Monday, October 01, 2007

Some Bright Ideas (and savings)


Ladies and gents, start your engines, scooters, bike, or just lace up the ol' tennis shoes and start heading down to your Mid-Michigan Ace Hardware store.

No, this isn't a paid endorsement for the chain, and I'm not getting a discount on my next snow shovel, but it is an endorsement for a cleaner tomorrow, starting in your own home.

My house already has several Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) installed, and while Edison himself probably wouldn't recognize them, they are light years ahead in terms of keeping the Earth clean and your energy bill down.

As reported by a late article today in the Lansing State Journal -
A kickoff event for the "Change a Light, Change the World" campaign was held at Lansing City Hall this morning. Invited guests included Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, East Lansing Mayor Sam Singh, Michigan Public Service Commission Member Monica Martinez and Lansing Board of Water & Light General Manager J. Peter Lark.

The Environmental Protection Agency says Energy Star-rated CFLs use 75 percent less energy than incandescent light bulbs and last six to 10 times longer. They save $30 or more in electricity costs over the bulb's life and prevent more than 400 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of the national campaign sponsored by the EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy, CFLs will be on sale throughout October and November at area Ace Hardware stores for 99 cents each, $2 below the normal price.

There are participating Ace Hardware stores in Eaton Rapids, Grand Ledge, Holt, Laingsburg, Lansing, Mason and Okemos.

You can learn more about CFLs from Energy Star here. Check out this little factoid
If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.
So head on down, grab your new bulbs, and start lighting a brighter future today.

5 comments:

Richard Hellinga said...

They're great. We've got a bunch in our house, too.

Anonymous said...

How about the same program for all of Michigan residents?

Unknown said...

I just renovated my house and tried really hard to be green, but I was only able to use CFLs in areas where I don't want to dim the light. I am worried that everyone is going to buy CFLs and not like them because they aren't dimmable. I wonder if I am actually saving more energy by keeping my lights really low (20 watts) with dimmers, than if I had more CFLs?

Anonymous said...

I wonder about the effects of disposing millions of these bulbs which contain mercury which is highly toxic in exchange for saving a few bucks now?

Bruce Fealk said...

The problem with CFL's is the mercury is extremely toxic, and should one break, you need to call the hazmat team.

LED bulbs are much more energy efficient and totally safe.