GE: We Bring Liberals to Light
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Harrison
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cfl china pollution CO2 Democrats global warming hypocrites incandescent bulbs Liberals light bulb ban mercury poisoning
It's not Terminator 2 it's poisonous stuff!
Within a few years, most of the popular good old incandescent light bulbs we’ve used to light our homes will become illegal and, in the process, U.S. jobs will get sent to China, more pollution will be created, and we’ll be using even more bulbs to see at night. Is this the “green revolution” we keep hearing about?
It’s already happening in Germany:
Germans, who sometimes see themselves as guardians of the environment, are hoarding energy-guzzling incandescent light bulbs ahead of a looming European Union-wide ban, the GfK market research agency said.
The EU is planning to phase out use of the incandescent bulbs as part of its push to save energy, cut greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. From Tuesday the light bulbs above 75 watts can no longer be produced or imported in the EU.
The ban will be expanded each year and by 2012 production and importing of all incandescent bulbs will be prohibited.
To the average person reading the news or watching television programs, the “benefits” of switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs seem to be a no-brainer:
The EU Commission projects the ban on the energy-inefficient bulbs will save about 40 terawatt hours of energy in the EU per year — enough to meet the energy demands of a small country.
The idea to ban incandescent bulbs came from Gabriel in 2007 when Germany held the EU’s rotating presidency. The German said the switch to energy saving bulbs could save about 25 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
That's going to take more energy to build.
Trouble is, the real news about these bulbs is not being as widely reported:
Tests conducted by London’s Telegraph found that using a single lamp to illuminate a room, an 11-watt CFL produced only 58% of the illumination of an “equivalent” 60-watt incandescent — even after a 10-minute warm-up that consumers have found necessary for a CFL to reach its full brightness.
The European Commission advises consumers of the environmental hazards posed by CFLs. If one breaks, you’re advised to air out rooms and avoid using vacuum cleaners to prevent exposure to mercury in the bulbs. You can’t just throw out an old bulb. It must be properly thrown out, lest your bedroom or family room become a Superfund toxic waste site.
CFLs are filled with mercury which is highly toxic and can be found, for example, in tuna fish:
But the bulbs contain small amounts of mercury, a neurotoxin, and the companies and federal government haven’t come up with effective ways to get Americans to recycle them.
“The problem with the bulbs is that they’ll break before they get to the landfill. They’ll break in containers, or they’ll break in a dumpster or they’ll break in the trucks. Workers may be exposed to very high levels of mercury when that happens,” says John Skinner, executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America, the trade group for the people who handle trash and recycling.
About that mercury-filled tuna again… just how toxic is the stuff? Check this out:
Canned tuna and most other fish and seafood contain some amount of toxic mercury that has worked its way through the food chain because of industrial pollution. In adequate doses, the metal can damage the developing nervous system in fetuses and children.
Care for some fish with your mercury?
This is not to say that breaking a CFL light bulb today will result in toxic tuna tomorrow but with hundreds of millions of mercury-filled CFLs to be sold in the coming years, you can bet that plenty of mercury will be released into the environment. The average CFL contains 5mg of mercury while an incandescent contains none.
One of the arguments for using CFLs, despite their mercury content, is that they use dramatically less energy over their lifetimes than traditional bulbs:
In fact, the German Federal Environment Agency has calculated that, over its 15,000 hour lifetime, a single 20W compact fluorescent light bulb would save 188 euros (£131) worth of electricity.
By comparison, they say that approximately 15 short-lived 100W incandescent light bulbs would be needed to provide equivalent light levels over the same period.
Since so much of U.S. power generation is coal-based (and a large producer of mercury) it is argued that despite the increased danger from local mercury poisoning (home, landfills, etc…) it is still better than widespread mercury poisoning (mercury-laden rain from power generation). This is a common sense argument and it is solid. However the problem with this type of response is that it does not take into account where the CFLs will be made:
But, hey, think of all the green jobs that will be created. Problem is, they’re in China. General Electric plans to close an incandescent bulb factory in Westchester, Va., next July, costing 200 workers their jobs. GE is also shuttering incandescent factories in Ohio and Kentucky, axing another 200 positions.
Not only are wages lower in China, but so are environmental standards, London’s Times recently reported: “Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent light bulbs.”
If a CFL breaks in baby's room clear them out ASAP.
If we accept the fact that a coal-fired power plant emits mercury and that mercury goes into the atmosphere it will then travel around the world where it will eventually reach the oceans or the land. But widespread mercury poisoning is already being concentrated in China:
The standards for health and safety in the Chinese factories can vary from high tech operations to sweatshops. Some tests have demonstrated concentrations of mercury in factory workers that were 150 times the accepted standard, and many are frequently hospitalized. In one Chinese factory, 121 out of 123 employees had excessive mercury levels.
