Anyone moved to LED Lighting?

Ouch! Don't tell me after all the intelligent posts you've made, that you actually buy into that "new math" version of reality? Don, you're breaking my heart!

A few questions as we work through the contention that adding a new vector for mercury distrubution decreases its environmental release.

1) How does that tradeoff work with hydroelectric, nuclear, solar or wind power?

It doesn't.

shows that less than half of the US's energy comes from coal. So the tradeoff only works for half of the US's power plants. For the other half, it represents a new vector for mercury poisoning that didn't exist before the CFL revolution.

2) Why don't we install scrubbers on the few hundred power plants that are the major emitters of mercury instead of relying on Rube Goldberg tradeoffs like distributing mercury in billions of light bulbs?

Because Big Power doesn't want to dig into corporate profits to clean up their power plants when they can convince people that these tradeoffs are workable. The smartest guys in the room also told us that credit default swaps would reduce trading risks. I guess we know how that worked out.

3) Does this tradeoff take into account that light bulbs are mostly used at night, when the generator turbines are running anyway, and would be generating X amount of "baseload" power anyway?

No, all we see are equations that say CFLs use less electricity than tungsten bulbs, so therefore they must result in equally less emissions. If the home lighting load is 7% of the total electrical use, what does a reduction in that small number really amount to? Is it enough to enable plants to shut down a generator? I've never seen the "adding mercury to subtract mercury" theorists ever get into the real mechanics of electricity generation to demonstrate exactly how the process works. I don't think many people are familiar with the "baseload" concept of power generation and why the all the claims of CFLs reducing emissions have to be taken with a large grain of salt:

These plants are on line 24x7 generating power whether anyone uses it or not. I've not seen one CFL "savings equation" take the baseload function into account. Why? Because it would quite obviously show that much of the alleged emission reductions claimed are in people's heads, not at the smoke stacks.

4) Does it take into account the addition of mercury to environments where most of the energy developed is from hydro or nuclear power?

No. CFL bulbs are poised to bring significant mercury pollution issues to areas where there isn't any mercury pollution from nearby coal plants because there AREN'T any nearby coal plants.

5) Does this alleged tradeoff work when you substitute LEDs for tungsten bulbs?

Yes. LEDs provide the same alleged reduction in emissions, and they do it WITHOUT adding mercury to hundreds of thousands of homes in billions of light bulbs. If anyone really cares about the environment, they won't poison it further by using mercury-laced CFL bulbs instead of LEDs.

6) Are CFL bulb makers serious about recycling used bulbs?

Hell no. We have deposit laws for mostly inert glass soda bottles but NOT environmentally hazardous CFL bulbs. Studies estimate that perhaps as few as 10% of all CFL bulbs get recycled.

7) Do people get suckered by quick fixes and miracle cures?

Absolutely. Take a look at the dietary supplement industry. Study after study shows that supplements can actually be quite harmful but folks buy and ingest them by the billion-dollar load. As for quick cures, Congress bought into the TARP, didn't it? Adding mercury to reduce mercury doesn't pass the common sense "sniff" test. And it shouldn't, it's a devil's bargain, one of many we're foisting on the next generation.

8) What happens when power plant smokestacks all get proper scrubbing equipment?

The alleged tradeoff falls flat on its face, leaving us with a gigantic mercury-laced CFL distribution network and nothing to counterbalance it.

The problem with CFLs is that the deeper one delves into this diabolical bargain, the worse things look. The savings are weak to begin with, and they're offset by the potential damage mercury poisoning can do. Sadly, we've shown time and time again that short term gains are considered way ahead of any long term costs. Look at Congress if you doubt that assertion. (-:

The right way to control emissions is by controlling the emitters. Pollutants need to be trapped at the smokestack that creates them, not on the shelves of Wal-Mart through a complex, poorly understood "tradeoff." Like a skilled magician, Big Power has managed to use misdirection to great advantage. Instead of clamoring for them to reduce the poison in their emissions, we've bought into a complex scheme to reduce pollutants by adding them to commonplace consumables.

It's a fool's game, just like Obama's claim that the war in Afghanistan is necessary to deny terrorists a place to plan their next attack. The second worst terrorist attack on the US came from within. Are we going to bomb all the states the Timothy McVeigh lived in so that we prevent other terrorists like him from "having a base of operations?" That would be stupid, but we've apparently bought into the plan, I suspect it's because there aren't too many critical thinkers left in the US press willing to say: "Mr. President, how does attacking Afghanistan prevent Al-Queda from basing its operations in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia or any other spot in the world?"

-- Bobby G.

