"Mad as a Hatter"
And why were hatters mad? Because in earlier centuries, hat makers used mercury to cure pelts used in some hats, and in so doing, inhaled mercury fumes. The result? Hatters often suffered mercury poisoning that caused neurological damage, damage that included confused speech, distorted vision, and lack of coordination.
Now the federal government has mandated that you put mercury in your home in the form of light bulbs (even as they warn you about it in your fish). As John Hinderaker of Power Line writes:
You could say that requiring Americans to remove pretty much all of the light bulbs now in use and replace them with bulbs that people don't want is the ultimate in nanny statism, except that nannies don't generally poison the children in their care.
In 2007, Congress passed (and to his eternal shame, Pres. G. W. Bush signed) the Energy Independence and Security Act, an energy bill that placed strict efficiency requirements on incandescent bulbs in an attempt to phase them out beginning in 2012 and replace them with more expensive (but supposedly more energy-efficient) bulbs, the most popular being compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs). One side effect of that legislation was the September 2010 closing of General Electric’s last major incandescent factory in this country and the laying off of 200 workers. Most of these jobs will head over to China, where many of the CFLs sold in the U.S. are made.
And what’s so bad about CFLs? The worst thing (among several) is that CFLs contain mercury, and exposure to mercury vapor is dangerous if the bulbs break.
So what happens when your new CFL does break? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) basically declares your house a hazmat area. (Please, go look for yourself, I’ll wait—check online here at epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup.pdf)
Did you read the list? Before you can even start cleaning up, you’re supposed to do the following:
- Have people and pets leave the room. (Why? Because mercury vapor is poisonous.)
- Air out the room for 5 to10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment. (Once again, why? Because the government has mandated that you put poison in your home.)
- Shut off the central forced air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one. (Because we don’t want the mercury poison to travel throughout your home’s air system.)
- Collect materials needed to clean up the broken bulb. (To clean up an incandescent bulb just requires my hands and a trash can. Now, according to the EPA, I will need: stiff paper or cardboard, sticky tape, damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes, and a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag.)
Who wants to bet that many people won’t follow these guidelines, and that 10 or 15 years from now, we will hear from the environmentalists that our ground water and landfills are replete with mercury and will require massive amounts of government funds to clean up?
Already, hospitals warn that CFL bulbs can cause migraines and epilepsy attacks. Others point out that CFLs don’t work well in colder temperatures and Americans will then be forced to use more heat (thus negating any gains in energy efficiency). CFLs don’t work well with dimmer switches, can take up to several minutes to reach full brightness, and the lifespan of the bulb diminishes when it’s turned on and off frequently.
But all that “don’t make no never mind,” because beginning January 2012, 100-watt bulbs will be declared unacceptable to the federal government and therefore no longer available to you. (The state of California, just to show it’s in the forefront of foolish ideas, upped their date to January 2011, so as of now, no more 100-watt incandescent bulbs for sale there.) This diminution of choice will completely disappear in January 2014, when the last remaining wattage, 40-watt bulbs, will be declared enemies of the environment and removed from store shelves. Then you can start worrying about your deadly mercury bulbs . . . if you haven’t already.
Am I stockpiling incandescents?
Why, yes. Yes, I am.
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Comments :
Aug '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
To our great shame, this is happening because George W. Bush approved it. Additionally, these bulbs are made overseas. It makes me furious.
May '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
My daughter's posh New England prep school makes a HUGE deal of how "green" it is. In fact, incandescent bulbs are prohibited. The kids, however, replace the CFLs with incandescents as soon as they move into their dorm rooms. I am currently in the aforementioned California. Our villa is now filled with dim yellow CFLs. I hate them. HatehateHATE them. I will also be stockpiling incandescents. It's too much to hope that our legislators will come to their senses and repeal this stupid law. What is this country coming to?
Mar '11
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
Republicans in both the Senate and the House have introduced legislation this year to repeal the ban on incandescents, but nothing has passed yet; and considering that there is no manufacturing of incandescents still in this country, even if the legislation passes, we'll be buying them from overseas.
May '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
Don't forget kids. Little kids love to run around inside and kick balls indoors, throw things, etc. They'll break the bulbs by accident. And teenagers do all sorts of stupid things for fun without deeply considering the consequences. Teenagers will sneak the mercury bulbs into public places and break them just to laugh at the reactions.
The EPA's guidelines could be typically hysterical. I don't know. But it's an outrageous example of government overreach, either way.
I'm with you, Anne.
Jun '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
How about this as the initial standard for all government action?: First do no harm.
Light bulbs, Obamacare, etc, etc, would all fail.
