Alternative . Renewable . Energy

Bill aims to swap out old light bulbs with energy efficient bulbs

This post is brought to you by  Curt Rosengren ~ Passion Catalyst TM   "Love your work. Change your world."

There's a bill in the US Senate right now aimed at aiming out old-style incandescent light bulb and replacing them with energy efficient bulbs. It looks like it has a good chance of passing.

If the bill passes and Americans gradually switch out bulbs over the next seven years, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee estimated annual energy savings would reach $6 billion.

Energy-efficient bulbs could save more than 65 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year, said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., a House of Representatives co-sponsor of the bill. That's the equivalent of 80 coal-fired power plants, Upton said.

"This is more than just one light bulb at a time," he said at a Senate energy committee hearing Wednesday.

The legislation requires that light bulbs be 300 percent more efficient by 2020, said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., another House sponsor of the legislation. The bill's sponsors also would like light-bulb manufacturers to find a way to keep mercury from being released in the manufacture and disposal of the new energy-efficient bulbs.

They're also working on encouraging manufacturers to make the newer bulbs in the United States, Harman said, and would like to see the federal government, the world's biggest buyer of light bulbs, switch to more efficient lighting.

The legislation would require that 40-, 60-, 75- and 100-watt incandescent light bulbs be phased out by 2014. They would be replaced with the "curlicue" compact fluorescent light bulbs and other, more energy-efficient forms of lighting being developed.

If it does pass, it will have a significant impact on the sum total of energy consumed by light bulbs worldwide. The article say that the US is the single-largest market for incandescent bulbs and accounts for nearly a third of the global market.

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51 ways to save the environment

This post is brought to you by  Curt Rosengren ~ Passion Catalyst TM   "Love your work. Change your world."

Want to reduce your negative impact on the world around you? Want to fight global warming with your everyday choices? A good place to start is a new article on the Time Magazine site spotlighting 51 Ways to Save the Environment.

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Phasing out incandescent light bulbs - phasing in fluorescent

This post is brought to you by  Curt Rosengren ~ Passion Catalyst TM   "Love your work. Change your world."

The light bulb industry is at a tipping point, according to this article about the move to phase out wasteful incandescent bulbs and phase in fluorescent ones.

European light-bulb makers are close to an agreement in principle to work together on phasing out energy-wasting incandescent bulbs for the consumer market, the chief executive of Royal Philips Electronics' lighting division said Monday.

...Earlier this month, Australia's government announced plans to ban incandescent bulbs within three years, while a California lawmaker has introduced a bill seeking to do the same in the state by 2012. Last year, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, began actively promoting the bulbs.

CFLs on the market today are around three times as energy-efficient as incandescent bulbs, and last much longer. But even though they save money in the long run and are more environmentally friendly, consumers have been reluctant to adopt them for a variety of reasons, most importantly because they cost more per bulb.

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Save energy. Save money. Save the planet.

OK, so maybe the saving the planet bit is a bit of a stretch, but it's got to start somewhere, right? Here's a pdf of a booklet chock full of energy conservation tips from The Alliance to Save Energy.

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Sun announces energy-efficient processor

Good news on the energy conservation front. According to Joel Makower on WorldChanging, Sun Microsystems just announced a new energy-efficient processor.

Its research shows that its UltraSPARC T1 processor "could eliminate the number of Web servers in the world by half, slashing power requirements and having the same effect in reducing carbon dioxide emissions as planting one million acres of trees."

Joel points out the difference that could make on the energy impact of the monster server farms of companies like Google, eBay, Yahoo, etc.

Server farms require energy to operate all that electronic equipment, and gobs more to keep the equipment cool. A typical data center can consume nearly 4,000 watts per square foot -- roughly 15 times what they consumed in the early 1990s, and more than half the power required by many homes, according to the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

To give a feel for how much power one of these server farms can require, he points to a C|net article from 2001 and quotes.

When U.S. Dataport, a company in San Jose, Calif., planned a $1.2 billion server farm "that would be the world's largest data center," it called for "10 huge air-conditioned warehouses on 174 acres that would constantly draw 180 megawatts of electricity -- about enough to provide energy for all the homes in a city the size of Honolulu."

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Energy conservation in style

Interesting approach to energy conservation out of Japan with the Cool Biz and Warm Biz campaigns...

Spurred by the success of a "Cool Biz" campaign this summer that encouraged men to dress down to save energy, Japan plans to continue conservation efforts this fall and winter by promoting "Warm Biz" fashion.

Government workers and politicians, known for conservative fashions, have been encouraged to leave off coats and ties between June 1 and September 30 so that air conditioner thermostats can be set higher to help fight global warming.

From October 1, however, public sector thermostats will be turned down to 20 C (68 F) and workers urged to layer up.

[via theWatt]

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Energy conservation at the flick of a switch

As I've mentioned before, I think conservation is getting woefully little attention in the quest for an energy solution. In the interest of promoting conservation in even a small way, here's a small tip from Earth Share...

Lighting accounts for 30 to 50% of a building's energy use, or about 17% of total annual U.S. electricity consumption. Simply turning off unneeded lights can reduce the amount of energy used for lighting up to 45%. At the same time, using less energy reduces air pollution, global warming and other environmental impacts associated with electricity generation.

So, if I did my math right, if everybody got into that one small habit of turning off unneeded lights, it has the potential to reduce the total annual U.S. electricity consumption by 7.65%. Even if you cut that in half, it's still an enormous amount.

Kind of makes you think.

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Energy conservation ideas for the home

Energy conservation needs a lot more attention that it currently gets. It's immediate, it's achievable, and it could have substantial results.

Here is a site with a bucketload of articles with energy conservation ideas for the home.

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Green Office Guide

Check out the Green Office Guide: A Guide to Greening Your Bottom Line Through a Resource-Efficient Office Environment. It's an excellent 39-page guide to energy conservation in your office put out by the city of Portland, Oregon.

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Energy conservation facts

As appealing and necessary as the development of alternative energy sources is, it seems that the surest, fastest way to make an impact is conservation. Here's a page with some interesting conservation facts from the Earth 911 site. Some examples:

* Recycled aluminum saves 95% energy vs. virgin aluminum; recycling of one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for 3 hours (Reynolds Metal Company)

* Recycled glass saves 50% energy vs. virgin glass (Center for Ecological Technology); recycling of one glass container saves enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for 4 hours (EPA)

* Recycled paper saves 60% energy vs. virgin paper (Center for Ecological Technology)

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