Make a Million Vehicles Vanish
Oh the power. Can you feel it? Let's make one million vehicles vanish from the face of the earth. It's actually easier than you may think. If every household in the United States would replace one incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), the energy saved would be the equivalent of removing the aforementioned vehicles.
Via EnergyStar.gov, "In the United States, approximately 6.6 tons (almost 15,000 pounds carbon equivalent) of greenhouse gases are emitted per person every year. Emissions per person have increased about 3.4% between 1990 and 1997.Eighty-two percent of greenhouse gas emissions are from burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and power our cars."
In addition to saving energy, compact fluorescent light bulbs will save you money! That's double the benefit, why are you still reading this post and not running out to get some twisty new compact fluorescent light bulbs? [Note that you can purchase CFL's that look like "regular" bulbs now as well...they don't have to be the twisty kind.] Here's an illustration of the energy and financial savings via wasteless.org,
"Bulb Types compared are a 100W Incandescent VERSUS 23W Compact Fluorescent (which is equivalent to 100W incandescent):As you can see, though it may cost you a few pennies more up front to purchase the CFL's, replacing one incandescent with a compact fluorescent will save you twenty dollars over three years...imagine what could happen if you changed all the bulbs in your home! Given this information, why would people choose not to replace the bulbs in their home?
- Purchase Price: $0.75 | $11.00 Life of the Bulb: 750 hours | 10,000 hours
- Number of Hours Burner per Day: 4 hours | 4 hours
- Number of Bulbs Needed: About 6 over 3 years | 1 over 6.8 years
- Total Cost of Bulbs: $4.50 | $11.00
- Lumens [amount of light produced]: 1,690 | 1,500
- Total Cost of Electricity (8cents/kilowatt-hour): $35.04 | $8.06
- Your Total Cost Over 3 Years: $39.54 | $19.06"
Hello everybody, my name is Damion, and I'm glad to join your conmunity,
and wish to assit as far as possible.
hey randy, thanks! I'm so glad to be in the FTG network. I'll be making my rounds to all yall's blogs soon, and am looking forward to following conversations there.
I agree that it was very intelligent marketing to begin encasing the would portion of the CFL's in traditionally shaped bulbs. I've run into several people that simply don't switch to CFL's b/c "it looks weird." Now those people have no excuse, lol.
Welcome aboard, Jeffrey. I'm looking forward to checking in on a regular basis for valuable AND beneficial green tips.
We are slowly but surely changing over to compact fluorescents as the incandescents burn out. There are many more choices at home improvement centers that fit different household applications. They used to just offer the curly Q (wound) type of bulbs for typical fixtures but now I see they are encasing the wound portion of the bulb into a traditionally shaped bulb. Smart marketing.