Could a country the size of the USA, with its approximately 300 million people, save as a whole on its
home energy bills should it change to more efficient light bulbs?
According to the US Department of Energy, American homeowners could save an incredible $120 billion (£78 billion) on energy bills just by switching to LED bulbs.
Smartplanet, an environmental news website, chose to highlight the amount of home energy saved by switching to LED light bulbs.
It said that the savings in carbon, if the US population as a whole adopted the new lighting in their homes, would equate to 246 million metric tonnes.
The switch would also save 1,488 terawatt hours or, as Smartplanet decided to measure, 24 power stations.
To put into perspective the amount of power saved the UK government said, in 2006, that the energy wasted due to leaving appliances on standby, such as televisions, was the equivalent to just two power stations.
Of course, two power stations would still be pretty big to say the least, but just for getting up a ladder and changing a bulb 24 power stations' worth is an incredible difference. Don't forget that is the US alone, which is only about five per cent of the world population!
One Spanish city has already embraced the idea and replaced 1,000 street lights with new
LED street lights.
A recent study by the Valencian Institute of Technonlogy and the Polytechnic University of Valencia found that LED light bulbs could last three times longer than the 160 W bulbs commonly used for street lights.
Such is the success of the Valencia project that the manufacturer, Seoul Semiconductor, is due to send another 3,000 street bulbs to the city.
Furthermore, the people of Jerez de la Frontera, in southern Spain, will see 23,000 street lights using the LED bulbs.
The trend is catching on with Toshiba, Japan's first manufacturer of the incandescent light bulbs, like the ones we are used to at home, saying it will no longer produce them, opting to focus on the LED market.
So it seems that cities, big electronics companies and governments are getting in on the act, how long before the world's homeowners do the same and reap the energy savings?