I would like to see the owners of power companies appear in a big news conference and announce to the country "We have seen the light!" pun intended, "We are going to shut down all of those nasty, polluting, CO2 emitting coal fired power plants in six months. This should give people and industry who receive electricity from coal, time enough to obtain power from other sources. The Democrats and your President are right, coal is a terrible thing to use as fuel and we were greedy. No more, we are shutting down those horrible coal burning power plants to protect all the cute little furry animals, butterflies, flowers and trees for the children. Stopping Global Warming, er, Climate Change and protecting The Environment is the most important thing in the whole world and we must act immediately. We apologise to any industry, hospital, school or other organization including all the individual citizens who may be inconvenienced by the lack of electricity but we all must sacrifice for the greater good. We promise that your government and leaders will not go without electrical power so they may (cough) continue to serve you. God bless America and its people!"

TDD

I can tell you this from my experience in the electrical construction field, building power transformers have undergone a major redesign in the past few decades because of the computer age. This may sound a bit odd but this applies to CFL lighting too. Computers use switching power supplies that put an asymmetrical load and high frequency harmonics on on a power system designed to operate at 50/60 cycles. CFL units also use switching power supplies to operate the lamp and a wholesale change over to CFL lighting could cause problems in older buildings. The newer building power transformers are designed to deal with the electrical loads presented by switching power supplies. Anytime a government gets involved in fundamentally changing an industry, havoc will result. A good example is when lawmakers went after the plumbing industry and we wound up with water saving toilets that you have to flush three times to get rid of whatever. I do believe that government types sit around dreaming up what they can screw up next and never consider "The law of unintended results."

TDD

Do you have ANY idea how long florescent's have been in wide use? Where do you see them? How about ALL large buildings being almost completely lit with full sized florescent's which contain FAR more mercury than CFL's? When you flip the typical light switch in a home, maybe 1-4 lights are powered up. When you flip a switch in a supermarket, there may be hundreds of lights lit up. All Florescent.

Any idea why they use florescent's ?

I'm not sure how much of a problem this will be. Most commercial/industrial buildings use tubular fluorescents and/or high pressure sodium lights which save far more energy than CFLs so there's no incentive (nor mandate) to switch to CFLs. (Changing from magnetic to electronic ballasts may be a problem but I don't know how prevalent this is.)

As lighting is only 9% of residential energy use, even changing to 100% CFL/LED with SMPS may not be a major problem. Electic rates already embed charges for residential power factor issues (rather than use demand metering). It's likely that the utilities will merely ask for rate increases to compensate for their increased costs related to harmonics.

I was thinking more along the lines of older apartment buildings in large cities, especially very old ones. The building may have its own transformer in the basement and if it was never updated since the 1920's or 1930's, there could be some problems caused by the asymmetrical loads.

TDD

On 12/31/2009 3:07 AM snipped-for-privacy@dog.com spake thus:

Of course he knows this; that's implicit in his arguments. He's not stupid.

What he's saying, which I agree with, is that the use of CFLs, primarily for *residential* lighting (not commercial, which as you point out has already been using fluorescents for many decades) will result in a massive upsurge in the amount of mercury in transit out there, some of which will escape into the environment. This is the 900-pound gorilla of CFL usage which isn't getting nearly as much attention as it should, and makes the claims that Don K. and others have made about how much CFLs will result in *reduced* mercury emissions dubious at best.

I find Don's arguments entirely reasonable. Our power comes from a few national grids. Reduction of power on a TVA hydro plant allows TVA to sell power elsewhere.

And I have no problem getting both CFLs and linear tubes recycled.

Now tell us how reducing the load doesn't reduce energy usage and doesn't reduce pollution of any type, nuclear, coal, petroleum, hydro-electric or other. TOU load is not the only factor here.

Your smokestack scrubber argument doesn't wash. OPG in Ontario has been using scrubbers for decades and they are all about to be removed. I suspect the scubbers are not that effective and too expensive to implement.

LED lamps are too expensive and too dim-witted, yet. Expensive equate to too much production polution outweighing any lifetime benefits. The cost of our health insurance on increase spectacle coverage and accidents from people falling down stairwells will outweigh any savings alone...LOL

Let's face it: the general populace doesn't care about the "greenwashing" part of the formula, only their pocketbooks and the capitolistist economic system in place that hasn't made it feasible, yet.

Many other good points, noted.

5) Does this alleged tradeoff work when you substitute LEDs for tungsten bulbs?

Yes. LEDs provide the same alleged reduction in emissions, and they do it WITHOUT adding mercury to hundreds of thousands of homes in billions of light bulbs. If anyone really cares about the environment, they won't poison it further by using mercury-laced CFL bulbs instead of LEDs.

6) Are CFL bulb makers serious about recycling used bulbs?

Hell no. We have deposit laws for mostly inert glass soda bottles but NOT environmentally hazardous CFL bulbs. Studies estimate that perhaps as few as 10% of all CFL bulbs get recycled.

7) Do people get suckered by quick fixes and miracle cures?

