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Post by hrizzo on Jan 30, 2012 11:18:05 GMT
curiosgeorge:
May I translate your scientific discovery report into Spanish and publish it in Facebook and/or my blog, with due link to this page and recognition of your authoring rights?
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Post by curiousgeorge on Jan 30, 2012 12:52:37 GMT
curiosgeorge: May I translate your scientific discovery report into Spanish and publish it in Facebook and/or my blog, with due link to this page and recognition of your authoring rights? It's in the public domain. No IP issues apply. Go for it.
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Post by steve on Jan 30, 2012 13:57:45 GMT
I fitted all brand new CFLs when I bought my house 8 years ago. So far, I've replaced one - and no I don't sit in the dark trying to save the planet. My hall and landing lights are on all evening and usually non-stop if I am away.
This time of year my house is often 10-15C inside. Even so, the slowest bulb warms up in about 2 minutes, so it's not a big issue.
My heating is gas which is quarter of the cost of electricity, so there is no benefit in heating my house with bulbs!
I have a CFL in my outside lamp and it's been fine down to -5C or so, though I imagine North Dakota gets a bit colder than Devon.
I strongly believe that the risk of injury from more frequent changing of incandescent bulbs will far outweigh the risk of breaking each CFL you have to change and sprinkling the mercury on your breakfast cereal. Don't tell my grandmother that I'm testing my theory on her.
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Post by numerouno on Jan 30, 2012 15:30:16 GMT
This time of year my house is often 10-15C inside
Reminds me of one of my past British teacher's kids, who did want want to go to the UK for Christmas as "it was always so cold there" ...
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Post by curiousgeorge on Jan 30, 2012 17:22:00 GMT
I strongly believe that the risk of injury from more frequent changing of incandescent bulbs will far outweigh the risk of breaking each CFL you have to change and sprinkling the mercury on your breakfast cereal. Don't tell my grandmother that I'm testing my theory on her. Well, I won't question your beliefs. But I will point out that I've been changing bulbs for over 50 years, and I have yet to be injured. And I don't know anyone else that has been injured either.
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Post by numerouno on Jan 30, 2012 17:29:13 GMT
Curiousgeorge there is the mechanism in place. Myself, I could have been hurt by the exploding glass bulb and shards several times had I not been very careful. Old folks on shaky ladders -- where's the statistics?
For LED lamps, there seems to be a steady recall action on inferior quality lamps that do not meet the high voltage safety gap regulations, esp. regarding their metal cooling fins.
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Post by curiousgeorge on Jan 30, 2012 19:00:42 GMT
Curiousgeorge there is the mechanism in place. Myself, I could have been hurt by the exploding glass bulb and shards several times had I not been very careful. Old folks on shaky ladders -- where's the statistics? For LED lamps, there seems to be a steady recall action on inferior quality lamps that do not meet the high voltage safety gap regulations, esp. regarding their metal cooling fins. Getting out of bed in the morning can also be hazardous. Does that mean the Government should regulate the type of bed and how high it can be? The point here is that we don't need, or want, the govt to regulate every miniscule part of our lives. Or at least I, and several hundred million other people, don't.
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Post by hrizzo on Jan 30, 2012 19:09:02 GMT
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Post by curiousgeorge on Jan 30, 2012 19:20:16 GMT
I don't speak Spanish, but I think the question is whether Spaniards like it. You folks have had a lot of problems in the past few years - economic, employment, etc. I hope you can get back on your feet.
