One Light Bulb. Big Results

[nam78_two]

Replacing one 100-watt bulb with a just-as-bright 30-watt compact fluorescent cuts more than
1,300 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution over the life of the bulb. Swap out two bulbs to lower your household emissions by more than a ton!more

Make the Switch - Join the One Million-Bulb Swap Out>>
http://go.care2.com/e/mOF/pz/eHlY

Burning fossil fuels to power our homes and run our cars
creates global warming pollution. But you can reduce your
global warming pollution by changing old, incandescent
lights to newer energy-saving models, or compact
fluorescent lights.

That's because the average 25-watt compact fluorescent
light (CFL) bulb generates as much light as a 75-watt
incandescent light bulb, but uses less than a third the
energy. Through the energy savings, a 25-watt CFL bulb
reduces the amount of carbon dioxide emissions by more than
1,000 pounds over the lifetime of the bulb, assuming a
15,000-hour life for the CFL.

One light bulb. Big results. Take the pledge to make the
switch>> http://go.care2.com/e/mOF/pz/eHlY

[Rhiannon12866]

1. I just signed this, LOL! Great minds think alike! K&R. :-)

:think:

[nam78_two]

4. Bet a lot of us here are on the same lists :)/nt

[Rhiannon12866]

29. I imagine that we are, LOL!

And my e-mail just keeps increasing, exponentially, since I hear from sites I never signed up for, but they're all either Democrats, progressive, environmental or animal rescue, so I don't really mind...:-)

[hobbit709]

2. I replaced 90% of the light bulbs

with fluorescent ones 10 years ago and have never regretted it. The only incandescent bulbs I use are on dimmer circuits.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. Me too. And some of those bulbs are still

working.

[jpak]

10. I bought my first CF bulb from Real Goods back in 1989

It cost me close to $30(!)

It was bigger than a softball, weighed a ton and blinked ferociously (and loudly) for several seconds before it finally ignited.

I still have it at my camp and it still works (my nephews call it "Old Blinky").

All my bulbs at home and at my camp are CF and I have had only 2 fail on me (after a move).

When Dems retake Congress and the WH, they should enact a $3 per bulb tax credit.

States should also enact a $2 rebate on the purchase of these bulbs (Maine already has one).

[skids]

18. Actually we'll be so far in debt...

...a $4/bulb prohibitive tax on incandescents would work much better.

[whistle]

5. Take your inefficient AC system and swap it out for a 17.0 to 18.0 SEER

...heat pump and save 60% to 70% on air conditioning and heating. I replaced my older 10 SEER system with a new 17.0 SEER in January and have been carefully tracking my usage on a daily basis. Here in Orlando FL my electrical use in July was 1443 KWH and in past Julys it ran between 2200KWH to 2800KWH. The base electrical when no AC or heat is running is about 550-600KWH typically (i.e. hot water, washer/dryer, refrigeration, lights, computer, etc.). At this rate my savings on electrical will likely pay for my new system in less than six years at the present electrical rates of $0.10975 per KWH, faster if the rates keep going up which they are most likely to do.

[skids]

19. And if you have an old central AC system or are building new...

Look into one of these.

[whistle]

24. Very interesting idea

[NNadir]

27. Well, this certainly isn't a system for folks with off grid solar systems.

I have often contended that solar power is available during the day, but I could be wrong about that.

This system for utilizing off peak capacity from the grid depends wholly on nobility and public spiritedness. These, nobility and public spiritedness, are good things, but frankly, these days, they are in shorter supply than that magical first exajoule provided by solar PV power.

Moreover, like magical solar PV power, these are systems for people who can afford them. As such, I'll bet they remain somewhat esoteric and will never be a part of a serious solution to load leveling unless, as the Lorax used to say, unless... people pay different rates for power as a function of the system load. Personally, I think that would be a good idea. We might charge, if we were a utility, a rate of 15 cents per kilowatt-hour on a hot day with the grid running at 90% of capacity, and 8 cents a kilowatt-hour on a cool night with the grid at 60% of capacity, near the base load.

