They banned Darvon and incandesent bulbs

[soccerballtux]

Keep watching my right hand , pay no attention to the left hand as I magically show you how to save money and improve the environment !

That is all the light bulb debate is about. We can't afford to build new power plants now so we need to make people use something else and we can sell it by telling them they are saving the environment and money at the same time !

Something to consider:
Materials used to manufacture a light bulb. All are recyclable except the filament and have no lasting effects on the environment.

glass
tungsten
brass
aluminum


Materials to manufacture a CFL . It is just another glass bulb right ? Don't forget the circuit boards to drive the CFL and all the parts, resistors, capacitors , semiconductors that are needed , in addition to the plastic housing (oil derived product). Lets increase electronic waste a few thousand percent when all lights will need these components.

glass
tungsten
brass
copper
phosphorous
cadmium
tantalum
mylar
pvc's


Materials to manufacture a LED light include those from CFL and more and are even worse for the environment. Most of these end up in the environment , are not recyclable and can destroy ecosystems.

acrylic resin
arsenic
gallium
cyanide
sulfuric acid
indium
boron


I rather worry about power for a bulb that is just glass and metal and can be recycled or if not recycled can be crushed on the ground and not kill something living near it. Don't fall for the shell game politics is playing.
When Ford started selling his first cars they burned ethanol. Oil came on the scene and was cheaper to produce fuel and look where that got us. Short term gain .

I wonder how much the energy differential changes when you factor in manufacturing costs on CFLs and LEDs.

LED is silicon which, like our processors, has the benefit of being so complex to manufacture that greennuts can't get their minds around it. If they had any idea how dirty a CPU fab is, how bad for the environment, they'd be up in arms.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Only liberals complain. Regular people hate regulation and the FDA is a regulatory body. Get rid of it. NOW. forever.

I found your baby pic:

For the rational people- medicine has a concept of risk vs. benefit. When the seriousness of a condition combined with the lack of better alternatives exists then a "dangerous" drug is used. Example: Warfarin.

With propoxyphene, studies which are commonly done hadn't been because it was effectively grandfathered and now there are medications which will do the same thing but are safer. Sometimes it sucks for some people but then again we have that risk vs benefit thing.

 

[CallMeJoe]

I found your baby pic...

Thalidomide is an interesting case. The FDA protected the United States from a drug that proved its hazards in the rest of the world, yet today they have approved its use for specific conditions (leprosy, certain skin conditions and cancer test studies) under tight controls to continue to shield the United States.

Damned intrusive federal regulators...

 

[dullard]

Keep watching my right hand , pay no attention to the left hand as I magically show you how to save money and improve the environment !

Now do that again, but this time properly. Or, do you perfer to look at only one component of a system and ignore the rest and pretend you can make valid conclusions about the system?

Try putting quantities of materials in the lightbulbs necessary for 10 years of daily use. And put types and quantities of chemicals released by power plants to power each bulb for 10 years.

What is your conclusion now?

 

[kage69]

LED is silicon which, like our processors, has the benefit of being so complex to manufacture that greennuts can't get their minds around it. If they had any idea how dirty a CPU fab is, how bad for the environment, they'd be up in arms.

Hold up, are you submitting that the tiny bit of silicon used as pseudo-filament in an LED light is as complex to manufacture as a 45nm microprocessor with millions of transistors on it?
I'd like to see something that supports the notion that LED production is as dirty and complex as that of microprocessors.

 

[skyking]

Hold up, are you submitting that the tiny bit of silicon used as pseudo-filament in an LED light is as complex to manufacture as a 45nm microprocessor with millions of transistors on it?
I'd like to see something that supports the notion that LED production is as dirty and complex as that of microprocessors.

When spouting rhetoric it is best to keep these details foggy at best.

 

[Modelworks]

Now do that again, but this time properly. Or, do you perfer to look at only one component of a system and ignore the rest and pretend you can make valid conclusions about the system?

Try putting quantities of materials in the lightbulbs necessary for 10 years of daily use. And put types and quantities of chemicals released by power plants to power each bulb for 10 years.

What is your conclusion now?

All changing lighting does is move the problem from one of power generation to one of dealing with a multitude of waste products from thousands of different sources. I am not someone who is saying this just because I don't led lighting, I do like it and have built several custom LED lighting displays and worked in the electronics field for over 20 years. I am saying it because it doesn't make sense to trade one problem for a multitude of problems just because it is more convenient for right now.

