[meteorite-list] Amazing coincedence, Off topic DEFORESTATION for Furniture.

From: mark ford <markf_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:24:28 +0100
Message-ID: <6CE3EEEFE92F4B4085B0E086B2941B31293CEA_at_s-southern01.s-southern.com>

Martin,

I agree, and yes saving energy is a good thing! (that is if they actually save energy from 'creation to disposal') and as you say it also saves the consumer money..

 But with regard to 'environmental and energy 'costs' - also factor in the manufacturing and transportation 'so called - production energy' energy efficient light bulbs contain much more worked glass, more plastic, they contain toxic fluorescent materials, mercury vapor, Passive electronic components (sourced from all over the world), fiberglass PCB's, silicon chips (sourced from all over the world), electroplated gold silver, Gallium/antimony/arsenic in components, copper in wound components, Ferrites. Add to this the environmental disposal impacts (only some can be recycled) burning, land fill etc. - add up all this up and the energy it takes to make them, and it is significantly more than a simple glass bulb with wire. Even if they last 5-10 times longer in our homes. (modern conventional light bulbs actually have a very long life these days anyway).

All I am saying is there are a lot of misconceptions over all the 'green energy' products. All things like solar panels do, is allow you to generate some power locally (and naturally they are very useful for this, if inefficient) but all they do is shift the energy required to make it to somewhere else like china - (they don't actually save the planet - when you take the whole product life cycle into account).

The whole concept of 'carbon foot print' is fundamentally flawed - imho!




Mark F.








-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Martin Altmann
Sent: 11 June 2007 12:45
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Amazing coincedence,Off topic DEFORESTATION for Furniture.

Yah, to stay objective is fine,
look how helpful and rewarding it can be to be objective - you'll get a fine
slice of a lunaite for free, only because of this email!:

I don't know, what for energy efficient light bulbs are produced in your
country,
but most of the standard products nowadays available,
have a product life between 8,000 and 12,000 hours. Some of them more than
20,000 hours.
A conventional light bulb has on average a life time of 1,000 hours.
The production of a energy efficient light bulb consumes 10 times more
energy than the production of a conventional one.

So the higher amount of energy is already counterbalanced by the longer
lifespan. (If your energy saving bulb gets broken before, you will get it
replaced in the shop you bought it).

Now to the real saving potential and there you can see, that you don't have
to be an ecological Taliban.

Let's take a conventional bulb of 100 W.
Costs around 1Euro.
Use it 8000 hours --> consumption 800kWh and you have to buy 8 bulbs because
of the short life span.
Don't know your energy prices - here let's say a kWh costs 0.17Euro.
Result 144Euro

Energy efficient bulb.
Costs 15 Euro, for 8000hours you'll need only one.
Such a bulb with the same brightness of a conventional 100W bulb
consumes 80% less, hence after 8000 hours ---> 160kWh
Result 42,20Euro

Saved 101,80Euro.

Srew in 10 of such bulbs at home ---> 1018Euro ---> 1360$ saved

Buy some nice meteorites from me for 1200$ and 2 barrels of Brent to burn
for your remorse to have made Al Gore and his fundamentalists happy... :-)

No seriously, the majority of 1st-World-consumer doesn't care much about
saving energy and ecological stuff,
(as long as they aren't seriously afflicted in person by the effects of the
warming. Yesterday I sent an email to Sterling and the list, which didn't
came through with some simple examples where people already have to pay a
lot of cash to adapt to the effects of their regional warming, to underline,
that several professions and people have crossed quite a while ago the point
of the discussion, whether there is a warming or not, simply because they
had to adapt already to the changed conditions ).

You have to see it more practically: they will change their consumption
habits, when they'll see, that more efficient products don't constrain their
comfort and living standard, AND (and but) when energy prices will haven
risen to a level, where their usual energy consume would mean indeed a
decline of the quality of their daily life.
So that they'll see, that's simply cheaper for them to use better products.
And I see no hope, that energy prices won't get more and more expensive.

It's very simple, isn't it and certainly no question of an ideology.

Skol
Martin


-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von mark
ford
Gesendet: Montag, 11. Juni 2007 12:10
An: Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Amazing coincedence,Off topic DEFORESTATION
for Furniture.


Yep, and solar panels, energy efficient light bulbs, and most wind
turbines all take more 'co2'/energy to produce, dispose of, and
transport around the world than they will ever 'save' or generate in
their entire short working product life! (Paticularly solar panels, they
are the worst way of generating power there is (besides coal and gas),
also being stuffed full of very nasty chemicals like selenium!)

And ... actually mature forests emit more co2 and methane than
new/virgin forests do (down to the decaying wood and forest floor
ecosystem), so cutting down forests and replanting them with younger
trees is ironically actually better for the environment!! (though not if
you are a monkey of course).

It's really easy to get caught up in the hype, but my advice is stay
objective !

Mark






-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Eric
Twelker
Sent: 11 June 2007 07:07
To: Michael Farmer; Meteorite Mailing List
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Amazing coincedence, Off topic
DEFORESTATION for Furniture.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1659036,00.html

Here is an article on how biodiesel--one of the green movement's great
ideas
works. The green movement isn't so green after all--except when the
green
is money.

    Eric Twelker


> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070610/sc_nm/deforestation_dc
>
>
> WOW, this article is on YAHOO front page right now.
> It shows the level of destruction for profit, legal
> and illegal. If you ever want to see the jungle, now
> is the time.
> Michael Farmer
> ______________________________________________
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list

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Received on Mon 11 Jun 2007 08:24:28 AM PDT