Light Bulbs
The Backstory
Wasting electricity carries both global and personal health consequences--and it's a burden on your pocketbook. When you look at the combined environmental and monetary costs, it's easy to understand why the Energy Bill, passed in December 2007, set tight restrictions on the amount of energy used by light bulbs. According to the bill, all light bulbs that emit 1,600 lumens must use no more than 72 watts of power, 25 percent less than current 100-watt incandescent bulbs, by 2012. By 2020, all bulbs must be 70 percent more efficient than incandescents produced today. Here's why:
Environmental Issues
In burning fossil fuels such as coal to supply electricity to homes and workplaces, power plants discharge clouds of soot and other pollutants into the atmosphere. Among these are carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas that is a primary culprit in global climate change, and mercury, a brain-damaging metal that can cause learning disabilities.
Many people are leery of CFLs because they require mercury to operate, but the amount inside those bulbs is tiny compared to the mercury emitted by coal-fired plants that power conventional incandescent bulbs. An incandescent bulb can emit as much as 18 mg of mercury into the air over its lifespan; a CFL emits 9 (including the mercury both in the bulb and that emitted by power plants).
Cost
The average household spends 10 to 15 percent of its annual electricity bill on lighting, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, mainly because incandescent light bulbs are incredibly inefficient. They use only 10 percent of their consumed electricity to emit light, while the remaining 90 percent is wasted as heat. Halogen lamps also waste a great deal of power and generate intense heat that can potentially cause burns or fires.
