How Many Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs Does It Take to Close 705 Coal Plants?

www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2010/pb4ch04_ss2 By Lester R. Brown
The lighting sector is on the edge of a spectacular revolution, a shift from the century-old, inefficient incandescent light bulb to far more efficient technologies. Perhaps the quickest, most profitable way to reduce electricity use worldwide—thus cutting carbon emissions—is simply to change light bulbs. The first advance in this field came with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). Replacing old-fashioned inefficient incandescent bulbs that are still widely used today with new CFLs can reduce the electricity used for lighting by three fourths. Over its lifetime, each standard (13 watt) CFL will reduce electricity bills by roughly $30. And though a CFL may cost twice as much as an incandescent, it lasts 10 times as long. Each one reduces energy use compared with an incandescent by the equivalent of 200 pounds of coal over its lifetime. For perspective, the energy saved by replacing a 100-watt incandescent bulb with an equivalent CFL over its lifetime is sufficient to drive a Toyota Prius hybrid car from New York to San Francisco.

Let There Be Light-- Compact Fluorescent (CFL) Light, That Is!

Believe it or not, the light bulb is 131 years old!  In those 131 years, we have gone from horse and buggy to rocket trips to space and back.  The world's population has grown from less than 2 billion people to just under 7 billion-- and is still growing!  That's a lot of households, a lot of light bulbs (for those with electricity) and a lot of energy to power those light bulbs! 

Since the US consumes a large majority of the world's energy, it seems only fitting and fair that we should also be a leader in conservation and environmental stewardship.  How to do your part?  You can start by changing your light bulbs.