Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Savin The Planet

I found this HERE ..

Sondra K is in the blogroll..

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb?


About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour—unless you break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be looking at a cost of about US$2,004.28, which doesn’t include the costs of frayed nerves and risks to health.

Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favour of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).

According to an April 12 article in The Ellsworth American, Bridges had the misfortune of breaking a CFL during installation in her daughter’s bedroom: It dropped and shattered on the carpeted floor.

Aware that CFLs contain potentially hazardous substances, Bridges called her local Home Depot for advice. The store told her that the CFL contained mercury and that she should call the Poison Control hotline, which in turn directed her to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The DEP sent a specialist to Bridges’ house to test for mercury contamination. The specialist found mercury levels in the bedroom in excess of six times the state’s “safe” level for mercury contamination of 300 billionths of a gram per cubic meter. The DEP specialist recommended that Bridges call an environmental cleanup firm, which reportedly gave her a “low-ball” estimate of US$2,000 to clean up the room. The room then was sealed off with plastic and Bridges began “gathering finances” to pay for the US$2,000 cleaning. Reportedly, her insurance company wouldn’t cover the cleanup costs because mercury is a pollutant.

Given that the replacement of incandescent bulbs with CFLs in the average U.S. household is touted as saving as much as US$180 annually in energy costs—and assuming that Bridges doesn’t break any more CFLs—it will take her more than 11 years to recoup the cleanup costs in the form of energy savings.


comment: I dont know bout ya'll, but I figger that this is just about the way this whole Global Warmin thang is gonna wind up..

People are rushin out to buy the newest car that is supposed to be "GREEN" and then find that the thang has more built-in problems, hazards, and costs, and that they aint as damn Green as they were supposed to be after all..

And those "Carbon Offsets" that you hear about, are a bunch plantin trees somewhere down south that now they are sayin are diein like flys and need replantin !!

So, the next time you see or hear "the next big thang" in Global Warmin Cures, thank back to the story up above and dont get caught up in a big gimmick devised to make Al Gore richer !!

6 Comments:

Blogger Almtnman said...

Wild Bill, didn't Al Gore say he invented the Internet? All this Internet use everyone's doing is making that joker a lot of money. Just kiddin!

About them light bulbs, it looks to me like the company that manufactured and sold them to her should be the ones to pay clean up costs as it was their product.

It looks like they're going to stick us good with gas prices. I just heard on the news to expect gas to be selling on an average of $3.25 to $3.50 a gallon for regular. Then I also heard that the gas price per gallon as of this day is higher then it was when a barrel of oil was the same price. That means the oil compaines are tanning our hides again. They must have some CEO's needing a big going away gift again.

7:10 PM, May 01, 2007  
Blogger Papa Ray said...

Good writing WB, and sound thinking. It's like the big deal with ethenol, which makes select farmer's drool because they can sell their crops, no matter how much they grow. The thing is though, ethenol waste products are just as bad as the gasoline it is replacing.

But no one wants to talk about that.

Papa Ray

8:08 PM, May 01, 2007  
Blogger Wild Bill said...

I didnt see much media coverage, but the U.S. announced that it had another DECREASE in Greenhouse Emmissions again this year !!

The only way this is gonna be any where near solved is thru CONSERVATION.. People are just gonna have to start stayin their asses at home more !!

I see the same cars pass by my house sometimes 30 or more times a day.. And there are a bunch of em too.. Most of em are BIG cars and trucks too.. Those old Chevy Impalas and new SUVs and Suburbans are real popular here.. Those damn thangs drank some gas too.. I dont know where they get the money to drive that much..

I dont seem to be hearin anythang about the oil shale or coal gasifacation project that they were tryin to get goin up in Wyoming or North Dakota that they were talkin bout a coupla years ago.. The process that they were wantin to use only left about 2 percent of unusable waste to it and didnt take near as much energy to produce it as ethanol..

I heard that there was gonna be another big release of offshore drillin rights soon.. If that had been done back years ago then we may not have wound up in the shape we are in today..

But about those light bulbs.. Seems that China is gonna be the big supplier of em and they are gonna be buildin a bunch more plants to produce em and are not gonna be particularly Eco Friendly about it..

China is already havin major problems with water pollution due to them recyclin old computer parts and throwin the scrap away wherever they want to..

But if the dirtbags had gotten away with their plans to attack Saudi like they wanted to, we would be payin a helluva lot more than we are now.. On EVERYTHANG !! But somethin tells me that that wadnt their only operation that was in the makin.. I just hope we are as lucky about catchin the next one too..

9:10 PM, May 01, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gas prices are sky high in California. I live within 20 miles of the refineries and pay more than areas only 50 miles away! Any time the government gets involved with the premise of being eco friendly, it is a disaster. We had some reforumulated gas we were forced to buy a few years ago. Had to pay extra for the refineries to make it. Found it was a bigger polutant and we had to pay for the refineries to go back to the old formula! I'm going to stock up on the bulb that Thomas Alva devised. If it ain't broke, why fix it? I tell you, I'm getting fed up with the greenies. When you have Algore leading the charge, you know we're going to get screwed!!!!

10:24 AM, May 02, 2007  
Blogger Wild Bill said...

And its not just Gore that gets everythang screwed up when he gets involved, its the whole Left that is to blame..

Since they got involved in The War On Terror it has gone downhill !!

Since they got involved in The Gulf War it has gone downhill !!

Since they got involved in Immigration reform it has gone downhill !!

Since they got involved in Campaign Finance Reform it has gone downhill !!

Since they got involved in Prison Reform it has gone downhill !!

Everthang they touch turns to SHIT !!

And they still want more involvement and BIGGER GUBMINT so they can destroy more of our lives and this country..

And dont forget that those booger-eatin-mohrons want control of our Health Care now too !!

Just because its bad now, dont thank that it caint get worse..

12:05 PM, May 02, 2007  
Blogger Wild Bill said...

Sign In ..

6:01 PM, May 03, 2007  

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