Saving the World
Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2020 6:49 am
So one of my compact fluorescent bulbs has gone bad, I need a new one.
1,100 lumens, 18 watts. It was a bit of a shocker when I read that. Back in the dark ages of incandescent light bulbs, I used to get 60 or 100 or even 120 watt bulbs, for a roughly similar amount of light output.
So my initial reaction was to engage in the typical insufferable sort of self-congratulation that is commonplace. Look at me, I’ve reduced my energy consumption by 0.02% by using fluorescent bulbs! I’m saving the world!
Not actively harmful, like driving an SUV across town to drop off a few cans at the recycling centre. Just not very helpful. A pretty low impact activity.
But then I thought, does it really do any good at all?
After all, where did all the “wasted” energy of the incandescent bulbs go? It had to be heat. What else could it be? They’re not synthesising energy-rich chemical compounds. They’re not moving heavy rocks uphill. They’re not accelerating objects to a high velocity. It must be heat, no? And I do recall that the incandescent bulbs ran pretty hot; often painful to touch.
So this made me wonder, do the fluorescent bulbs really save anything at all? For me, yes - I live in the tropics, we don’t heat our homes. We don’t even have heaters installed. But what if someone is in Calgary or Murmansk in the winter? They’ll be heating their homes. Either the heater is hooked to some sort of thermostat, or they turn it off when it gets warm enough. So if these inefficient incandescent bulbs are wasteful because the produce so much heat, won’t this just reduce the burden on the heating system, by the same amount of energy?
Then I thought, well, I don’t really know. The electricity is produced and delivered with less than perfect efficiency, but so is natural gas. Which is more efficient? If the incandescent bulb replaces a certain amount of natural gas heating with electric heating, what is the net effect of that?
Would anyone like to illuminate these matters for me?
1,100 lumens, 18 watts. It was a bit of a shocker when I read that. Back in the dark ages of incandescent light bulbs, I used to get 60 or 100 or even 120 watt bulbs, for a roughly similar amount of light output.
So my initial reaction was to engage in the typical insufferable sort of self-congratulation that is commonplace. Look at me, I’ve reduced my energy consumption by 0.02% by using fluorescent bulbs! I’m saving the world!
Not actively harmful, like driving an SUV across town to drop off a few cans at the recycling centre. Just not very helpful. A pretty low impact activity.
But then I thought, does it really do any good at all?
After all, where did all the “wasted” energy of the incandescent bulbs go? It had to be heat. What else could it be? They’re not synthesising energy-rich chemical compounds. They’re not moving heavy rocks uphill. They’re not accelerating objects to a high velocity. It must be heat, no? And I do recall that the incandescent bulbs ran pretty hot; often painful to touch.
So this made me wonder, do the fluorescent bulbs really save anything at all? For me, yes - I live in the tropics, we don’t heat our homes. We don’t even have heaters installed. But what if someone is in Calgary or Murmansk in the winter? They’ll be heating their homes. Either the heater is hooked to some sort of thermostat, or they turn it off when it gets warm enough. So if these inefficient incandescent bulbs are wasteful because the produce so much heat, won’t this just reduce the burden on the heating system, by the same amount of energy?
Then I thought, well, I don’t really know. The electricity is produced and delivered with less than perfect efficiency, but so is natural gas. Which is more efficient? If the incandescent bulb replaces a certain amount of natural gas heating with electric heating, what is the net effect of that?
Would anyone like to illuminate these matters for me?