This would have some happy effects. It would make people buy systems such as you describe for reasons other than their intrinsic wealth and personally noble ideas. It would also encourage people to purchase solar cells for themselves. (It 15 cents a kilowatt-hour, the solar premium is decidedly smaller than it is at 10 cents/kw-hr.) I'll bet too, that even as things stand, a solar system would save more energy than this system, and probably cost less. Moreover the solar system would work at other times, during which it would prevent the burning of some natural gas. The prevention of the use of natural gas is always a good thing, since all fossil fuels are environmentally unacceptable.

Probably another cheaper solution, in areas with the appropriate geography at least, would be pumped storage of water. If one has offpeak energy, one can always store it in a high reservoir and let it run back through turbines during the day. Many such systems already operate around the world.

[skids]

30. Off gridders would probably use wind with this.

Solar is better hooked directly to daytime AC load.

Better than simply different rates charged during certain hours would be a system that allows the power company to decide when to run it, through some sort of signalling. I think that's where we are headed for eventually with on-grid systems -- large storage sinks like this and electric cars would be told when to take in power by the regional ISO and get lower rates as a result.

You're totally right on about public spirtedness -- I think the public has more of it than you might be estimating, though granted not nearly enough, but that in either case what is there is rendered moot in the face of the total hostility towards such ideas by a few influentials.

[NNadir]

32. Have you done a calculation to show what the energy price differential

would have to be in order to make such a system have a break even point?

You're generally good with calculation.

I have long advocated load variable power pricing. I think with modern information systems such a program could be easily enacted. I think such an approach would do a lot of environmental good.

Variable load pricing might even make solar power economically essential which would, of course, be a good thing. I suspect that it would be even better than even a brazillion dollar subsidy, I bet, or even a meaningless shell game endorsement from the steroid crazed ass grabbing Governor Hydrogen Hummer Boy. Who knows? With such a boost, solar PV power could get to half an exajoule, even farther.

[skids]

34. No, there are a lot of unknowns...

Most critically, how well insulated is such a system -- how much energy differential is lost to conduction between generation and use.

There are two basic formulas to be considered -- on the end-user side it is simply the efficiency gain of nighttime air temperature differential times the energy price incentive.

On the carbon footprint/provider side the night-time air's effect on the generating station needs to be factored in, and the price incentive determined from both that and the utility's excess baseline capacity.

There is this rather pessimistically-done analysis I found which is amusing:

http://home.howstuffworks.com/question306.htm

In reality there are geographical areas where the above might actually be economical. Certainly before the era of refrigeration and cheap energy, we used to have ice-houses where we did exactly that, except for food preservation not AC. Back then people were tough as nails and just rode heat waves out on the porch with a mug of beer.

[NNadir]

35. Well I agree that the question is not an easy one to solve.

There are a lot of unknowns, thermal conductivities, weight of working fluids and their heat capacity, exchanger efficiency. Such a calculation would invole a lot of work.

As you know, I tend to be somewhat dismissive of energy storage system, believing that they raise both internal and external costs.

But it is clear that such systems have merit in specific cases. Of course, my favored form of energy storage is chemical, my much ballyhooed DME or it's precursor methanol. If the reversible methanol fuel cell can ever be developed industrially, well that would be a huge thing. It seems that George Olah, already a Nobel laureate, is hot on the trail. If so, he'll be one of those rare Laureates, like Rutherford, whose best work came after the prize.

But I think systems like this simpler system to which your refer probably deserve some experimental consideration for those who can afford to make the test. Such an experiment, again, would involve public spiritedness, I think. We need to keep in mind that any energy storage system - even the best of them - involve energy losses, so there's always going to be a cost coupled with a risk/benefit analysis.

Thanks though, for the information.

[AZCat]

31. The University of Arizona here recently installed an ice storage system

It works economically for them because they already have several high efficiency chillers and a combined heat/power system that when run at night have even better efficiency (they reject to a lower temperature reservoir). It's still a fairly long pay-out for the system and the initial capital investment wasn't cheap, but the UofA already owned enough of the equipment to make it feasible.

Link to brief summary

[NNadir]

6. I've been using these bulbs for many years.

I have no problems with them whatsoever. They do take a few seconds to come to full brightness, but that trivial matter is certainly worth ton quantities of coal, and even milligram quantities of uranium.

