Saving Money Gets The Green Light
Most folk are by now aware that traditional incandescent lamps are being phased out and many seem to view this as something of an inconvenience imposed by a meddlesome state. It means they have to get used to buying and fitting different types of light bulbs, which usually cost more, and it’s all in the cause of something that no-one seems able to agree about anyway, namely global warming.
But putting aside the reason behind this campaign to banish incandescent light bulbs from the planet, the fact is that this is now enshrined as a form of global legislation and no-one can evade it. Also, once people get past whining about this minor disruption to their ordered lives, there is in fact a huge financial opportunity in all of this.
Now for a while, pretty much the only alternative to the incandescent bulb was the compact fluorescent lamp (CFL); and it was easy to see why people didn’t warm to them. They didn’t last that much longer, cost a great deal more, were bulky and gave an unpleasant sickly form of light, took ages to actually switch on and, to cap it all, contained toxic mercury vapor which made them inconvenient to safely dispose of.
But more recently LED light bulbs have become widely available. These suffer none of the many problems of CFLs and not only last seemingly forever (25 years is about average), but they use about one tenth as much electricity as regular light bulbs.
To understand the implications of this, consider a typical 50W halogen lamp; with average use this will last roughly a year before it needs to be replaced and will cost vastly more to run during that period (about $14) than it costs to buy. A GU10 LED that can produce much the same light will cost maybe $14 to purchase but will only consume about $1.5 worth of electricity over the same timescale.
You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that over the life span of the LED replacement bulb sticking with the conventional option will cost $15 * 25 = $375 whereas switching to LED will work out at $15 + ($1.5 * 24) = 51. Now count up how many light bulbs you have in your house and multiply whatever that number comes to by $325 to estimate how much you could save by adopting “green” lighting.