Fluorescent Efficiency From The Energy Superstore

Energy Bill H.R. 6

Energy Bill H.R. 6, The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, is an energy bill that was passed to help the United States break away from relying on other countries for energy.

This bill was supposed to accomplish several goals:

• to help the United States develop internal resources for providing energy by increasing production of fuels that are clean and renewable
• to increase the efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles by promoting research on greenhouse gas capture and storage options
• and to improve the Federal Government’s energy performance

Representative Nick Rahall of West Virginia sponsored the bill, and it was made law on December 19, 2007, almost one year ago. Let’s see how much of an impact this bill has made so far.

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Winter 2008

As winter approaches here in the US, many people are breathing a major sigh of relief. Just three short months ago, the price of crude oil was at historic highs.

Americans first felt the impact of high oil prices to their wallets in the price of gasoline. As the price of gas rose, people began to drive fewer miles in order to budget appropriately.

Looming in the distance, however, is the winter season.

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With oil prices increasing and signs of climate change becoming ever more noticeable, there is much interest these days in alternative fuel sources. On example of such an alternative fuel is hydrogen.

What Experts Know About Hydrogen Power

Hydrogen Fuel Cell

You may think of hydrogen as a fuel source, like gasoline, but it is actually more of an energy storage solution, like a battery. This is because there are not reserves of existing hydrogen that can be mined from the earth. Hydrogen must therefore be produced using another energy source before it can be used. This may make hydrogen sound less useful as a fuel, but energy storage is actually a very important problem.

An Energy Storage Solution

Many clean alternatives for generating power at power stations such as solar and wind are being developed, but without storage solutions this energy cannot be used in places like your car where it must be portable. While batteries can be used for storage, they can be expensive and harmful to the environment. It may be possible to develop a cleaner and less expensive solution using hydrogen.

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Natural Gas

Millions of years ago, the remains of plants and animals decayed and built up in thick layers. This decayed matter from plants and animals is called organic material — it was once alive. Over time, the mud and soil changed to rock, covered the organic material and trapped it beneath the rock.

Pressure and heat changed some of this organic material into coal, some into oil (petroleum), and some into natural gas — tiny bubbles of odorless gas. The main ingredient in natural gas is methane, a gas (or compound) composed of one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms.

In some places, gas escapes from small gaps in the rocks into the air; then, if there is enough activation energy from lightning or a fire, it burns. When people first saw the flames, they experimented with them and learned they could use them for heat and light.

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Energy Savings Calculator

Here is a neat little tool that is rigged up over at the Energy Superstore. Plug in your numbers and see how much you can save by switching from incandescent lighting to compact fluorescent lighting.

Here is the link to the Energy Superstore’s Advanced Energy Savings Calculator.

One of our recent clients plugged in her numbers for the weekly household usage of 5 lamps in her upstairs and downstairs. By switching to compact fluorescent screw-ins, she will be saving 436.8 kWh per year with a return on investment of 163.7%.

So our question to you is this: when it is time to replace your light bulbs why not just pick up compact fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescent, and save yourself hundreds or thousands of dollars a year?

Here’s that link one more time: Advanced Energy Savings Calculator.

Neolite CFLs

What are Neolites?
Simply put, Neolites are an improvement on an improvement. What I mean is — compact florescent lighting (CFL) is an improvement over traditional incandescent lighting, which has been in homes for years.

We see incandescent lighting in light bulbs and lamps everyday. They are in our homes and in our workplace. Neolites are an improvement on CFL technology, bringing us an even safer, longer lasting alternative to standard CFLs.

The problem with incandescent lighting is that it produces a harsh unnatural light that can contribute to glare and eyestrain. Not to mention far more costly energy consumption and short life cycles for the traditional light bulbs which has resulted in after-life disposal issues.

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LED Light Bulb

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are becoming far more common for indoor lighting solutions due to their human and environmental safety, cost, and longevity. An LED is a solid-state semiconductor diode that emits light when an electrical current is applied in the forward direction of the device, as in the simple LED circuit. The effect is a form of electro-luminescence where incoherent and narrow-spectrum light is emitted.

LEDs are widely used as indicator lights on electronic devices and increasingly in higher power applications such as flashlights and area lighting. An LED is usually a small area light source, often with optics added to the chip to shape its radiation pattern and assist in reflection. The color of the emitted light depends on the composition and condition of the semi-conducting material used, and can be infrared, visible, or ultraviolet.

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Renewable Clean Energy

Global warming is an urgent, but solvable problem. That is why we have joined the We Campaign, a powerful nonpartisan movement of concerned citizens that was founded by Nobel Prize Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. View more details by clicking the We Campaign banner to the right, or read on to find out how easy and safe it would be to implement a renewable energy solution for America.

Given the tentative speculations that in 10 years oil will no longer be available to us in the quantities we require, we must strive to produce 100% of our electricity via clean and renewable sources by that time. Oil is not the answer and coal is not the answer.

