Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Besides, the environment is just fine.

Foxfyre wrote:

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

I am absolutely certain the florescent bulbs do not put out the same level of light that the incandescent bulbs do.

You get those bulbs from 2300 K to 7000 k - no difference to traditional bulbs at all.

I can put incandescent bulbs into the ceiling light assembly in my office and need no supplement light to work. I replaced with the largest fluorescent bulbs the assembly can take and I do need supplement light to work. You can tell me that there is no difference til the cows come home, but I'm telling you, the fluorescent lights are not as efficient as the incandescent bulbs in that fan/light assembly.

It's called LUMENS Foxfyre. Flourescents can and do produce the amount of lumens that incandescent lights do. Flourescents also produce light in color temperatures that incandescents can't.


Most fixtures are rated by watts. A 75 watt incandescent puts out about 1200 lumens. An 18 watt flourescent puts out about 1100 watts. But in a 75watt fixture you can put a 75 watt flourescent which means you can get a lot more lumens from flourescents with a lot less energy use. If you put a 27 watt flourescent in a 75watt fixture you will get 1750 lumens for about 1/3 of the energy 50% more lumens, 33% of the energy than you would with a 75watt incandescent. Most ceiling fans that I know of are rated for 60watts incandescent max which outputs about 870 lumens. An 18watt fluorescent will put out a lot more lumens but not be any larger in size than a standard 60 watt "A" lamp.

I'm sure you are correct. All I know is I need supplemental light with those flourescent bulbs in there and I don't when there are incandescent bulbs in there. I don't evaluate it by any scientific principle. I evaluate it by whether I need to turn on the desk lamp to see well enough to do my work. That doesn't mean I intend to replace the flourescent bulbs. They are more costly but they last a lot longer which might be something for the math crunchers to evaluate as making a light bulb requires energy too. Does it take more energy to make a flourescent bulb than it does to make an incandescent bulb.? If so at what point does the energy savings overcome the extra energy consumed in production?

On a purely personal level, I still wonder if use of fluorescent bulbs in the light/fan assembly PLUS using supplement light on my desk is in fact saving any significant amount of energy.

I think that's fairly common knowledge, parados.

The 'K' I used in my above response id 'Kelvin' (Kelvin is used in the measure of the color temperature of light sources), and I'd thaught that was what Foxfyre was referring at.

Foxfyre wrote:

I'm sure you are correct. All I know is I need supplemental light with those flourescent bulbs in there and I don't when there are incandescent bulbs in there. I don't evaluate it by any scientific principle. I evaluate it by whether I need to turn on the desk lamp to see well enough to do my work. That doesn't mean I intend to replace the flourescent bulbs. They are more costly but they last a lot longer which might be something for the math crunchers to evaluate as making a light bulb requires energy too. Does it take more energy to make a flourescent bulb than it does to make an incandescent bulb.? If so at what point does the energy savings overcome the extra energy consumed in production?

I can't help you if you are going to just make **** up. Lumens are lumens whether you want to believe in them or not. Your argument about "energy needed for production" is just BS. The price of the bulb shows it costs less to create than it uses in energy over time. If they sell the bulb for $4, you know damn well they used less than $4 in energy to produce it and get it to your store. The energy cost to produce it is small compared to the cost to ship it around and that cost doesn't change whether it is an incandescent or a flourescent. Any additional energy costs required in the bulb are saved long before you recover the price of the bulb for the simple fact that bulbs are NOT made up entirely of energy.
Changing from a 60 watt incandescent to a 20 watt flourescent will save you 2/3 of the electricty. Assume you pay $7.50 per kwhr, that means in just 16 hours of usage you will save $5 in electrical costs. That means you only need to use the bulb for about 16 hours to recoup any energy used to make it and any extra cost for the flourescent vs an incandescent. That means you save $5 for every 16 hours it lasts after that time.

Quote:

On a purely personal level, I still wonder if use of fluorescent bulbs in the light/fan assembly PLUS using supplement light on my desk is in fact saving any significant amount of energy.

