POCO's Rock the Bulb

[tom baker]

Our local POCO, is giving away thousands of CFL lamps in their Rock the Bulb event. I went to one where I turned in ten incandescent lamps and got my choice of 10 CLFs in 6 styles.
"Rock the Bulb has distributed more than 182,000 energy-saving CFL bulbs to PSE residential electric customers so far! Installed, these bulbs represent over 42 million kWh of electricity saved, over $7.8 million saved on energy bills, and greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking over 3,800 cars off the road for a year" (From PSE)

The CFLs being given our are good quality. At our local Home Store, there were about 1300 who showed up for the exchange.

And for those of you who are concerned about mercury in CFLs, a recent article in the IES LD+A Journal (thats the lighting association magazine) states the amount of mercury you are exposed to from a broken CFL lamp is equal to a nibble of a tuna fish sandwich.
I have asked the author of that article to allow it to be sent out as a mike holt newsletter.

 

[Jim W in Tampa]

Not sure if its ever lowered my bill by much but all of ours have been changed out for years. Looking into LED but they dont seem to give much light.

 

[Doug S.]

Looking into LED but they dont seem to give much light.

I bought a 3, $30 worth, on sale. I am NOT impressed with the light output. I'm not sure if it's just because the are cheapees?

However one is in my little one's "desk light" that functions as a night light. We had been using the little 7.5 watters, but they would burn out every 6mo from being left on for days... Now I'm pulling 1.5 watts, cheap and has lasted a while. Another year and a half and it will have payed for it self. =)
I also have one in my reading lamp, the usage is minimal, but it's just the right amount of light to read at night. The 3rd is awaiting a mate ( par 30 type ) to replace the "over-night" lights in the kitchen cans.

So basically I think they're great night lights... :roll:

Doug S.

 

[tom baker]

I had 150 incandescent s in my basement recessed fixtures, put in 23 W CFL, and the same amount of lumens.
For my living room I use 3 ways CFLs
Bedroom 11 watt CFLs in my bed side lights.
Only complaint I have is the R-20 replacements take a while to come up to full output.

 

[magictolight.com]

And for those of you who are concerned about mercury in CFLs, a recent article in the IES LD+A Journal (thats the lighting association magazine) states the amount of mercury you are exposed to from a broken CFL lamp is equal to a nibble of a tuna fish sandwich.
I have asked the author of that article to allow it to be sent out as a mike holt newsletter.

That doesn't sound to scientific! I can't imagine a lighting association magazine, which I'm sure has many advertisers who sell cfl's, promising everybody they are just the greatest thing in the world and have almost zero pollutant value. I have a neighbor who drives an electric car with the words "zero pollution, all electric vehicle". The funny thing is you have to charge the car, change the tires, change the batteries, etc. Everybody is playing their own angle!

 

[jdsmith]

That doesn't sound to scientific! I can't imagine a lighting association magazine, which I'm sure has many advertisers who sell cfl's, promising everybody they are just the greatest thing in the world and have almost zero pollutant value. I have a neighbor who drives an electric car with the words "zero pollution, all electric vehicle". The funny thing is you have to charge the car, change the tires, change the batteries, etc. Everybody is playing their own angle!

It's a pretty good publication and I don't recall seeing many ads for CFL's - mostly high dollar fixtures and LED lighting offerings. Many of the articles are well-written and do include numbers and calculations, but if Tom would have posted some number of milligrams of mercury we have no idea if that's a little or a lot - real life analogies are usually helpful.

Tom, which issue of the LD+A Journal has this article? I have a few issues of all of my subscriptions sitting in a 2 ft high pile on my desk right now, I'll have to dig through and find this one.

 

[brian john]

I had 150 incandescent s in my basement recessed fixtures, put in 23 W CFL, and the same amount of lumens.
For my living room I use 3 ways CFLs
Bedroom 11 watt CFLs in my bed side lights.
Only complaint I have is the R-20 replacements take a while to come up to full output.

And they do not last as long as promised.

 

[LarryFine]

I have a neighbor who drives an electric car with the words "zero pollution, all electric vehicle". The funny thing is you have to charge the car . . .

That's so true. People forget that the electricity still has to be generated somewhere.

It should say "Zero pollution at the moment."

 

[Pierre C Belarge]

I read somewhere not too long ago that the POCOs are now starting to state that the vast number of CFL lamps being installed in dwellings are beginning to cause issues for them. I will try to relocate the article.

 

[LarryFine]

Only complaint I have is the R-20 replacements take a while to come up to full output.

A good burn-in period helps with that a bit.

 

[Speedskater]

Just received the October 2009 issue of that popular non-commercial product testing magazine. It had a 3 page test of CFL lamps. They with outside help developed a test for mercury content, some had less than 1mg.

 

[e57]

And for those of you who are concerned about mercury in CFLs, a recent article in the IES LD+A Journal (thats the lighting association magazine) states the amount of mercury you are exposed to from a broken CFL lamp is equal to a nibble of a tuna fish sandwich.
I have asked the author of that article to allow it to be sent out as a mike holt newsletter.

I challenge the writer of that tripe to EAT a CFL! Or in the very least do some research so he can back up that with some facts...

Go get a FRESH NEW CFL or T-8 give it a shake. (listen) Find an area where the powder isn't covering the view of inside - and LOOK!

