When the Department of Energy (DOE) recently launched its Palit Ilaw program which essentially enjoins government offices and projects to replace incandescent lamps and other energy-hungry lighting fixtures with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), there was hardly any ripple of approval even from energy efficiency campaigners or consumer advocates.
This is not really surprising because advocating a support for such a move from our politicians would hardly land them in front of the klieglights of publicity. For consumer advocates it would hardly endear them to the masses who would be asked to replace their dirt-cheap incandescent lamps with expensive compact fluorescent lamps. The masses who are desperately trying to make both ends meet on a month-to-month, or even day-to-day basis wouldn’t have the time or the wherewithal to figure out the long-term economic benefits of the move.
The environmental crusaders on the other hand are somewhat split. The global warming enthusiasts embrace it like a teddy bear, for they have already calculated the amount of carbon dioxide that would be displaced from emissions by fuel-based generators. The ultra-pure green advocates while not openly declaring opposition, snickered when in the course of promoting Al Gore’s opus An Inconvenient Truth, supporters were asked to buy compact fluorescent lamps to replace their incandescent lamps.
They have a point.
CFLs do contain the toxic element mercury, albeit in milligram amounts. The lamp works by exciting mercury atoms to generate UV light. The light in turn strikes at the phosphor coating which gives off the white light we enjoy. Without mercury, there is no light.
Other green campaigners stretch the anti-stance by arguing that disposal of the used CFLs poses environmental hazards and even pointing out that the transport of these mercury-containing lamps emit greenhouse gases (GHG).
The latter is probably stretching the argument too much. We have been using millions of standard linear or circular fluorescent lamps, and CFLs are no different. There will always be some accidents due to breakage and mercury will be spilled and may actually pose some hazards. But simple precautions like not handling the broken glasses containing phosphor and immediate ventilation of the contaminated area should eliminate most of the danger.
There are other household items that contain more mercury such as the common glass thermometer, sphygmomanometer and pressure gauges that have escaped scrutiny from our dear green watchers
Nothing is aseptically clean or immaculately green, whether it is baby products or energy sources. It is just a matter of degree how much dirt or inconvenience we accept or tolerate.
Even the most accepted clean energy sources have their detractors.
A nuclear renaissance has not taken hold mainly because of the dim memories of Three-Mile Island near-disaster and the catastrophic Chernobyl accident. But the former was avoidable while the latter used Soviet-era safety standards and obsolete technology. Some environmental activists even prefer nuclear over fossil fuels power sources.
Even the concern of nuclear waste disposal is probably overblown when the current “temporary” storage could pass the most stringent safety standards ever. So are the new-generation designs of reactors.
About the only serious objection of nuclear power is nuclear proliferation in this age of Al Qaeda.
Geothermal is also a favorite target practice of environmental activists. Sure the wells emit some hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide most of which are dissipated through or absorbed by the foliage and soil. Literally along the same breath, the same critics daily inhale from far more dangerous gas emissions from ill-tuned up car engines, motor cabs and diesel-gushing jeepneys.
Well-meaning opposition to geothermal points to some disturbance to vegetation when roads are made and pads are prepared, forgetting the fact that coal mining strips down whole forests and mountains—not in China, or Indonesia but in the most advance country on earth, the United States.
They also point to disturbance to forest dwellers. In the meantime, the rare bats within the Bacman geothermal reservation have not left the area and continue to doze off during the day while the power plants churn electrical power. The snakes and monkeys in Kidapawan have not yet attacked the engineers manning the geothermal plant as an act of environmental revenge.
Even the cleanest of them all—wind power—have critics. Some complain about the extra decibels these turbines are generating completely forgetting that the levels are far lower than a normal traffic. And if some groups object to these structures because some rare migratory bird species from Siberia are disoriented by the low frequency humming—what shall we put up?
SO would, or wouldn’t you shift to CFLs?
The alternative to the modern conveniences is a nomadic life or cave-dwelling. Just be sure to know enough taxonomy to avoid eating rare and protected root crops and using natural herbs listed as endangered by WWF.
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