So put in larger bulbs and stop using a light on your desk. This isn't rocket science. It is a simple as changing a light bulb.

So put in larger bulbs and stop using a light on your desk. This isn't rocket science. It is a simple as changing a light bulb.

parados wrote:

So put in larger bulbs and stop using a light on your desk. This isn't rocket science. It is a simple as changing a light bulb.

I am using the largest bulbs they make or at least that we could find for the fixture in the ceiling.

parados wrote:

parados wrote:

So put in larger bulbs and stop using a light on your desk. This isn't rocket science. It is a simple as changing a light bulb.

Quote:

I am using the largest bulbs they make or at least that we could find for the fixture in the ceiling.

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If it isn't for the economic damage, why are you Conservatives against being Conservative on this issue? What's the good reason not to play it safe?

I'm interested in you explaining this in depth.

Cycloptichorn

We conservatives are interested in doing things in a truly cleaner fashion. However, we do not want to do things that are alleged to be cleaner when they actually are not. For example, florescent bulbs contain mercury. When broken or otherwise disposed of they cause things to be done in not only a dirtier fashion, but also in a deadly toxic fashion.

Question: I have been in the process of converting to an all CFL household only to find out by trial and error (and some googling) that CFL's fail very quickly in track lighting and recessed fixtures. In my online searches I have stumbled upon some real horror stories about people who have broken the bulbs in their homes which has resulted in thousands of dollars worth of cleanup to remove the mercury.

I did read in the past the post about the quality of various manufacturers, but do you have any information on "best practices" for use and safety/disposal/mercury contamination topics? As far as the mercury information goes - I am not looking for a debate about how much mercury ends up in the environment from other sources.... I just want to know if my kids are going to get mercury poisoning if a bulb breaks in their rooms. Real scientific responses only please.

Response: There has recently been some concern over the possibility that broken CFLs can be an important source of exposures to mercury, a toxic metal and a key component of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). Although mercury is a toxic pollutant, mercury exposures from broken CFLs are not likely to harm you and your family. This is due to several factors, including the amount and duration of your exposures and the specific type of mercury that you are exposed to.

Mercury in CFLs are present as elemental (or metallic) mercury. Once spilled, you can be exposed to elemental mercury by touching it, after which it can be eaten and/or absorbed through your skin. More importantly for health, you can also be exposed to mercury through the air, as elemental mercury vaporizes readily (essentially becomes a gas) and can thus be inhaled into your lungs. Breathing elemental mercury into your lungs is generally more dangerous than if you ate the mercury or absorbed it through your skin. Once inhaled, the mercury vapor can damage the central nervous system, kidneys, and liver.

These toxic effects are why any mercury spill should be handled carefully, including one that results from a CFL breaking. Having said this, careful handling does not mean that expensive or complicated clean-up of the spill is needed or that you should be worried about you or your family's health, if a CFL were to break in your home.

This is because CFLs contain relatively small amounts of mercury -- EPA estimates this amount to be 4-5 milligrams (mg) in a typical CFL. A spill of this amount of mercury is not likely to present any excess risk to you or your family. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows why. [Note: This example is meant only as a quick and dirty example. It is not intended to represent every case nor every situation.] For example, we could imagine the following scenario:

A CFL containing 5 mg of mercury breaks in your child's bedroom that has a volume of about 25 m3 (which corresponds to a medium sized bedroom). The entire 5 mg of mercury vaporizes immediately (an unlikely occurrence), resulting in an airborne mercury concentration in this room of 0.2 mg/m3. This concentration will decrease with time, as air in the room leaves and is replaced by air from outside or from a different room. As a result, concentrations of mercury in the room will likely approach zero after about an hour or so.

Under these relatively conservative assumptions, this level and duration of mercury exposure is not likely to be dangerous, as it is lower than the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard of 0.05 mg/m3 of metallic mercury vapor averaged over eight hours. [To equate these values, we could estimate the average indoor airborne mercury concentration for 8 hours, beginning post-spill at an estimated starting value of 0.2 mg/m3 and decreasing from there. If one assumes the the air exchanges completely in one hour (a fairly standard assumption), then the 8-hour average concentration would be 0.025 mg/m3.]

