As 2007 comes to an end, it’s appropriate to look back at success. Most recently, I’ve succeeded in replacing some more incandescent light bulbs.
CFL Replacements
Mildly surprisingly were year over year comparisons of my father’s electric bill: a 15% reduction in cost despite a 25% hike per kwh for generation service due to a 25% reduction in usage. We had replaced a bunch in incandescent’s, one old CRT monitor, and tweaked a few computer settings, but otherwise no changes. No new refrigerators, dishwashers, stoves or air conditioners. Likely the savings won’t be as great percentage wise in the summer, which we don’t yet have the data to compare, but it still looks like $250/year in savings, and about 2,500kwh.
I’ve persuaded a few more people to try CFL’s too; my two brothers, two coworkers, an aunt and uncle, and a cousin. Hopefully this blog has reached a few too, but I can’t say for certain.
Community
A big success, was the November Step it Up event, which a group I’m part of helped organize. Almost 200 people came, exceeding expectations by a fair margin.
The group itself (Chicago Global Warming Meetup) is going well too. We are resetting after November, and taking some time to do it due to the holidays, but it’s very promising.
Legislation
In a far less personal sense, 2007 has had it’s share of successes in the U.S. Congress. The other day, the 2007 energy bill was signed by President Bush. While some compromises were made to get it passed, that bill is a notable step. Vehicle efficiency standards are up significantly (35mpg target).
Lightbulb efficiency is required to increase by 2012. Oddly, they only set the standard as 50%, when existing CFLs already achieve 75%. I doubt that detail will matter since it is unlikely a 50% bulb will emerge or be chosen by consumers. Consumers buy incandescents because they are accustomed to them, so I’m sure if they are forced to make a switch it will generally be to CFLs or LEDs. Also notable in a section, "Consumer Education and Lamp Labeling", which instructs the Federal Trade Commission to use:
"labeling approaches that will help consumers to understand new high-efficiency lamp products"
About one hundred million per year has been appropriated for smart grid development, two hundred million for support of energy efficiency in developing countries, two hundred forty million for carbon capture and sequestration.
Illinois has been disappointing. Not only has the mass transit funding issue still not been resolved, but little of note has been accomplished by our legislators there.
At work, In Progress
At work, I’ve made some changes in computer configuration, though I’m still waiting for them to get set as the standard practice across the company, and still hoping for double sided printing to become the default. Maybe most importantly, I’m waiting for Wake-On-Lan support.
I’ve got a couple of other personal projects still on the table. My apartment building needs a recycling program and needs to start having a policy of replacing in-unit lights with CFLs. They currently use CFLs in the hallways and offices, but still install incandescent’s in the units themselves. It’s somewhat amazing that they do, because in this building electric is included in the rent. The building/equipment is too old to meter each unit, so the waste from the in-unit incandescent’s is borne by the rental company.
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