Fantastic.

A Private Members’ Bill that would effectively phase out the sale and use of incandescent bulbs is being drafted by NDP MP Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre).

This one simple act by the NDP will do more to reduce GHG emissions in this country than the Liberals’ 13 years of inaction did or the Conservatives have over the past year. I won’t be surprised though, if this bill faces fierce opposition from the global warming ditherers.

In case you were wondering, I have neither abandoned this project nor run out of ideas. I’m being held up on the research end as finding the stats to crunch the numbers is proving to be more difficult that first anticipated.

There are some interesting developments however, that relate to this project, or more specifically my post on banning incandescent lightbulbs.

California has introduced legislation to do that.

In yet another instance of California being a trend-setter for the rest of the nation, Assemblymember Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), the Chair of the Assembly’s Utilities and Commerce Committee, today announced that he is introducing legislation - the How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb Act - to ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs in California by the year 2012…

According to the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a nonprofit organization that focuses on energy policy, replacing a 75-watt incandescent light bulb with a 20-watt compact fluorescent would result in the same amount of light but would save 1,300 pounds of carbon dioxide and save customers $55 over the life of the bulb (while the life of one 75-watt incandescent bulb is roughly 750 hours, the life of a compact fluorescent is a whopping 10,000 hours). Meanwhile, incandescent bulbs use 750 kWh over 10,000 hours, while compact fluorescents use only 180 kWh.

So has Australia.

Australia plans to phase out conventional light bulbs over the next three years and replace them with energy-saving globes…

Turnbull says this will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia by about 800,000 metric tons a year.

It’s good to see a few politicians are waking up to the reality that the fight against global warming can–at least in part–be met with very simple solutions that rely on existing technologies.

The incandescent light bulb is one of the inventions that has had a profound effect on our civilization. It enabled us to easily beat back the night and create a 24 hour society that no longer needed to rely on the sun. In the new millenium however, the incandescent light bulb has become an instrument of destruction because it inefficiently converts only 5% of the power it uses into light.

This inefficiency has created world in which an estimated 20% of the electricity consumed is used just for lighting; with 60% of that usage due to incandescent light bulbs. Just to give you an idea of the amount of electricity used for lighting, consider last week’s demonstration in Paris to raise awareness of global warming. During the 5 minute “lights out” campaign, the power grid registered a reduction of 800 mW (800,000kW) or 1% of France’s total consumption, in the amount of electricity being used.

According to NRCan, just one 60 Watt light bulb burning in each of Canada’s 11 million+ homes produces more than 0.4 megatonnes of GHGs per year. When you take into account that the average home has roughly 30 light bulbs, the amount of GHGs produced just to light up the night is staggering even before factoring in industrial and commercial lighting.

What’s worse is that there is no longer any reason for this waste. Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL), which are 4 times as efficient as incandescent, have been on the market for years. Converting the remaining 60% of all light bulbs that are incandescent to the higher efficiency CFLs would reduce power consumption by approximately 11 billion kWh and reduce GHG emissions by approximately 8 megatonnes per year. (1)

In order to accomplish this goal, legislation banning the sale of incandescent light bulbs (2) in Canada would need to be introduced. The legislation would need a 2 year phase in period to;

allow existing incandescent light bulb manufacturers to convert their facilities to the production of CFLs or similar high efficiency light bulbs.
allow for the construction of new plants or the expansion of existing ones to accomodate the increased demand for these products.
allow for existing stock to be sold off.

The economic costs of this would be marginal and few, if any, jobs would be lost. All consumers (residential, industrial and commercial) would save a significant amount of money. (a yearly savings of approximately $7 per light bulb used an average of 4 hours/day)

(1) Calculations were conservatively based on;

-NRCan’s estimate that replacing one 60 Watt bulb in every home in Canada would reduce GHG emissions by 0.4 megatonnes.
-an average of 30 bulbs per residential, industrial and commercial unit with one third in use.
-overall residential electricity usage equal to only 30% of that used in Canada.
-60% of all light bulbs in use are still incandescent.
-(0.4MT X 10 X 10/3 X .6 = 8 MT)
-conversion to kWh based on the GHG emission and electrical output of the Nanticoke plant.

(2) Certain exemptions would have to be made. For example, the incandescent light bulb used inside ovens has no alternate high efficiency replacement that I could find.

For more info visit Ban The Bulb.

Update: Both Australia and California have made moves to ban incandescent lightbulbs.

I’m going to start this series off with what first inspired me to begin it. While standing in my kitchen a couple of days ago, I noticed something rather stupid. To my left was my coffee maker which is plugged in 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It has a digital clock that even when off still draws power 24/365. To my right was my stove which is also plugged in 24/365. It too has a digital clock that draws power 24/365. And as if that isn’t enough, I turned around and opened my pantry doors. What did I see? My microwave which is plugged in 24/365 and also has a digital clock drawing power 24/365.

3 clocks in one room–one that can’t even be seen until the pantry doors are opened–is a waste of power and it’s indicative of how our society views power consumption.

Now if you’re thinking that a little digital clock is nothing to worry over, you can’t even begin to imagine how wrong you are. The Australian Greenhouse Office and the National Appliance & Equipment Energy Efficiency Committee recently commissioned a report (pdf) to determine just how much power many of today’s electrical appliances consume when not in use. And the results are astounding.

