It is constantly stated that incandescent light bulbs use excessive quantities of electricity and damage the environment. In addition the environmental activists have now influenced government to put in place the light bulb ban. This is a phased activity to constrict the use of incandescent light bulbs and move to LED bulbs. In this short and complete analysis I provide some statistics on how much you can cut down your carbon footprint by the movement to LED bulbs and how this benefit compares with other C02 emission savings which you can make by lessening car travel or better use of domestic electrical appliances.
Carbon footprint reductions from using LED bulbs
You might well be curious how light bulbs can create carbon dioxide? Well they cannot but it is the electricity generating stations, which are normally oil or gas fired, which create the C02. Evidently if your electricity is generated by wave power, windmills or alternative green processes then C02 emissions will be slight. Lets now look at the numbers based on a light bulb being used 4 hours per day and assuming 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.
Examining 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 LED bulbs, that can be taken to achieve the same goal? I think the best way to look at answering these questions is to check out some comparative examples.
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 each year then this will make an equivalent saving to swapping one of your light bulbs for one or your LED bulbs.
2. If you can change your travel patterns to avoid 1000 miles of train travel, then this will save 100kg in C02 emissions. LED Bulbs can make a comparable reduction simply through swapping just one.
3. A plane journey from London to Edinburgh will bring into existence 100kg in carbon dioxide emissions.
Faced with these choices then changing to LED bulbs looks like an obvious choice.
Some concluding remarks
It is clear to see that changing to LED bulbs will make a massive improvement to your carbon footprint but there are other elements worth contemplating.
Dishwashers and washing machines do use around 3 kWhours of electricity every time they are used. In comparison to a light bulb, if they were used twice weekly, this is principally similar to having 2 100 watt light bulbs on for 4 hours a day. Whilst these energy consumptions are definitely 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 fully loaded and don’t use your tumbler dryer if the weather is good.