May '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
Chill. The incandescent ban was nonsense, and should be repealed, of course- but it was one small part of a larger package that was voted through by a Republican Congress. There were other unseverable elements of that law that were needed in exchange for other important support for other things- so you sometimes choke down the ugly cold medicine to get a cancer treatment. Government for adults is tough- you just don;t win every argument. St. Ronald didn't either.
BTW, the incandescent factory was likely toast anyway due to labor rate competition from Hungary and China.
And I think that for some applications, CFLs are great, for others, no. The 60 watt versions are too weak, but the 150 and 200 watt equivalents are very useful. Not everything we dislike is evil in all forms and for all applications.
Someone go back and exhume the LED bulb thread so we don't repeat everything here all over again..
Feb '11
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
I am no fan of the incandescent ban, which is ridiculous and needs to be repealed, but we need to be careful with the mercury argument. Yes, the CFLs contain mercury, but so does coal, which is of course a primary fuel for power generation in the US and is of course burned in increasing amounts as electricity useage increases.
It would be interesting to see a comparison of mercury due to coal-burning driven by incandescents versus an analysis of mercury release due to CFLs with *realistic* assumptions about recycling. Anyone seen such a study?
Duane..."the incandescent factory was likely toast anyway due to labor rate competition from Hungary and China"...I doubt if this is the case. The incandescent bulb manufacturers (I'm thinking specifically of GE) had 100 years of experience and capital investment, and bulb-making was highly automated process. From what I've read, CFL manufacturing requires a higher labor component (at least at the present time) and hence the location decision is more sensitive to labor rates.
May '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
How is enabling government's micromanagement of the most casual and everyday purchases a reasonable trade for anything?
Forget LEDs. This isn't about which light bulb design is better. It's about politicians thinking they can tell us how to run our lives.
May '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
David, I am talking about incandescent competition- the Hungarians had already taken away all the standard bulb wattages market from the US, and the specialty sizes were the next target. Halogens are hotter than blazes, but they are not banned- go figure.
The shame here is that GE, because of Immelt's green-bribe-Obama-rent-seeking-strategy, refused to let the employees buy the plant and try to keep it open or re-tool for new bulb technologies.
The villains here are GE's managers even more than Fred Upton (who now seems to have reaquired religion on the subject). GE wanted to close that plant and import CFLs from China.
Jul '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
For those of you who are new, here's the thread from the last time we talked about light bulbs.
This ain't about light, people. It's about freedom.
Jan '11
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
I am definitely stocking up on incandescents with a strong emphasis on 100 watters....in a planned act of governmental defiance. Then guys like Jim Demint threatened to spoil my plans by trying to repeal the law. Not to worry, I have a back-up plan of governmental defiance. I will eat cookies and cupcakes and drink milk within 100 feet of a school and then spill my milk....right on the ground!
Nov '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
Anne, Thanks for the reminder. I am headed out to Home Depot tomorrow with the sole intention of stocking up on my incandescents. I have no intention of stumbling through my house as if it were Charles de Gaulle Airport or any hotel room in Europe....
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
There's a million watt march coming. I can just feel it.
Kenneth: For those of you who are new, here's the thread from the last time we talked about light bulbs.
This ain't about light, people. It's about freedom. · Apr 4 at 6:28pm
Jul '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
I have two 500-watt halogen floor lamps; Italian beauties that light up the joint like the floodlights at a baseball stadium.
I also have an AR-15, in case the nanny-staters decide to come confiscate them.
Apr '11
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
Betcha those CFLs can't do THIS (now entering its 100th year)!
Mar '11
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
For years, the Consumer Products Safety Commission required children’s pajamas extinguish themselves when exposed to an open flame for three seconds and do so after repeated washings. Many fabrics needed to be treated to meet this standard and one of the first chemicals developed to do this was tris. Six years later, in 1977 tris was discovered to cause cancer and sterility in animals and was banned. We should long ago have learned that roads paved with good intentions don’t always lead where we’d like to go.
Jul '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
Sterility in animals? You mean people were dressing their Labrador Retrievers in children's pajamas? That's a bit too kinky for me.
Apr '11
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
There is a state, sadly, I can't remember which, that is avoiding the Federal mandate by manufacturing and selling incandescent bulbs in state only, and avoiding the Federal commerce regulations.
Mar '11
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
Kenneth
Sterility in animals? You mean people were dressing their Labrador Retrievers in children's pajamas? That's a bit too kinky for me. · Apr 4 at 11:02pm
To paraphrase Groucho, how the lab got into the kids' pajamas, I'll never know.
Dec '10
Re: "Mad as a Hatter"
"reidspoorhouse
There is a state, sadly, I can't remember which, that is avoiding the Federal mandate by manufacturing and selling incandescent bulbs in state only, and avoiding the Federal commerce regulations."
That would be South Carolina, in their latter day echo of Fort Sumter.