kinda off topic, but i heard some days ago on the news that all incandescent lamps are to be banned until 2012?(not sure about the year, if not '12 then its somewhere close).

The 100W are already banned as alanlan said.

I don't really get why they do this, we can't do this kind of bans just for the environment, yea it's important to take care of our planet, but we can't ignore everything else.

Quote from: drk on September 09, 2009, 05:51:11 PM
I don't really get why they do this, we can't do this kind of bans just for the environment, yea it's important to take care of our planet, but we can't ignore everything else.

er..., but isn't everything else on our planet?

Support for RoHS exemption request for cadmium in optocouplers ...

http://www1.silonex.com/

Quote from: drk on September 09, 2009, 05:51:11 PM
kinda off topic, but i heard some days ago on the news that all incandescent lamps are to be banned until 2012?(not sure about the year, if not '12 then its somewhere close).

The 100W are already banned as alanlan said.

The reason for the ban is that if they are available, *you* will use them. Hence to keep you from using them, they must not be available. Why must you not use them? If you use more energy efficient compact fluorescents, then you will use less electricity (in theory) and then less fuel will need to be burned and less carbon dioxide will be released. That maybe, might, possibly slow down the global warming that maybe, might be happening, in spite of the contradictory nature of the data supporting that idea and the unproven ideas that not letting you use incandescent bulbs will ward it off.

(Note for those who are emotionally attached to global warming as an oncoming human caused disaster: I use only compact fluorescents in my house. This is because the life cycle cost to me is lower. I *know* that data is correct.)

QuoteI don't really get why they do this, we can't do this kind of bans just for the environment, yea it's important to take care of our planet, but we can't ignore everything else.

Your political heros don't give a fig about saving the planet. What they want is control of *you*. Any excuse you'll sit still for will do.

Interestingly, with very few exceptions, all the materials, almost every single atom of every substance, no matter how toxic, that was ever here on the planet is still here...  

There is hardly an atom of common sense left.

If we want to talk about environmental benefits we ought to remember that CdS photovoltaic cells for renewable electricity generation are a huge area of research in many universities and companies around Europe and the world.  I was offered a PhD studentship in aspects of this technology at Durham University, working for a CdS solar cell research group funded from a UK-wide photovoltaics project, which in turn is funded (to the tune of around 6 million euros per year!) by the EU.  If *they* are throwing enormous sums of money at this technology then the material required for it to work can't be totally banned, exceptions will be made.  So there may be some hope.

Incidentally I chose not to go to Durham, I'm going to Oxford instead to work on an advanced processing technique for silicon for photovoltaic applications.  Does anyone know if there are Si-based LDRs?

This conjures an image up in my mind...

A massive cruise ship is taking on water.  It's a big ship with lots of different sections, and communication between crew, captains and passengers is not all that great.  Some below-decks crew members have been complaining (some louder than others) about leaks.  Some of them say it's only a short matter of time until one of these leaks becomes too big to fix.  Some of the passengers and captains are worried, but for the most part, they go about their business as usual.  At any rate, the ship is so big it is not sinking very fast.  In fact it's only starting to become barely noticeable to the passengers and captains.

Meanwhile there's a plucky European lad who's really working hard to bail out the ship.  He's not afraid to tell people about it either.  In fact, many passengers see his dedication and give him lots of praise and admiration.

But he's bailing out this cruise ship with a teacup.  This is reassuring to the passengers, because they figure if he's using a teacup the leaks must not be very serious.


By the way, this ship has a total of zero lifeboats.

what i mean is that you have to consider all the possibilities, ok we need to fix this, but to do that you have to ban stuff/spend money etc, what consequences comes from this? Is it gonna be worse than the initial problem? Wouldn't it be better to invest in a good long term solution, instead of relying on a not so great one?

I'm not saying we shouldn't protect our planet, but we shouldn't rush, but make a good plan, one that doesn't create more problems.

(RG)
I understand why they want to ban it, from the environment point of view. I just don't like the ban thing, why not just limit them? they could still be useful, for example when drying the paint on our enclosures

btw, you really have a bad impression of politicians.
They aren't that bad (are they?)

Quote from: drk on September 10, 2009, 09:20:49 AM
btw, you really have a bad impression of politicians.
They aren't that bad (are they?)

Trust me - most of them are.  

The problem with all politics is that it becomes... well, politics. Most of these people don't know anything past how to get elected. When they are called upon to solve a problem, they get pulled this way and that by the enormous influences of lobbyists and party momentums and they typically don't know nearly enough about the problem at hand to actually have a valid opinion on it.

I saw the funniest (well, saddest) thing the other day. It was in the movie Religulous by Bill Maher (Don't get offended if you are religious, it's my opinions). He was interviewing a US senator. Watch the first part of this vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5yJ2qUyxCk





Anyways.

I encourage people to read the book "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. It's very interesting to read, it basically questions the core aspects of our society. I don't believe in everything it says, but it is very eye-opening and it really makes alot of good points.

Quote from: Johnny85 on September 10, 2009, 03:48:21 AM
If we want to talk about environmental benefits

We might be, but the world's political heros are not. Remember, the objective of a person with political power is to remain in power, not to make the world better or people happy, except as those last two help them remain in power.

Quote
Does anyone know if there are Si-based LDRs?

Not to the best of my knowledge. There are silicon devices which have a varying resistance with varying electrical conditions, but I don't know of any that have even a similar action to CdSSe photocells. That's not to say that they don't exist, but I haven't run into them over several decades, and I've looked.

Quote from: earthtonesaudio on September 10, 2009, 08:18:35 AM
This conjures an image up in my mind...
A massive cruise ship is taking on water.  It's a big ship with lots of different sections, and communication between crew, captains and passengers is not all that great. ...By the way, this ship has a total of zero lifeboats.

To continue the analogy, the various ship's officers have sent experts to study the leaks. The results of the examinations are extremely different. Some of the leaks seem to have been operating for decades, far longer than there have been people on the ship, and seem to periodically reverse themselves and pump water OUT of the ship. Worse, there is a five-meter diameter valve that opens into the water outside with the control wheel outside the ship's hull, and no one knows who can turn the handle - or if anyone can. The ship does not have one captain, it has over 100 of them, each of which runs a section of the passenger cabins and one or two of the guys in the engine room. Some of the ship's captains let "their" people wander about the ship and otherwise do pretty much whatever they want. Other captains barricade the doors to their part of the ship and arm "their" passengers with armor piercing grenades which can puncture the ship.

Some captains ignore the reports of leakage. Some captains have figured out that they can keep "their" passengers doing calisthenics all day long by giving them a teacup and telling them that the ship will quit sinking if they do deck exercises with the teacups. There doesn't appear to be any captain who is examining the ship's logs or the projected route of the ship to the next port; in fact, there isn't *any* captain who knows where the next port is. And some captains and passengers have noticed these huge mountains of ice all around them in the ocean. They all kinda hope that whomever is steering the ship misses those.

The ship is steered by each captain having a string tied to the ship's wheel, but none of them really know if pulling on the string makes it go right or left. Some prefer right, some prefer left, and some are *certain* that theirs is the only string that really works. Some of the strings are tied to the railing first, before they go to the wheel.

The plucky European lad has a history of juvenile violence and may have stolen the teacup from the ship's mess. Most of the ship's passengers are too worried about their cabins being dark and cold or overrun with roaches to worry about whether the ship will sink before they freeze to death.

And some of the passengers are building lifeboats as fast as they can out of trays from the breakfast mess. 

Quote from: drk on September 10, 2009, 09:20:49 AM
what i mean is that you have to consider all the possibilities, ok we need to fix this, but to do that you have to ban stuff/spend money etc, what consequences comes from this? Is it gonna be worse than the initial problem? Wouldn't it be better to invest in a good long term solution, instead of relying on a not so great one?

I'm not saying we shouldn't protect our planet, but we shouldn't rush, but make a good plan, one that doesn't create more problems.

I'd vote for you in a second if you mean that.

QuoteI understand why they want to ban it, from the environment point of view. I just don't like the ban thing, why not just limit them? they could still be useful, for example when drying the paint on our enclosures

That's the problem. You *think* you understand why "they" want to ban, because you have been told that's the reason. Maybe, maybe not. Given the nature of the process which elevates someone from private citizen to ruler, it is necessary to have a devious mind to get there. The honest, straightforward people don't get through the process, or can't stand the smell. What's confusing about the results is that sometimes political heros actually do the right thing, when that happens to be what keeps them in power.

Quotebtw, you really have a bad impression of politicians.
They aren't that bad (are they?)

Think about the history which has led to "campaign promise" being semantically equivalent to "outright lie".

I know of exactly one politician who has voluntarily left office when he didn't have to for either losses at the poll or scandal. That was George Washington, who voluntarily refused a third term as president of the USA when he could have been reelected for life. Reportedly, he refused a third term because he thought that staying in office for longer would be a bad idea for the country and set a bad precedent (sorry!  )

Quote(sorry!  )

I see what you did there.

I've never actually participated in the O.Henry Pun-Off that's held every year, but I always thought that as many times as I blunder into them (with a resounding crash, mostly!) that I could do well enough not to embarrass myself.

After all, every good contest needs a little thud and blunder.

There are two kinds of people in the "civilised" world; those who can hold a job down and MPs

Quote from: R.G. on September 10, 2009, 10:10:49 AM
I'd vote for you in a second if you mean that.

aha i don't plan on running for any political place, so you won't get the chance :p

Quote from: R.G. on September 10, 2009, 10:10:49 AM
That's the problem. You *think* you understand why "they" want to ban, because you have been told that's the reason. Maybe, maybe not. Given the nature of the process which elevates someone from private citizen to ruler, it is necessary to have a devious mind to get there. The honest, straightforward people don't get through the process, or can't stand the smell. What's confusing about the results is that sometimes political heros actually do the right thing, when that happens to be what keeps them in power.

well yea, I'm basing my opinion on what i heard/read. I didn't exactly test the lamps myself to see which ones are truly better. Maybe i was directed to this opinion, as this kind of 'information' is said so many times on the news, etc, that you get biased to that, don't know for sure.

Quote from: R.G. on September 10, 2009, 10:10:49 AM
Think about the history which has led to "campaign promise" being semantically equivalent to "outright lie".

I don't know that story. Anyway they seem to go overboard during campaigns, i don't really get why they do it(is it just for the votes? - well this is getting too political).

Quote from: R.G. on September 10, 2009, 10:10:49 AM
I know of exactly one politician who has voluntarily left office when he didn't have to for either losses at the poll or scandal. That was George Washington, who voluntarily refused a third term as president of the USA when he could have been reelected for life. Reportedly, he refused a third term because he thought that staying in office for longer would be a bad idea for the country and set a bad precedent (sorry!  )

I'm not from US so i don't really know much about George Washington(besides that he was the 1st US president), what do you mean by bad precedent?

Ive just checked this forum after a few days, cant beleive my little post generated such a huge debate. Fight the power!

Quote from: Joe on September 09, 2009, 08:31:08 PM
There is hardly an atom of common sense left.

Best line in this thread... though it mainly applies to places like Washington DC....

That huge sucking sound you heard a little over 20 years ago was every last bit of common sense being sucked out (or running for it's life) of Washington....

Funny how dropping tons of depleted uranium on Iraq doesn't seem to bother the powers at all, yet they worry about stuff like this.

Well, I just looked up cadmium in the wikipedia and it seems like they are going about things the wrong way. The EU that is.

Cadmium is a by product of Zinc production and given the amount of zinc that all our first world nations use, to cover steel and make it corrosion resistant, then banning the use of cadmium while using Zinc seems incredibly futile simply because it'll make stockpiles of cadmium wherever Zinc is produced.

To me the question is not banning things but making sure that things that use these harmful substances are made to last. Surely that is the problem. Yesterday I went to buy some flourescent tubes for holders I found in the rubbish, and by interchanging parts managed to get enough working for my needs. 9/10 ths of the spare for lighting was new lights in a myriad of styles while only 1/10 th of the space was for bulbs. Surely this is where the problem lies?

Not in the fact that some devices contain potentially harmful substances but that we buy a whole new fixture every few years, to suit fashion, and throw away, in its entirety, the old device when 95% and more of it is still useful.

The EU, or any government, should not be banning particular substances but should be banning devices with lifespans less that, say, 25 years and encouraging devices that can be rebuilt.

Bureaucrats tread a very fine line with such decisions.  How do they keep the great machine of engineered obsellescence going while also allowing the complex substances available which allow the devices to operate.

The idea that things find there way into landfills so quickly is the problem... not so much what the devices contain.

Just wait until the EU finds out that some LED's are made with gallium arsenide...

Some wells in upstate New York now have a measurable arsenic content in them because arsenic was used for a period of time for embalming.

It seems the greater problem is that people will throw nearly anything (no matter how hazardous) on the ground (in a landfill, in the river/lake/oceans) with nary a thought about the consequences of that action.  You can ban the sale of all sorts of things without changing that mindset at all.