It is constantly stated that incandescent light bulbs use enormous quantities of energy and damage the environment. In addition the environmental supporters have now influenced government to put in place the light bulb ban. This is a phased initiative to do away with the use of incandescent light bulbs and move to energy saving light bulbs. I will now supply information on exactly what is the impact on your carbon footprint by changing to energy saving light bulbs and compare this to carbon footprint levels for car usage and other electrical appliances.
C02 emission savings from changing to energy saving light bulbs.
Electric light bulbs intrinsically do not create C02 , however, it is the carbon dioxide that is expelled during the electricity generation that is the worry. Now clearly if you are using windmills or hydro-electric power to make your electricity then C02 emissions will be minimal. However, most electricity is developed from oil or gas powered generators which do create a considerable amount of C02. Lets now look at the figure based on a light bulb being used 4 hours per day and accepting you pay 13p per kWhour for electricity. In this case changing one traditional incandescent light bulbs to an energy saving light bulb will save an astonishing 100kg per year in C02 emissions.
Looking at the comparison with transportation and other ways to reduce my carbon footprint.
This is all very factual but does 100kg of C02 released into the atmosphere actually matter and are there not different actions, other than using energy saving light bulbs, that can be taken to achieve the same goal? To answer these important questions I would like to provide the following factual statistics.
1. Consider that you take a sample family car the Ford Focus C-Max 1.8 (125PS). If you drive this for 330 mile less in one year then this will make a similar saving to swapping a light bulbs for one or your energy saving light bulbs.
2. If you can alter your travel patterns to avoid 1000 miles of train travel, this will consequently will save 100kg in C02 emissions. Energy Saving Light Bulbs offer you a similar saving by just changing one!
3. A plane journey from London to Edinburgh will bring into existence 100kg in carbon dioxide emissions.
Reviewing these comparisons then migrating to energy saving light bulbs does look like a no brainer.
Some concluding remarks
So as well as changing to energy saving light bulbs what else can you do to improve your carbon footprint?
As a comparator to , for example, using your dishwasher or washing machine, these appliances useapproximately 2-4 kWhours of electricity per cycle. By way of illustration if you used them twice a week then this would be equivalent to having 2 100 watt bulbs on for 4 hours a day. Whilst these energy consumptions are relatively high they are not massive and to be quite honest washing machines and dishwashers are vital. So the focus here should be to always ensure that the appliances are full and don’t use your tumbler dryer if the weather is good