Here are a few reasons we need to move away from coal and oil, and start investing in renewable resources:

• Even today, half of our electricity is produced by coal rather than oil. OK, but what you may not know is that coal is a top contributer of global warming, and negatively impacts the environment in many other ways. We need to abandon this archaic source of energy for something much cleaner.
• Even ‘clean coal’ power plants do not prevent carbon molecules from being released into the atmosphere. They are absolutely no help to the global warming / clean environment cause.
• Early in 2008, Saudi Arabia committed to producing more oil to alleviate high oil prices. OK, but what you may not know is that since that time the price of oil has actually increased. America has no effect at all on the price of oil. We need to relinquish our dependence on it 100%.
• Wind power is a clean and renewable source of energy. OK, but what you may not know is that the potential for wind power in the US would provide more than 5 times as much electricity as we currently use. In fact, North Dakota alone can provide 33% of the total electricity required by America today.
• Solar power is another clean and renewable source of energy. OK, but what you may not know is that we can harness enough solar power during the day to provide all the necessary electricity needed to operate at night. In fact, by laying solar panels on a 100 square mile patch of land anywhere in the US (think desert land), solar thermal facilities could provide 100% of our electricity needs, day and night.

So, what does that tell you about clean renewable energy resources? By combining wind power, solar power, and by developing additional alternative energy resources such as Ethanol powered and hybrid vehicles, the US could potentially be free of environmentally and economically damaging sources of power.

Support the Challenge

It will certainly take more than just one man to stand up for this movement. Please do your best to support America in this time of energy crisis. Do it for the Earth, for your kids, for your grandkids, but most of all do it because it’s the right thing to do.

Al Gore just challenged the nation to take bold steps towards solving the climate crisis. Click the banner to view his dramatic speech and to add your vote to the petition. Join the We Campaign and support a movement to more efficient, clean, alternative energy.

Solve Global Warming

Halogen Light Bulb

The history of light has not reached its end as of yet. In fact, it has been revolutionized by the new compact fluorescent bulbs now in the market. These new fluorescent bulbs give consumers an alternative to the old halogen light bulbs. Halogen light bulbs are variants of the original incandescent light bulb invented by Thomas Edison. Like incandescent bulbs, halogen bulbs are outdated and grossly inefficient. They are also very hazardous, although they are cheap and therefore convenient; they have the ability to create costly damages.

How Halogen Bulbs Work

The reason halogen bulbs are so ineffective and dangerous is in how they make energy. Like incandescent bulbs, they generate energy to create light. The problem, however, is that all the energy they create is not used effectively. Most of the energy created actually causes the bulb to emanate heat reaching extreme temperatures, which can cause burns or even ignite fires, instead of being used for lighting purposes. This in turns means that most of the energy used is wasted, dangerous, and ineffective.

Fluorescent Bulbs Solve the Issues of Halogens

The fluorescent bulb on the other hand solves all three issues. Compact fluorescent bulbs do not use heat to produce lighting but instead use a variety of gasses and electricity. This in turn means that they don’t heat up as much as their counterparts and are safer to use. In fact, several Universities have opted to use these bulbs over the halogen bulbs to prevent accidents.

Not only do these bulbs produce light more effectively but they are more cost effective. Their initial cost may be higher but their long term cost saves money in the end. For example, a halogen bulb can last up to two years whereas fluorescent bulbs have a life of up to five years!

Weighing the Pros and Cons

When the two bulbs are compared, it becomes obvious which one is superior. Yet, as life has it, everything does have its advantages and disadvantages. The fluorescent bulb does hold one consequence: mercury. One of the gasses found in these bulbs is mercury, a contaminant. To this one problem, the fluorescent bulb has two pros though, by being more energy efficient it should reduce the amount of mercury production and can serve as an option to going green, a step to prevent global warming.

The Energy Superstore sells fluorescent light bulbs at discount prices for your convenience.

Save Energy with Fluorescent Lighting

Saving energy helps the environment because most energy sources, such as coal and natural gas are non-renewable. This means that once used, they are gone forever. Additionally, most forms of energy cause pollution that can be a source of greenhouse gases leading to climate change.

How Fluorescent Light Bulbs Work

Fluorescent lighting is manufactured by enclosing gas within glass tubes. Electricity excites the gas, producing light when the gas fluoresces. The fluorescent reaction produces ultraviolet light that is invisible to the human eye. Visible light is created when the UV light subsequently reacts with mercury and phosphorescent chemicals that have also been enclosed in the tube.

Fluorescent light bulbs are available to fit most existing fixtures and offer one of the most energy efficient electric lighting solutions available today.

Here are 5 examples of how fluorescents help save energy and the environment:

1. A greater proportion of the electricity consumed is directly used to produce light, resulting in conservation of energy sources and reduced pollution.
2. Fluorescent lights run cooler than incandescent and so they reduce the costs associated with running air conditioning.
3. The longer life of fluorescents will reduce the number of used bulbs in landfills, particularly since it has been shown that most people will properly recycle fluorescent bulbs when given the opportunity.
4. The EPA estimates that most of the 104 metric tons of mercury introduced into the atmosphere each year by humans is released by coal fired electric plants. Fluorescent light bulbs emit no mercury unless broken or improperly disposed of. Additionally, manufacturers are developing bulbs that operate with much less mercury than older bulbs.
5. Assuming that the lower costs of operating fluorescents will not increase the perceived need for light, consumers should use less electricity if they convert to fluorescent lighting when appropriate.