Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity; Energy-Savers a Turnoff for Wives

ROTFL

With respect to the Technology Review article cited ( "Making gasoline from carbon dioxide" ):

3) HC + 3/2*O2 --> H20 + CO2 + energy released. C02 + energy required --> CO + O

Where does the energy for the second reaction come from ? Among the sequelae for most any answer to given to that question is: If that energy is in fact available, why isn't it better used to create hydrogen (H2) and avoid the complication of C altogether?

Course energy that you don't use ( Remember the " Three R's" ) doesn't create pollution that needs to be mitigated by (eg) sequestration or chemical reaction.

Which is part of why the general topic of energy conservation is very much 'on topic' for comp.home.automation.

If the CFL-adverse in this newsgroup were to spend less time diminishing themselves by fabricating strawmen to argue against, and more time exploring useful approaches that home automation and control could advance, we'd all be better off IMO.

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

The agencies that do the hard work and the individuals that somehow resist relentless pressures from the politicos need support in trying to get the science and technology right. ( Clinton gutted the USEPA in the last four years of his presidency? Huh?)

Bobby: Consider responding usefully to the substance and science of the facts of the quantitative mercury and energy discussion, rather than attacking the agency because the individuals the agency and individuals that present facts that you don't like, or, apparently, understand.

(My perspective comes in part from actually having actually have worked with USEPA researchers and others within USEPA beginning in 1978. My most recent face-to-face technical discussion with a USEPA environmental PhD scientist was this Wednesday. Would BobbyG stand face-to-face to one of those researchers and say "You have been gutted so I dismiss your scientific conclusions ? If not, why does he do so here?

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

Marc_F_Hult has returned!

Where have you been, amigo? Spain again? How was the flight?

-- Bobby G.

How do you know I didn't catch the zeronetcarbon, "Farewell To The Gulf Stream Sail" with a bunch of pre-nostalgic enviros in anticipation of the abrupt change in that global heat conveyor belt ? ;-)

One stop was in London where we stayed in a hotel in which each and every light I saw was either a conventional or compact fluorescents with CFLs overwhelming dominant. There is no law or regulation requiring this. It is driven by economics. The practical aspects for me as consumer were transparent and completely satisfactory. This 'data point' directly contradicts several of your and Dave's unsubstantiated assertions on (eg) market factors.

( One thing that differentiated Bush-I from Shrub is that Bush-I had first-hand knowledge about the world outside the US. But even though he was very wealthy, was US Ambassador to the UN, Head of CIA, personal friends with foreign oil barons, and VP of the US, AIUI, Bush-I never once took Shrub outside the US. Speaks volumes about family dynamics. Nor did Shrub ever take himself outside the US besides, IIRC, to a Mexican border town and to a Caribbean island. Mindboggling. And IMO, there's a lesson here for isolated, monoglot pontificators in comp.home.automation.)

Another stop for us (for business reasons unrelated to anything with this topic) was in Newcastle -- of the "carrying coals to Newcastle" expression. Now, of course, if you do want coal in Newcastle, you _do_ have to carry it there because the coal industry has disappeared. Which speaks to the accuracy/usefulness of some other c.h.a. bla-bla-bla on the topic of coal.

If you have an interest in an international perspective, consider reading this BBC report ("Lighting Is The Key To Energy Savings") on the International Energy Agency's June 2006 report :

"Nineteen percent of global electricity generation is taken for lighting - that's more than is produced by hydro or nuclear stations, and about the same that's produced from natural gas,"

and

"Energy-efficient lighting can seem such an obviously good idea that it is hard to comprehend why it is not used everywhere.

"EIGHT FOR THE SCRAPHEAP Incandescent bulbs Low-efficiency fluorescent tubes High-loss "ballasts" for fluorescent tubes Halogen uplighters High-loss halogen transformers Mercury discharge lamps (often used in street lighting) Low-efficiency vehicle lighting Fuel-based lighting in developing countries

"There is no single panacea," said Dr Waide. "What we suggest is setting up a comprehensive set of policies.

"There is a strong case for introducing lighting measures into building codes. Currently codes have a lot of energy measures in them, but with few exceptions there aren't specific provisions for lighting."

"Such codes could, for example, mandate the use of highly efficient fluorescent tubes and ballasts, the devices which regulate input voltages for the lamps; at worst these can consume 40% of the energy going into the system.

