Do know about 'stralia. In this state (Victoria) electricity is
generated by burning brown coal which is about as bad as it can get.
Lighting accounts for 9-11% of a household's CO2 production equivalent.
Cutting this to 40% of previous consumption does produce a
significant saving.
I started to convert some while ago - when the mini-fluoro's started
to appear in warm tones with instant start and in decorative models
for certain positions where rods or curls would look unattractive.
And when the price dropped from nearly $20 to $5-7.
I began with the lights that were really hard to reach 'cos I hate
changing those globes/bulbs.
So far, not one of those has yet died a natural death.
There are globes that we used to change every 3 months - their
replacements are 2 years and running.
I really like that.
It's a common misconception that domestic usage is not as significant
as commercial. This was put to the sword when it was raised in London
in the 1950's with clean air legislation, an analogous scenario.
People objected - 'it's the fault of that factory down the road!' No
it wasn't. Commercial applications are large and highly visible, easy
to blame. Domestic usage is widely distributed, less obvious and
usually more significant. It a matter of numbers. When they stopped
people burning coal at home, the air cleared. Not that the objectors,
proved wrong, bothered to apologise. :-)
It's a fair point that lighting is not the most significant energy
consumption or CO2 emission equivalent in a home but 6% is a big
number if you can force a total conversion - and you can with a
stroke of the pen. it's a matter of an intervention which will be
popular eventually and if people find their utility bill drops and
their convenience rises, it'll be popular. The actual single most
serious energy/CO2 problem in a home here is the fridge. (around
double lighting) You can ask people to buy a more efficient fridge,
lift the temp. inside and keep the bloody door shut but they won't.
Lighting devices you can change.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 14/03/2007, at 9:43 PM, David Thatcher wrote:
>> Don't know about 'Stralia, but in North America, lighting consumes
>> about 25% of all electric energy use. Cut that by 80% and I think the
>> savings are more like gigajoules, rather than nano-bugger-alls.
>
>
> Sounds wonderful, yes! until you remember that 25% will include
> industrial, commercial, street, & utility lighting (99.999% already
> high-efficiency gas-discharge types), causing masses of light
> pollution
> for our astrophotographers to grind their teeth over! The 30-odd 4X40W
> fluoro battens on one floor of my office building would use more
> lighting power than my whole street.
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