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Post by hector on Jan 30, 2012 22:00:02 GMT
hector: 1. I need to heat my house approx 75% of the year. 2. My daughter suffers from SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder. I have to have full spectrum lighting. 3. I keep reciepts. However, with that said, I have not used that often. The lifespan of the CFL's that I currently use is approx 1.3 times the lifespan of an incandesent. 4. I use heating fuel, as I live in a rural area and ch4 is not available. I had used elec, as that is more efficient, but the increased costs of pollution control required the rates to rise where it is no longer affordable. 5. Mercury emissions from coal plants are very small. At least in the USA. 6. I keep the house fairly cool in the winter. The start up time on the CFL's is a pain, and they deff do not do well outdoors. I am not happy with the life of the bulbs, the start up times etc. I plan on switching to LED's if I can find full spectrum LED's. At this time I have not yet found those, so will continue with the CFL's just because they use less energy. Whether they actually pay is doubtful because of the heat by other sources to overcome the loss from non use of the incandensent. Sigurdur, Hi. Hope your Monday is treating you well. 1. Yes, ND is a cold state. I looked it up and it looks like your state would require heating about 7 months of the year for a reasonably built house, maybe 4 or 5 months with a well-built house, and 3 months a year with a well-designed house. (feel free to adjust numbers for your definitions of comfort, reasonable, and well-built) Given that, your estimate of 75% heating seems reasonable. That doesn't change the calculations much from my original guess of 50%. 2. LED lights come in pretty much any spectrum. All you have to do is Google SAD to find full-spectrum LED lights for SAD. Here's a random one: www.mtsmedicalsupply.com/LiteBook-Elite/1352/LB2000/It says your daughter would benefit from 30 minutes of full-spectrum light a day. I think you're going overboard by seeking to use SAD lamps for general lighting, but it isn't a cut-and-dried issue. Maybe it's true that all lights should be full-spectrum. 3. I'm impressed that you can remember changing bulbs so well to come up with a 1.3 longevity factor! CFL longevity depends on a lot of factors - brand, model, version (things get better so the bulbs you buy today are probably going to last longer than the one you are replacing, making your 1.3 factor 1.4 years out of date), usage habits, and environment. Porch lights often get vibrated, cold, hot, and are usually built upside-down from the bulb's point of view. Bathroom lights get turned on and off frequently. 4. Switched to fuel oil recently? That doesn't sound well-thought-out. Did you look into ground-source heat pumps? 5. Yes, mercury emissions from power plants are small. However, mercury emissions from broken CFLs are even smaller. As my previous post stated, eating a tuna sandwich gives you a bigger dose of a more harmful type of mercury than you'd get from doing a bad job of cleaning up a broken CFL. 6. Yes, CFLs are an obsolete technology and have problems. Your actions show that you have decided that they're better than the even more obsolete incandescent, though it sounds like it was a close call for you. Fortunately, this is a very transient issue. LEDs improve via Moore's Law. LEDs are cost competitive now except for the fact that LEDs will cost less in the future, making them a depreciating asset. In 2-3 years there will be no economic, environmental, or quality reason to buy anything but LEDs for most uses. (Except for poverty, which can make the initial investment in a bulb greater than the poor can make. The poor might have to wait 5 years.
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Post by sigurdur on Jan 30, 2012 22:33:26 GMT
Hector: Thank you for that link. That one has not appeared in any of my searches. I will have to check and see if they are actually full spectrum. There are a lot of claims out there, but upon careful examination, the claim is bogus. Most folks wouldn't know......I do as have observed the reaction to full spectrum that my daughter has exibited. I know the lit says 30 mins a day......that doesn't cut it tho. Once I switched the whole house......that made a HUGE difference. She may be a dramatic case, I don't know. I just know what the results have been.
As far as the 1.3....well....claims made so I would mark the light change on the calander. It really was a wash as to whether it was economical, considering the waste heat output that was actually used.
It is like buying a hot water heater. I use elec..no sense buying one super insulated as the "waste heat" generated is a welcome addition.
As far as home construction. Even the newest and best houses in my area require heating approx 75% of the year. I am talking ones built with windows etc designed to capture all possable passive solar heat. We have too many cloudy days in the winter, just a fact of life.
I didn't switch to fuel per se. I was on off peak elec, and the fuel oil furnace was the backup. At the time I changed the whole heating system, I bought the fuel oil furnace. It is approx 88% efficient, as I bought the best one I could at the time.
I hate spending money.....LOL.
I agree that the newer CFL's seem to be a better bulb than the older ones. I was very disappointed after the initial change over at the rate of bulb failure. When we learned of the SAD diagnosis tho, it wasn't so bad as they were burning out fast enough that we just switched the few left to rooms my daughter does not spend much time in.
I am an early adopter of tech when it is a feasable replacement. From what I have read, it looks like LED are approx 12 months away from being feasable. Not so much the cost factor, as the realiability factor has to be considered.
Thank you for the nice exchange of costs etc.
Good luck to you and your family.