"China, the IEA reports, has recently developed such codes. If they are implemented in all new build, this would "...offset the need for a new Three Gorges Dam project every eight years".

"For the individual, the most obvious switch to make is from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent systems (CFLs), marketed in many countries as "energy-saving bulbs".

END QUOTE

HTH ... Marc Marc_F_Hult

Way to go Marc!

As a lifetime resident of KY I think that coal outlived it's economic usefulness in the eastern part of the state at least 20 years ago.

Yes. The devastation, environmental and cultural, was severe even before MTR.

My miniscule role was as a Board Member that approved participating in the law suit in Kentucky District Court. The judgment above was in Virginia but was cited by the Federal Judge in Kentucky. As I wrote before, there have been a string of legal victories.

The Virginia court found USACE in violation of the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1970 and the 'Clean Water Act' (CWA) of

We also sued USEPA in Federal court for failing to force Kentucky to meet antidegradation requirements of the CWA. I was much more involved in that.

These web sites give a good overview on mountaintop removal

I haven't gone yet to DC this year to meet with Kentucky Reps on this legislation, but have in past years.

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

Oops. NEPA passed in 1969 which was our Sophomore Slump year -- we closed down the school over another war ...

CWA was 1972 -- Senior year of 1972 was especially productive: DOW passed

And on February 26, 1972, the largest coal slurry spill in US history happened:: the Logan County coal slurry dam break -- or at least it was coal slurry spill at the Martin County Coal Company in Inez, Kentucky on Oct. 11,

The USEPA concluded that Kentucky Inez spill was the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of the Eastern United States. More extensive than the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the Inez spill dumped an estimated 306 million gallons of toxic sludge down 100 miles of the Big Sandy River and its tributaries in Kentucky.

Another good reason to use Home automation to reduce consumption.

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

I never closed down a school but perhaps you remember when a bunch of long-hairs shut down the New Jersey Turnpike as part of the anti-war protest, after the march on the Pentagon... :^)

Marc_F_Hult replied

I just know. ;-)

So how much of your yearly carbon allotment do you think you burned up on the trip? You're good at numbers. That should be a cakewalk for you.

The AP article about the different per capita "carbon load" rates was really an eyeopener. Some of the people that thought they were ecological angels turned out to have some of the worst numbers.

Some solutions, like kudzu, seemed like miracles until they became plagues:

-- Bobby G.

(BobbyG added the inconspicuous punctuation mark ! to the Subject which will make these posts disappear from the original thread invisibly. What's that all about, one wonders ;-)

Now it's taken BoobyG a while to get taken in by Dave's siren song and repeated jibes on this theme. Moved by Dante's # 6, Dave plays BobbyG like a violin. So let's treat them to the Surprise Symphony by playing BobbyG's request ;-) All in good faith, good humour, and accurately to the best of our abilities.

Delta airlines reports that the CVG --> GTW flight was 3982 miles each way. Round it up to 8000 miles round trip (which is conservative in the calculations that follow).

The Boeing 767 I was on was plumb full of passengers. As I recall, they were calling stand-by's. It reportedly carries somewhere between 245-290 passengers. I use 240 passengers in the calculations that follow so as not to have to quibble about the crew. (What level of purgatory do _they_ earn for their carbon expenditure !? ;-)

Googling on < gallons/passenger mile B767 > and finding

Calculating the round-trip fuel consumption in units of gallons/passenger-mile in the two different ways possible with this data, we get:

At 8000 miles * 4.25 gal/mile * 240 passengers --> 141.1 gallons/passenger At 8000 miles * 0.0173 gal/passenger mile --> 137.8 gallons/passenger

This averages 139.4 gallons/passenger for this particular non-stop Midwest US --> UK round-trip flight. But I'll round _up_ to 150 gallons to try to head off the inevitable caviling.

So now consider that in the 35 years since I graduated from college, I have walked, ridden a bicycle, and(or) used public transportation to commute to work for all but 3 of those years. (Round _down_ to 30 years to be conservative in the following calculation.)

From

Figuring 250 work days/year (I typically worked many weekends so this is conservative) and 10-miles to work each way (saved one way or another), we get:

(30 years * 250 days/year * 20 miles/day) / (20 miles/gallon) = 7,500 gallons of gasoline.

Bobby wanted the answer with respect to carbon, so we need to correct for the differences in carbon content/volume between jet fuel and gasoline.

