Phasing out of incandescent bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Light bulb is gaining movement worldwide.
Many countries and organizations have started the movement, which will eliminate the need of many coal-fired plants, which contribute enormously for Global warming with their high carbon emissions. This February 2007, Australia kick started with the announcement that it will phase out the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs (90% of the energy consumed is wasted) by 2010. They will replace it with the highly efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) that use one fourth as much electricity. If United States did the same, 80 coal power plants can be shut down.
Two months after Australia’s announcement, Canadian Government did the same, it will phase out incandescent by 2012.
In mid-March, a U.S. coalition of environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Alliance to Save Energy, the American Coalition for an Energy Efficient Economy and the Earth Day Network along with Philips Lighting launched a program to shift to the more efficient bulbs in all of the country’s estimated 4 billion sockets by 2016.
Since the United States Government has no such initiatives in place, California has gone ahead and decided to replace the sale of incandescent light bulb by 2012, four years ahead of the coalition’s deadline. Assemblymen Lloyd Levine wrote this proposal for California State. New Jersey State will also do the same way; want to replace the light bulbs by 2010 with the CFL.
The European Union, now numbers 27 countries, announced in March that it plans to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020. This cut will be achieved by replacing the incandescent bulbs with the CFL. But wonder why they don’t issue a total ban like the Australian and the Canadian governments.
In the United Kingdom, the government has no proposal in place, but there is a non government group called “Ban the Bulb” has been vigorously pushing the idea to a ban on incandescents since 2006. Moscow is urging its residents to do the same. New Zealand also will join soon and follow similar measures adopted by its neighbor Australia.
In April, Greenpeace urged the government of India to ban incandescents in order to cut carbon emissions. The bulk of bulbs sold in India 640 million out of 650 million bulbs are incandescents, so Greenpeace wants them to reduce it as soon as possible. It will help reduce the use of Coal powered plants, air pollution and saving money for its users. Electricity demand will become less, which can be used for other purpose.
More broadly, the European Lamp Companies Federation (the bulb manufacturers’ trade association) is supporting a rise in EU lighting efficiency standards that would lead to a phase-out of incandescent bulbs. (See data.)
From the business side, Wal-Mart is leading the campaign and announced that it will sell 100 million CFL by 2007. I checked the prices for my friend; I found Wal-Mart were selling a dozen CFL’s for $20.00 which is very good. In U.K., Currys, the Britain’s largest electrical chain announced it will discontinue selling incandescent light bulbs. You can compare the costs of CFL and light bulb with this Excel spreadsheet calculator.
Switching light bulbs is an easy way of realizing large immediate gains in energy efficiency. A study for the U.S. government calculated that the gasoline equivalent of the energy saved over the lifetime of one 24-watt compact fluorescent bulb is sufficient to drive a Prius from New York to San Francisco.
Before the Government decides to change, we should change ourselves at home and ask our neighbors, friends to do the same by raising awareness. Also contact local politicians and urge them to phase out inefficient incandescent light bulbs. Few things can cut carbon emissions faster than this simple step.
Let us kick start the "Ban the Bulb" before the Government does.
Ref: Treehugger
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