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Post by sigurdur on Jan 30, 2012 22:41:22 GMT
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Post by hector on Jan 31, 2012 0:05:43 GMT
$1.64 in climate control ;D ;D ;D CFL's are junk in my experience. Your glowing accolades for them are not based on reality for most people I know. My barn ceiling is 14 ft. I have grown tired of replacing those damned CFL's. Virtually none of them have lasted two years in the house, far less in the barn or any outdoor use. The porch lights have been replaced too many times to count, plus when I turn on the porch light I expect to actually see within a few seconds, not wait for a warmup period. Having been at this location for over 20 years, there is no way you're ever going to convince me the lifespan of a CFL is longer than an incandescent. I've tried every brand on the market. None of the CFL's are worth teets on a boar hog. Since incandescent bulbs transferred to China for production, they too are junk. Out of two packs I bought recently, 1 in each pack was defective, and they don't last. So this summer, I was at Menards and bought some good heavy duty incandescent bulbs made in the USA for the barn and porch. The brand is Aero-TECH. They are BRIGHT, don't break easy and thus far have outlasted every CFL....yes, six months. They are rated at 20,000 hrs MTBF. Next is your claim that a CFL, despite the mercury in them, is somehow emitting less mercury than an incandescent because of "burning coal". Such claims have zero hard data to back that up; it is just a math game. I'm sure the Chinese standards at their CFL production facilities are just as good as any of their standards for workers and pollution. Sure, when pigs fly. As with many, I've had two or three CFL's literally blow up, but you failed to mention that little problem. That happening in the barn is a very real fire hazard; another reason why I abandoned them. Finally, you did not state the number of hours used to calculate the "savings" of a CFL. Depending on how many hours per day the light is used will greatly affect the total cost. So what's your take on the Chevy Volt? Magellan, 1. "$1.64 in climate control ;D ;D ;D" Your smileys make no sense. That a CFL increases the need for alternative sources of heat and reduces the need for AC (when compared to incandescent bulbs) has no resemblance to a joke or error. Care to explain? 2. My guess is that you didn't get cold-start CFLs for the barn or porch. Getting CFLs for a barn seems unwise. Why not get a real fluorescent fixture? Even better, go LED for exterior. 3. On longevity, please re-read the posts. All of my posts went on the assumption that CFLs last the same time as an incandescent. Your claim that I tried to convince you that CFLs last longer is just plain wrong. Sigurdur and others have done so. The published data says so as well, but please, in the future, try to actually read my posts. You should have said, "Yes, I agree with your assumption that CFLs last as long as a standard incandescent." 4. Your choice to go with a heavy duty incandescent for exterior use is reasonable. It gives you light for a year or two, at which time you should buy modern LED bulbs. CFLs are best when used at room temperature. 5. Here you go off the rails again. Instead of claiming that there's "zero hard data" about power plant mercury emissions, just Google it. "The Environmental Protection Agency reports that U.S. electric utilities released 48 tons of mercury in 1999, the latest year for which data are available. This comprises about 40 percent of manmade mercury emissions in the U.S." www.mercuryanswers.org/plants.htm40% of all emissions is a huge percentage and shows your "zero hard data" claim to be bogus. In the age of the internet, spouting obvious garbage just reflects poorly on yourself as anybody can and will Google "CFL mercury" and find out that you're spreading disinformation. Stop it. 6. Yes, Chinese factories are not under EPA regulations and as usually happens with unbridled capitalism, worker safety and environmental effects are given little regard by many corporations. Obviously from your comment you are (if you're consistent, but that might be a stretch) a fervent supporter of the EPA and wholeheartedly endorse governmental regulation to reduce industrial pollution. 7. Your claims that you've never had a CFL last 6 months and that 2-3 have exploded shows that either you're the unluckiest CFL owner in the world, you're lying, you're mistaken, or you spend your time throwing rocks at your CFLs. Perhaps your house is so poorly wired that you get frequent voltage surges. Your claim that such experience is at least somewhat the norm ("As with many") is patently false. Posting outrageous stuff without citation just reflects on yourself. Folks will just Google and see that you're full of it. "The EPA says its records show the risk of a bulb exploding is extremely rare. And in most cases it has investigated, the bulb had been damaged at some point, such as having been dropped on the floor. According to the EPA, it's almost impossible for a CFL bulb to start a fire, as all UL approved bulbs have a safety shutoff fuse in the base. If the glass breaks, the fuse cuts out, and there no more current goes into the bulb." www.nbcactionnews.com/dpp/money/consumer/dont_waste_your_money/cfl-light-bulb-risks#ixzz1kz5r8J5zNote that explosions are "extremely rare", caused mostly by "bulb dropping", and THERE IS NO FIRE RISK! Thus, my not mentioning this extremely rare non-dangerous event is reasonable and your bringing it up and falsely attributing grave danger to it is unreasonable. 