I can not see the mercury in my lunch...

 

[e57]

Thats it - the next time I see a mythbuster - I'm gonna hold them down for this one.... "CFL - less mercury than tuna"

 

[LarryFine]

Go get a FRESH NEW CFL or T-8 give it a shake. (listen)

I just tried that with a fresh new can of tuna; it sloshes like crazy.

 

[winnie]

Using rough average numbers from a couple of US Govt sites ( http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/advice/1-meal-per-week.pdf http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf) I estimate that one average CFL has about the same amount of mercury as 8 kilos of average fish.

-Jon

 

[Besoeker]

That's so true. People forget that the electricity still has to be generated somewhere.

It should say "Zero pollution at the moment."

Or "Zero pollution at point of use"?
I suppose I ought to promote EVs - we make motors and controllers for them.
But, until the constraints of range and recharge time are resolved, I don't see them becoming main stream.

On CFLs.
We were given one when we changed energy supplier about three years ago. I put it in one of the fittings in our upstairs hallway. There is no direct natural light so it stays on more or less permanently and it has probably clocked up >20,000 hours thus far. We have a number of others elsewhere and not experienced any failures to date.

 

[Jim W in Tampa]

I do find that i change far fewer lamps. That alone makes them winners. Also a savings we might overlook is less heat.

 

[e57]

I just tried that with a fresh new can of tuna; it sloshes like crazy.

I just got done whiping off the screen...:roll::grin::grin::grin:

 

[e57]

~the amount of mercury you are exposed to from a broken CFL lamp is equal to a nibble of a tuna fish sandwich.

Lets start by saying that statement by itself is - stupid. The amount of mercury in a CFL is much HIGHER than in your tuna sandwich. And the amounts of other toxic or hazardous crap it too - the least of which being glass!

Don't eat a CFL....

I did however look into the origin of this statement - and find it to be pure greenbean propaganda - much of which the results are still out on, and practically unprovable.

I found an article equally greenbean - but goes into a quick synopsis of the thinking on it....

Which is worse for you, a can of tuna or a broken CFL bulb? Sorry, Charlie… image by Dave Lifson

A paper expected to be published in the August issue of the lighting industry journal, LD+A, may quiet some of the controversy over the dangers of mercury in compact fluorescent lights (CFL). I’ve argued in this blog that the cut in mercury emissions from power plants due to the electricity saved when traditional incandescent bulbs are replaced with CFLs, greatly outweighs the amount of mercury that could escape from broken CFLs, plus what is emitted during the making and transportation of CFLs. But the paper, by Robert Clear, Francis Rubinstein, and Jack Howells, who do research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), goes a step farther by showing that even a person who breaks a lamp is more at risk from mercury in the environment than from the mercury in the lamp itself.

The researchers point out that there is a distinction between the kind of mercury that you are exposed to from broken CFLs—elemental mercury—and the mercury emitted from power plant smokestacks after it finds it’s way into waterways and oceans, where it becomes methyl mercury. Methyl mercury accumulates all up the food chain, so that large fish like tuna can contain a lot of it. Methyl mercury crosses the blood-brain barrier and passes through a pregnant woman’s placenta to her fetus. Methyl mercury is responsible for developmental problems, while elemental mercury, which is inhaled, appears to be more of a hazard for adults and children, and only then in the case of severe or prolonged exposures. In most mild cases, when the elemental mercury exposure ends, the bad effects diminish and go away. This is unfortunately not true for the developmental problems caused by methyl mercury.

The startling conclusion of the paper is that in a worse case scenario—you break a CFL in a closed, unventilated room; you vacuum the carpet, throwing mercury into the air; you set the vacuum in a corner; and then sit in the room breathing for eight hours—the amount of mercury exposure is about equivalent to the exposure you’d get from eating a can of Albacore tuna.

Eating a can of tuna has positive health effects as well as the negative health effects from the mercury. There are no positive health effects from a broken CFL, and you can reduce your exposure. The researchers suggest that in the case of a broken CFL, you should immediately open a nearby window. You can limit contamination by gathering up the large pieces of the broken bulb into a bag and set the bag outside. The room should then be left to air out for an hour or so. If the lamp broke on a carpet you can vacuum, but it should be done quickly while the room is being ventilated, the vacuum cleaner should be removed to an outside area, and again the room should be left vacated for an hour or so. Once the vacuum cleaner has cooled, you can empty the contents of the vacuum cleaner bag into the bag with the broken bulb. Take the bag to your nearest recycling center.

What these people have done IMO is not count for people who fail to clean up properly after a break - handle it with bare hands and a dust broom, and also just chuck these things in the trash. (Which in my neck of the woods gets blown all over the street on trash night.) As well as not all people eat tuna, or other fish on a regular basis, and some not at all.

Anyway I see no proven facts in the analogy - nor do I agree with it.

Wanna save mother earth with a quicker easier fix that would be much more energy saving than making us all live in flickering blue light..... BAN STREET LIGHTS! The energy savings would be HUGE - we would get to see the milky way again, and we could all get to work taking them down ASAP. (And of course all those motion sensors we would install...)

Let's go purchase a Congressman....

 

[Besoeker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Mercury_emissions

In the population at large, the consumption of fish is by far the most significant source of ingestion-related mercury exposure in humans