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Trust me—you really don’t know what you’re missing.
Lighting in homes and businesses can represent 20% of energy usage. The common incandescent light bulbs waste most of the energy they use as heat. A typical 100 watt bulb converts less than 30% of the 100 watts used into light. There are compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) to replace most incandescent bulbs. They cost more, but they last twenty times or more longer. They are a very good investment, and you won’t have to replace them so often.
One absurdity of the present energy crisis in California is that the state legislature that caused this problem has spent more of our tax money in the last few months than it would have cost to buy new CFL bulbs for all homes in California. The new bulbs could save as much as 15% of total energy used in homes. This is enough savings to avoid the stage 3 alerts that have forced us to buy expensive power from out of state. The billions of dollars paid for excess power is a total waste. We will never get it back. The investment in new light bulbs would have saved every homeowner hundreds of dollars a year forever and stopped the continuous waste of billions of our tax dollars for high-priced power for several more years. Is this smart?
Take a look at the compact fluorescent bulbs in your local hardware store or shopping center before you buy more of the old types that you have been buying every month. You will save a lot of money and time over just a year. The CFL bulbs will last many years. Do the experiment. Replace one or two light bulbs in your home that burn most of the time, such as outdoor lights. You will be pleased.
This page was last modified on Monday, 11-Oct-2004 18:55:51 PDT.
