The Ban The Bulb energy efficiency campaign is one of Dr Matt Prescott's environmental projects  | Contact BTB  
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              A campaign to save money and help the environment by using energy efficient light bulbs

Wednesday, February 22, 2006


Ban The Bulb: Campaign Aims...
This campaign aims:

1. To increase the use of energy-efficient light bulbs.

2. To encourage the taxing and phasing out of incandescent light bulbs.

3. To propose a time limit for the replacement of light fittings requiring the use of incandescent light bulbs and for altering the shopping habits of consumers.

4. To include environmental costs in the prices consumers pay for their light bulbs and to reward those who switch to using less polluting light bulbs.

In 2001, lighting accounted for 101 billion kWh (8.8%) of U.S. household electricity use. Incandescent lamps, which are commonly found in households, are highly inefficient sources of light because about 90% of the energy used is lost as heat. For that reason, lighting has been one focus of efforts to increase the efficiency of household electricity consumption.

Energy-efficient light bulbs use up to 67% less energy that traditional light bulbs, with no loss in light. They also last 8 to 10 times longer, delivering up to seven years of light.

This campaign has been established in order to illustrate that it is possible to tackle our energy and climate problems by using technological solutions which already exist, work well + save money.

However, in order to kick-start this change we must begin to turn fine words and good intentions into action. Hinting at possible solutions, but not being prepared to introduce the new laws and taxes or the binding targets necessary to guarantee the delivery of far greater energy-efficiency, has not worked.

Switching to energy-efficient light bulbs is something that we could all do, quickly and simply, without any serious loss in our quality of life. We would also save ourselves approximately £7 per bulb per year!

An average American home has about 30 light bulbs, 3 of them burning for 5 hours or more per day. If all American homes replaced just 3 of these bulbs with long-lasting bulbs, Americans could save electricity equivalent to the output of 11 fossil-fuel-fired power plants. In turn they would eliminate about 23 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year - and save about $1,800,000,000.
ref: Natural Capitalism by Hawken, Lovins and Lovins.

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has recommended that the UK should aim to reduce it's greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2050. In order to achieve this we will need to make cuts wherever and whenever they are possible. Making sure that we all start making use of evergy saving light bulbs would be a good place to start...


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