Congressional Energy Plan Offers Choice of Bankruptcy or Mercury Poisoning

COMMENTARY | With gas prices tickling at $5.00 per gallon in some areas, Americans are starting to feel a serious financial pinch. Considering the increasing expense of sometimes daily feedings of our gas tanks, it's a wonder why someone hasn't begun a movement to enable taxpayers to claim their vehicle as a dependent. But while we have been distracted by the rising tide of pump prices, there is a light bulb tsunami heading our way.

In 2007, the Democrat-controlled Congress passed a bill which, in part, once you sift through the 822 pages of other expensive changes and assorted legal mumbo-jumbo, essentially bans the sale of incandescent light bulbs. Starting in January, according to the mandates set forth in the Energy Independence and Security Act, you will no longer be able to purchase your standard, inexpensive packs of light bulbs but must purchase one of two government options: the Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) or the Light-Emitting Diode (LED). Let's start with the brilliance of the CFL as an incandescent alternative.

According to Energy Star, because CFLs use less electricity than traditional light bulbs, they reduce the demand for electricity. While these new CFLs will bring a reduction of mercury and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the law will dramatically increase the gas emissions and elevate the amount of mercury levels being dispensed into the environment through private homes.

CFLs contain an average of 4 milligrams of mercury in each bulb. The involved and expensive disposal/recycling procedures of an intact bulb are out-shined only by the ridiculously involved process of safely disposing of one that has broken.

According to the EPA website

When a CFL bulb breaks, the EPA instructs that before clean-up you must have people and pets leave the room and air it out for at least 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment. They also advise that you turn off your central forced air heating/air conditioning system and collect the items you will need and follow the agency requirements to clean up your new hazard waste site, which will vary according to the type of contaminated surface.

For hard surfaces, you must carefully scoop up the broken glass and powder using a stiff paper or cardboard, placing the debris and the paper/cardboard you used to scoop it up into a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag. However, since plastic bags won't prevent the mercury vapor from escaping, you are instructed to remove the bag from the home after clean-up so it can be released directly into the atmosphere rather than your home.

After cleaning up the big shards of broken CFL, you must now use something sticky, like duct tape, to pick up any remaining powder and glass fragments. Put the now-contaminated tape into your sealable toxic waste container of choice as well. Now it's time to wipe the area with clean, damp paper towels or other disposable item, and because, yes, these wiping items are also contaminated, you must throw those in your handy-dandy HAZMAT container as well.

The next step is to break out your vacuum cleaner. But wait, because of the air motion caused by the use of vacuums, you are instructed to keep a window open (if available) while sucking up the toxic mercury. Because re-use of the now contaminated vacuum cleaner will belch the housed mercury into your home when you use it the next time, you must add another step, depending on which vacuum cleaner style you have. For those who have vacuum cleaners with bags, you must remove the vacuum cleaner bag (even if it's brand new) and put it in with all of the other things you had to buy that were made out of trees that you are now going to throw away.

If you have a bag-less vacuum cleaner, you have to take it apart and clean it and follow the same contaminated material disposal procedures with all of the other materials you use. That includes disposing of and replacing all of those expensive little vacuum HEPA filters. By now you may realize the glass jar with the metal lid or the sealable plastic bag you choose when you begin this procedure should be rather large.

Once you are finished, place it outside and call your local government agency to learn about proper disposal procedures. Where some require you to take it to a recycling or disposal center yourself, some make you keep it on your property during a year waiting period for the next pick-up in your area. After you are finished cleaning up the broken bulb, wash your hands with soap and water and continue to keep a window open with the H&AC system off so you can vent the mercury vapor from your home and out into the atmosphere for several hours.

The process for cleaning carpets is even more involved. You must also throw away any clothing, bedding or other items contaminated by the broken CFL, as washing them would transfer the mercury directly into the water supply rather than simply allowing the vapors to enter the air first. Confused? Well, you have six months left to learn it all. And that's only the expensive rules for CFL Bulbs. The LEDs are even better. They start out with a purchase price of $50.

LEDs, while efficient, durable and produced in great quantities, are still very expensive. One LED bulb can contain a dozen tiny semiconductor chips at a cost of approximately $1 per chip. The biggest problem with LEDs is that although they don't produce as much heat as incandescent bulbs, the heat they do create shortens the lifespan of the bulb and reduces the efficiency of the chips. This means you will have to purchase them often as they will not last as long as a standard incandescent or mercury-contaminated CFL.

Another problem is trying to make these bulky bulbs conform to a size that will fit our existing fixtures. Cramming a dozen chips in a compact bulb-shaped package makes the heat problem worse. Translation: the brighter the bulb, the bigger the problem and the shorter the lifespan of the bulb. Although there are some more powerful versions of the LED for directional or flood lighting purposes, the most powerful bulb that would be used by the average home consumer is equivalent to a standard 60-watt bulb.

While the average cost is currently around $40 per bulb, according to the Associated Press, we are supposed to feel encouraged that they may be as little as $10 each by the year 2015. Until then, they are only getting more expensive as companies create bulbs with higher wattage.

Osram Sylvania, a unit of Germany's Siemens AG, said it has overcome the heat problem and will be showing a pear-shaped 100-watt-equivalent LED bulb at the Light Fair trade show in Philadelphia this week. Although Osram Sylvania doesn't have a firm launch date, it usually reveals new product lines about a year before they hit store shelves. They will cost you about $50 a pop.

The idiocy behind these expensive and toxic alternatives to the relatively cheap incandescent bulb is that incandescents produce heat and must therefore be an evil contributor to the perpetually questionable myth of man-made global warming. But whether you are a global warming advocate or not, ask yourself this simple question: What is more hazardous to the environment, air that is warmed by one light bulb or the mercury vapors emitted into the air by another? Who will suffer more from the expense of LED bulbs or the time-consuming process to avoid mercury contamination in our homes by a CFL: the evil rich people or the middle-class and poor people who are already being crushed by unemployment, home foreclosures and rising food and gas prices?

As the Heritage Foundation reports, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama warned us that under his plan electricity costs would "necessarily skyrocket." I have a feeling that many are only beginning to realize what he meant. Factor in that he is pushing us to purchase electric cars while promising to bankrupt the biggest producers of electricity, one might be inclined to proclaim it is officially time to start worrying.

Sources:

Patricia Campion, "Message from Barack Antoinette to Americans Who Can't Afford $5 per Gallon Gas", Accociated Content

US Department of Energy, "Energy Independence & Security Act", Federal Energy Management Program

"Cleaning Up a Broken CFL", United States Environmental Protection Agency

Associated Press, "As Government Bans Regular Light Bulbs, LED Replacements Will Cost $50 Each", FOX News

Obama: "''¹..."Under My Plan, Electricity Rates Will Necessarily Skyrocket'", Heritage Foundation

"Shock Audio Unearthed Obama Tells San Francisco He will Bankrupt the Coal Industry", The Heritage Foundation