For hydrocarbon fluids with comparable densities and negligible heterocyclic content (N,S, or O atoms), as these are, the C:H ratio is primarily determined difference in specific gravity which we will correct for, and secondarily by aliphatic (chain):aromatic (ring) ratio which ABIK are comparable. (I've made hundreds of measurements of alkanes and aromatics in hydrocarbon liquids, but not of jet fuel.)

Specific gravity of gasoline typically ranges between 0.73 to 0.77; So use 0.75

Specific gravity of Jet A-1 typically ranges between 0.75 to 0.84; So use 0.80

So a good correction factor is 0.75/0.80 * gallons gasoline = carbon-equivalent gallons Jet A-1 fuel

(0.75/0.80) * 7500 gallons = 7031 gallons; use 7000 to be conservative.

CARBON EQUIVALENT OF GASOLINE SAVED => FORTY-SIX TRANSATLANTIC ROUND TRIPS

In other words, my life-long minimal/non-use of gasoline for trips to work

And did I mention yet that the miles we *did* drive during the last 35 years were with cars that got up to 50 mpg like the VW Dasher Diesel we had for 16 years? And that for the first 15 years of marriage and kids, my wife and I had only one car? And most/many folks drive much more than 10 miles to work and(or) drive a pickup or SUV that gets much less than 20 mpg?

"Thanks for asking" ;-) ... Marc Marc_F_Hult

I answered Bobby's cakewalk question -- and we hope that Bobby had a place to sit down when the music stopped -- in detail in my previous post.

So it's my turn to potentially re-cast the problem (~ "model formulation") by asking a question:

If you are a soldier deployed to Iraq, on whose account does all the carbon you use go? Yours or Shrub's ?

ecological >angels turned out to have some of the worst numbers.

In my experience, it depends on how you develop the conceptual models, which precedes development of the mathematical models, which in turn necessarily precedes the number crunching -- which may or may not be a cake walk.

If model the formulation itself is a cake walk, the model may be too simplistic, and investment of more intellectual effort may be warranted. I think that these posts in this newsgroup are typically weak in this first, all-important step.

Tell me about it ;-) In April I prepared a Powerpoint for presentation to a 3-state consortium of Soil and Water Conservation Districts that called "Daffodils, Kudzu and Emerging Challenges". It deals in part with increasing inroads of invasive species and relation to climate change. Kudzu isn't only in the south any more. It's reached Maine. I've parked a copy of this (big) ppt here:

Importantly for us, kudzu has overrun much of the 750 feet of riverbank we own that is just across the Ohio River from Downtown Cincinnati. Coincidentally, the Ohio River is the Mason-Dixon line and defines "the south". I'm trying to get help to deal with it because it needs to be a coordinated effort. I chaired the team that prepared the part of our city's strategic plan that was approved last week that deals with rivers and we begin to address it there. Also at

In my opinion, the c.h.a CFL discussion is an archetypical example of the imbroglio that develops when factoids obtained and used in non-objective ways are used to prop up questionable premises and support pre-determined conclusions. It's one thing to say I personally don't like CFLs. It is quite another to claim that they are a "bad idea" as was done in this newsgroup -- to its discredit in my opinion.

I also think that thoughtful objective (and model) formulation is often missing in comp.home.automation. Way too often we see the question of "what's the best hardware?" asked (and answered !!) long before the question of "What are the goals? What are the constraints? What is the available skill set (eg) wrt to programming, and so on are addressed. This has been so in c.h.a for years and years IME.

How many of us have a clear articulation of our vision, goals, objectives strategies and projects for our "home automation"? Measures of success? Is the goal "home automation" or something broader?

Or would that be too much like work ;-)

Have fun and be safe -- keep one hand in your pocket ! ... Marc Marc_F_Hult

I got distracted. Where I was going with this was that in 1969, despite many challenges, the US still had confidence and addressed problems head-on (the long list of important things that happened and were accomplished in 1972 alone is an example).

I remember being in a village cafe in the middle of the night in Spain watching Armstrong take his first steps in 1969 to meet our national goal of a man on the moon by the end of the decade. "How much did the US Moon Project cost in pesetas", someone wondered. "All of them", was the answer ;-)

We need to regenerate that sense of possibility and the drive to succeed. The never-ending negativism, and especially the cavalier disparagement of whole sectors of society (recent count includes journalists, scientists, government workers, academicians, judges and more) necessary to succeed in important matters by folks in this newsgroup is disappointing to me.

