[teal-party] Al Gore's Blog, Incandescent Bulbs Suck, World Water Day

[lwood]

Teal Party News, 22 March 2007: World Water Day!

---

We Found Al Gore's Blog

So if you've been following the former Vice President for the past couple of months, or dpaxson's and my LJ's for a bit less, you'll know he has a mailing list.

Well, he's got a blog too, syndicated to LJ and thus available for friending as: al_gore_blog

Friends, over half a million cards and letters happened. This momentous occasion rather slipped under the showdown over Alberto Gonzales's eight politically motivated dismissals, but it happened nonetheless; I caught a snip on CNN over lunch at the campus pub here at the Mad Scientists' Home.

---

Why Incandescent Light Bulbs Suck--for Now

A little physics:

Incandescent light bulbs generate light by heating a tiny wire until it is so hot, it glows. The reason they last any length of time at all is that as much oxygen as possible is evacuated from the bulb during its manufacture.

Now, those of you who know beans from buckshot about elementary physics know that there is no reaction anywhere that doesn't kick off a little waste heat. Sometimes you harness it, usually it just dissipates, but in any case, this is one of those inefficiencies built into the universe's configuration. Using a power current--any power current, electricity, microwaves, kumquats, whatever--just to generate heat is nothing more than finding something useful to do with intentional inefficiency.

With that in mind, let's restate our original premise:

An incandescent light bulb is designed to inefficiently pass electricity through a too-narrow wire. It would catch fire and melt except we took all its oxygen away, so all it can do is glow in white-hot frustration.

Isn't that kinda...crazy?

Well, no: burning things is how humans made light for millenia.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Ever chased a firefly? They're not hot.

In contrast to the incandescent bulb, a fluorescent lamp is a tube full of (usually) mercury gas. Goose the gas with a comparative trickle of electricity, it kicks off UV rays, which in turn strike the coating of the tube, the coating fluoresces in the visible range. Presto!

But wait...mercury!?

Yes. Mercury.

Mercury's a nice fellow, sure, but his namesake element is not kind to children or other living things. While the level of mercury in any one bulb is minute (really, really minute), and the energy savings is a real win, it is not appropriate to just toss one's flourescent bulbs in the trash, as the concentration of mercury at the local landfill will work its way up to significance.

Other gasses will work (e.g. neon), they make colored light, when we want as near to white as possible. Xenon does give off an ideal, noonday color, but extraction and synthesis of xenon is wildly expensive due to its comparative scarcity: anything occupying one of the low rungs of the periodic table is going to be a rather rare bird, and guess where xenon lives?

Now, that doesn't mean compact fluorrescent bulbs aren't a good idea--the coal you're not burning for the electricity you're not using far outweighs what's in the bulb. Just dispose of it properly.

How to find an appropriate place?

http://www.earth911.org/master.asp

There you go. Just drop your ZIP or other postal code in the upper-left-hand corner. For residents of Alameda County in particular, there's:

http://www.stopwaste.org/ -- is where you'll find our countywide Hazardous Waste Disposal Program, with helpful links like "Bay Friendly Gardening". Definitely worth a visit.

In short--I know, too late--incandescent bulbs suck. Compact flourescents take a little care on their way out, but for now, they're a good deal.

Thus, in response, several nations, states, and provinces are now ambling towards banning sale of incandescent bulbs. Here's a bunch of links, all from news agencies appropriate to the locale:

Australia:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/light-bulbs-ban-to-slash-emissions/2007/02/19/1171733685061.html

California:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/09/BAG75O1QUQ1.DTL&type=printable

North Carolina:
http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070320/NEWSREC0101/703200305

Ontario:
http://www.thestar.com/article/184290

The EU--yes, I know this is from the UK; best I could do:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6433503.stm

Now, in response to this, and in light of the issue regarding disposal of the things, General Electric is mounting a counter-proposal: an efficient incandescent bulb!

GE's Answer: the High Efficiency Incandescent Lamp (HEIL)
http://tinyurl.com/2epys2

This was one of those ridiculously long URL's, shortened with at tinyurl.com. TinyURL.com is your friend, it's your friends' list's friend, and if we could get Jordsvin, a self-affirmed Luddite to use it, so can ye all!

More germanely, this is a press release from just last month, so this is pretty fresh dirt.

By the way, a lot of the work will be going on in Cleveland, Ohio. Hooray, Cleveland! Cleveland rocks!

Still, the press release admits that we're still several years from a real competitor to compact fluorescent lamps (CFL's). For now, go with the CFL's--especially if you can find low-mercury ones. Regardless, dispose of them properly until a competing incandescent can make the scene.

---

22 March: Clean Water Day

Today, friends, is World Water Day, as declared by the United Nations. This year's theme is Living with Scarcity, and there is a website full of materials relating to this topic.

Hey! California--yes, all the Californias, North and South and Central and Jefferson and the Great Valley and, heck, all y'all.

We actually live in a continual state of water scarcity out here compared, to, say, Cleveland.

The reason your taps work is because we're also very, very good at cheating.

Paying attention to that in the coming years will be quite important--and will, in a week when I can't find enough good stuff, engender a rant on Why Lawns Suck.

---

That's all for now--until then, go well, waste less, and you can't go away 'cos away doesn't exist.

-- Lorrie

Comments

[faeryl.livejournal.com]

>engender a rant on Why Lawns Suck.

Oy, don't get me started. I despise 'em. They're a tremendous waste of water, a major source of groundwater and air pollution and they suck up landfill space like crazy.

I also happen to loathe North Texas' attitude towards, say xeriscaping. Frisco(big Yuppie, full-of-itself town) actually did this at one of their parks and it made the news...because some dad was complaining about how horrible and dangerous and what a waste it was and why didn't they put down grass like everyone else? If you tried xeriscaping in Richardson(used to be-WASP-full-of-itself town but still hasn't realized after the telecom bust that they're now multi-ethic and largely blue collar) they'd fine you for the "weeds" And the "wildflowers" they seed in the medians are lovely...but they're definately not native to this state.

Which is a shame, because there are a lot of beautiful plants which used to grow here(we're on the edge of what used to be Blackland Prairie), and which require next to nothing when it comes to water.

*smacks forehead*

OK, done for now.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Oh, I definitely hear you!

Me, I hiss and spit whenever I pass a golf course that's in some wildly inappropriate location.

Like...California, really.

-- Lorrie

[lysana.livejournal.com]

People have so forgotten that part of what makes golf a sport is you play it in areas that get lots of rain and you play it regardless of weather barring lightning storms or snow. Golf is not meant to be a mellow day in Palm Springs. It's Scotland the Brave. 'Ware the winds!

[lwood.livejournal.com]

And 'ware waving a metal stick around in a thunderstorm. ;)

-- Lorrie

[blackfyr.livejournal.com]

It should be noted that a small number of golf coursees are starting to use native grasses instead of foreign versions. One greenskeeper who started doing it noted that, once rooted, the native grasses used less water to be made green than the traditional grasses.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

As of 1 April, all of my state (Victoria, Australia) will be on Stage 4 water restrictions. I hear you about scarcity. Boy, do I ever.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I'd heard about that.

Supplies of fresh water are being depleted--worldwide--far faster than they're being replenished.

I was at the Desert Museum (http://www.desertmuseum.org/) in Tucson, Arizona nearly a year ago. They had, as you might imagine, quite a bit to say about responsible water management, including a display that allowed as how the Tucson area was depleting its groundwater stores three times faster than they were being replenished.

Three times!

Tucson isn't even all that big, for a city, and they appear to have outlawed lawns, which is a big help, but still.

What the hell they do in Phoenix, which is a big city with lawns, I have no freaking clue--it's on a list of cities about which You Should Not Get Me Started.

-- Lorrie

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

In Phoenix, I have seen regulations saying they can pump water from not-quite-clean-enough wells "when neccessary"... Which is pretty much all the time. Their water is highly over-chemicaled, tastes foul, and made me ill the one time I went there. Any time after about noon, the streets all reeked of sewer, which I can only assume means it wasn't being drained off for processing fast enough. Yet they have this huge fountain in a (I believe artificial) lake on the outskirts of town...

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Having trundled a bit around the Southwest, I reckoned that Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas were, in ascending order, the three Least Probable Cities I'd visited.

Well, okay. I've never been to Vegas, but it still shouldn't be there.

Phoenix has lawns. LAWNS! WTF!?

-- Lorrie

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

Heh. Been to Palm Springs lately?

It should be illegal to put golf courses in the desert.

Apparently there are issues down our way with the casinos beginning to chew up groundwater so much that the folks still living on the reservations can't use their wells. This is not good. ):

At least in our immediate area, most of the public and business land is watered with greywater. There are signs warning people not to drink it. So that at least is good.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I've been through the Springs.

I was trying not to think about it, although there are actual springs there, so it's not as wretched as it might be.

It's also quite small, so it's only in the top ten least probable. ;)

folks still living on the reservations can't use their wells. This is not good. ):

That's horrid.

When I lived in the South Bay, I had the great good fortune to work at Moffett Field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffett_Federal_Airfield), which had been there ever since it was the Valley of Heart's Delight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_Valley), and full of broccoli. Back then, the groundwater was fine. Well, sorta, but the effects that the mercury (mined to refine gold and silver) had was stronger further south and west, in watersheds of Coyote and Almaden Creeks, and didn't much affect the Stevens Creek watershed, where Moffett is.

Then the photochemical plant came.

Then the semiconductor fab plants.

Moffett Field? Still has wells.

Rather than tying into either of the two municipal water systems that border the land (who use wells that go beneath groundwater, down to the aquifer), they instead broke out in water coolers, and ran regular orientation sessions that said, basically, "don't drink the tapwater".

They'd run out of money for those classes by the time I turned up, trusting co-workers to tell me this important Fact o' Life--I learned quick.

Re: Non-Potable Irrigation Water

Actually, I don't know about down there, but up here that was started in no small part by the fact that what San Jose was dumping back into the Bay was too clean; turning the brackish bay too sweet for its ecosystems.

It's a pretty novel solution, I have to admit, and at least it ensures the water goes around twice before ambling back into the Bay...

-- Lorrie

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

About the runoff being too clean: That's interesting. I don't *think* we have that problem here, as we have very hard water to begin with. They don't need to flouridate the water in San Diego. Well, *need* is such a strong term anyway ... I'm not convinced any city needs to do that, but regardless .... It'd probably cause more problems than it would solve. Apparently the local ground contains lots of flouride from the surrounding area, as well as lots of other minerals of course.

Re: Moffett Field .... that's gotta be SOME kind of negligence there somewhere, doesn't it? O_O

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Well "too clean" in this case meant that what came from the sewage treatment plant was fresh water--and the bay is brackish.

So there wasn't enough salt, which screwed things up, just like too much salt can screw things up.

Re: Moffett Field: Santa Clara County (San Jose, Moffett Field, the aforementioned mercury mines, photo plant, fab plants...) has more Superfund sites than almost any other county in the country. It's a bit scary.
'
-- Lorrie

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

Conversations about water shortage really highlight cultural differences for me. I heard someone today going on about how much California has done to conserve water, by making restaurants not serve it by default and making businesses water at night. The last time I talked with a friend from New Mexico, he wasn't talking about Xeriscaping, he was talking about getting the $%^& out of dodge before the water completely ran out.

I tend to feel that California is doing next to nothing. Too many aqueducts are still open-air, there are too many lawns, too little focus on shade trees, microclimate generation, native plants, greywater use... And people still wash their cars with garden hoses, pouring gallon after gallon into the gutter. From my point of view, we haven't even BEGUN to conserve here.

And then there's Australia... I heard that Queensland is having a campaign to try to decrease average shower length from 8 minutes to 4 minutes of running water. Even after growing up in New Mexico, I can hardly imagine that. We've a long ways to tumble, but the wind's already blowing...

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

Oh, and for extra irony: The "California conserves so much" person was reading Dune.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Natch.

Dune is why I hiss and spit as I pass golf courses, though.

-- Lorrie

[lwood.livejournal.com]

In the Bay Area, we're a little noisier about making it illegal, and immoral, to wash your car in the driveway (It DRAINS! To the BAY!), at least by the number of PSA's I hear on the radio.

Sustainable landscaping gets muttered about very quietly.

There are laws in many cities to have mandatory planting and replacement of shade trees, but they're not terribly well funded or enforced.

I heard that Queensland is having a campaign to try to decrease average shower length from 8 minutes to 4 minutes of running water.

Yep. Oh, and some crazy amount of Australian farmland is salting itself (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/070316.html).

But as to greywater use, it's got some legs, at least in Westrian (http://www.westria.org/) parts. There may or may not be signs trumpeting the unpotability of the irrigation water, but I've noticed a growing number of purple (lilac, actually) irrigation fixtures around office buildings, which matches the color used on fixtures where OMGWTFNONPOTABLEH₂OBBQ signs are in evidence.

-- Lorrie

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

Amen with regards to lawns. I do not have one. We ripped ours out and put in bark chips and lavender and pittosporum. And a fern pine (podocarpus) when our neighbor next door ripped out their beautiful 25-year-old pine tree. (Stupid neighbors. q: )

It looks great. And it's very low-maintenance, which is terrific for me, because I hate doing yardwork anyway. (: Now I don't *have* to mow the lawn!

It's mildly depressing that the largest crop grown in the US is grass. Seems everyone grows it. /:

With regards to the incandescent light bulb .... compact flourescents are UUUUGLY. ): I have one in my laundry room for the light we leave on when we leave the house. But in terms of say, using a flourescent light for reading and doing art? I'm sorry, I can't. It makes everything so icky-looking. It literally makes me unhappy being around flourescents. ):

We're currently using a mix of incandescents and small halogens. I'm curious as to what the environmental impact of halogen bulbs is.

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

Having gone and looked at same, I'm glad to know that our halogens are currently the lights we use least. (:

I do hope they get energy-efficient incandescents up soon. Or at least better-colored flourescents. /: Either would be good.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Having gone and looked at same, I'm glad to know that our halogens are currently the lights we use least. (:


The other cool new word that isn't ready for prime time--but is summat closer than efficient incandescents--is the use of LED clusterbulbs. White is still pricey, though.

The fluorescent bulbs are now coming in warmer spectra, and low-mercury variants, both of which are Good to See.

-- Lorrie

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That's interesting. I wouldn't mind paying more for light that doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out after an hour or two. I'll look into that.

And thanks for the spelling correction. (:

[lwood.livejournal.com]

You're welcome--I screwed up flouououououourescent when writing the OP, so I completely feel your pain, only my pain was editable. ;)

-- Lorrie

[lwood.livejournal.com]

My apartment building doesn't have a lawn, nor does Greyhaven--we do have an irrigation system, but much of what's planted around the building is clearly tolerant stuff: olives, aloes, et al.

It's mildly depressing that the largest crop grown in the US is grass. Seems everyone grows it. /:

Well, leaving aside naturally occuring grasslands, which get repleaced with cereal grains (still grass), then you have the lawn, which on top of wanting all that blessed water to stay green, are--when "properly" tended--monocultures. Really, they're ecologically poor from several simultaneous angles, but this is not the day for that rant. Really.

I'm curious as to what the environmental impact of halogen bulbs is.

Halogen, alas, is a type of incandescent bulb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_Lamp#The_halogen_lamp). It runs hotter and uses somewhat less juice, but not a lot less.

Have you looked for the warmer-spectrum CFL's?

-- Lorrie

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've looked at 'em, but I still really don't care for them. ): The one we have in the laundry room is a warmer CFL. It's hard to explain. It's like wanting to scratch an itch inside my eyes, and it won't go away. It's fine for short lengths of time, but not for any sort of intensive visual work.

It probably wouldn't hurt to at least replace the ones in the bathrooms, though. We don't spend a lot of time in there.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* I know that "wrong color of light" is crazy-making! Mostly it gets up my nose when the car behind me has the new cooler, brighter OWOWOWMYEYES headlights. 8-)

-- Lorrie

[shantak.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for the heads up on the mercury in the "better" bulb. When I was working at Solid and Hazardous Waste I learned that here in Hawaii at least, households are exempt from hazardous waste disposal laws, unlike businesses. That conjured up horrible images when the Compacts finally died and flooded the landfills. They are still the best option until we can come up with something else.

And our poor water supply here is in trouble too. People are pushing xeriscaping but I wonder if it isn't too little too late.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Well, my research was swift to point out that more Hg would be released into the environment from the coal burned to keep a normal incandescent bulb lit than was trapped in the CFL's tube.

Still, the best value of Hg in the groundwater for animals to be happy really is "none".

Too late?

Not while we yet breathe!

-- Lorrie

[knittingwoman.livejournal.com]

"away doesn't exist" absolutely. That's why I won't use the word "disposable" where exactly are you disposing of that single use, throw away, not reusable, cup, diaper etc.?

Water is the single biggest issue of our day and doesn't get talked about near enough.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Water is the single biggest issue of our day and doesn't get talked about near enough.

It's one of the least comfortable to do anything about--that, and population.

-- Lorrie