[Marblehead]

7. The next tech

will be leds. Uses even less electricty.

[skids]

20. LEDs don't use less electricity. Yet.

Current LEDs you can buy on the market are not as efficient as CF bulbs.

LEDs are scheduled to go into production this year or next with the same efficiency as CF bulbs. A few years after we should see LED bulbs using nanocrystal flourescers that surpass CF bulbs.

I'm looking forward to buying a few as soon as they beat CFs -- because they will be even more durable.

[happyslug]

33. Depends on usage.

For example I replaced the incandescent lamps in my Exit Signs with LED lights made for that purpose. These use 1 watt instead of the 35 watt of the incandescent (and 5 watt Fluorescents lights for the same purpose).

Right now when you need MARKING lights, LEDs are the way to go. As to areas where you need light projection, than LEDs are just getting to that level. Bicycle lights hit this level about two years ago, but that is about right, bicycle were using LEDs 15-20 years ago as tail lights (i.e. Light Marking as opposed to light projection), Automobiles did not start to use LEDs tail-lights till the last couple of years (Through Big Tractor-trailers were using LED Tail-lights about 5 years ago).

This seems to be the pattern, bicycles at least a decade before Big trucks, who do it 2-3 years before automobiles who tend to be a few years before usage in homes.

Right now, LEDS are just getting into the consumer household market for there are just getting to the level of fluorescents when it comes to light projection. I have been using one on my bike for over two years. I use a generator light on my bike with LEDs it will light the LED lights at about 3 mph, when I was using Halogen lights the bike had to be going 7 mph for the light to light up. The LEDS light is projected about 3/4 the distance of my old Halogen light, but starts at much slower speeds (Which means the LED need less power to light up compared to Conventional lights, but at full power provide only about 75% of Conventional Light). This is what is coming to home base LEDS in a few years, you may have to use more lights to cover the same area, but the lights will use much less power than Halogen and even Fluorescent lights.

Thus I agree with you that today, LED house lighting is NOT yet there, it is coming and exist for marking lights today (Exit sighs, warning signs etc), you may have to increase the number of lights to cover the same area as conventional and fluorescent lights, but once you design the whole lighting system around the soon to be here LED lighting system, it will be the way to go.

On the other hand, both conventional and Florescent lights will stay around. Conventional lights does a better job of projecting lighting (Thus would be the better choice for high beams on a automobile) but LED can project lighting good enough for most purposes. Fluorescent Lighting does a better job of lighting an area as opposed to marking or projecting lighting. Thus this is how I see lighting in the future:

1. Marking lighting: Night lights, warning lights, Exit Sign, lights on ovens washing machines and dryers will be LEDs.

2. Area Lighting: Fluorescents dominate with LEDS projecting lights to specific areas as additional lighting (With Incandescent lights in areas where dimming of lights is required). Now one way to "dim" lights is to have a combination of LEDs and Fluorescent lights. Florescent Lighting for maximum lighting of the area, but turned off when people want dimmer lights. Each area will have several LEDS, each LED on its own switch that can be turned off and on as people want more or less lighting.

3. Projection lighting: Short distance, LEDS, longer distance conventional Halogen lights.

[skids]

36. Oh yeah for colors, they are far superior.

BOTE, we've got about a half GW of baseload power left to save in the U.S. by converting stoplights and crosswalk signs, not to mention carbon offset from reduced maintanence requirements. Fortunately that seems to be one thing that actually getting done.

But although I make good use of colored lightbulbs in my house, I'm not sure most people do :-)

WRT projection, the light cone problem is solved:

http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=173601907

...don't know how fast that will get to market, though.

[LSK]

8. I replaced my most used bulbs after seeing Inconvienent Truth in June

[hunter]

9. We have 2 lights that are not CFL, and those are on a dimmer.

Been that way since 1998.

By the way, the technology has much improved since 1998, and now it is much less expensive.

It's a rare thing when I replace a bulb. We have a few CFL bulbs that are over ten years old.

