Friday, January 4, 2008

The Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb... The Light Bulb from Hell!

What You Are NOT Being Told About Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
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The US Congress recently passed a bill to ban incandescent light bulb use in the United States by the year 2012. (The President signed it into law.) What will replace them? The compact fluorescent light bulb. Why does this upset me? WHY, indeed?!

I’ll point you in the direction of some evidence that the fluorescent bulbs may not be as helpful and energy efficient as claimed and might even damage American’s health and contribute to pollution of the earth. You decide, for yourself, if you really want to put them in your home, where you and your children will be exposed to them, or if you want to raise hell with the Congress until they repeal this ridiculous law and give us back our tried and true incandescent light bulbs.

Did you know it required a special exemption from the Environmental Protection Agency of the US government to allow fluorescent lamp bulbs to be sold to the pubic in the US in the first place? Why? Mercury, that’s why!

“Fluorescent lights are filled with a gas containing low-pressure mercury vapor and argon, or sometimes even krypton. The inner surface of the bulb is coated with a fluorescent coating made of varying blends of metallic and rare earth phosphor salts. Fluorescent
light bulbs are more energy efficient than incandescent light bulbs of an equivalent brightness, and the efficiency of fluorescent lighting owes much to low-pressure mercury photon discharges. But fluorescents don't produce a steady light, and they burn out more quickly when cycled frequently; they also contain items such as fluorine, neon, and lead powder as well as mercury.” (From: “Compact fluorescent light bulbs contaminate the environment with 30,000 pounds of mercury each year” at http://www.newstarget.com/021907.html . (This article was written by Mike Adams a natural health researcher and author with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company.)

Also from the same article we learn this:

“According to
www.lightbulbrecycling.com, each year an estimated 600 million fluorescent lamps are disposed of in U.S. landfills, amounting to 30,000 pounds of mercury waste. Astonishingly, that's almost half the amount of mercury emitted into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants each year. It only takes 4mg of mercury to contaminate up to 7,000 gallons of freshwater, meaning that the 30,000 pounds of mercury thrown away in compact fluorescent light bulbs each year is enough to pollute nearly every lake, pond, river and stream in North America (not to mention the oceans). “


Then, there is this. The CFL bulb “…. can cause people with epilepsy to experience symptoms similar to the early stages of a fit. There have also been complaints of discomfort from people with lupus”. Read more about this in The Daily Mail at:
www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=463911&in_page_id=1774

Now… what if you accidentally drop and break one of the CFL’s? Well, you could be looking at a $2000.00 plus “professional clean-up job”. I mean… they do contain Mercury, remember? Don’t believe me? Check this story out:
The CFL mercury nightmare [break a compact fluorescent, face $2000 in cleanup costs] at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1825609/posts

Add to this the fact, and I do mean fact… that there certainly appears to be less light output (lumens) from the CFL than from an incandescent bulb. Now… all the research I have done tells me that the CFL’s produce the same lumens as a comparable incandescent bulb. But, in practice, I have found that replacing a 60 watt incandescent with a 60 watt CFL will not produce the same amount of lighting. The area I am trying to light is dimmer, not lighted nearly as well, with the CFL as it was with the incandescent. I have found the same true with 75-watt bulbs and 100-watt bulbs. I have even swapped the 60’s out for 75’s and the 75’s out for 100 watt CFLs and I STILL don’t see the crisp brightness I get from the old incandescent bulb.

Now, I am not an engineer. I’m just an old country boy, who has been around the block few times, and experience tells me there HAS to be something different about the lumens emitted by an incandescent and the lumens emitted by a CFL. Is it a different KIND of light? Is that what the matter is?

OK... so I did a bit more research and this is what I found:

A 100-watt incandescent light bulb will produce about 1200 lumens. I read that a 20 t0 25 watt CFL will produce the same amount of lumens... but… if the light fixture you are using isn’t DESIGNED for CFLs you will get a "dingy looking" light. Not nearly as bright as the old incandescent bulb! It seems someone forgot to inform us that CFLs radiate their light differently. What that means is... that even though the CFL is producing the same amount of lumens, it may not be producing the same amount of light to the lighted area! AHAAA! I knew it!

Read more on this at:
http://lighterfootstep.com/how-to-live-with-cfls.html

So besides the fact that CFLs don’t work well in cold climates… or just plain old cold weather, they don’t work well, at all, in overhead fixtures, they don’t work, at all, with dimmers, they contain poison, they do not produce the same amount of light as the incandescent light bulbs… in today's light fixtures, and ...they must be treated as hazardous waste material when you get ready to toss one out, … why… they’re just GREAT!

Why do I get the feeling I’ve been scammed… yet again?

As I write, I am in my office, and I have five different light fixtures on right now. I have CFLs in all five of them and, frankly, it is as through I am sitting here, in front of this computer, working by the light of a number of oil lamps situated around the room! The light is that bad! If I drop something on the floor, I have to get up and turn on the overhead lights, which have incandescent bulbs in them, so I can find the dropped item on the floor.

This is madness! I’m at the point, with the CFL bulbs, that I would happily see the oceans boil and keep my incandescent bulbs!

Between now and 2012, I’m going to horde as many incandescent light bulbs as I can get. Every trip to the store I intend to buy light bulbs and store them.

Damn the Compact Fluorescent Light bulb to hell!

Longstreet



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8 comments:

  1. Yes sir this is old news.... But I use CFL in my trebble lights in my garage, no heat and if you drop it it won't brake the fillament like and Incondescent. But for general work area lighting purposes, where I am not in conact with the light source I prefer the 5000w twin Halogen lights on stands, nothing like working on a tan and my car at the same time....

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  2. I'm a wood worker and when I am doing intricate work, or painting, or staining, I turn on my halogens, too. I have three double light sets, on stands, and one or two clip-ons. I also enjoy the heat from them in the winter. It's 18.4º here this morning. It was 19.0º at Myrtle Beach at 8:45 AM.

    Best regards!

    Longstreet

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  3. It's 18.4º here this morning. It was 19.0º at Myrtle Beach at 8:45 AM.
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    BRING ON THAT MUCH TALKED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING.....

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  4. I really don't understand why trying to slow down Global Climate Change bothers you so much. What am I missing?

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  5. Because, Kip, there is no such thing as Global Climate Change/Global Warming. It is a ruse. It is a hoax … quite likely the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. The climate is in a constant state of cyclical change every second of every minute of every 24 hour day on this planet. It is NATURAL. It happens always and ever. It has since creation… and will ‘til the earth is no more. It is the balance of nature. To think that man has the power to destroy that which God has made, and ordained as our home, is to spit in the face of God.

    Add to that the fact that the Global Warming /Global Climate Change Movement is NOT about either. It IS about the establishment of a One World Socialist Government… a world where democracy cannot, and will not, exist.

    And finally, the Global Warming/Global Climate Change Movement is the re-establishment of the oldest Pagan religion on the planet. The worship of nature… over nature’s God. In my opinion, one cannot claim belief in the Global Warming/Global Climate Change Movement and belief in the one, true, God, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth. It is Blasphemy. It brushes against the unpardonable sin.

    For those who may have missed it, I would point out that the Global Warming Movement has found it necessary even to change the name of the movement from “Global Warming” to “Global Climate Change” because “global warming” is being discredited (by nature itself!) so widely that the very name has become a liability to the movement. Note that “Global Climate Change” can be ANYTHING the movement says it is, any time the movement says it.

    … and THAT, kind sir, reflects only SOME of the reasons it bothers me so much!

    Best regards!

    Longstreet

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  6. I really don't understand why trying to slow down Global Climate Change bothers you so much. What am I missing?
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    the earth is overpopulated, if the globally over populated costal regions were fenced in so the people living their wouldn't run with fear but rather die with dignity, we'd drop the world's population, less vehicle, less emissions, and alass less demad for oil the price should drop susbstantially for the survivors. Along with superstorms to take out inland populations..... Plus I really don't like winter all too much.

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  7. Frank, I’d argue that the word is nowhere near over-populated. We are nowhere near starvation. We have more than ample food to feed the entire planet and will for a very long time into the future.

    I have no figures for the 2007 population if the earth, but in 2006 it was 6.6 billion. That 6.6 billion would fit nicely, that’s the entire population of the earth, inside the state of Texas and each person would have over a thousand square feet of space to call his, or her, own. Of course, the rest of the world would be quite empty.

    I don’t know where the rumor that the earth is overpopulated began. it is nowhere near overpopulated.

    I DO think we ought to forbid building, and living, within one mile of the coastline… the entire coastline of the US. (Dwellings, of course) It is close to impossible to get a homeowner’s policy out here now… because of the hurricanes. But, people continue to build right on the water. It’s crazy!

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  8. I just did a bit more digging and learned that the earth's population peaked in 1963 and has been on the decline ever since. THAT surprizes me!

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