DrMattP

Another way of looking at this Raddy would be that if we decided to
ban traditional light bulbs 5-10% of our power stations could be
turned off!

In the case of China, a ban on traditional light bulbs could mean that the Chinese didn't need to build 25-50 of the 500 coal power stations
they are currently planning to construct over the next decade, whilst
a similar ban in the US could mean that 25-50 of the power stations
which already exist could be turned off.

I am all in favour of bigger domestic measures, but I am afraid that
human psychology is such that if you make the first step too daunting
nothing ends up happening.

We're brilliant at making fine sounding but vacous excuses for
maintaining business as usual and I think it is far better to get
people moving, and comfortable with worthwhile change, than to hector
them for not being prepared to do enough - in one giant leap.

At the domestic level, using 70% less electricity to make the same amount of light also saves approximately £9 ($18) worth of electricity per bulb per year.

An average, rather small, British house has been estimated to contain
23.5 light bulbs. While a good quality energy saving light bulb from
one of our biggest supermarkets, Tesco, costs as little as 81p.

This means that replacing all of the light bulbs in a typical British
house, at a cost of £19 ($38), with energy saving bulbs which have a 6
years lifetime could in theory allow you to save up to £1,057 ($2114)
on household electricity bills over the lifetime of all the new light
bulbs.

These savings are even greater if you install some of longer lasting
energy saving light bulbs, which have lifetimes of up to 8 - 15 years.

If you still think this is too small a saving to justify they effort, then I would like to ask for your help with identifying other politicially acceptable measures which would allow us to reduce our energy imports (whilst experiencing little obvious pain), to save large amounts of money (at little upfront cost) and to cut our carbon dioxide emissions by millions of tonnes (within the next couple of years).

Warmest regards

Dr Matt Prescott
Director / Founder
Ban The Bulb energy efficiency campaign
www.banthebulb.org