The United States has dropped its opposition to an international treaty limiting mercury emissions, prompting agreement by over 140 nations to negotiate such a treaty.
Formal negotiations will begin late this year, and U.N. officials hope to conclude the talks by 2013. The White House issued a statement saying a future treaty would use "a combination of legally binding and voluntary commitments" to cut mercury emissions from industrial processes as well as coal-fired power plants and small-scale mining. . . .
A range of industrial activities, including the production of chlorine and the burning of coal, release mercury, which then falls to the earth and the sea in precipitation. The neurotoxin accumulates in fish and marine mammals in the form of methylmercury, which poses a threat to humans when consumed.
While the majority of mercury exposure in the United States stems from non-domestic emissions, all 50 states have issued mercury contamination advisories for fish in their waters. Marine mammals eaten by native Arctic peoples, such as pilot and beluga whales, have mercury concentrations that exceed recommended levels.
Actually, for an electrical grid such as the US one where 50% of the power comes from coal, the reduction in power usage actually saves much more mercury from being released into the atmosphere than the content of the bulb. Even if you dispose of your CFLs by incinerating them in a 5000F furnace to ensure that all the mercury gets aerosolized, you still come out ahead (and you come out a factor of 4 ahead if you dispose of the bulb properly).
Now, if we got 50% of our power from nuclear and 20% from coal, instead of the other way around ....
Other than breaking them, which you shouldn't do to begin with because they cost too much to waste, how exactly does that release mercury? Sure, some presumably gets "lost" during manufacture, but it seems like putting mercury inside a light bulb contains the mercury - the opposite of releasing mercury.
How about when I throw them in the garbage when they wear out and the truck compacts them?
Exactly. I can't tell you how thrilled I am that I now will have to bring such a serious contaminant into my home and into a landfill near me.
Or is your opposition to using less energy based solely on the fact that it's what Al Gore wants?
(Disclosure: My only qualm about LED bulbs lies in the fact that I don't know much about what color light they emit. I'm an amateur astronomer, and CFL bulbs run towards the blue end of the spectrum, washing out starlight. Proper baffling of the lights helps, of course, but it's still an issue. Sodium halide bulbs run yellower, but I don't know what their energy usage curve is like. My hope is that LED bulbs can be developed which emit light that is closer to sunlight.)
Not at all. However, now that you have brought up Al Gore, when is he going to quit flying in his private jet, using a limousine, heating his pool to the tune of 500.00 a month and consuming electricity at a rate far exceeding the rate of the average family? When he gets on a bicycle, which he could really, really use, then I'll believe we really have a problem. Also, when temperatures start going up instead of dropping as they have for the last two years.
Ice Age, anyone?
Here is an idea, let people use the kind of bulbs they like.
If yes, can you explain why you think a policy to encourage more efficient lighting is a bad idea? These lights are more efficient and thus their use in place of traditional incandescents would lower mercury emissions.
If no, can you explain why not?
I was not being snarky when I asked about LED lights for standard lamps etc.
I want to know if they exist. I really don't like the idea of mercury in my light bulbs or the bulbs in the landfill. And, even though I think global warming, based on the current science, is a crock, I do want to save electricity.
Can you get them to fit standard fixtures?
I never claimed that the use of any kind of bulb should be mandated. I simply came up with an idea that avoided the mercury issue that Mc and Bob From Ohio raised.
Some kooks may have suggested it but that was it. I don't think light bulb mandates is a Holocaust prelude, just stupid.
I was just being a bit snarky though I do think most people just discard them like any other garbage which advocates just ignore. No one is going to take one or two bulbs to a special disposal site.
CFLs are fine but they are the 8 tracks of lower energy bulbs. In 10 years more or less, LEDs will replace them once the spectrum issues are worked out. LEDs use so much less electricity than CFLs that they are the long term solution.
http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/index.aspx
From the information given, I believe that they do fit standard sockets.
Thank you, I †hink. I will go to that web site.