Take microwaves for example. The study (page 20) determined that when plugged in but not in use, the average microwave still draws 2.7 Watts. Now that might seem miniscule until you begin to scale it up.

2.7 Watts X 24 hours X 365 days = 23.652 kWh per year.

Now consider that microwaves are a standard appliance in most, if not all, households and the overall power usage is staggering.

23.652 kWh X 11,562,975 households = 273 million kWh per year.

That amount of wasted power is equivalent to 1.14% of the power generated by the Nanticoke Generating Station in Ontario and is responsible for producing approximately 0.2 megatonnes of GHGs. 0.2 megatonnes just to operate what is most assuredly a redundant digital clock in every household.

But it gets worse. This type of passive, or standby, power usage is common in many of today’s appliances. A study at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated it accounted for as much as 5% of the residential electrical power usage in the United States. This more than likely holds true for Canada as well which means that approximately 8 billion kWh of power is consumed every year by appliances that are not even in use. That’s equivalent to one third of the electricity output of Nanticoke and 6 megatonnes of its GHG emissions.

And here’s the real kicker. After examining every one of my household appliances that draw power even when turned off, I discovered that not a single one of them offered me the option of completely cutting power to it; other than unplugging it. Now that solution is fine when it comes to appliances such as the coffee maker since the outlet is easily accessible. But when it comes to the stove, unplugging it becomes quite a hassle.

This brings me to the solution to this problem. Legislation should be introduced requiring appliance manufacturers that sell their products in Canada to install a switch that allows power to be completely cut to the appliance. Up to a two year phase in period can be given to allow for the minor redesign and current stock to run out.

The cost of this would be negligible since power switches are one of the easiest things to include in any appliance and are cheap to manufacture.

Since it will require approximately 10 years until most old appliances are upgraded to the newer ones with a real power off switch, the responsibility will fall upon the public to unplug appliances when not in use. I’ll have more on conservation efforts and a plan to insure the public does their part in a later post in the series.

Overall this plan will reduce electrical power consumption by an amount of up to 8 billion kWh per year and GHG emissions by an amount of up to 6 megatonnes.

As for my own personal effort. I only have one clock in my kitchen now. The coffee maker and microwave are unplugged when not in use allowing me to conserve approximately 40 kWh of electricity per year and save a couple of bucks as well.

Update: In the comments lenny points out two interim solutions to the problem of no real power switch on appliances. The power bar and the little Mini Power Minder that completely shuts down your computer and all its accessories.

Update II: The Wingnuterer chips in to solve the problem of turning off appliances that store information or would result in reseting them (ie. clocks).

I know what someof you are thinking, “but the clock will always need to be reset,…” Well yes, but to be serious, computers use CR2032 Lithium batteries to power a CMOS chip that retains the critical computer setup information, things like the time and date, hard drive parameters,… etc,… so how hard can it be to add that to things like Stoves, VCR’s, TV’s, PVR’s and all those annoying digital things that have clocks in them. Face it, manufactures don’t put it in because it saves them a about a buck, but it ends up cost us the consumers twenty to thirty dollars a year to keep these devices powered to we don’t have to keep setting those useless clocks.

Since a significant percentage of Canada’s ghg emissions are a result of electricity production, this post, which will be updated as required, will serve as a reference for data on electricity production and consumption in the country.

Production
573 billion kWh (2004) (1)

Consumption
522.4 billion kWh (2004) (1)

Residential: 29%
Industrial: 44%
Commercial: 25%
Transportation: 2% (2003) (6)

Imports
22.48 billion kWh (2004) (1)

Exports
33.01 billion kWh (2004) (1)

Production by source
Fossil fuel: 28%
Hydro: 57.9%
Nuclear: 12.9%
Other: 1.3% (2001) (1)

Stats by facility
Nanticoke Generating Station
Fuel Source: coal
Production: 20 to 24 billion kWh (2)
Emissions: 17.6 megatonnes (2005) (3)
Employees: 600 (4)

Census Data
Number of private households: 11,562,975 (5)

(1) CIA World Factbook
(2) Wikipedia
(3) Environment Canada
(4) London Free Press
(5) StatsCan 2001 Census
(6) NRCan

I’ve been noticing lately that many conservatives have begun spreading the nonsense that Canada cannot meet its Kyoto target without ruining our economy through exorbitant costs and a high number of job losses. This is of course utter hogwash and through a series of posts this year I intend to prove that not only can we make the target without destroying our economy but we can also do it in just 2 years.

Now I realize that may seem like a flight of fancy, but consider this. As it stands right now Canada needs to reduce its ghg emissions by roughly 240 megatonnes per year based on projections of our output in 2010 in order to meet the Kyoto target of 571 megatonnes per year. Shutting down the Nanticoke Coal Fired Generating Station in Ontario alone would reduce ghg emissions by 17.6 megatonnes or roughly 7% of the target. Shutting down this facility can be accomplished without the province suffering any ill effects from the loss of its 4,000 MW of power through a series of conservation and affordable replacement initiatives that can be completed in two years.

This series of posts will examine every aspect (economic, employment, conservation, power requirement needs, etc.) of measures like shutting down the Nanticoke plant. And upon its completion, this project will be a step by step blueprint for meeting Canada’s Kyoto target in just 2 years.