We conservatives are interested in doing things in a truly cleaner fashion. However, we do not want to do things that are alleged to be cleaner when they actually are not. For example, florescent bulbs contain mercury. When broken or otherwise disposed of they cause things to be done in not only a dirtier fashion, but also in a deadly toxic fashion.

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There's more mercury in old-style thermometers then CFL's, but you don't see those being hated on by anyone.

Your house is full of dangerous and toxic chemicals, which can be harmful if you use them incorrectly. The fact that you have to take a small amount of care with CFLs is not a valid reason to not use them.

Also, mercury is released into the environment by burning coal. The amount of mercury released into the environment by burning coal, over the lifetime of a conventional bulb vs. a CFL, dwarfs the amount that could be released by a broken one.

Cycloptichorn

ican wrote :

Quote:

We conservatives are interested in doing things in a truly cleaner fashion. However, we do not want to do things that are alleged to be cleaner when they actually are not. For example, florescent bulbs contain mercury. When broken or otherwise disposed of they cause things to be done in not only a dirtier fashion, but also in a deadly toxic fashion.

IF we have any burned out or broken CF-bulbs we take them to one of the home building stores that have special boxes for recycling them - no need to throw them into the garbage .
similarly i take any old batteries (flashlight etc.) in for re-cycling - that's easily done .
even remainders of paints left in the can , cleaning fluids .., ... can all easily be taken in for re-cycling .
we have a small paint factory in our city that "remanufactures" old paints . those paints are as good as name brands at half the price .

REDUCE-REUSE-RECYCLE ! easy to remember and practice imo .
hbg

Dealing with toxic computer waste
By Yo Takatsuki
Business reporter, BBC World Service


An unfortunate by-product of today's fast-moving digital age is the obsolescent equipment that gets discarded in its wake.


One estimate suggests that by 2010, 100m phones and 300m personal computers will be thrown on the rubbish tip.

Most of these contain toxic cocktail of substances including lead, mercury and arsenic.

At the moment a lot of this waste ends up, often illegally, in dumping sites around the globe, especially in the developing world.

The European Union is working on new laws to encourage the safe disposal of what is called e-waste.

It is drafting a Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive that will ensure that more of the responsibility for dealing with old computers and mobiles will be placed on their manufacturers.

Deadly poison


HAZARDOUS WASTE
1: Lead in cathode ray tube and solder
2: Arsenic in older cathode ray tubes
5: Antimony trioxide as flame retardant
4: Polybrominated flame retardants in plastic casings, cables and circuit boards
3: Selenium in circuit boards as power supply rectifier
6: Cadmium in circuit boards and semiconductors
7: Chromium in steel as corrosion protection
8: Cobalt in steel for structure and magnetism
9: Mercury in switches and housing

Has anyone tried the LED light bulbs? I've been curious about the performance of those. If those are good, they'll outlast my children.

T
K
O

As for the screw-in florescent bulbs, they do not provide the same light intensity (i.e., lumens) in my house as do the cheaper 60 watt incandescent light bulbs.

Diest TKO wrote:

Has anyone tried the LED light bulbs? I've been curious about the performance of those. If those are good, they'll outlast my children.

T
K
O

LEDs aren't quite there yet. The lumens per watt are about the same as fluorescent but they can't get the wattage to get decent lumens.

Most LED lights are speciality lights. I have a couple of LED spot lights designed to replace R20 and R30 spot lights. A very blue white light and the lumens are about the equivelant of a 30 or 40 watt light bulb. To get a warm light similar to an incandescent they have even less lumens. They are getting better but may never achieve a replacement light for an already installed fixture.

I would expect to see new fixtures that use LED's coming into use in the home in next 5 years. Las Vegas has banned the use of neon signage so most of the new signs there are LED. LED color washers for buildings and theatrical use are becoming common because they can mix and change colors.