Because of increased Western demand for mercury has also increased the amount of mercury found in the Chinese rice supply:
Mercury mining areas in China have also contributed to cases of methyl mercury poisoning through the ingestion of rice grown in contaminated soil.
I liken the call for CFLs to the call for electric cars. The pollution is just moved to a more remote location. In the case of CFLs it looks like the mercury poisoning will be occurring in China so Latte Liberals on Wilshire Drive in LA won’t notice it, that is unless their nanny breaks a CFL in their baby’s room which will immediately require only an hour or so to air out. With the 100 watt incandescent light bulb being outlawed by 2012 and the rest by 2014 we’ll all have time to learn about the dangers of these new bulbs. And you can bet most Americans won’t know how dangerous they really are or bother to take them to a specialized recycling center.
Instead of putting over 300 million Americans “in charge” of learning about and being careful with CFLs wouldn’t it just be so much easier to pursue clean coal technology and build nuclear power plants which would reduce our energy imports from unfriendly parts of the world as well as produce cleaner air?
Doing those types of things would require real and substantial change… those types of things are really impossible for Liberals’ because they are much more than applying window dressing.
And, considering the CFL produces only 58% of the light as a regular bulb that will mean people will have to “burn” twice as many of them to get the same amount of light they do now so you can double the risk of mercury poisoning and cut by half the amount of electricity saved.
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6:12 AM
You obviously don’t understand trickle-up environmentalism. How dare you suggest that 300 million people forced to do their part by legislative fiat isn’t going to save the planet.
.-= burro´s last blog ..Universal Prosperity Insurance =-.
9:52 AM
Harrison,
- you are more right than you can imagine!
Now, let’s just deal with the mercury issue to begin with.
1. Why mercury in CFLs is a much bigger problem than coal power mercury
= not just because of all the CFL-related China mercury release, though that of course contributes too.
For some reason the “coal power mercury emissions are worse” folk tale keeps doing the rounds:
(even you say “This is a common sense argument and it is solid”!)
But this was only ever true where untreated coal power dominated, as the 2005 EPA diagram (commonly used) itself shows.
In the USA like the EU and Canada,
vigorous mercury emission control programs are in place
(using new injection and photochemical techniques as well as so-called wet scrubbers)
= USA EPA for example overseeing
90% mercury emission reduction by 2018, as confirmed by new EPA administrator Lisa Jackson early 2009.
More: http://www.ceolas.net/#li198x
In a nutshell:
1. We know where the ever decreasing local coal power stations chimneys are and we can treat their emissions with ever increasing efficiency at lower costs.
2. Compare that with billions of scattered broken lights on dump sites, when we do not know where the broken lights will be, and so we can’t do anything about them
Incidentally, it is true that mercury is deposited on the glass so is not all released as vapor, but is then leeched into the ground, potentially contaminating river systems, water supplies etc instead.
CFL refund schemes would alleviate but not solve the problem, as shown by low European compliancy.
2. Mercury as a health problem
Sometimes ridiculed, stringent EPA recommendations of what to do when a bulb breaks was more than confirmed by recent Maine state testing
See http://www.ceolas.net/#li191x
10:09 AM
Excellent post thanks for the information!!
10:03 AM
Let’s move on to the main course…
Again everyone seems to accept all these Terawatt statistics sound-bites for journalists, “saving the enrgy output of romania” etc
= without ever providing documentary evidence.
It’s not just that supposed savings don’t hold up:
A ban is wrong even if they did.
Europeans (like Americans) choose to buy ordinary light bulbs around 9 times out of 10 (European Commission and light industry data 2007-8)
Banning what people want gives the supposed savings – no point in banning an impopular product!
If new LED lights – or improved CFLs etc – are good,
people will buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (little point).
If they are not good, people will not buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (no point).
The arrival of the transistor didn’t mean that more energy using radio valves/tubes were banned… they were bought less anyway.
The need to save energy?
Advice is good and welcome, but bans are another matter…
people -not politicians – pay for energy and how they wish to use it.
There is no energy shortage – on the contrary, more and more renewable sources are being developed -
and if there was an energy shortage, the price rise would lead to more demand for efficient products – no need to legislate for it.
Supposed savings don’t hold up anyway, for many reasons:
http://www.ceolas.net/#li13x
onwards
about CFL brightness, lifespan, power factor, lifecycle, heat effect of ordinary bulbs, and other referenced research
Brief examples
Effect on Electricity Bills
If energy use does indeed fall with light bulb and other proposed efficiency bans,
electricity companies make less money,
and they’ll simply push up the electricity bills to compensate (fixed overheads remain even if less fuel is used)
especially since power companies often have their own grids with little supply competition.
