Posts from — September 2009

If you want to save money on your power bills this DIY cut monthly electricity costs article is going to show you some great and practical ways. You could get yourself some new green products or even take you and your family on a mini vacation.

The abbreviation CFL stands for Compact Fluorescent Lamp, sometimes known as a circular fluorescent bulb. Incandescent bulbs generate light differently to a CFL bulb.

Thomas Edison was the inventor of incandescent light bulbs and since his invention the general principle of them is still the same. When electricity is connected to both of the sides of a carbon filament, it gets hot and light is produced. Normal fluoro tubes and CFLs have a closed glass tube that has a fluoro coating which glows as current is applied to the mercury vapour and argon inside.

You might've heard how the incandescent bulbs work but if you are using the bulb more than a couple of times a year, your money is being wasted, no matter how cheap the bulb was. If you want to save money look for the green products. Compared with an incandescent bulb the newer Energy Star CFL bulbs can save around 75% in costs. In 6 months of usage a CFL will pay for itself saving you about $30 per bulb over its lifespan!

The CFL bulb has come a long way these days giving us a much wider choice of light spectrum that is omitted. The mood of the rooms in your house, office or any other rooms can be greatly changed. The CFL bulb colors offer a variety of choices from daylight blue to warm yellow. If you prefer the look and feel of what incandescent bulbs offer choose a warm light. A good thing to remember is that the bluer light can be quite harsh and have negative effects on light sensitive people.

If you look at the package that the bulb comes in it should have K for Kelvin rating, which gives you the "temperature" of the bulb. If you see a K rating of 2700K-3000K you will be getting a warm/yellow bulb. If you're looking for a cool white bulb look for a rating of 3500K-4100K. And if you wanted the Daylight Blue bulb look for a Kelvin rated bulb of 5000K-6500K.

If you are looking to replace 40 watt incandescent bulbs, use 9-13 watt CFL bulbs. Replace a 60 watt incandescent with a 13-15 watt CFL. Replace a 75 watt incandescent with an 18-25 watt CFL. And look for the 23-30 watt CFLs if you want to replace 100 watt incandescent bulbs.

Always recycle all your old fluorescent bulbs where possible. It's forbidden in some states to throw away old mercury bulbs with the normal solid waste trash. They do this as about 5 milligrams of mercury is in each CFL bulb.

If you want places to recycle your used CFL bulbs and other green products you can take them to places such as IKEA, (OSH) Orchard, ACE Hardware and Home Depot.

If it's decorative lights you are after, try Energy Star qualified light emitting diode (LED) bulbs. They produce the same amount of light as an equivalent incandescent bulb and use up to 90% less energy! It takes the same amount of energy to power up one 7 watt incandescent bulb as it does to power up to 140 LEDs!

So try the LED decorative lights for the outside and the give CFLs a go for the inside. They will save you some good money and reduce your carbon footprint.

People may argue that 25% of the world's energy is produced through nuclear power, but what they do not understand is all the problems it brings:

1 - It costs a lot of money to setup:

If you think it costs around $6 - 12 billion just to build one reactor, a lot of wasted tax dollars have been used to subsidize these big utility companies. Why not invest that money in other renewable energy such as wind farms or solar power?

2 - Does not aid global warming:

Nuclear enthusiast argue that reactors emit very little green-house gases. But what they do not realize is all the carbon dioxide released in other links in the nuclear chain. For example - gas-guzzling machines are used to mine the uranium, transport it to the reactors, and help build the reactor itself.

What's more is these reactors take years to be fully operational - wasting precious time in our fight against global warming. We could have used that time and money more wisely, such as improved research and development in solar and wind power.

3 - What happens to all that radioactive waste?

From mining to milling, processing to enrichment, fuel fabrication to fuel irradiation in reactors, large amounts of harmful, long-lasting radioactive waste is produced. In addition to 20-30 tons of high-level radioactive waste per reactor per year, this includes so-called "low" level radioactive waste.

4 - Any accident would be catastrophic:

A nuclear reactor is so vulnerable to damage or attack it could be considered a nuclear bomb just waiting to be detonated. And if an accident were to happen the precautions in place are ridiculous. Not to mention that the utilities are liable for less than 2% of the actually cost of damage that could be caused. Guess who pays for the remaining 98%? We, the taxpayers, of course.

5 - Increased risk of cancer:

Though authorities deem the levels of radiation emitted to be "safe", children and other vulnerable individuals are not taken into account when reaching this conclusion. This is very irresponsible, and could lead to more cancer cases as the number of reactors increases.

The way utilities currently "store" nuclear waste is irresponsible. The have made assumptions instead of finding scientifically safe places to dispose of the waste. Just imagine how much worse the problem would get if more reactor were built. Additional waste would soon have to be incinerated or buried in landfills. Who knows how much water, soil and air pollution that would cause!

6 - Where there's nuclear power, there's war and terrorism:

A country's national security always feels at threat when extremist countries start harnessing nuclear power. Just think about Israel attacking Syria's so-called nuclear site back in 2007, and how uneasy America was when Iran was developing its own nuclear program. Nuclear power sets the stage for the production of atomic bombs, so as long the number of reactors increases, the likelihood of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons increases.

7 - There are greener energy solutions:

There already so many better, cheaper, "greener' ways to produce electricity today, that we are surprised nuclear power is still invested in so heavily. Why not spend those billions of dollars building more wind farms and solar power stations instead, and invest more in the technological advancement of these renewable energies?

The good thing is we do not have to wait for the utilities to switch to renewable energy. We can do it ourselves at home right now. It is actually rather straightforward and affordable to build your own working solar and wind power system at home. All it takes is some initiative.