Absolutely. Take a look at the dietary supplement industry. Study after study shows that supplements can actually be quite harmful but folks buy and ingest them by the billion-dollar load. As for quick cures, Congress bought into the TARP, didn't it? Adding mercury to reduce mercury doesn't pass the common sense "sniff" test. And it shouldn't, it's a devil's bargain, one of many we're foisting on the next generation.

8) What happens when power plant smokestacks all get proper scrubbing equipment?

The alleged tradeoff falls flat on its face, leaving us with a gigantic mercury-laced CFL distribution network and nothing to counterbalance it.

The problem with CFLs is that the deeper one delves into this diabolical bargain, the worse things look. The savings are weak to begin with, and they're offset by the potential damage mercury poisoning can do. Sadly, we've shown time and time again that short term gains are considered way ahead of any long term costs. Look at Congress if you doubt that assertion. (-:

The right way to control emissions is by controlling the emitters. Pollutants need to be trapped at the smokestack that creates them, not on the shelves of Wal-Mart through a complex, poorly understood "tradeoff." Like a skilled magician, Big Power has managed to use misdirection to great advantage. Instead of clamoring for them to reduce the poison in their emissions, we've bought into a complex scheme to reduce pollutants by adding them to commonplace consumables.

-- Bobby G.

I haven't seen a big box store or a grocery store, that uses fluorescents, built in the last twenty years. They all used HID lighting of some type. Of course they are even worse for third harmonic content than CFLs.

People do not like the flicker of fluorescents, as it irritates the nervous system but I am not sure the HID lighting is any better for persistence of light. Count the number of fights in the grocery store and compare...LOL

Third harmonics take a special winding design to reduce the passing of third harmonics to the generating source. Usually use of a zig-zag secondary winding causes cancellation of any balanced multi-phase third harmonics. This, in effect causes two phases to subtract their in phase components. In a three pahse system third harmonics are typically all in phase between all phases.

Neutral reactors are typically used in large tranformers and consist of a large air core reactor. These reduce fault current to manageable levels but convert many third harmonic currents into voltage problems which radiate the problem to the rest of the system loads.

We ran into some interesting concepts with this on 100MVA transformer voltage sensing. If the third harmonic crosses zero exactly the same time as the fundamental the peak of the waveform is higher. If the third harmonic is phase leading it lowers the peak of the fundamental. This can play havoc with a lot of sensing equipment without massive filters. We leave this problem with the grid delivery system people to replace every $5M-$20M transformer in their system. Cheaper lighting? You bet.

TDD

They generate the power used, plus the small amount of generator losses.

Torque required to turn the generators is proportional to real portion of the amps taken from the generators, plus the bit required to overcome generator losses. Fuel consumption varies accordingly.

The torque required to turn the generators varies with the true watts taken from them (and dissipated in them - much smaller).

Yes - once LED bulbs as good as CFL bulbs are available for where CFLs are used.

Puh-leaze - how much mercury do CFLs add to homes?

Until I can get LED bulbs for my needs, I am reducing emissions including mercury by using CFL.

They would be reducing net mercury contribution to the environment if none of them were recycled.

Those who want to help with increasing that 10% by recycling their dead CFLs:

Home Depot also accepts deasd CFLs for proper disposal.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

A generator at 80% of rated power at .8 pf will still be easier to turn than one operating at same current and 1.0 pf (100% of rated power).

Meanwhile, generator losses are a much smaller percentage of output power for big ones owned by electric companies than for smaller ones of only several KW. Your example of full power at .8 pf is also 125% of current delivered to a full power resistive load, and I^2*R losses may be starting to blow up at that point.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

TVA has 11 hydroelectric dams and 59 coal fired units.

Since most grid electricity has generator winding, transmission and distribution losses totalling much less than power delivered, reducing watts reduces generator load and fuel consumption even if the amps stays the same.

Meanwhile, the article did say that a 15W CFL (which typically replaces a 60 watt incandescent) typically takes 29 VA (volt-amps) - total VA, not just VA other than watts.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

The usual commercial ballasts for 4 foot fluorescents are high power factor anyway.

Just wait for dimmable CFLs to become more widespread, and they are becoming increasingly available. They have high power factor.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

CFLs are symmetric loads.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

HPS is much worse in that area. And fluorescent with electronic ballasts have close to no flicker at all at frequencies related to the power line.

How is the fundamental changed by presence of a harmonic?

I have seen the current waveforms of CFLs, even in my own experience. Those spikes are drawing current at the time the line voltage peaks, not leading the peak of line voltage by a lot.

Also, even a low power factor CFL draws significantly less current than the incandescent it replaces.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

They are? I didn't know that. I must search The Interweb for information unless you could please point me in the right direction. If I don't stand corrected, I'm not learning anything. 8-)

TDD

Yeah, but he is referring to the three phase CFL lamps. He appears to know all about those too.

TDD

D> >> Dave Houst>>>