WarrenS has taken on an admirable resolution: to send a letter to the editor (LTE) (or, well, a politician) every single day, on the critical issues of climate disruption and clean energy. This discusses his approach and here is an amusing 'template' to for rapid letter writing.
Now, I have always written letters and even had many published -- just not one every day. WarrenS inspires me to do better.
Many newspapers state that they will reject letters that have been published elsewhere, thus I have not been blogging letters ... perhaps that should change. Thus, on a delay from 'rejection' (or lack of publication), here is an installment of the "unpublished letters" series publishing those LTEs that don't get picked up by the editors.
8 April 2011
To the editor,
Jim Davenport's 29 March article "S.C. lawmakers take dim view of light bulb law" asserted that a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) costs about $2 more than an incandescent "but supporters of the new technology say the lights last so much longer that they save money in the long run".
A simple question:
"What is the long run?"
Most of us, hearing that, likely think in terms of years. Is that the case here?
Let us assume that we have a light on 40 hours per week at an electricity cost of 10 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). That 100 watt incandescent bulb Davenport referenced in his article would use 4 kilowatt hours of electricity at a cost of 40 cents and the 25 watt compact flourescent lightbulb (CFL) would use 1 kilowatt hour at a cost of 10 cents. After six weeks, the incandescent cost would reach $3.40 ($1 purchase plus $2.40 of electricity) while the "more expensive" CFL's costs would total $3.10 ($2.50 purchase + $0.60 of electricity). Is six weeks "long term"?
After a year, the CFL's total cost would mount to $8.20 while that less expensive incandescent bulb's bill would hit $22.80.
No reasonable adult would call a less than two month period "long run" on financial matters and all would consider a 60 percent per year savings significant.
A. Siegel
NOTE: Davenport used a 100 watt incandescent and 25 watt CFL, thus I used those figures in the letter to the editor. The more appropriate number would be a 27 watt CFL to replace the 100 watt incandescent. That, of course, would slightly lengthen the payback periods. On the other hand, considering the word constraints, my letter doesn't get into another part of the cost issue: that CFLs last longer and, on average, one would buy roughly four incandescent bulbs for every CFL over time. (Which adds the additional cost of having to change light bulbs more frequently, needing to keep an inventory of bulbs, etc ...)
In a related piece, see: Calculating the Financial Benefits of Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs): the case of a condo building