it up and then force air in until the heat from the coal heats the steel enough to melt. A very carbon intensive process, this. This is the part the part that uses the most fossil fuels for almost anything made of steel, no matter how it spends the rest of its life.
Compared to these issues the energy burned by the bulb is probably a trivial fragment of the total carbon budget for a light. Every little bit helps though.
Some of the realities of carbon output are pretty scary. All tars exposed to an oxygen atmosphere are oxidizing (slowly burning). That means every square inch of asphalt between your house and your job are doing their bit to add to global warming, and contribute a considerable fraction compared to the fuel powered vehicles driving over it. The road burns whether you're driving over it or not, so all those huge vacant K-Mart parking lots add up to quite a lot.
FRAUD ALERT -- Slashdot sucked in again! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not the first time a Slashdot article has misled us about mercury in compact fluorescent light bulbs. See this comment from a year ago: Misleading article [slashdot.org]. Quote from the second link in that comment: "China is also the world's largest emitter of mercury..." China's coal-fired plants emit TONS of mercury, and the mercury travels everywhere.
Is someone at Slashdot paid to post these articles, to sell LED or other lights? Or is it just ignorance?
Re:Environmental Justification. (Score:2, Interesting)
So I think you have to burn them in, like most electronics. A percentage will fail but those that survive should have the advertised life. In fact most that survive the burn in may have a much longer life than the advertised one. It's like the distribution is that 30% fail in a year and 70% fail in much more than 5 years years, so they claim a 5 year life and offer a money back guarantee. Though if you return the bad ones and get replacements the effective lifetime is quite a bit better. Since this must be expensive, presumably the companies that sell them will work out some way to not sell the ones that are going to fail in under a year.
Re:I only liked CFLs because they lasted longer. (Score:3, Interesting)
The GE bulbs I have all take a second to turn on and are very dim before ramping up. Every fixture in my house where I can put one I have one of those CFLs. I rather enjoy not having to replace them. I still have a handful of incandescents (Oven light, Fridge light, a couple of recessed lights with sockets too small to fit the CFL bases, some of the candelabra bulbs (although I replaced the ones in our dining room because the design of the lamp overheated regular bulbs and caused them to burn out in only a couple of months), and the microwave.
cold weather CFL (Score:2, Interesting)