Reminds me of the old joke about the two fisherman (Says one to the other: "There are only two fishermen whose stories I believe -- You and me. And I'm not sure about you.")

Why aren't we using our energy to do useful things with home automation on matters that are important?

My two pesetas ... Marc Marc_F_Hult

Dave has written that his apartment has several conventional fluorescents. Maybe he should replace those long delicate tubes with CFLs which are physically much more robust ;-)

For folks that have a hard time thinking their way out a paper bag, let me point out that the CFL recycling problem and risks of accidental mercury contamination could be addressed/mitigated by mandating thicker glass, instructions/ethic to put CFLs in a plastic bag, and providing a refundable deposit for CFLs dead or alive connected to a warranty program Think US auto recall/warranty/recycling. This can and has been done.

Recycling for all manner of electronic products, not just CFLs, is already overdue.

The solution might begin with an expanded free, electronic waste/junk recycling program of the sort that Dave's county *already* provides.

Put the old TV and VCR, and lead-laden computers with gold contacts, and mercury thermostats and yes, long fluorescent lamps and CFLs (in a ziplock bag) in the recycling and let the pros do their part of the third "R" in Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

Compared to other issues, this part of the problem is durn near trivial if you _want_ to solve it. If you want to be an obstacle then you do what some participants in comp.home.automation do which is to self-indulgently spread fear and doubt with no hint of the solutions.

Did you know that the demand for iron ore in the US has plummeted because we now recycle so much iron and steel? That with downsizing and re-engineering of (eg) autos, it is (just ;-) conceivable that we could be an exporter of steel for a while without mining any iron or mining our landfills for goodies -- as we have already begun to do.

And eventually we will consider our landfills a resource to be tapped. The landfill that Dave's very own trash goes to *already* creates methane that is harnessed to power electrical generators.

(My research was the first to show that methane (CH4) from pollution like landfills is/can be oxidized to CO2 in the shallow subsurface by bacteria before it diffuses to the atmosphere see Hult, M.F., and Grabbe, R.R.,

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

Right. On one of my 300-mile round trips to DC, I accumulated beaucoup positive carbon-credits by hitch-hiking .

What I meant was that so many of us went to DC that the school was effectively down. It was/is UN Sec Gen Kofi-Annan's (among others) alma mater; foreign affairs mattered to us then, as they do now.

"Home automation" and its successors has a role to play in changing the world positively. The discussion in this newsgroup is having difficulty rising to the challenge however.

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

Right. On one of my 3000-mile round trips to DC, I accumulated beaucoup positive carbon-credits by hitch-hiking .

What I meant was that so many of us went to DC that the school was effectively down. It was/is UN Sec Gen Kofi-Annan's (among others) alma mater; foreign affairs mattered to us then, as they do now.

"Home automation" and its successors has a role to play in changing the world positively. The discussion in this newsgroup is having difficulty rising to the challenge however.

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

^^^^ 3000

It's late and I'm typoing too fast ;-) ... Marc

Marc_F_Hult

It's pretty clear why big business favors complicated solutions: they are easy to game if you have a large enough legal staff. Same as the tax laws. Huge companies pay next to nothing trading credits and running other scams that would get ordinary citizens thrown in jail. They demand allotments for

You're right about the tipping point, and it works in more than just scientific terms. People don't act until there's a crisis, and reducing demand postpones that crisis while power plants still belch mercury. One of the major reasons that car exhausts got cleaned up so dramatically was the never before seen "killer smogs" that caused such a grave health crisis, and therefore great public awareness.

If people want to really clean up the air, they need to spend money not on CFL stop-gap measures that add back a noxious poison, but on lobbying organizations that have demonstrated their committment to clean air by filing lawsuits against BIG polluters. They need to write their representatives and demand that all states compute the true cost of coal power, including the projected cleanup costs, across the country so that states that DO scrub their stacks or that mandate alternative clean energy sources don't bear the costs of states that emit pollutants.

-- Bobby G.

inconsequential

Numeracy Deficit Alert:

We can (for example) divide all energy use into Electric (E), Non-electric Stationary (NS), and Non-electric Mobile (NM) categories. (About %40 of US energy use is electricity, depending on where you include production costs/losses.)