 

[Modelworks]

I'd like to see something that supports the notion that LED production is as dirty and complex as that of microprocessors.

It is extremely dirty and the waste products are deadly, not just harmful , but deadly. It is also very costly to clean the waste so that it can be disposed of.

Read the EPA PDF

www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r02089/600R02089.pdf

Therefore, disposal of
wastes containing lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, or selenium carries the potential for
future legal liabilities. Somewhat less toxic species such as antimony, copper, zinc, or
tellurium also may be regulated on a state or local basis. Finally, it must be remembered
that dopant or epitaxial sources may also be regulated. An example of the former
includes beryllium; examples of the latter include phosphine (PH3), ammonia (NH3),
silane (SiH4), or hydrogen sulfide (H2S). Many of these epitaxial sources are among the
most toxic substances known to man. For example, the dopant and epitaxial source
arsine (AsH3) is instantly lethal in concentrations of only 250 parts per million in air.
Lower concentration exposures result in chronic effects and often subsequent death.

The high percentage of wastes associated with foundry operations makes their
wastes the largest mass of waste for the compound semiconductor industry. Toxic wastes
from these operations can be loosely categorized into two forms:
1. liquid wastes that contain dissolved metal ions from the etching and polishing
operations, and
2. solid wastes, i.e., large pieces and cutting fines from the cutting and shaping
operations.
The wastes from crystal polishing consist of the flushant wastewaters containing
dissolved substrate materials with suspended polishing agent. For example, the polishing
wastewaters from GaAs manufacturing contain dissolved arsenic and dissolved gallium at
concentrations of between 200 and 400 ppm. These wastewaters are difficult to treat
because of stringent arsenic discharge limits and because of the difficulties introduced
into any sludge dewatering operations by the extremely fine, suspended polishing agent
particles.


On a material weight basis, approximately 50% of solid GaAs wastes generated
by semiconductor foundries are currently disposed of, and 50% are treated off-site for
recovery of the gallium fraction. Because GaAs is not (at this time) a listed hazardous
waste, disposal usually implies that the waste materials are placed into 55-gallon barrels,
and disposed of in landfills.




When GaAs wastes are sent to the only existing U.S.
recycler, only gallium is presently being recycled and arsenic is presently not recycled.
One major problem with the existing disposal approach is that GaAs may be
converted to the insidious gaseous toxin arsine (AsH 3 ) under acidic conditions. (Arsine
gas is immediately lethal in concentrations as low as 250 ppm; lower concentrations
result in chronic effects. The LD 50 for arsine is 0.5 ppm.) It is well documented that
landfills are typically anaerobic (reducing), with the simultaneous formation of organic
acids such as acetic and formic acids. Therefore, GaAs exposed to typical landfill
conditions could theoretically be easily converted to arsine gas. Even under less
catastrophic circumstances, such as the oxidation of the released arsenic to the trivalent or
pentavalent state, aqueous-phase arsenic will still represent a measurable toxic threat.
The prevailing attitude within the GaAs bulk crystal industry is that the existing
disposal and recycling approaches are satisfactory.


Under existing U.S. environmental
laws, the original GaAs crystal grower is liable for any future environmental cleanup
costs related to releases of the arsenic into the environment, with or without recycling of
the gallium from the waste stream. Perhaps the only reason why such costs have not
begun to be incurred by today’s crystal growers is because the industry is only
approximately twenty years old, and so arsenic contamination that is directly attributable
to GaAs production has not yet been observed.

 

[dullard]

It is extremely dirty and the waste products are deadly, not just harmful , but deadly. It is also very costly to clean the waste so that it can be disposed of.

Read the EPA PDF

www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r02089/600R02089.pdf

Open a window (if there are many, many CFLs broken at once since even a few CFLs broken are quite safe). 15 minutes later, vacuum. That is all you need to do to be safe.

Or, buy an incandescent bulb rated for vibration.

Mountain out of a molehill.

 

[Modelworks]

Open a window (if there are many, many CFLs broken at once since even a few CFLs broken are quite safe). 15 minutes later, vacuum. That is all you need to do to be safe.

Or, buy an incandescent bulb rated for vibration.

Mountain out of a molehill.

This has nothing to do with mercury in the bulbs. It is the manufacturing, but you don't see that so it doesn't matter to you. It is dumped somewhere else in someone else back yard.

