ecoresearchers

California Assemblymember (say that three times fast) Lloyd Levine is introducing legislation to ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs in in the state by 2012. It really is amazing that compact fluorescent and LED light bulbs face such stiff competition from a technology that hasn’t been improved upon in about a hundred years, but that is the sad truth. I think a lot of people find it hard to believe that incandescents really are that wasteful of the energy they use. Incandescent bulbs served their noble purpose for many years but are now the poster child for inefficiency. Look at this from the US Department of Energy’s Kid’s Page:

As a nation, we spend about one-quarter of our electricity on lighting, at a cost of more than $37 billion annually. Much of this energy is wasted using inefficient incandescent light bulbs. Only 10 percent of the energy used by an incandescent bulb produces light; the rest is given off as heat.

Ten percent is an abysmal number.

Click on the light bulb on the left if you hate bunnies and dolphins. Click on the light bulb on the right if you have any sense of decency and/or live in California where it will soon be illegal to click anywhere else.

A special thanks to Rocketboom for calling my attention to the California story!