Bright Idea! promotes the replacement of incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).  It highlights how these replacements can impact both energy costs and environmental quality through a reduction in power plant emissions. Bright Idea! demonstrates the environmental impact that a simple everyday action can have. If every household in Michigan replaced one 75 watt incandescent light with a compact fluorescent light (CFL), it would prevent 624 million pounds of CO2 from being discharged into the air and save nearly $40 million dollars every year! This would be equivalent to cleaning the CO2 emissions of 46,000 cars. (1)

This is based on the emissions from power plants. Electric utilities produce a significant amount of the pollutants that are released to the environment every day. You help reduce this pollution by improving energy efficiency in the home. One way to help is to simply replace one or more of your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. You can use the calculators to calculate the resulting energy and environmental savings.

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(1) FootNote

If every household in Michigan...

Calculations:

(3.8 million households) x (1.58# CO2/kWh) x (52 watts) / (1000watts/kwh) x (2000hrs/yr)
= # CO2 saved per year by Michigan households

(3.8 million households) x ($0.10 /kWh) x (52 watts) / (1000watts/kwh) x (2000hrs/yr)
= $ saved per year by Michigan households

624.4 million # CO2 / (13,500# CO2/car/yr) = number of cars

Data Sources: The number of Michigan's households (3.8 million in the year 2000) was obtained from the US Census Bureau's "Supplementary Survey 2001 Profile -Population and Housing Profile: Michigan." Michigan's air emission data was obtained from the Department of Energy's "The Updated State-level Greenhouse Gas Emission Coefficients for Electricity Generation 1998-2000", April 2002. According to it, Michigan's emits 1.58# CO2; 0.000025# NOx; and .022# SO2 for every kWh generated. There is a difference of 52 watts between a 75 watt incandescent light and the 25 watt CFL replacement. It is generally estimated that the lights are used an average of 2000 hours each year. The electric rate used per kwh was 10 cents. (Michigan varies from about 7.5 to 21 cents per kWh but the primary usage doesn't generally exceed 9.7 cents. 10 cents is also the common factor used by energy calculators.)  The 13,500# CO2 per-car-per-year was obtained from EPA's greenhouse gas calculator.

(2) Contact Information

Bright Idea!

DEQ Environmental Education Coordinator

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