[drfresh]

11. I just replaced 16 bulbs here

I had no idea I'd be saving 20,800 pounds of CO2. Hell yeah!

These are ULTRA cheap at Shopko, much less than other stores. A 4-pack of Feit Electric CF bulbs only set me back $6.99

[mccoyn]

12. I moved to a new house about a year ago.

Every month or so I've replaced a couple bulbs. Now all the primary lights are replaced with CFL. The only incadescents are lights that are only on for a few minutes a day, like the bathroom or the basement.

[RedEarth]

13. I've been using them for years...also got the owner of my office

building to switch to CFL.

[Javaman]

14. All the bulbs in my house have now been replaced...

And I just put in a solar charged security light on the front my garage. :)

[Tom Joad]

15. The sooner we switch out that one dim bulb in the White House for

something brighter, the better off this earth will be.

[tridim]

16. Anyone have info on CF bulbs that aren't so white and "blinky"?

I tried a few some years back and couldn't stand the light they produced and the 60Hz vibration. Maybe there have been some tech improvements in the last few years?

[jpak]

17. Panasonic makes some that fit all conventional sockets, don't blink

and emit warm colors.

I have a bunch of them - got them at Home Depot.

[skids]

21. That must have been more than just a "few" years ago.

They use high frequency inverters now. No blinking, and you can get them in "warm" colors, though frankly, I like the full spectrum myself -- keeps the cabin fever away.

[tridim]

22. I think they are from around 2000

My brain must be allergic to 60Hz cycles, every time I see a computer monitor at 60Hz I get irritable. The bulbs I bought did the same thing.

I'll check out the newer warm versions.

[NMDemDist2]

23. in my new house in New Mexico all the bulbs we could switch we have

and I have ordered new fixtures for the ones I couldn't switch

my entire house will be CFLs with in a month :bounce:

[PetraPooh]

25. Okay, I really like the idea and have tried, but. . .

I am very conscious about turning lights off as I leave the room. CF's don't like being turned on and then off a few minutes later. I found the lighting was good, the buzz of the light bulbs was very annoying, and lastly when they are turned on an off frequently; they just don't last long. Since they are so expensive I only use them in rooms where the lights get turned on and left on a while excluding all but two rooms in my house.

If anyone has suggestions regarding the buzz or the longevity in short use rooms; I'd love to hear them.

[skids]

26. My lights don't buzz.

I have several different brands in my house. None of them buzz. We have somewhere in the area of twenty bulbs in this house, and in 3 years of living here, two have burned out. Several of the bulbs are turned on and off over 20 times a day, and have been fine. (The two that have burned out so far are GE bulbs.)

My suggestion would be not to buy at the bottom of the price range. Most of the price shaving in compact flourescents seems to be in the electronics, and most of the time when a bulb "blows" it is not the bulb part that has blown, but rather the MOSFETs in the inverter electronics. A bulb from a company that values quality over price will have higher quality electronics that better shield the invertor from power bumps.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to buy a few singles of various different brands, and see which ones last longest in your situation.

[hunter]

28. I have a couple that have been working over ten years.

One of these is turned on and off at least twice a day.

The old Phillips and Panasonics seem to last the longest, but I've got some inexpensive "Commercial Electrics" I bought at Home Depot which have been going for over five years now, and these too are turned on and off multiple times every day.

I agree with you, most of the failures in cheap bulbs seems to be the electronics.

[WePurrsevere]

37. We switched over years ago except for the dimmer ones HOWEVER we'll be

switching those out very soon since my husband recently found out that dimmable CFL's ARE now available although it looks like we'll have to buy them online until we can convince a local business to carry them.

[CabalPowered]

38. CFL's are great, as long as they don't fail before their expected life

I bought 30 CFLs from Costco a few years ago. They came in packages of 10. I changed out all my lights and about six months later, some of them started to fail. In the end, I had a 50% failure rate. After a few conversations, I realized it wasn't just me. I had several family members run into the same thing. And the culprit is Commercial Electric. They make a lousy CFL.

[NNadir]

39. I don't remember what brand I bought. It was years ago.

Whatever brand they were, they have been incredibly reliable. I think my last purchase was years ago.

Try a different brand.