Energy regulators can hardly deny any such cost covering exercise…
- in which case money savings affected
Conversely:
Since energy efficiency in effect means cheaper energy,
people simply leave appliances on more than before This has actually been shown by Scottish and Cambridge research, as linked on the website
(in the case of CFLs they’re supposed to be left on more anyway, to avoid cutting down on their lifespan)
- in which case energy savings affected
The fact that they are not as bright as stated is another reason against supposed savings
See comparison test
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6110547/Energy-saving-light-bulbs-offer-dim-future.html
Also, since lifespan is lab tested in 3 hour cycles, any increased on-off switching reduces it, as does (as said) leaving the lights on to combat it.
More:
CFLs typically have a “power factor” of 0.5
Power companies therefore typically need to generate more than twice as as much power
than what your electricity meter – or CFL rating – shows, taking everything into consideration.
Of course you end up having to pay for this anyway, in electricity charges being higher than they otherwise would have been.
Without going into technicalities, this has to do with current and voltage phase differences set up when CFLs are used.
There is nothing new or strange about this
Industries are today penalized if they present such a work load to the power station.
Emissions?
Does a light bulb give out any gases?
Power stations might not either:
Why should emission-free households be denied the use of lighting they obviously want to use?
Low emission households already dominate some regions, and will increase everywhere, since emissions will be reduced anyway through the planned use of coal/gas processing technology and/or energy substitution.
Direct ways to deal with emissions (for all else they contain too, whatever about CO2):
http://www.ceolas.net/#cc10x
The Taxation alternative
A ban on light bulbs is extraordinary, in being on a product safe to use.
We are not talking about banning lead paint here.
This is simply a ban to reduce electricity consumption.
Even for those who remain pro-ban, taxation to reduce the consumption would be fairer and make more sense, also since governments can use the income to reduce emissions (home insulation schemes, renewable projects etc) more than any remaining product use causes such problems.
A few euros/dollars tax that reduces the current sales (EU like the USA 2 billion sales per annum, UK 250-300 million pa)
raises future billions, and would retain consumer choice.
It could also be revenue neutral, lowering any sales tax on efficient products.
When sufficent low emission electricity delivery is in place, the ban can be lifted
http://www.ceolas.net/LightBulbTax.html
Taxation is itself unjustified, it is simply a better alternative for all concerned than bans.
Of course an EU ban is underway, but in phases, supposedly with reviews in a couple of years time…
maybe the debate in USA and Canada will be affected by the issues being raised over here?
10:08 AM
I’m not sure sending your CFLs to those places is such a bright idea as they are potentially toxic should they break in transit.
11:10 AM
More unintended consequences caused by the rigid zeal of environmentalism; If you raise concerns or disagree with their ideas they brand you as a polluter or as being captured by corporate interests. Mention nuclear power as a clean and safe alternative and you get a litany of practiced talking points.
.-= vulcanhammer´s last blog ..Now a trade war with China. Great. =-.
1:26 PM
Thanks Harrison
I hope you keep at your politicians more than we did with ours…
I – like many others here – learned too late of this light bulb ban, which in practice was decided 2008, and our arguments now are rather pointless, also because the EU is governed so undemocratically and remotely.
So I am hoping to influence American and Canadian debate with what I found out.
Sure, bans have been decided there too…
but it would be more easy to adapt the legislation there,
at least to (say) taxation,
compared to changes our unwieldy 27 country joint-rule.
In short, give ‘em hell
1:50 PM
In which country do you live? Liberals are the same everywhere but maybe in the EU they have more power because of parlimentary systems.
2:02 PM
As you probably see from the site, in Ireland
Problem is it’s a centralized decision initiated by the Old Soviet sounding “Ecodesign Committee” in Belgium, but also agreed by 27 energy ministers of the countries, so it takes time to unravel
- not that they want to unravel it anyway, but supposedly there’s a “review of the phase out process ” in a few years time, for what that is worth.
Also, since they’re always looking at what you folks do,
if in USA, Canada politicians start to have doubts, that might influence them.
Everyone can of course stock up on the bulbs etc, in a way that’s not the issue…
I am just amazed, what a dumb ban it is in itself – whichever way you look at it!
6:23 PM
I was on my mobile earlier and couldn’t easily look at your website. I know the bureaucrats in Brussels got “upset” with Ireland when you didn’t approve the last EU resolution. I think Ireland was the only country to allow citizens to vote for themselves on it. In my opinion, a unified economic market is wise for Europe but they have gone too far turning Europe into a bad version of the United States of Europe.
11:56 AM
Hans
yes the light bulb ban is good news for Philips…
about the unpublicised industrial politics behind the ban
http://www.ceolas.net/#li1ax