tbf, lighting has transformed in the past 20 years. Most energy use has.
One rental I moved into, I removed several kilowatts of incandescent light bulbs and replaced them with a couple hundred watts of LED light bulbs.
A lot of our other energy use is also way better than it used to be going back into the past. Cars use much less fuel, televisions use less energy since they're using LEDs and LCDs instead of giant vacuum tubes hurling electrons at phosphorescent coating (and the televisions last virtually forever comparatively speaking since the phosphor doesn't fade and there's no need for super high voltages). Even critical stuff like heating is on a completely different level now -- energy was much cheaper post-war so houses weren't really as well insulated, and more importantly the efficiency was on a whole other level. In the 1950s, a furnace might only be 50% efficient. Today, a furnace can be up to 99% efficient, which is absolutely mind-blowing when you think about it.
The massively increased efficiency of modern life is one of the few things saving us from the fact that consumer electricity costs have generally risen faster than inflation.
One rental I moved into, I removed several kilowatts of incandescent light bulbs and replaced them with a couple hundred watts of LED light bulbs.
A lot of our other energy use is also way better than it used to be going back into the past. Cars use much less fuel, televisions use less energy since they're using LEDs and LCDs instead of giant vacuum tubes hurling electrons at phosphorescent coating (and the televisions last virtually forever comparatively speaking since the phosphor doesn't fade and there's no need for super high voltages). Even critical stuff like heating is on a completely different level now -- energy was much cheaper post-war so houses weren't really as well insulated, and more importantly the efficiency was on a whole other level. In the 1950s, a furnace might only be 50% efficient. Today, a furnace can be up to 99% efficient, which is absolutely mind-blowing when you think about it.
The massively increased efficiency of modern life is one of the few things saving us from the fact that consumer electricity costs have generally risen faster than inflation.
- replies
- 0
- announces
- 1
- likes
- 3
