Shining a light on the availability of energy efficiency

[brin_bellway]

[arguably cw: apocalypse]


(this has been percolating for a while, but the final impetus was maryellencarter mentioning that their (American) apartment came with incandescents)


I'm curious: how readily available are different kinds of lightbulb where you live (LED, incandescent, fluorescent, write-in answers), and how do their prices compare with each other? Particularly curious about answers from Americans.

I saw a post going around a while back that used "switching from incandescent to LED lightbulbs" as an example of an individual-level climate action that is nice but supererogatory and you shouldn't beat yourself up if you can't afford it, and I was like ???.

'Who...who can't afford LED lightbulbs?' I thought. 'Like, I get the general point about supererogation and bailing-a-boat-with-a-teaspoon and from-each-according-to-their-ability and all that, but *LED lightbulbs*? Is this some kind of, like, Extreme Vimes Boot Theory? You know LED bulbs cost about three bucks a pop and pay for themselves in 2 - 6 months from reduced electric bills, right? They...*do* cost ~three bucks a pop and pay for themselves within months where you live, right? Right??'

Comments

[brin_bellway]

And it was specifically comparing us to other four-person households (*checks* even more specifically, other four-adult zero-child households), so my other default assumption of "bulk discounts" (and other such efficiency benefits) *also* doesn't apply here.

Maybe the effects of spending so long living primarily off of dwindling savings run deeper than one can perceive. Maybe our usage patterns bear a hundred subtle fingerprints of "the sort of usage patterns you develop when every dollar you spend is a dollar you are never getting back, so you had *better* use it wisely".

(...we *have* caught glimpses of this sometimes, I think, while visiting friends' houses. Houses full of lights in the middle of the day, televisions playing videos that nobody was watching.)

((Although in fairness to the main family I am thinking of, *they* were the ones who taught us to price-match our groceries, and we are eternally grateful.))

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(FTR, our other emissions categories were "transportation = nearly three times average (duh, Dad's a delivery driver)", "travel = zero, therefore necessarily way below average", "food = slightly below average", "waste = slightly above average". Everything roughly cancels out and leaves us slightly below average at 25.2 tons/year (vs 25.5). We would have been above average, but apparently we saved four tons a year by switching Dad's car to a hybrid.

It'll be interesting to see the updated results after we get more insulation and maybe replace the central heating.)

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P.S. ...wait, hang on, am I reading this fine print right? They're not actually directly comparing us to other four-adult households, they're just taking the figures for one adult and multiplying by four?

That's...that's not how households work. I guess there *are* bulk discounts involved, then, although I do still think there's something to the hundred-subtle-fingerprints idea as well.

(Actually, I guess taking per-person emissions and extrapolating *does* make some sense *given the goals* of a carbon-footprint calculator. They want you to know your number because it will help you lower it, and they want you to know the average to help spark competition (they also give emissions data from the lowest-emission 30% of people for this reason): calculating the average per-person correctly rewards people for moving in together.)

[brin_bellway]

Wait, wait, hang on, I just looked at the per-appliance-energy-usage spreadsheet again and my brother's desktop *does* use about 200W, what the fuck.

Maybe it's something to do with the kind of equipment you need for gaming specs?