What Is Energy?

Energy used to heat your home and power your TV is not too different from the energy your body gets when you eat a slice of pizza. Your body is like a powerhouse, turning food (fuel) into usable energy and waste by products.

A power plant does the same thing: Coal, oil, or natural gas (nonrenewable fossil fuels) goes in and gets burned up to power a big generator that sends energy to your house, with carbon dioxide, some noxious gases, and/or sludge as waste by products. The problem: fossil fuels (from fossils, or remains, of dead animals and plants) take millions of years to make. The volume of byproducts created when we burn fossil fuels is not easily reprocessed in our environment and causes pollution and related health problems.

FACT : Energy production and use account for nearly 80 percent of air pollution, more than 83 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and more environmental damage than any other human activity.

Principal of Energy Saving Lamps

Energy saving lamps generate their light on the same principle as fluorescent lamps. An electrical charge is passed through mercury vapour between two electrodes. This electrical field causes the vapour to emit invisible UV radiation. Fluorescent material applied to the inside of the glass tube converts the UV radiation into visible light. Different fluorescent materials give the light different colour appearances.

By giving the lamps more than one tube and bending each tube back on itself, lamp designers have managed to reduce the overall length of energy saving lamps. They are now not much bigger than ordinary light bulbs.

The compact fluorescent bulb with its integrated electronic control gear and standard screw base can be used as direct replacements for incandescent lamps. They consume 80% less energy and, if used for an average of three hours a day (normal domestic use), will last around 8000 hrs.

The lamps provide you with a lot more light wherever you need it. The amount of light you can get from a conventional bulb is restricted by its wattage - a restriction that doesn't apply with the ESL(energy saving lamp). Because they generate a lot less heat than conventional bulbs, you never need to worry about keeping within the recommended wattage rating again.

Take the example of a light fitting that has a 60 W restriction. Fit a 23 ESL and you ' ll get a light output that is equivalent to a 120 W incandescent.This means you can get twice the brightness - without having to add another lamp.

The Power Is In Your Hands
If you replaced just four 75-watt incandescent bulbs that burn four or more hours a day in your home with four 23-watt fluorescent bulbs, you’d get as much light and save more than 2,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity and $190 over the 10,000-hour life of the bulbs. If all our nation’s households did the same, we’d save as much energy as is consumed by some 38 million cars in one year.

Light Up Your Life
Nearly 10 percent of the average home's electricity costs can be controlled with the flip of a switch—a light switch—notes EPA. So how can you light the house more efficiently?

A Good Solution: Compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) use about two-thirds less energy and last up to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs. CFLs have improved tremendously since first introduced; they have become smaller, cheaper, brighter, and offer improved color quality.