Hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Subject: Lighting for a Brighter Tomorrow Act

Statement

HEARING OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
SUBJECT: LIGHTING FOR A BRIGHTER TOMORROW ACT

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'm sorry that I missed the testimony from Undersecretary Karsner, but I appreciate the opportunity to hear the discussion this morning from you gentlemen. Coming from the state of Alaska, I'm very interested in understanding where the technology is.

Mr. Pitsor, you have indicated that the CFLs have low light output, particularly in the hot temperatures and the cold temperatures. Can you define what the cold temperatures are? I'm sure the people here, or in the South, would be interested in knowing what the range is on the hot temperatures, too.

But when I've got a family that's pulling into their driveway at 6:00 at night in the middle of winter in Fairbanks, Alaska, and it's pitch dark and there's ice fog, they need to know that that porch light or that garage light is actually working in temperatures that are 40 to 60 degrees below zero. Can you give me a little more background on the adequacy of or performance in the cold and hot temperatures?

MR. PITSOR: I can supply you with some more specific technical information and refer to some of the technical data from the manufacturers. The issue of the heat is that because the CFLs have, if you will, the little ballast is built in here, heat causes the electronics of this to fail if it overheats. So in hot temperatures or in enclosed fixtures, the -- this base, the electronics stop working and --

SEN. MURKOWSKI: But does it fail completely, or is it just a dimmer output, if you will?

MR. PITSOR: No, no, in an overheating capacity the capacitor basically burns out and fails completely.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: And in cold as well?

MR. PITSOR: In cold temperatures, it's an issue of starting the light for it to be excited in order to provide the light in the cold temperature. The actual temperature range I'll have to get back to you on.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: Well, do you know just from experience? Now, Canada is clearly utilizing these. In Europe, I'm sure you've got some Scandinavian countries where they face the same issues in terms of cold. So I'm just wondering how extreme it needs to be on either end of it to allow for the failure of the technology, really. But if you could get me the specifics on that, I think customers in general would want to know. They're looking at these, as we all want to be more efficient in our usage when it comes to electricity, but we also recognize that these bulbs are a little more expensive. And if I'm going to buy it, I want to make sure that it's going to be working. So it would be very helpful if we could have a better understanding of that.

But further to that point, is there continuing work with the technology to address these inefficiencies in performance at the low end and the high end of the thermometer here?

MR. PITSOR: Yeah, there's -- I mean, there's work going on both with the compact fluorescent technology, improving the color of the light, the quality of the light, as well as in LEDs, the light- emitting diodes --

SEN. MURKOWSKI: Right.

MR. PITSOR: -- that whole technology, which is -- you know, we see it in niche applications today, in traffic signal lights, for instance, some under-cabinet lighting, getting a white LED so that we can convert that into the new general purpose lightbulb. That's something which as we proceed down the road all the major manufacturers are investing and studying that technology.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: What about -- what about dimmers? This is really important to my husband. (Laughter.)

MR. PITSOR: Right. Dimming's very important. The halogen and incandescent technologies and the LEDs are fully dimmable products.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: But not the CFL.

MR. PITSOR: The CFLs generally are not dimmable.

You can make a dimmable CFL, but you have -- it's more expensive, it's a larger product and you also have different dimmers for them.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: But I guess my question is, are we looking to make those advances in the technology so that that will ultimately be available to us?

MR. PITSOR: Yeah, oh, yes. There's work occurring on all those fronts by the manufacturers. They're bringing new products to the market every day.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: Good.

Let me ask you, Dr. Waide, you noted in your testimony that the CFLs contain the small amounts of mercury vapor, and I -- if I understand correctly that in Europe you have a recycling process of sorts for the CFL bulbs. Can you explain to me how much mercury vapor is actually contained in one of the CFLs? And is it your recommendation that we would want to provide for some form of a recycling process in this country as well?

MR. WAIDE: This is quite a sensitive issue, and unfortunately, I'm not an expert on mercury and critical pathways and health -- human health risks to be able to really answer that question competently. What I can say is that it's roughly up to 5 milligrams or less of mercury, which is a lot less than what used to be in fluorescent lamps, and that in terms of total quantity of mercury, or at least to the environment, you will save far more when you have coal as your -- as a significant contributor to your generating mix as you do in the United States by avoiding power consumption from using a CFL, because coal-fired generation gives rise to mercury emissions.

Now, in terms of the health risk, that depends on the critical pathways of airborne versus mercury in lamps and how that might potentially get into humans, and I'm really not qualified to talk about that. I can comment that I understand that in Europe this scheme -- which is really just getting under way, and so I'm waiting to see how it's really going to function in practice -- but I understand from manufacturers this is going to add about 25 euro cents per lamp to the cost of a CFL to pay for end-of-life recycling.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: The recycling.

MR. WAIDE: Yeah. So that might be a ballpark figure. But I think it -- the way the recycling's being done is quite different, I understand, than it is in EU states and even some different regions within the States, depending on how they're structured. And so it's really going to be a huge laboratory, and if people are interested in looking at that issue I would suggest that they go and have a look at what's happening.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: Does Canada have a recycling program?

MR. WAIDE: Scandinavia?

SEN. MURKOWSKI: Canada.

MR. WAIDE: Canada. Not yet, as I understand. There's certainly no requirement to. This is quite an important issue that was being discussed in their first consultation meeting that they had on this topic, as to whether or not they should be setting up some sort of mandated recycling or not of fluorescent lamps.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: Mr. Pitsor, did you want to join in on that?

MR. PITSOR: Congresswoman, on those -- the -- earlier this year the NEMA manufacturers issued a public statement committing to a mercury maximum in CFLs of no more than 5 milligrams, as Mr. Waide has indicated. In actual practice, today these run 3 to 4 milligrams of mercury per CFL. There are a number of state programs that are being looked at in terms of some recycling.

NEMA has supported recycling of fluorescent, both compact and linear product. There's a lot more installed in terms of the commercial product, or four-foot linear. But today there's not any optimal solution for recycling of these. Given the very small amount of mercury in them, it is very costly to reclaim that mercury, and I think EPA has come out with an analysis that they're running between 50 cents to $2 per bulb to undertake recycling.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: Wow.

MR. PITSOR: So that's why in this bill, Mr. Chairman, is your Section 108, which calls for EPA and DOE to come back with Congress with recommendations on mercury. We think that's an appropriate mechanism, to come back to Congress with recommendations on what we might be able to do with respect to the mercury and recycling.

SEN. MURKOWSKI: Yes. I think that would be an important point to make sure that we fully understand and get those systems in place if they will be necessary.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Source