Average Jane Saves Energy

Last night I ran across this article in Fast Company, "How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World?"  It’s about the compact fluorescent bulbs that you’ve probably been seeing in stores lately. According to the article:

What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households
bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in
the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough
to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough
electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island.
In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the
atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the
roads.

I’ve been replacing the light bulbs in my house with compact fluorescents since late last year and I can report that they’re amazing. The light is just as strong and steady as you’d expect from an incandescent bulb. Best of all, not a single one of them has burned out since I started using them. I used to go through ridiculous numbers of regular lightbulbs.

The latest lightbulb advance to catch my eye is this LED spotlight. I need to replace both spotlights on the side of my garage and even though these are extremely expensive, they’re supposed to last 10 years and cost only $4.00 per year in energy. That’s a pretty compelling argument.

The way energy prices have been fluctuating, it’s a little difficult to tell how much effect the fluorescent bulbs are having on my electric bill. We keep quite a few lights on all the time, and my sense is that our bills are lower than they would be with the standard bulbs.

Do you have any energy-saving tips to pass along?