The Law of Unintended Consequences – CFLs and Wind Turbines

By Robert Pritchett

Let me guess, you too bought compact fluorescents (CFLs), believing they were economically more efficient, despite the price and would last a long, long time (justifying the price difference between them and incandescents). You ignored the warnings regarding the mercury and cleanup issues if they broke. I only bought about 30 of these CFL things and loaded the house with them.

Well, now we have learned by sad experience just how damaging these electronic light bulbs are to our bodies. Ever since we installed them a few months ago, we have all been experiencing severe headaches (migraines), body aches with arthritic-like symptoms and my wife even developed a rash on her upper torso. Our daughter who is still living with us also started suffering from arthritic pain. We could not figure out what was going on.

My wife and our other daughter who left (recently married off), both said they didn't like the lights, because of the light they gave off. That should have been a clue. We should listen to our bodies more closely.

Just how safe are CFL light-bulbs?

Not mentioned in the video is that CFLs do not function well in cold weather. Below a certain temperature, they do not work at all.

And they cost more to operate even though they pretend to use less power to give off more light. Don't believe me? Read Steve Windisch' article –

Are CFLs designed to make us pay more on our Power Bills?

Anyway, immediately after watching the "Just how safe are CFL light bulbs?" video, I replaced all the CFL bulbs, doing an exchange at Home Depot and going back to incandescents. If you did the CFL swapout, I hope you kept the packaging. By the way, 2 of the CFLs had already burned out. So much for the 7-year life. (I love doing business with Home Depot. They always respond positively. We were fully reimbursed. The local store is now aware of the health issues surrounding CFLs.)

After watching the video, my wife feels exonerated and vindicated in her feelings about the electronic bulbs and our daughter who got married, said that was a good decision to swap them out. Good health requires drastic measures sometimes.

The cheap CFLs, according to the video, may save electricity, may be "eco-green", but they apparently are very "dirty" in spreading electric frequencies not conducive to human well-being (migraines) and in distributing UV light (acting like direct sunlight), causing skin rashes.

Once again, we've been sold a bill of goods by promoters of this technology and it has cost us dearly in pain, suffering and otherwise unnecessary medical bills. Thanks for nothing. A pox on your collective "enviro-green" heads, feh!

So if you do use CFLs, what can you do if you can’t return them for a refund? Keep them away from your vicinity (i.e. reading desk, anywhere you work) for extended periods of time. CFLs that are packaged in an outer "bulb" so they look like "normal" incandescence apparently do not emit UV light. But they still produce "dirty" electricity at frequencies that give us headaches. Bottom line, don't use them.

And don't believe the manufacturers who will claim they are safe or the environmentalists who have pushed our governments to ban incandescents by 2012 from being manufactured in the UK and 2014 in the US.

When I told my wife about the newer LED lights, she said that in time, they probably will be found to cause diarhea. ;^)

Health Issues with Commercial Wind Turbines

Another link I posted, relates to the fact that about half the folks that live near wind turbines get very ill, can't sleep due to the noise and have to move away to get their lives back to normal.

Apparently the propellers cause a strobe-effect during the day. The turbines also create "dirty" electricity causing nausea, disorientation and migraines, etc. Think of commercial wind turbines as large CFLs and you get the picture.

So far I have not seen where commercial wind turbines do much more than zero-sum, due to property value decreases, poor return on investment, high maintenance, short life spans, an average performance of around 15% and not 60% as advertised and in many cases an infrastructure connectivity to the grid that so far has not paid for itself either. And the subsidies (tax-payer pays) and carbon credit expenses (Al Gore gets rich) are off the charts. Commercial wind turbines are not "environmentally friendly".

Who knew? Now you do.

Technical Solutions for CFLs:

Add diffusers to bulbs to eliminate UV light distribution.
Add LC circuits and shielding to the ballasts to remove high frequency distribution.
Find another less toxic material for the vapor in the tubes to remove mercury from the process.

More Interesting Reading

Sex and the Socket (Video)

Taking the Energy Star Pledge to reduce "Global Warming(tm)"

Energy Star Program for CFLs

Wikipedia:CFLs

Unconstitutional Federal Law regarding CFLs (Video)

New light bulbs can poison you.

The EPA and Mercury (EPA site)

Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (The "EPA CFL Mandate" origination)

For only $150, You too can become a CFL Recycling Center!

The promise of cheap LEDs

Fielding a current idea: exploring the public health impact of electromagnetic radiation