 

[dullard]

This has nothing to do with mercury in the bulbs. It is the manufacturing, but you don't see that so it doesn't matter to you. It is dumped somewhere else in someone else back yard.

I know you are talking about manufacturing too. But, I'd rather have some discrete chemicals/trash at a few manufacturing plants than to have millions of tons of crap spewed into the atmosphere from power plants.

Descrete crap at manufacturing plants that is fairly easy to contain and clean >>> disperse crap that is set loose in my air.

It isn't that "I can't see it" at manufacturing plants. What I care about is that "I can't breathe it".

 

[kage69]

It is extremely dirty and the waste products are deadly, not just harmful , but deadly. It is also very costly to clean the waste so that it can be disposed of.

Read the EPA PDF

www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r02089/600R02089.pdf

Hrmm, keeps telling me that .pdf is damaged, can't open it. Anyway... Your excerpts don't mention LED production at all, it just seems like a run down on the lethality of compounds that I for the most part already knew were dangerous.
I'm not really questioning the lethality of these agents used in the production of our beloved chips, my poser was more in relation to the claim that LED production is as dirty and as complex as the production process for processors.

I see a huge disparity between the two technologies, really makes it hard to view their respective manufacturing as equally destructive. To put it another way, it's like the knife industry adopted the use of a high tech expensive alloy from the auto industry, and someone is saying these new knives are dangerous to the environment because this alloy is the same thing used by the car makers. Seems like a gross oversimplification at face value as we all know there is far more time, money, and materials used to make cars. Cars have been made for a long time, these knives just came out. These knives are single purpose and cheap, cars on the other hand are versatile and cost tens of thousands of dollars...

Or maybe it's just my apples and oranges alarm giving me a false positive? I dunno, honestly I've been a little loopy on cold pills the last day or so, maybe it's just me...

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Thalidomide is an interesting case. The FDA protected the United States from a drug that proved its hazards in the rest of the world, yet today they have approved its use for specific conditions (leprosy, certain skin conditions and cancer test studies) under tight controls to continue to shield the United States.

Damned intrusive federal regulators...

It's that pesky risk vs benefit thing. Then there's a whole regulatory procedure keeping pregnant women from creating more "flipper" babies. Oh the shame of it.

 

[Modelworks]

Hrmm, keeps telling me that .pdf is damaged, can't open it. Anyway... Your excerpts don't mention LED production at all, it just seems like a run down on the lethality of compounds that I for the most part already knew were dangerous.
I'm not really questioning the lethality of these agents used in the production of our beloved chips, my poser was more in relation to the claim that LED production is as dirty and as complex as the production process for processors.

Here is the corrected link:
http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r02089/600R02089.pdf
Finding all the information on electronic waste is pretty hard. The industries involved pay a lot to keep that kind of information as quiet as possible. The pdf does mention LED, I just didn't post that bit above. Here is the part that includes LED.

Epitaxial growth is the means whereby ultrathin layers of exact chemical
composition are laid down on substrate wafers that have been prepared by the
methodologies described above. In particular, this is a useful means to prepare
semiconductors that are to be used for laser or LED applications. There are four general
means by which epitaxy can be achieved. These are:
• Liquid-phase epitaxy (LPE);
• Vapor-phase epitaxy (VPE);
• Organometallic vapor-phase epitaxy (OMVPE); and
• Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).
LPE was the first commercially used epitaxial growth process and it involves the
growth of an epitaxial layer on a single crystal substrate from a solution saturated or
supersaturated with the material to be grown. VPE utilizes vaporized metal chlorides or
hydrides that are transported under controlled conditions (e.g., temperature, pressure,
flow rate) to the metal substrates. Unlike the LPE processes, smooth surfaces are
attainable, and several processing runs can be performed in an eight hour day.
Unfortunately, the toxicities associated with the hydride species used are always high.
OMVPE is an improvement over VPE because the reactions are irreversible and this
allows very abrupt transitions in composition of epitaxial structures. Such structure is a
necessity for the fabrication of digital or analog alloy systems. Another advantage is that
lower temperatures can be used for the growth processes and this minimizes the effects of
interdiffusion. Additionally, the organometallic substances used in OMVPE are less
toxic than hydrides resulting in lower toxicity starting materials and waste products alike.
MBE is the process of depositing epitaxial films from molecular or atomic beams on a
heated substrate under ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) conditions. The beams are thermally
generated from elemental feedstocks in Knudsen-type effusion cells. The thermal beams
travel in rectilinear paths to the substrate where they condense and grow under kinetically
controlled growth conditions.
With the exception of LPE, the wastes generated from epitaxial growth processes
are gaseous or solid in nature. The gaseous wastes are the "exhaust" vapors that are
drawn off from the epitaxial reactors. These are either passed through "hot boxes" where
they are mixed with oxygen and burned, or are oxidized using often proprietary catalyst
materials. Typically, the oxidized gases are scrubbed out of the effluent gas stream and
added to the plant’s wastewaters for treatment. These waste materials are disposed of
with little or no effort directed towards recovery. It is reported that epitaxial growth
processes utilize only 20 to 25 percent of the input materials for final product fabrication.

