Our Life In Light Bulbs.
“This is a 40-watt light bulb. If you leave it on all the time, it uses 1 kilowatt-hour everyday. It’s possible to express all forms of power consumption using this unit of the lightbulb. … Today the average British person is using 125 light bulbs of power. That’s 125 light bulbs on all the time, non-stop.”
Hi everyone, I just wanted to share this video I found while I was looking up compact fluorescent light bulbs (cfl) versus incandescent bulbs. It’s from the Cambridge Ideas series released by the University of Cambridge. This particular one is by physicist David Mackay and his take on the energy crisis in the UK. I think it puts things into perspective in the sense that it takes into account what happens after the world runs out of fossil fuels and what is required of the world in order to sustain itself on alternative forms of (renewable) energy.
However, I didn’t appreciate his tone over the smaller attempts at conserving energy like using less plastic bags or switching off the main power etc. Because I do believe that every little bit counts and as a collective, every little bit will turn into a significant amount of power saved. At the same time, I can appreciate his frustration as a person who has been studying the issue and actually aware of the magnitude of the problem and how much more work that needs to be done.
This video may be for the UK, but imagine Singapore, where we don’t even have any equipment or space to utilize wind or sea currents for energy. We’d be in an even more dire situation! ヽ(ﾟДﾟ)ﾉ As an average Singapore resident, for now, our best bet is to continue monitoring our own individual power consumptions, because to do what the video is suggesting would be out of our control, and actually up to the authorities.
Now, back to what I was initially looking up – CFL vs Incandescent light bulbs! I’m sure you don’t want to see a whole bunch of words from me again hahaha. So I actually found a video by Chris Pirillo comparing the two and with an additional bulb, LED.
Tl;dw, highlights from the video:
- The 100-watt incandescent light bulb is going away.
- LEDs last longer and they are expensive.
- There’s no real cost benefit between LEDs and other bulbs;
- But! LEDs run cooler to the touch and are very energy-efficient.
- CFLs contain mercury.
- Do not replace everything out, wait until the old bulbs fade away before replacing them.
- We’re saving money not by using LEDs or CFLs, we’re saving money by not using traditional incandescent bulbs.
- Are you going to spend more money upfront on LED bulbs and not have to replace the bulbs more frequently or spend the same amount of money over time with incandescent or CFL bulbs?
- For those fretting over the price, LEDs will get more and more affordable over the years.
- You don’t have to make the switch (to LED bulbs) immediately, but you will have to do so inevitably.
- Think beyond the product.
I think we do take light bulbs for granted since they are such everyday inconspicuous objects in our lives. But you see, if we change something that is used so often that we don’t even take notice of them anymore, that could contribute to great energy savings. And you only have to change them once!
I know people assume that girls don’t know how to change light bulbs or don’t care about anything to do with hardware around the house, but you know, you could impress others with your light bulb knowledge <(￣︶￣)> That’s it for now. Hopefully this post was able to give us some insight to something we take very much for granted – light!
shrinktheprint 