Each of the three categories can be further divided into Household, Commercial, Industrial, and Transportation or Government sectors.

And each sector can be divided into at least three uses: eg, lighting, equipment, heating and cooling

So we have at least 3 categories x 4 sectors x 3 uses = 36 individual accounting units.

So on average each of these individual accounting units = %100/36 < 3% of total.

Electric/Household/Lighting is one of those 36 units about which Dave has been a broken record with strawman after specious after strawman argument. If we save 1/2 of the 3% for that accounting unit we will have achieved the 1-2% reduction for that one of 36 accounting units that Dave claims is pointless (because he made an unwise characterization about CFLs years ago and is screwing himself into the ground deeper most every time he posts).

Trouble is, that every one of those 36 accounting units has some sort of "not out of my sector" lobby just like Dave. So Dave's route would lead us to discounting the usefulness of doing anything in any sector -- in other words, paralysis.

After a while (if you actually have experience in these matters) you can see through this sort of divide-and-conquer, self-interested argument while asleep (Been there; used it ;-)

Whether the average Cub Scout is a better economist than Dave, or he has a profound problem with intellectual honesty -- or both -- is not my concern.

Having spent a significant part of my life trying to be effective in environmental education, I conclude that part of the usefulness of the CFL discussion (aside from actual energy and other environmental benefits) is to raise public awareness. Does BobbyG have any clue about how much of the purchase price of products he buys is consumed by advertising dollars to influence his decision? The Proctor and Gambles of the world would eat Tide for breakfast to get a marketing tool like CFLs. What is "empty" about a tool that is effective both in real environmental benefits and in helping to cause the desired -- nay , necessary -- change in behaviour?

Bobby doesn't respond to my and other's posts on this topic because he has no cogent response. He's just babbling at this point IMO.

The important concept is "and". CFLs _and_ fewer lamps, _and_ shorter hours, _and_ fewer places, _and_ better technology when available.

"Not this single thing because it isn't a complete solution" leads to nowhere right quick.

"Lobbying's" fine. But Bobby's may never have actually (effectively) done any of the things that he thinks _other_ people should do _for_ him.

Some of us have actually participated in _applying_ Section 505, 33 U.S.C. 1365 (Citizen Suit Provision of the Clean Water Act). See my previous posts. This can be a heck of a lot more effective than "lobbying".

"They" ? ROTFL ;-) How's about youze doing sumpthin too ? ;-)

Writing is fine, but does he know that _going_ to DC is far more effective than writing? Some of us have been doing the latter for decades. (See my previous posts.)

Is Bobby aware of the consortium of US States that have _sued_ in Federal court (not jist "demanded" whatever the heck that means in the real world) for just that?

It's wunnerfull to see the heat that this topic creates. But the efficacy in turning that energy into light could be improved. Perhaps the intellectual equivalent of a CFL is needed -- he says, ducking ;-)

I think that even a wee bit of training in _effective_ advocacy and _effective_ mitigation strategies would go a very long way. Thar's much to learn. Sometimes these trips are best embarked on before, like BobbyG, you know how long and hard they really are, and how much you owe -- even before you start -- to your predecessors.

With respect to clean water, there is no better place to start than the "Clean Water Act Owner's Manual" written by colleagues and friends at River Network (Forward by Jimmy Carter)

A useful enterprise would be to put together something on the topic for "home automation" to help grow it out of its "home toys" toddler stage.

Course some folks (eg the Savoy/CyberHouse + Cutler Hammer/Eaton + US Dept of Energy + Subdivision Developer + Electrical Utility demo effort) were trying to make progress years ago. No doubt other efforts are ongoing.

And I don't think that the principal obstacle to progress is that 2-wire WS467 X-10 dimmers won't play well with pre-2010 LEDs and CFLs ;-)

... Marc Marc_F_Hult

I didn't realise he was a Republican. :^)

I can't speak about electrical mnanufacturers but I'm somewhat familiar with things in the pharmaceutical world (close relative served as VP of BMY for many years). They spend almost as much on advertising as on production and R&D combined.

Nothing. Bobby and Dave both like to use such mischaracterizations in place of logic and data.

Agreed. I pointed out the non-response repeatedly and Bobby continued as though no ine had said anything. It's almost like arguing in ASA.

Someone one quipped that lightbulbs don't actually illuminate anything. They just suck light out of the room when you turn them off. I suspect one side of this argument is trying to do just that.