[Speed Gibson,
Monday January 7, 2008 at 4:19pm]
Cold Reality
I had an hour to kill, so I put together a spreadsheet with sunrise and sunset times by month, plus the average high/low and record high/low temperatures. I then calculated the usage of a light bulb that switches on at sunset, off at sunrise. This computed to about 4,300 hours. This would cost about $43 a year to light a 100 watt bulb at 10 cents a kilowatt hour.
A CFC bulb is about 4 times as efficient as a TAE (incandescent) bulb, so it will cost about $12, saving you $31 a year, just for that one bulb. Or would it?
Suppose it was an indoor bulb as most are, say a hallway you want illuminated all night for the kids' peace of mind. Is all that heat wasted? Not if it's below 70 degrees outside, i.e., the furnace could be running anyway. What my crude spreadsheet tells me is that occurs at least 80% of the time. Don't forget, the average low temperature is 64 degrees in July.
It wouild be fair to knock that down a bit for peak summer days given that the home's residual heat would swamp such effects, but the bulb also runs far fewer hours per day. Even so, the TAE bulb does not waste significant energy overall for fall, winter, and spring.
Granted, your (non-electric) furnace is likely more efficient at producing heat. But the greenies seem not to worry about such things when urging us to plug in an electric car at night, and this varies significantly on a house by house basis.
The optimum solution is obviously to put in a TAE bulb during the heating season and use the CFC bulb in the summer. But the hell with that. If you feel better putting in CFC's everywhere, fine. I have about 10 CFC's myself, but I'll decide when and where.
A CFC bulb is about 4 times as efficient as a TAE (incandescent) bulb, so it will cost about $12, saving you $31 a year, just for that one bulb. Or would it?
Suppose it was an indoor bulb as most are, say a hallway you want illuminated all night for the kids' peace of mind. Is all that heat wasted? Not if it's below 70 degrees outside, i.e., the furnace could be running anyway. What my crude spreadsheet tells me is that occurs at least 80% of the time. Don't forget, the average low temperature is 64 degrees in July.
It wouild be fair to knock that down a bit for peak summer days given that the home's residual heat would swamp such effects, but the bulb also runs far fewer hours per day. Even so, the TAE bulb does not waste significant energy overall for fall, winter, and spring.
Granted, your (non-electric) furnace is likely more efficient at producing heat. But the greenies seem not to worry about such things when urging us to plug in an electric car at night, and this varies significantly on a house by house basis.
The optimum solution is obviously to put in a TAE bulb during the heating season and use the CFC bulb in the summer. But the hell with that. If you feel better putting in CFC's everywhere, fine. I have about 10 CFC's myself, but I'll decide when and where.