Lest you were worried about some of the right wing hooey about candles- unless you were lighting up to replace your 40 watt bulbs, and I bet you weren't, you were probably saving energy. If you are like us, and have several people working in a relatively large house on their various projects, and you brought them together to celebrate Earth hour in 1 room with a single candle- then you were indisputably saving energy (even if you use CFL's)- and you also had some nice family time, or, if you were with your significant other, you had a romantic evening :-)
So let the right party on with their silly nonsense, and just keep on keeping on.
And when you see an article by someone about "replacing" wattage with candles, you know you aren't dealing with a very logical opponent - but rather the kind of person who adores a straw man.
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Do candles use more greenhouse gases than lightbulbs?
By Chad Skelton 03-28-2009 COMMENTS(1) Parenting in Vancouver
Filed under: science, environment
candleAs I was flipping through our paper's coverage of Earth Hour this morning, I came across a number of pictures of people enjoying themselves by candlelight. Which got me thinking: Are candles really better for the environment than lightbulbs? After all, one of the purposes of Earth Hour is to reduce greenhouse gases and candles are literally burning fuel to light a room.
On the face of it, the answer is a pretty clear no. Last year, an Australian blogger pointed out that candles are a remarkably inefficient way to light a room. To achieve the same lighting as a 40 watt bulb, you'd have to light dozens of candles and would emit about 10 times as much greenhouse gases as simply turning on a light bulb (since most candles are made from paraffin wax, a petroleum product).
However, an environmental blog over at the Christian Science Monitor points out that people who light a candle for Earth Hour are usually content with less light than a typical bulb, so it's not fair to assume that people are going to light dozens of candles to replace a single bulb.
So what about replacing one lightbulb with one candle? In that case, according to Zeke Hausfather with Climate Culture, you're probably going to see a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Exactly how much depends on how much of your utility's electricity is generated from fossil fuels. In most U.S. states, where coal and gas are used to generate significant amounts of electricity, the candle wins. Whether the candle would win out in B.C., where we get most of our power from hydroelectric dams, is less clear. And that's all assuming that your candle is replacing an inefficient incadescent bulb.
If the candle is replacing a more efficient compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), Hausfather argues, lighting a single candle almost certainly pollutes more than just leaving the light on, even in those states that make heavy use of fossil fuels to generate electricity. |
