Farewell to the light bulb – A new beginning?

With law makers sharpening their pencils to outlaw the traditional light bulbs (incandescent), recent news reflect the heightened awareness of energy waste contributing to what’s generally accepted as Global Warming. A few Nay-sayers aside, latest data supports an even more drastic temperature increase than Al Gore got shunned for by a select few scientists in his “Inconvenient Truth” movie.

While such measures are not likely to be enforced anytime soon in the US – the main contributor to the CO₂ production – it still shows that first steps don’t have to be all to invasive and little things can have a big impact. By simply replacing Humphry Davy’s early experiments (electric arc in 1800) and Thomas Edison’s invention (yes, the first practical light bulb in 1877) with a much less power consuming technology can reduce CO₂ production to one third and virtually nothing else changed. (Not counting the longer life of the florescent light.) With 130 years, the traditional light bulb certainly reached a good retirement age, and not a year too early. However, it's going to be a while until it's an endagered species.

This may not reduce your bill too much, as energy companies are likely to compensate losses with price hikes. However, it shows that there doesn’t have to be a drastic impact or even change to make a big difference. Examples along those lines would be …

1. Turning electronic equipment off when not in use (i.e. computer)
2. Insolating equipment and house for better heating/cooling efficiency
3. Help recycle plastics, glass, metal and paper by using provided facilities
4. Choose energy efficient products rather than “powerful”
5. When shopping, not every little item needs its own bag, bring your own or at least consolidate

Using the USA as a reference (and in this case bad example), the convenience of easily accessible cheap energy and innovation to make our lives “easier” (i.e. drive-thru, remote control, air condition etc.). Oddly enough, the same affection with convenience is one of the contributing factors in the currently epidemic obesity. While it seems easy to draw conclusions on how to beat both, it’s immensely difficult to overcome set ways unless there is a clear incentive. As long as it’s cheap to waste energy, alternatives will play a relatively small role, especially when there is virtually no measure taken to educate people (despite the seeming spark of articles about Green design in early 2007).

But don’t think of CFL (compact fluorescent lights) as the final answer just yet, as they are more of a problem after their life expired. The reason is the small amount of mercury (approx. 5 mg) that’s in the current technology to help ignite the gas. Just like energy waste, small amounts add up quickly when done in masses. So it’s a matter of priority to reduce CO₂ first, but with responsible ways to discard the by-products. (After all, Mercury is on the list of banned materials for the RoHS initiative.) Not surprisingly, there is currently no recycling commitment from the lighting industry as that’s still relatively expensive compared to producing CFLs.

In the end, it’s the little things that add up. At the current state of the art, energy waste is such a common act that even small changes would make a big difference without major impact on your life style. While that may not be enough, there is no good reason to not act more responsible.

- Thomas Theuerkorn, March 2007

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