Re: Ban the bulb.

Oops! When OP said "halogens," I simply ass-u-me-d 12V, since I've never seen or heard of a 120V halogen.

Sorry for that.

Thanks, Rich

I'd wager pretty much any kid who purposely broke open an incadescent light bulb out of curiosity probably did the exact same thing with a 4' fluorescent tube at some point in their youth... ahem... :-)

I don't think they're really a significant hazard, but I still think that incandescents vs. CFLs is nowhere near a big enough problem in the country that the former are being banned rather than just letting the market decide.

---Joel

That's the way of the eco-nazi religious cult: "To Hell with reality, do what I say, 'cuz I got da FAITH!"

Thanks, Rich

The phosphor is likely more dangerous than the Hg in any fluorescent.

Purposely, no. 4' fluorescents are too boring. By accident, well, I can't count that high.

Agreed. Same with toilets.

You've never seen medium-base halogen reflectors?

:

Or high intensity work lights?

:

No problem.

We have mains voltage (240V) halogens to replace the old light bulb, claim

30% more efficient. Looks like a quartz envelope inside larger clear bulb.

More expensive than the old globes, but people who can't stand CFLs are buying them. I've not tried them, just curious when I saw them come out soon after the 'normal' light globes disappeared off the supermarket shelves.

Grant.

I have a dozen (decorative) G6 lamps that i have replaced with CFL G2.5. I would prefer to send them to a good home instead of toss them. I would send them to you if i can figure how to pack them. OOps they are NOT halogens.

IME they are more rugged than standard inca.

Radioactive emmisions? From burning coal i presume, could you DOCUMENT this? It is a bit of an extraordinary claim.

has a quickie overview of the subject.

is more detailed.

The short summary is that coal, while containing mostly organic matter that burns away, also contains a significant amount of inorganic mineral content. Some of the trace elements in this mineral content are radioactive - uranium and thorium isotopes in particular. When coal is burned, these isotopes end up in the fly ash.

Whether the dispersal or disposal of coal fly ash, or the disposition of high- and low-level waste from nuclear reactors, results in more actual or potential public exposure to radiation, per amount of electricity generated, seems to be a matter of some significant debate and disagreement, and depends on a lot of factors not always subject to certainty.

The same seems to be true for the "mercury from coal fly ash, vs. mercury from improperly-disposed-of CFLs" question. The answer in this case seems to be "It depends"... CFLs look to be a net mercury win in some areas (those having high amounts of coal-fueled electric generation) and a loser in other areas (those using gas-fired, hydro, or nuclear power generation with a low mercury burden).

--
Dave Platt                                    AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page:  http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
  I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
     boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

For Christ sake, do a little goggling. It's pretty well known.

"Using these data, the releases of radioactive materials per typical plant can be calculated for any year. For the year 1982, assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons of thorium that year. Total U.S. releases in 1982 (from 154 typical plants) amounted to 801 tons of uranium (containing 11,371 pounds of uranium-235) and 1971 tons of thorium. These figures account for only 74% of releases from combustion of coal from all sources. Releases in

1982 from worldwide combustion of 2800 million tons of coal totaled 3640 tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of uranium-235) and 8960 tons of thorium. "

From:

"There is now a great deal of scientific evidence showing nuclear power to be an environmentally sound and safe choice."

"According to the Clean Air Council, annual power plant emissions are responsible for 36 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2), 64 percent of sulfur dioxide (S02)' 26 percent of nitrogen oxides (NO X), and 33 percent of mercury emissions (Hg). These four pollutants cause significant environmental impact including acid rain, smog, respiratory illness, [and] mercury contamination, and are the major contributors to GHG emissions."

tm

G6 won't quite fit in my E26 fixtures, either.

Oh it has an E26 base alright, G6 refers to the shape of the envelope.

6" globe.

Not to Slowman.

Good link. As is Dave Platt's

Finally some documentation on this one, thanks.

Sometimes my search fu doesn't lead me where i want to go.

Are you saying 5W for all lighting in your home, or 5 watts for each dimmed incandescent?

For that matter, how about how much light is produced by a 100 watt incandescent receiving 5 watts?

I have a determination that a "USA-usual" 120V 100W incandescent with coiled-coil filament in an "A19" bulb and rated to last 750 hours and to prduce 1670-1750 lumens, at 18 volts RMS, consumes 5.48 watts, and produces about roughly .11 lumen of light. That may actually be more like .125 or .2 lumen. But, basically ballpark of .01% of full light output with nearly 5.5% of full power.

Extrapolating for a 60W incand from a 100W one at 24 volts RMS:

8.4% of full power (5.04 watts), and ~.54-.55 lumen of light (compared to 845-890 lumens at full voltage for one better ones rated to last 1,000 hours). (Note for 60W - its current draw varies slightly less with applied voltage and its % light of "full" light output varies slightly more with applied voltage than is the case with the 100W one.)

Data at:

My boyfriend had a lot of experience there - had a fair number of dimmed incands not last as long as they should, due to extra vibration with non-sinusoidal waveform (harmonics excite resonances in the filaments of his favorites?) Also, turn-on with the usual triac dimmer is not at zero crossing - though turn-off is.

Yes, I did some such things when I was a kid.

--
 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

For one thing, I tossed plenty of 4-foot fluoros into dumpsters, often on courses designed to have them not survive the landing.

A few years ago, this got some discussion in sci.engr.lighting. Many of the regulars there favored taxing them rather than banning them. Such a tax would be according to national security and population safety issues of burning more fossil fuels than their non-incandescent replacements would. Too many Americans are dumb enough to spend $4 more per year to power a lightbulb that costs $4 less, or $50 more per year to power a refrigerator that costs $50 less.

This has an impact on USA's balance of trade, fossil fuel prices, money received by nations hostile to USA or to ideals of most Americans (such as letting women escape burning buildings even if they are not wearing proper religious dress), and how many more power plants need to be built in NYMBY-ers' back yards at great expense that fellow Americans have to pay - regardless of how much or how little that causes sea level to change or Philadelphia metro area summers to get hotter.

--
 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

Problem is, much of USA has a lot of population in a lot of area where the weather is "temperate" - a word that does not mean "temperant" but works like the word "flammable". As "flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing, much of USA gets "intemperate" weather. (Not that the weather is nice-and-steady everywhere else in the world.)

And, rainfall is unreliable at being reasonably close to normal, and a lot of forestation and vegetated grounds (which slows and causes averaging of water outflow) has been removed.

A fellow American's water consumption sometimes affects water availability to me.

Since in the past few years I have seen 1.6 gallon/flush toilets that flush better than any higher-flush-volume toilet that I ever saw, I don't see much of a problem with pushing Americans to use less thirsty toilets.

--
 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

That much efficiency gain sounds to me maybe incorporating "HIR" technology into halogen lamps.

In halogen lamps with HIR technology, the tubular capsule has an infrared-reflective visible-passing coating.

One drawback to using this for more efficiency gain than it has been achieving on the market so far: It amplifies some of the effects of some production tolerances (especially filament positioning), and using this more aggressively easily causes excessive inconsistency in filament life expectancy.

--
 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

The market doesn't care about uncompensated externalities. If power stations were to store all of their pollutants, electricity supply would be a simple contract between the generator and the consumer. But that isn't the caseso long as the supply is subsidised by public grants of pollution rights.