8. You claim that I didn't mention hours/day use of CFLs. Go back and read my post. I mentioned low-hours applications like closets, number of starts affecting the life of the bulb, and gave an exact number, 3 hours per day, for the calculations. Yes, you missed all that. Makes me wonder how accurate your non-cited claims are - well, not really, as I Googled and found out that they're pretty much all bunk. So, you're totally wrong on pretty much every one of your claims. Either admit it or post something substantiating your claims of less-than-CFL (or unknown) levels of mercury emissions from power plants, 100% failure rates of CFLs within 6 months, CFL fire hazards (here, you should link to perhaps 5 cases of CFL-induced fires), etc. Feel free to answer my points line by line. 9. The Volt? An interesting science experiment, but it gets lousy gas mileage. The Volt is rated at 37MPG using gas and an even worse 34MPGe using electricity. (Explanation: the EPA numbers leave out the inefficiency of electrical generation and transmission and the CAFE numbers introduce a 1/0.5 incentive factor. Backing out these lies, and the Volt is rated at 34MPGe.) The money? Taxpayers spent >$2billion funding suppliers and other research, news.yahoo.com/chevy-volt-gets-caught-washington-crossfire-174401452.htmlGM spent $750million, green.autoblog.com/2008/12/09/chevy-volt-will-cost-gm-750-milllion/and GM is getting $1.9billion in subsidies. ($7500 rebate* ~250k qualifying cars). Yes, when Corporate America gets involved, your tax dollars are often wasted (remember Solyndra?), and GM slurps up 250% of its actual costs. GM paid NEGATIVE $1.15 billion to develop the Volt! I think MIT and other universities could have done a better job of developing a new drivetrain. If MIT et al had done the work, we'd probably end up with a car that got better than 35MPG and we the people would own it. We could then license the technology to GM and others and perhaps make money on the work. What do you think? Should we give away money to Corporate America (Volt), loan them money at our risk (Solyndra), invest in ourselves through our universities, or simply not bother and risk the rest of the world eating our technological lunch? Does anybody here think it was a good idea to give US taxpayer dollars to foreign corporations like Toyota and Nissan to develop their Pruis and Leaf?
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Post by hector on Jan 31, 2012 0:39:12 GMT
Good for you! You're doing the right thing for the planet, the country, and humanity. However, just to be a snit, let's play with some more fancy math. Assume you buy a $47 LED today while I buy a $0.53 incandescent. My incandescent lasts 1.4 years. I then buy an LED for $30 (the cost will come down according to Moore's Law). I spent $0.53 + $30 + $14.90 = $45.43, while you spent $47 + $3.70 + $3.95 in interest + $1.64 in climate control = $56.29. I save $10.86 and also end up with a 1.4 year newer LED than yours. Glad you like to live in a police state I do not. Maybe the government is smarter than you are but I doubt it. I hope that you do not enjoy power over others it can be very destructive to everyone. Nice baseless insult. You owe me an apology. My suggestion was to buy your choice of incandescent, CFL, or LED now and switch over to LEDs as the price plummets and LEDs become the sole logical choice. Either logically link that to liking police states or be a real man and apologize. I guess we'll see if you're a real man, or just deserving of insults such as those you so freely toss around. (here's some help - in a previous post I did mention that the efficiency regulations would save money, but did not support them or denigrate them. Perhaps noting an economic fact/opinion is disallowed in your Ideal World. Maybe you love police states!) Oh, and let's be sure to get your opinion. Should there be any safety regulations for any product? Any efficiency regulations? Any pollution regulations? If you think not, you'd love it in China. They generally only implement such things when forced by world opinion. And note that even with the regulations, you can legally buy incandescent bulbs for every application. They just have to be reasonably efficient, as defined by your democratically-elected representatives, as halogen incandescent bulbs are. Perhaps you just hate democracy and the power it gives to the people as a whole to regulate commerce. Are you an anarchist?
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Post by hector on Jan 31, 2012 1:11:24 GMT
Not mentioned is that CFL's lose their brightness over time. Ever notice that? Not a problem when you're saving the planet I suppose. A fact! Good for you!!! Since it is your point, I'll let you figure out for us how significant it is. Over the first six months of a CFL's life (using your definitions), or first 1.4 years (using sigurdur's), how much degradation occurs, and over that .5 to 1.4 years, what is the reduction in total lifetime average light output? So, post something robust and leave the snarks at home. Do the math and determine if your point is significant. Assuming it is significant, I propose that CFLs should be rated by real-world full-lifetime average output. A couple other changes - CFLs should be recycled. Deposits, requiring retailers to accept bulbs back, and notes on the package reminding consumers to recycle are possible techniques to help - I do not specifically endorse or denigrate any of these. The package should contain a warning that uses a common everyday risk as a comparison, "CAUTION: If you break this bulb and do not follow proper cleanup procedures, you may receive a mercury dose equivalent to eating a tuna sandwich". The ratings on the package should include output VS temperature and note other data like cold weather startup and warmup times. As you wisely (though indirectly) point out, without government regulation, corporations will not attempt to educate and serve their customers except when it serves the corporation's profit margin. Yep, facts about CFLs should be fully documented on the package. There. Problem solved.
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