Here is the process used to make LED lights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalorganic_vapour_phase_epitaxy

I can't see how increasing the production of things like that vs controlling output of CO2 or sulfur is better.

 

[Modelworks]

I know you are talking about manufacturing too. But, I'd rather have some discrete chemicals/trash at a few manufacturing plants than to have millions of tons of crap spewed into the atmosphere from power plants.

Descrete crap at manufacturing plants that is fairly easy to contain and clean >>> disperse crap that is set loose in my air.

It isn't that "I can't see it" at manufacturing plants. What I care about is that "I can't breathe it".

These same factories burn off waste that is dumped straight into the air.
My concern is right now the main problem is centrally located at power plants. We can target the individual plants and control the waste. There are thousands of plants but that doesn't compare with the hundreds of thousands of chemical producers from the semiconductor industry. It will be a much harder task to control all those industries than it would to control one industry.

google electronic waste and see what it is doing to the environment. How we ship all the old circuit boards to other countries and even dump them at sea. The switch to lighting that requires more boards and parts isn't going to help.

 

[soccerballtux]

Hrmm, keeps telling me that .pdf is damaged, can't open it. Anyway... Your excerpts don't mention LED production at all, it just seems like a run down on the lethality of compounds that I for the most part already knew were dangerous.
I'm not really questioning the lethality of these agents used in the production of our beloved chips, my poser was more in relation to the claim that LED production is as dirty and as complex as the production process for processors.

I see a huge disparity between the two technologies, really makes it hard to view their respective manufacturing as equally destructive. To put it another way, it's like the knife industry adopted the use of a high tech expensive alloy from the auto industry, and someone is saying these new knives are dangerous to the environment because this alloy is the same thing used by the car makers. Seems like a gross oversimplification at face value as we all know there is far more time, money, and materials used to make cars. Cars have been made for a long time, these knives just came out. These knives are single purpose and cheap, cars on the other hand are versatile and cost tens of thousands of dollars...

Or maybe it's just my apples and oranges alarm giving me a false positive? I dunno, honestly I've been a little loopy on cold pills the last day or so, maybe it's just me...

see? You have to know it's a direct band gap semiconductor to know that this is what makes it useful in an LED or photocell.

This stuff is too far removed from the general Liberal population's understanding to ever really be subject to their whims (and thank goodness it is).

The last thing we need is another *P-AIR motorcycle equivalent legislation for semiconductors.

*the only way to improve "emissions" feasibly is to...get this...reroute some air from the airbox, past the engine, to mix with the exhaust, so that there's less *exhaust* per volume of air coming out of the tail pipe! That's what your green legislation gets you!

 

[soccerballtux]

Here is the corrected link:
http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r02089/600R02089.pdf
Finding all the information on electronic waste is pretty hard. The industries involved pay a lot to keep that kind of information as quiet as possible. The pdf does mention LED, I just didn't post that bit above. Here is the part that includes LED.







Here is the process used to make LED lights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalorganic_vapour_phase_epitaxy

I can't see how increasing the production of things like that vs controlling output of CO2 or sulfur is better.

one is simply within their understanding, the other isn't.

Grug: "CO2 BAD!!! SOLAR GOOD!"
Krug: "WARK WARK WARK NO MORE AUTOMOBILES"
Scientist: "Gallium Arsenide solar panels pollute our WATER SUPPLY and the byproducts can't just be converted into oxygen by more trees and algae and microbes!"
Grug/Krug: "duh....BUT SOLAR GOOD!! WE SPEND GUBMINT MONEY TO MAKE SOLAR BETTER!"
Scientist: [facepalm] "We already went down that road, but HECK YEAH IT'S FREE MONEY we'll, uh, say we missed something with our previous 20 years of research...yeah...and then we can claim the government money!"