Assuming for the moment that everyone reading my journal is smart enough to acknowledge that nothing is in dispute about Global Warming being a real and present danger, and something that will kill us sometime during our lifetimes... I'm going to take a moment to think of things on a more economic level. Specifically, I'm going to be taking a guess at how much money can be saved just by switching out your light bulbs to those 5-Year buggers.

I have just taken a census of my apartment. I made a list of every single little thing that uses power here to calculate into my total, minus a few things: My TV, My PStwo, My Stereo, Our Fridge, Our Oven, and Our Dishwasher. Everything else is listed as below:

~VelvetMaiden's Alarm Clock: 5Watts
~VelvetMaiden's Lamp: 40Watts
~VelvetMaiden's Computer: Guesstimated 90Watts

My Nintendo Wii: 13Watts running, 10Watts WiiConnect24
My Alarm Clock: 6Watts
My Unconquered Lamp: 75Watts
My Computer: Guesstimated 110Watts
My DVD Player: 20Watts
My Toaster Oven: 130Watts

Our Bathroom Lights: (60Watts x4 Lights x2 Bathrooms = 480Watts)
Our Closet Lights and Pantry: (100Watts x3 = 300Watts)
Kitchen Overhead Lights: (60Watts x3 = 180Watts)

For a Grand Total of 1449Watts

Now, for the purposes of this guesstimate, I'm going to do a couple of things. If I take into account all the devices who's Wattage I could not calculate and then also take into account I'm counting some devices that wont be in constant use... I can at least acknowledge some semblance of incongruity. I know I wont be using my Toaster Oven constantly, and that my Wii wont be in WiiConnect24 Mode all the time... but I also don't know how much the Fridge, Oven, Washer, or those things use, nor do I know how much they might be doing just sitting running (the Fridge Mainly)

After looking through this, I am shocked to discover that the things most likely to ever be on (the Lights) use the most power. In fact, if I estimate only one bathroom and do not count our lamps (of which, mine is used almost constantly for a living room light) the estimate still comes up to about half of my total. If I take into account I also don't know how much the Heat/AC uses, then I am thinking this is also a fair estimate.

So... I know a new power saving, 5-Year Bulb for a 60Watt bulb replacement uses 13Watts. For a 75Watt it's only 17Watts... and I think for a 40Watt is 10Watts. If I take those into account (and assume that a 100Watt may be only 20Watts when replaced), I can drop my total Wattage for all my lights (lamps and all) to about 230Watts. From the total estimate of 1000something from counting them all in the first place, that's roughly a fifth of what I was using before.

If I then take my Power Bill of about $60 and divide that into my 1450Watt rough total, that comes out to about 24Watts per Dollar. So, if I can use my new total for Lights alone, and add that in with the rest, that comes up to about 600Watts total. That's less than half my first estimate... and since Lights are more likely to be used than anything else I have here in the Apartment, and I didn't include major appliances or Heat/AC... I think that's a fair estimate, more or less.

If I take the 24Watts per Dollar, and use it on my new estimate, then I get a Power Bill of about $25. Yeah, I give myself an error plus or minus $10-$20, but even then, if I was off by $20, my total would be $45 and so I'm saving at least $15 a month, in the worst case scenario... and since replacing all the Bulbs isn't actually too much money, I will probably save back the cost to have replaced them during the first three months of use.

So, here's the question... doing the rough, somewhat guessing math: "If you did this same kind of experiment... how much might you save?" Please Reply with your answer. I'd really like to know.

See you in the Future,
—Huntermun


P.S.: I didn't check my TV because I didn't feel like moving it around and my PStwo, surprisingly, does not have it's Wattage listed on the bottom.

P.P.S.: Remember that this is supposed to be a fun, somewhat guesstimation of total usage and savings. It's not meant to be overly scientific or accurate. Maybe, someday, I'll come up with a better way to gauge that. For now, I'll just do the best I can, and I'd ask you to do the same.