Saving electricity with better lights....

Today's post: Wednesday, 9-21-2010

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects.

And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 3 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with an economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post:

Saving electricity with better lights....

We need massive new installation of renewable energy sources including solar and wind and to become much more energy efficient soon to prevent economic collapse when oil prices surge sometime in the next decade or two.

That’s true even if global warming stops by itself. (The recent fires and drought and record temperatures in Texas suggest the reverse! The people there who don’t believe in global warming didn’t notice apparently.)

Since we don’t yet have massive installations of renewable energy sources, that means it becomes even more critical to find and install all kinds of energy saving and more energy efficient devices that use electricity.

We’ve posted on ways to make homes more heat proof in sunny, hot weather because it can cut air conditioning costs up to 100 %. Even worst case locations can easily save over 50% on air conditioning costs with doable heat proofing.

We’ve posted on how solar canopies or roofs over parking lots not only generate the most electricity on the same sunny, hot days, they save the air conditioning costs for the people who park under them.

Today, lighting uses as much as 25% of all the electricity we use. So if we cut the electricity used by our lights five to one, that gives us about 20% of the electricity we use now for things like electric and plug-in hybrid cars and more computers and severs – WITHOUT needing to add any more electricity generation.

LED lights use as little as 10 % to 12% of the energy incandescent light bulbs use to make the same amount of light. LED lights also use half as much electricity or less than compact fluorescent bulbs – AND, unlike compact fluorescent bulbs, LED lights contain no toxic mercury.

(Many people who have compact fluorescent bulbs don’t know they contain mercury. They are unaware that when one breaks, the mercury causes that room to have a hazardous materials problem and that failure to deal with this correctly can harm their health. And people often are careless in disposing of things. So putting lots of compact fluorescent bulbs into homes is guaranteed to cause lots of added mercury in household trash.)

LED lights also last something like a hundred times longer than incandescent light bulbs and many times as long as compact fluorescent bulbs.

That means that LED lights are dramatically better and more desirable to use.

So why haven’t LED light bulbs already replaced everything out there?

The reasons that has not already happened are these three.:

1. Like the early compact fluorescent bulbs, LED light bulbs that fit in the fixtures that were made for incandescent light bulbs have not been available. This one is beginning to be solved. There are some LED bulbs that make the same amount of light that do fit.

2. Even now when LED bulbs that do fit fixtures are beginning to be available, they can cost $60 each or more while incandescent light bulbs cost a dollar and compact fluorescent bulbs cost less than $10 often.

3. Even though over time LED bulbs last so much longer and use so much less electricity to make light, they are already a good deal on lifetime costs, few people have replaced their other bulbs with LED bulbs. If your house takes 20 bulbs now, replacing all 20 with LED bulbs takes over $1200!

So, the third thing we don’t yet have is financing to buy all the LED bulbs you need at one time. A five year loan for $1200 would be about $24 a month. Most people can afford $24 a month.

The good news is that more and more companies are already making LED bulbs that will fit in the fixtures that were made for incandescent light bulbs.

And, two companies I know of are already working to cut the cost of making LED lights at least in half, Bridgelux and GLO AB.

Once all three of these problems are solved, the only light bulbs that won’t be LED light bulbs are those that are specialty lights of some kind. LED lights don’t yet make some colors or very high intensity lights.