Exactly how much will energy saving light bulbs help save the environment?

There has been an abundance of of discussion over how inefficient incandescent light bulbs are and how bad they are for the environment. Additionally the environmental activists have now lobbied government to implement the light bulb ban. This is a phased initiative to eliminate the use of incandescent light bulbs and move to energy saving light bulbs . In this short and to the point abstract I provide some data regarding how much you can reduce your carbon footprint by the change to energy saving light bulbs and how this saving compares with other C02 emission savings that you can make by lessening car travel or improved use of domestic electrical appliances.

Carbon footprint reductions from using energy saving light bulbs

A fair amount of people are baffled by the fact that a light bulb can create C02! Clearly it cannot and it is the C02 that is created during the generation of the electricity which is critical. If you acquire your electricity from a green supplier who uses wind power or hydro-electric this means C02 emissions are low. However, most electricity is generated using gas and oil stations which do make high carbon dioxide emissions. Lets analyze the carbon footprint figures. If a single conventional incandescent light bulb is turned on for 4 hours a day and this is changed to an energy saving light bulb then this will save a staggering 100kg in C02 emissions every single year.

Comparison with transportation use reduction and alternative domestic appliances.

This is all very factual but does 100kg of C02 released into the atmosphere genuinely matter and are there not different actions, other than using energy saving light bulbs, that can be taken to achieve the same goal? I think the best way to look at answering these questions is to examine some comparative examples.
1. Consider that you take a sample family car the Ford Focus C-Max 1.8 (125PS). If you drive this for 330 mile less each year then this will make a similar saving to swapping a light bulbs for one or your energy saving light bulbs.
2. If you can alter your travel patterns to avoid 1000 miles of train travel, then this will save 100kg in C02 emissions. Energy Saving Light Bulbs can make a equivalent reduction just by swapping just one.
3. A plane journey from London to Edinburgh will bring into existence 100kg in carbon dioxide emissions.

Now with these alternatives then changing to energy saving light bulbs has got to be an easy winner.


Some concluding remarks

Now for sure swapping your light bulbs to energy saving light bulbs makes a significant step forward but what else?
Dishwashers and washing machines do use around 3 kWhours of electricity each time they are used. In comparison to a light bulb, if they were used twice weekly, this is broadly similar to having 2 100 watt light bulbs on for 4 hours a day. As I am sure you can see that while these amounts are fairly high they are not massive so simply make sure the appliances are full and do not use your tumbler dryer if the sun is out.