Take Care (Week #2)

It's been 2 weeks since I took out the lightbulb in my room. I've had a horrible a experience. Wouldn't recommend it. Especially during winter, when it gets dark at 4 pm. However, doing this does reduce my carbon footprint, which is worth it in the end, I guess.

Overall though, I've done a pretty good job keeping my light off. I haven't turned on the light in my room at all for the past 2 weeks, but it's possible my mom screwed in a lightbulb and turned on the light for some reason. She was a little sus about my experiment/project/self-torture in the beginning, but I'm pretty sure she didn't ruin it yet.

The light bulb that I removed from my room was a CFL bulb, and it needed 60 watts to be powered. Having my light on for one hour is equivalent to .06 kWh, which is equivalent to driving .104 miles in a car. No normal person has their lights on for only 1 hour a day. Personally, before I removed my light bulb, my lights were on for around 7 hours a day. This means, that for every 7 hours I had my light on, I was using .42 kilowatts of electricity. .42 kWh is equivalent to driving .6 miles in a car. This might not seem like much, but you have to realize you have your lights on for long periods of time, usually every single day. By having one light on for 7 hours a day for an entire year, you are using 153 kWh, or 265 miles driven in a car! This STILL may not seem like a large number over the course of an entire year, but this is just for a single lightbulb. According to USA Today, the average American household contains at least 20 lightbulbs. There are millions of homes in the United States, 126 million to be exact. This means, at 20 lightbulbs per household, and there being 126 million households in the United States, lightbulbs use up 385560000000 kWh of electricity PER YEAR! This is equivalent to the carbon emissions of driving 666,623,813,105 in a gasoline-powered vehicle! What an absolute unit of a number.

On an individual level, though, I am saving 153 kW/year, which, like I stated earlier, is equivalent to the emissions of driving 265 miles in a gasoline-powered vehicle. If everyone in the United States took out their lightbulbs like I did, we'd just be living in a world of darkness. I don't want that to happen. Instead, I would want people to turn off their lights more often. When you're out of the house or even out of the room, just turn your lights off. The reduced use of a single light isn't going to change a lot, but it's something.

60 watts / 1 kilowatt(1000 watts) = .06 kilowatts

.06 kilowatts x 7 hours/day = .42 kilowatts/day

.42 kilowatts/day *365 days= 153 kW/year

153 kilowatts/year *20 lightbulbs = 3060 kW/year

3060 kWh/year *126,000,000 households = 385,560,000,000 kWh

I've definitely saved way less electricity than I thought I would. By removing my light, I thought I'd save a ton of electricity, but then I realized it's just one bulb. There are dozens of lights in my home, so taking a single one out isn't going to make a huge impact. However, it is still positively impacting the environment, even if it's a small impact.

I personally believe that the website I got this information from, which is the official government
website for the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), is a reliable source. However, these
numbers are not exactly correct, as it states, "Please note that these estimates are approximate
and should not be used for emission inventory or carbon footprinting exercises. I still think this
source is reliable though, as it is almost impossible to calculate exact numbers regarding