You're right, and that's obvious, but I guess I was looking at the CFLs in the same way as car batteries. Car batteries contain lots of lead, which is a nice and nasty pollutant - so we've got a system for disposing them that doesn't include throw them in the garbage and let the truck squeeze all the nice lead juice out. So, properly handled, the lead in a car battery's more or less a non-issue. I was thinking of CFLs in the same terms.
First, it is not a policy to encourage more efficient lighting. It is a government mandated ban on incandescent bulbs.
Congress and the president banned incandescent light bulbs last month.
Second, In addition to the mercury pollution problem these bulbs have other problems.
ENERGY saving light bulbs can trigger migraines, UK health experts have warned.
Normally this would not be an issue because consumers would have the freedom to choose the type of light bulb they wanted.
In this case that choice has been take away by arrogant green activists and corporate rent seekers.
A win win for this baptist and bootlegger coalition.
The corporations get to force consumers to buy their expensive, inferior product. The green activist get to control consumers right down to the level of mandating what type of light bulb they use.
You need to be a lot more concerned about unintended consequences and environmental damage caused by poorly thought out environmental regulation.
Remember the great push to force high efficiency standards on washing machines? Turns out the results were very bad for the average consumer but very good for the green activists and washing machine manufacturers.
Remember the green activist push for biofuels as a solution to global warming?
No surprise to anyone who is technically and / or environmentally knowledgeable, that did not turn out so well either.
New Studies Identify Change in Land Use Associated with Biofuel Production as Major Contributor of Greenhouse Gases, Far Offsetting Benefits of Most Current Biofuels
Technically ignorant but politically strong environmental activists have caused a vast amount of environmental destruction. They are likely to cause more.
Congress creates the office of "Bulb Czar". First appointment is a hardliner, founder of a CFL / LED lighting company.
SWAT teams around the country raid hundreds of homes daily, arresting thousands for illegal bulb possession. A fledgling movement of epilepsy and migraine suffere has successfully brought citizens initiatives in some states to permit possession and use of incandescent bulbs for medical necessity.
The Bulb Czar announces that the federal government will enforce its prohibition on incandescent bulbs against the patients even if the states do not.
Rival Mexican bulb cartels bring the bulb war to the border, murdering hundreds.
Anti-incandescent bulb "green astroturf" groups, funded by the federal government run prime time ads showing children injured by incandescent bulbs, adults deteriorating to gibbering zombies from using incandescent bulbs, and polar bears dying of heat prostration under glaring (but faked) incandescent lights. The new reality: every time someone switches on an incandescent bulb, a cute cuddly furry polar bear dies somewhere.
But it can't happen here.
Fluorescents work the same way. A low voltage discharge in mercury emits UV light (primarily) which excites the phosphor on the inside of the tube (that powdery white stuff you see when you break one).
In principal you could also combine the light from separate blue, yellow and red LEDs but this is not so much used today, OTOH for some applications like traffic lights where you need a specific color it is better to use colored LEDs
The amount of mercury in any single fluorescent is negligible, however they can be recycled and recycling programs have been set up. Anyone worried about the amount of mercury in a fluorescent should get rid of old style thermostats which have much more mercury.
Perhaps the most meaningful measure of then-Sen. Obama's accomplishment is that the bill passed both chambers of Congress without a single dissenting vote, and was promptly signed into law by the Democrats' arch-nemesis, George W. Bush -- perhaps ironically on the night of the third presidential debate of the 2008 election season, near the end of a campaign season in which not a single damned member of the mainstream media ever conspicuously pressed Sen. Obama on his lack of significant legislative accomplishment, especially on genuinely controversial issues.
Uh that was before the state mandated the use and proliferation of Compact flourescent light bulbs-which are loaded with mercury.
Every single one thrown out will eventually get dumped into our landfills &eventually work its way into our water supply-drink up folks!
On top of direct contamination we'll also get indirect mercury contamination from all the compact flourescent bulb makers in Mexico &China that use sloppy manufacturing techniques or use electricty generated from dirty coal power plants.
Our govt is dumber than a bag of hammers, the first thing they should have done was outlaw compact flourescent bulbs-not one is made in America anyway, then work on eliminating conventional flourescent bulbs, LED bulbs are the future.
Does anybody really recycle these things? No, if they did the cost would be $25/bulb.
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