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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."

2 of 1,137 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Correction by Yutznut · · Score: 0, Troll

    he said what he meant, but that simply can't be factual. that means the 50+ light bulbs in my hohuse alone are the equivalent of over 65 million vehicles. Wow! can you imagine how many vehicles a hospital would be responsible for?!

    classic case of garbage in = garbage out.

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    When in doubt.. do it on someone else's machine
  2. Blurb.... by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 0, Troll

    Yeah, I guess it sounds a lot better to put it that way than to say "A 0.5% reduction in electricity usage"

    Gee... what a nice example of right wing political propaganda of the simplistic variety. Sure, if you consider the example of these CFL bulbs in isolation it doesn't look all that impressive. If you, however, also consider what effect it would have to improve the energy efficiency of most common household appliances, refrigerators, stoves, computers, stereos, TVs.... the list goes on...... and alluvasudden you realize what kind of a dent that would make in energy consumption. It's easy to focus on a small part of a big picture and condemn the whole principle of energy efficiency as complete crap based on that narrow minded approach but the ease with which it can be done doesn't make it any less foolish.

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    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow