Ways to reduce mercury

Concerned about mercury?  There are better ways to reduce usage of mercury than to spread fear about compact fluorescent lightbulbs.  For all the attention CFLs have been given, the state of linear fluorescents in offices, commercial spaces and industrial spaces has gone largely unnoticed.  Yet this is the biggest pie a the moment, and although relatively cheap alternatives are available, not all business are buying them.

One alternative is the EverLED lamps.  These lamps cost 3 times as much as a fluorescent tube, but last twice as long, contain no mercury and a save 25% more energy.  At a 50,000-70,000 lifetime these lamps will last 8 years at 24 hours per day.

Seeing as I’ve never seen an EverLED in action, I’ll present another alternative, the Phillips Alto II T8 lamps.  They use 1.7mg of mercury per lamp, 100% of the mercury used is recycled, and the lamps last 36,000-46,000 hours (that’s nearly 5-6 years at 24 hours per day) and efficiency is almost twice that of a CFL, or 8 times that of an incandescent.  I’m not sure if there available yet as I couldn’t find them at online retailers, but it’s possible the large distributors have them.

In fact, running the numbers for three sets of bulbs, LiteTronics F32T8, a Phillips Alto II (price not yet available, estimated at $90 for case of 25), and the EverLED bulbs comes up with the following results (11 cents per kwh US average, 14.26 cents CA, 16.55 cents NY, 18.85 cents CN):

	Cost	Hours	Watts	Per 10k hours (US average)	Per 10k hours (CA)	Per 10k hours (NY)	Per 10k hours (CN)
Alto I	$2.50	30,000	32	$33.67	$46.47	$53.79	$61.15
Alto II	$3.60	46,000	32	$33.61	$46.41	$53.74	$61.10
EverLED	$150.00	70,000	24	$47.83	$55.65	$61.15	$66.67

All three are very close in operational costs, so why not give an EverLED a try?  In a few years, perhaps LED based alternatives to CFLs will be available too.  That doesn’t change the fact that incandescents need to be replaced today.

Accounting and Metrics; Investing and Management

I just finished Essays of Warren Buffet: Lessons for Corporate America.  It’s an interesting book, not exactly exciting, but Buffet is very clear and humorous.  The worst part was since it’s a collection of essays some topics become slightly repetitive.

One such topic, the difference between economic goodwill and accounting goodwill struck me as a clear example of the "What isn’t easily measurable, doesn’t exist" rule.  Economic goodwill is "the intangible advantages a company has over its competitors such as an excellent reputation, strategic location, business connections, etc.", where accounting goodwill is "the excess of cost over equity in net assets acquired".

The point Buffet makes is, at the time, the substitution of accounting goodwill for economic goodwill in GAAP rules required accounting goodwill to be amortized over a period of 40 years, but in the majority of cases, this charge was not valid.  In fact he makes a good case that when rational purchases are made, economic goodwill will not only be greater than accounting goodwill, but will increase with inflation, rather than waste away.

The reason economic goodwill wasn’t used is because if you ask two people to evaluate economic goodwill, you may end up with two very different answers.  In other words, economic goodwill is not measurable.  Accounting goodwill however is easily calculated by subtracting book price from purchase price.

The rules have changed a bit since Buffet’s essays were written.  Accounting goodwill is still the standard, but now it is not amortized unless it is judged to be "impaired".  A lengthy set of rules (see statement # 142), describe these rules, but the changes only reduce, not eliminate the original problem.

It’s unlikely accounting rules will ever correct the error because measurement of economic goodwill is not easily specified.  It can only be estimated, and often requires judgements greater than what accounting procedures are comfortable with. 

There is some justification to the purist view of accounting procedures as Buffet says,

The accountants’ job is to record, not to evaluate.  The evaluation job falls to investors and managers.  Managers and owners need to remember that accounting is but an aid to business thinking, never a substitute for it.

I could expand upon this wisdom to point out it’s validity to all metrics, not just accounting numbers.  You cannot reliably react to those numbers directly.  Unless you really understand the source, meaning and validity of the numbers to be precisely match your evaluation criteria direct reactions will run afoul.  Business is not science, and anyone who ever thinks it can, should or will be doesn’t understand business at all.

Interaction vs. Stimulation

I’ve read in On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins, that a significant feature of the human brain is the way the neocortex is connected to the thalamus (I think I have the regions right, but the books on loan so I can’t check right now).  Generally, there is a more direct connection between motor control and the “learning” regions of the human brain.

Since reading this I’ve theorized this as an explanation of why humans early development of human babies is so slow in comparison to other species.  Elephant babies walk within minutes of birth, yet it’s a year or more before human babies walk.  Gorillas are closer to humans but still quicker.

But humans reach levels other species never do, and one reason might be that a more direct connection to motor skills produces more valuable feedback.  In a sense, it would make life more interactive.  Rather than interacting with the world through a instinct based filter, actions and reactions would have a direct loop.

So it was reading GristMill about educational TV’s lack of positive effect, that I was thinking back to this.  Why is TV such a poor tool for learning?  It can be a fairly rich experience, but it’s never interactive.  And interactivity is key to learning, especially in humans.

But the study doesn’t just suggest that TV is no help, it suggests it is harmful.  It really states that a child may have been better off starting into space than watching TV.  That’s right, it’s not just a problem of substituting TV for valuable parent time, it’s just plain bad.

The researches theorize that the babies are simply over stimulated and unable to process important interactive information when it’s available.  That may be, but there may be even more going on.  If children are trained by TV not to interact, because the TV does not respond, or that they don’t need to interact, because the TV responds the same either way, then they won’t be trying as hard during parent time.

I think that is a lesson that could be applied much more broadly.  I find one of the major differences between good and great programmers is their “research” instinct.  When a bad programmer is stumped, he resorts to direct questioning.  That may seem more interactive than a Google or MSDN search, but in reality it’s not.  The person you ask either knows the answer or not (often not).  With the other options you’re required to find the answer.  Do this enough and you’ll learn a lot more than if you had the answer spoon fed.

That topic brings me to my last thought, TV vs. computers.  Computers are often grouped with TV by parents as two of the same.  The glow, they make noises, and they suck time in great quantities, yes.  The similarity doesn’t go much farther though.  Computers are interactive in a way TV’s are not.  It’s possible to find non-interactive material on a computer, but unless trained otherwise most humans opt for the interactive option.  Actually, maybe that applies to animals as well, just think of the cat playing with a mouse.  It’s fun till it stops moving…

The Flux

Continuing a chain of thought, Cosine posted an idea for Process Teams.  He concludes:

A company may end up with a situation where every department ends up with its own version of almost every policy. But then again, is that really a bad thing? I do not think so.

I understand what he’s looking for but I have to dissent here.  Every department with a separate policy would be a bad thing.  Fortunately, that’s not the probably outcome of his idea, with a little good management.

All you need to do is, in a non-sadistic manner, monitor the different departments.  When one begins to diverge, that’s okay.  But if after a reasonable time if their policy isn’t producing appreciably better results internally you should steer them back to the standard.  If it is appreciably better you should start steering other departments in that direction.  If it’s outstandingly better results, you have a new standard.

I should caveat this with one thing to watch out for.  It’s possible the new policy a department has adopted only works better for that department.  If it’s outstandingly better then you might have a case for divergent paths, rather than a new standard.

The problem with a central policy isn’t generally the sub-optimal results of the subservient departments, but the static nature evolved from having too many simultaneous inputs.  If you rely upon a central policy team to evolve you’re polices it will fail to keep up with the changing world.  Then you have bad policy.

Shepherding is an important role and technique in many situations.  From the outside it can look a bit frightening because it’s appears more disordered.  In reality, you’re simply allowing the systems natural flux to maximize.  Reducing flux will reduce the apparent disorder, but at the cost of the systems energy.  The best managers redirect energy, rather than suppressing it.

Airline Efficiency

I was thinking about the air travel I do recently.  My job requires me to make a number of trips per year from Chicago to Los Angeles, and I’m relatively certain this would be the number one source of my own carbon footprint.  I rarely drive (less than 2,000 miles a year), and live in an apartment rather than 5,000 square foot suburban manse, so surely the air flight is number one.

I’d like to avoid the air travel for many reasons, but at the moment that doesn’t seem possible.  There’s a number of suggestions I have for the company that would make it less important, but until those happen I either fly or quit.

I’ve flown American for the past few years, but never spent much time thinking about it.  Today I did.  I decided I should find out which airline was the most fuel efficient, and consider switching. 

My initial impression was American is doing well.  I wasn’t finding the hardcore statistics I was looking for initially.  First, I found this presentation from the Air Transport Association (not to be confused with AirTrans Airlines (ATA)).  I found American’s name all over.  Southwest and Alaska appear frequently too.

However, Unisys did a report back in 2003 which claims jetBlue was number one by a large margin.  And American didn’t score at all well, nor Southwest.  I wish I had something more recent because I know a lot has changed in the last 4 years.  Winglets, tail cones, etc.

One lesson from all this, especially the Unisys report is what may be most important is not the airline, but the type of plane.  DC9′s and MD80′s were the worst, 757′s and A320 best for the distance of a ORD-LAX trip.  Once again I’m wishing for more recent information.  Because everything I read says.

The best I can find is American’s quarterly report, where it states for the three months ending June 30, 2007 American used 713 million gallons for 35,669 million RPM (Revenue Passenger Miles), and 636 CTM (Cargo ton miles).  Unfortunately it doesn’t break down RPM and CTM gallons, so we must subtract the CTM gallons by using an average of 6.14 gallons per CTM.  This leaves 626 million gallons resulting in an efficiency of 57.01 RPM / gallon.

While that is a 50% improvement from the 40 RPM / gallon American scored in 2003, it’s still below jetBlue’s score of 65.8 RPM / gallon from 2003.  It is possible American is second best now, but unlikely.

Anyone know where to find better data?

Storage – Personal Transit variations (Part 2)

As I said in Part 1, I’ll compare the differences between Space Individualized Transit (SIT), Individual Mass Transit (IMT) and RUF.  Storage is one area SIT excels.  With RUF or IMT, parking is not much improved.  Automation is possible, but garages must deal with wheels, additional height and weight.

SIT however has built-in connectors.  Automated garage equipment would use the connectors to move, lift and securely store the lightweight compartments.  Compartments could be stored on racks with guides matching the SIT connectors, rather than steel reinforced concrete floors.

Robotic parking garages exist today (Video), but they are more expensive due to difficulty of dealing with the space and weight of conventional cars.  Take off the wheels, axles, engine, exhaust, bumpers, and in the future batteries and you have a very lightweight package reducing the cost of machinery and maintenance quite dramatically, as well as raising capacity.

If you’ve ever seen iRobot, you probably remember the parking scene in the beginning.  As cool as the scene looked, it had several problems.  One was they turned the car on end thus dumping any contents.  Equipment to lift a several ton vehicle is likely to be much more like the video above, then the almost toy like equipment in iRobot.  Reduce the weight significantly and the scene loses one flaw, though I’ll still prefer to receive my compartment back not shaken and not stirred, thank you.

So to wrap up:

• Conventional cars: Heavy, Bulky.  All external automation.
• IMT: Heavy, Bulky.  Gets to the garage for you if you’re at a exit point.
• RUF: Heavy, Bulky.  Rail charges vehicle while parked, rail may be used for storage.
• SIT: Light, Lower volume.  Built in mechanical connector guides for storage and mechanical manipulation.

Posts:

• Part 1 – Personal Transit
• Part 3 – Flexibility
• Part 4 – Efficiency
• Part 5 – Morning Options
• Part 6 – Service

Policy, Subjectivity and Intelligence

Cosine writes about "Policy Hell" and the sticky nature of policies, the difficulty in pruning an ever growing tree of policy process.  I can’t help but recognize the applicability of the "What isn’t easily measurable, doesn’t exist Rule" here.  It’s not always that people cannot quantify costs, but that their simply unwilling to ever live with a subjective estimation, even if it’s clearly right.

Objectivity is great, but sometimes it’s just too expensive to obtain.  Of course the ironic element here is that much of what makes policies sticky is the unrecognized subjectivity of fear.  Maybe the real problem isn’t in peoples ability to reason, but a simple emotional imbalance?

I’ve wondered how much of perceived intelligence is really a reflection of emotional balance or imbalance.  Is the poor investor, who sells low and buys high stupid, or are they simply driven by fear and unable to apply what might otherwise be creative and thoughtful analysis if operating in a fear free environment?

Googling around shows there are some thoughts on this topic, "Emotional Intelligence", seems to be a close topic, though more broad then my thought, and apparently a field that has fallen prey, quite ironically to the need to measure everything.  The end of the Wikipedia article linked shows echoes of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, namely that in many cases it may not be possible to take measurements without affecting the condition you are measuring.

But regardless of the missteps, someone is thinking about the topic, which is interesting in itself.

Idea – Tankless Water Heater.. with a tank

Tankless Water Heaters for most uses are more efficient than tanked water heaters because they don’t heat water until it’s used. It occurred to me that a tank could help boost the efficiency of an electric tankless water heater further. Sounds strange, but this contraption would be different from a normal water heater.

For the most part the on-demand water heater would work like a tankless water heater. Water would be heated directly in the pipes as it runs through. The difference is a side-tank would be installed to buffer power usage. The most obvious use of this capability would be to warm up the tank water overnight when excess electricity goes unused. That way, during shower time when electricity usage is higher the heating elements wouldn’t need to do as much work.

Another theory which I’m unfortunately unable to test is it would require less energy to gradually keep the tank water lukewarm and then raise it up to shower temperature on demand than to on-demand increase cold water to shower temperature.

The idea works far better with electric than gas for some obvious reasons.

CFL Recycling

If you’re just starting to purchase CFL bulbs, then it’s likely years off before they’ll need to be disposed of.  4 hours per day usage would give the average bulb a 5 year life.  24 hour a day usage will give you 1 year.

The amount of mercury in each CFL is very small and not dangerous individually.  It’s also less than the amount of mercury released by power plants that would have supplied the excess electricity to power a set of equivalent incandescent bulbs.  But since recycling is not difficult it is a shame to pass up the opportunity to reduce the mercury impact further.

Many cities, like Chicago, offer “Household Hazardous Waste” collection centers, where any non-commercial, non-industrial waste can be dropped off for free.

Another solution is to order a bulk recycling container  LampTracker sells containers for 106 bulbs for $69.95, or EASYPAK for up to 90 bulbs for $74.95.  That includes the container, the shipping charges and the recycling fees.  That’s less than $1 per bulb.

In some states, another option is Wal-Mart occasionally takes bulbs back for free.  There are no promises there, but considering the lifetime of the bulbs a few months wait for disposal isn’t a great hassle.

If you’re still worried about whether you’ll be able to recycle your bulbs, you can buy low CFL bulbs.  Neolite bulbs have only 1mg of mercury per bulb, rather than 5mg.  That is less than the amount of mercury a CFL bulb will produce through electricity consumption (2.4mg), and a tenth of what incandescents will produce (10mg).  Normal, unrecycled CFL bulbs reduce mercury production by 33% compared to incandescent bulbs.  An unrecycled Neolite reduces production by 66%.  A recycled CFL, of any type, reduces production by 75%.

Neolite is a bit ahead of the other manufacturers, but most, if not all, plan to follow suit next year by reducing average mercury per CFL by 3.6mg per bulb.

Personally, the mercury content in my bulbs isn’t a concern as I plan to recycle them no matter how much is present, and it’s years before I’ll even be doing that, but it shows honest pragmatism about consumer activity for manufacturers to insure no matter what happens less mercury will be released, adding further to the environmental benefit of CFLs over the incandescent.

Letter to CFL doubter

Sean, from Is It Getting Warmer recently let me know of his doubts about CFLs., through a comment here.

Sean, I appreciate your concern, but many of your sources are wrong.  Wikipedia is unfortunately not a good source of facts on controversial topics.  You can learn something there if you double check everything you read, but otherwise you’re in trouble.

Truth is yes, mercury is a toxic substance, but the amount of mercury in a CFL is actually quite small.  Multiplied by millions it does have a negative impact, but for the near future that is balanced by the amount of mercury produced by power plants that power incandescents.  Maybe five or ten years in the future these plants will be cleaner, but by then we’re likely to be using LED light bulbs.  In the meantime a CFL will contribute less mercury to our environment than the alternative.  If you looked through my site you would have found that the EPA authoritatively states this fact.

As far as the idea of a CFLs manufacture consuming more power, I have no data, but unless the laws of economics have inverted themselves it is impossible.  Over the course of a 100 watt CFLs lifetime it will save $80 in electricity.  If the CFL costs $3, then it is unlikely $80 of electricity was invested in it’s production.  The U.S. has some of the cheapest electricity worldwide so even if you produced all bulbs at the cheapest location where you get 6 cents a kwh, it would still be $60 of electricity.

This alone should make you doubt the truth of every claim made by that source of yours, Sean.  You’re not uncommon in being confused by the FUD that is bouncing around the Internet concerning CFLs.  The other common claim is that one broken bulb will cost $2000 to cleanup.  I and other bloggers have shown this to be clearly mistaken through both scientific analysis and plain old common sense.

I won’t bother trying to refute each of your other claims because you failed to provide any background analysis or links that could be validated.  Due to the association with your other claims I have very little confidence in their validity, however.