Well Peter, I'm more confused than ever now ... I think that the original
reference to governments getting involved referred to the pseudo-science
that they force on us in the name of green - such as the lead free solder,
the eco light bulbs and so on. I agree with you that a hazardous waste team
is not required to clean up a broken CFL, and that it is just sensationalist
bull, perpetrated by some hack who has read that these devices contain toxic
chemicals - it's the aforementioned government pseudo-science from the other
side as well, if you like. But surely the article that you pointed at
doesn't really support your (apparent?) view that these things are not
dangerous per se ? It seems to put the view that compared to incandescents,
these things are dangerous, if not singly, then in terms of disposing of
them in quantity. You must accept, surely, that if lead which is firmly
chemically locked up in solder, and does not leech as a result of water, is
hysterically banned for eco disposal reasons, then a fragile bulb which
contains *free* mercury and phosphors, and which the governments are trying
to force on us instead of 'inefficient' incandescents, must pose a much more
serious disposal threat ? Or am I understanding you wrongly ? In the next
breath, you seem to be supporting the view that these things are potentially
dangerous. It might just be the old American English / English English thing
again. Two nations separated by a common language, and all that ...! d;~}
Didn't W. of Occam advocate 'keeping it simple' ( black and white ... ?? )
and 'limited responsible government' ?
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Mpfffff.... GRUMP!
OK.... Lead in solder is not "firmly chemically locked up" by any
means. These days, rain is approximately as acidic as household
vinegar or lemon juice, both of which will do a quick number on solder
in terms of releasing lead. Lead in uncounted tons has been released
into the atmosphere for a near-50 year period in the form of tetra-
ethyl lead in gasoline. THAT has wound up (and still winds up) in our
food supply as it is leached out of soils and into food grown where it
has been deposited. Lead from solder is leached out of landfills and
into ground water anywhere there is acid rain... do you know of
anywhere there is *not* acid rain?
Now, let's get into CFL/PL type lamps (I prefer PL-types as the
ballast stays with the fixture and only the tube is changed... first-
cost is slightly higher but long-term costs are much cheaper) vs.
incandescent lamps, and life-cycle costs. But let's stick to CFL lamps
here.
Assume for the purposes of this discussion: Incandescent lamp at 100
watts lasts 1000 hours, weighs about 4 ounces of which mostly glass,
some aluminum, a wee bit of copper-coated steel wire, a tiny bit of
tungsten, some phosphor or alumina coating, and a dab of solder at
each connection (lead-free, of course). Assume that a CFL/PL lamp at
23 watts will last 15,000 hours (more in reality but let's go with the
manufacturer's typical ratings). It weighs about 8 ounces, includes
some copper, aluminum, glass, about 5mg of mercury and so forth.
Some brutal realities: Most of the electricity generated in the world
today comes from coal, with nuclear being about 16%. In the US it goes
this way:
Year-to-date, 50.2 percent of the Nation's electric power was
generated at coal-fired plants. Nuclear plants contributed 20.6
percent, 17.4 percent was generated at natural gas-fired plants, and
2.2 percent was generated at petroleum-fired plants. Conventional
hydroelectric power provided 6.7 percent of the total, while other
renewables (primarily biomass, but also geothermal, solar, and wind)
and other miscellaneous energy sources generated the remaining
electric power. And the US has an unusually high number of nuclear
plants by world comparison (though by percentage less than France or
Japan for example).
Coal, when burnt, gives off considerable amounts of mercury. THAT
mercury is spewed into the atmosphere with only limited means of
control. Sure, coal plants attempt to control for particulates, use
limestone beds to control acidity, but the mercury goes out as the
technology to control it while better than before is still limited.
So, we have a lamp that will burn 1,500,000 watts of power and
generate 60 ounces of waste vs. a lamp that will burn 345,000 watts of
power and generate about 8 ounces of waste in the same time-span. The
mercury released generating the additional power will far exceed the
amount of mercury in the lamp itself (don't take my word for it, look
it up for yourself). And the mercury in the lamp is in an identifiable
container with understood requirements for disposal, not spewed willy-
nilly wherever the wind might blow.
Come on guys and gals, get a grip.
William of Occam was famous for his "razor" of course. But he did have
a few cautionary tales about excess simplicity and his "law of
parsimony": That is: if one were to come across the results of a chess
game at its end, it the simplest explanation would be that the pieces
were simply placed in those positions. Not quite reality. But "Black
and White" taken as arguments would have driven him straight up the
wall, across the ceiling and had him twirling all the while. What he
was doing was attempting to break down that sort of limited thinking
where the only opposite to "black" would be white. His position was
that if you wanted Black, anything that was not black was not what you
wanted. Period.
Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA