The Light Bulb That Can Change the World

An anonymous reader writes to tell us FastCompany is reporting on the latest and greatest version of the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). While CFLs of the past may have been efficient, they certainly were not effective. However, according to the article, CFLs have come as far as cell phones have since the mid 80s while still maintaining that high efficiency. From the article: "if every one of 110 million American households bought just one [CFL], took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads."

Comments

Re:So...

[jgc7]

Another thing to consider is where you live. In hot climates, where the excess heat from incandesent bulb must be transferred outside, the total household consumption from a 60W bulb can be closer to 90W when including the A/C. Thus by switching to CF, one can save more than 60W by replacing one 60W bulb. The reverse is true in cold climates... The excess heat from an incandesent bulb serves to heat your house, there by lowering your gas/electricity/heating oil/etc. costs, and so the total power savings is less than the difference between comparable bulb power ratings.

Personnally, every bulb in my NY apartment is CF, primarily because I am not charged for heat and electricity costs a ridiculous $0.20 per kW-hr

Re:Too much work

[Tiger4]

I used to do the CFL bulb in every socket thing. But I later learned there is real scientific evidence that full-spectrum light will put you in a better mood.

The mistake you make here is replacing like-for-like wattage bulbs. I went through my home and replaced the high usage bulbs with CFLs. And as the low usage ones die I replace them. But I replace them with CFLs of a higher equivalent strength. 60w incandescents get replaced with 75w equivalent CFLs, 75w are replaced with 100w. They only draw about 1/4 the juice of incandescents, so I still save big. But now I have more light in the same area, and the picket fence spectrum problem is reduced. Plus, when I can, I mix Cool White, Warm White and Daylight color temperatures. Looks odd, but only if you look at the fixtures and not the room.

I think it is worth the cost to my pocket and the Earth.

Thank you for consuming more than your share. The rest of us apprciate it.

No. T'ain't right. It's a Karma Light(tm)

[ackthpt]

How many light bulbs does it take to change the world? No wait, that's not right...

The problem is people use these little efficient doodads to feel good about doing something green. Then they go out and buy a power-sucking plasma TV.

Electrical use is way up since the 80's. Possibly because we all have tonnes more electronics bits to plug in and nearly everyone has a PC which adds a certain minimum for the hours its on. If you had a few lamps burning around the house which added up to the energy consumption of most desktop PCs you'd notice it right away and wonder why it's necessary. Alas, we sit at our keyboards and type merrily away (there's that batsard, ackthpt again, oi if only I had the mod points to bury him.) oblivious to the power consumption of our tin box full of CPU, DDR-RAM, HD, Whizzo Video Card De-Luxe, etc. Quite possibly we even have a reading lamp going beside us in the evening (I don't know about you, but at my age I get a headache looking at a glowing screen in the dark.) Plus there's all these little black plastic cubes and rectangles to run all manner of gizmo, which all add up.

On another thought. I've got these wicked little LED flashlights which run for 130 hours on a battery the size of an aspirin. When will I see these in my house, rather than a fluorescent lamp?