Call for participation: Project Swirl

[geckooooo]

I want to encourage you to participate in my project for the upcoming burn, Project Swirl. Here's what's up.

If you pay an electricity bill, you're paying for lighting. Typically, incandescent lighting, the kind that's been around since Edison. It's not very efficient; most of the electricity becomes heat instead of light. For a long time, there wasn't much you could do about it. Which really sucks as you watch your bill get increasingly expensive. Even worse, the power plants spew tons of CO2 into the atmosphere for no good purpose.

But we now have a choice. We can replace the incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), a newer kind of bulb. They consume just 25% of the energy to produce the same amount of light. They last 10x longer. Plus they have a cool swirl shape! These used to be way more expensive than incandescent bulbs and produce inferior light, but no longer. The cost of a single CFL bulb is way less than the cost of 10 incandescents, not counting the energy savings. Not bad huh?

So I began to replace the incandescent bulbs with CFL bulbs in January. It's all done now; it cost a whopping $60. And this is sweet: I've already shaved $66 off my electricity bills. So the new bulbs have paid for themselves already! And they continue to save me money. Less CO2 goes into the atmosphere, and less dead bulbs get sent to the landfills. It's a massive win/win/win for everyone. It's a no-brainer!

So what, then, is Project Swirl? I want to strongly encourage you all to replace at least one 60W incandescent bulb in your house with an equivalent-brightness 14W CFL bulb. It may not seem very significant, but here's the thing: if everyone here replaces just one bulb, then in a single year we profoundly reduce electrical demand, prevent tons of CO2 from being emitted, and we pocket thousands for ourselves rather than forking it over to the electric company. All this... and only costs maybe 2 bucks per bulb... a cost which pays for itself in less than a year!

Project Swirl home page: http://crispyneurons.com/wiki/Project_Swirl
The tribe: http://tribes.tribe.net/projectswirl

The project goal is to replace 1000 bulbs before the burn. We've already passed the 10% milestone! If you replace any bulbs, contact me with the number you've replaced (jason@crispyneurons.com). I will track all this so we can know exactly what impact we're having, and report the final results on the playa. Participants will be commemorated by name on a sculpture I will create and show in the Red Light District. Details forthcoming.

Again: please participate! It's really easy, it benefits the world *and* you personally. It doesn't get better than this.

Thanks much,
Gecko

[MikeVDS]

I've been slowly replacing mine, but they vary quite a bit in quality. The appearance of the light, the reaction time, price. Does anyone have any good wide spectrum reviews or charts of different brands/types of these lights?

[AntiM]

We've been replacing ours for years now. I think the bathroom lightbar is the last with old style bulbs, and I need to find ones which are visual as well as functional. Soon, soon, soon.

[Rocket75377]

In a rare show of enviornmentalism, when I first got my BM ticket I celebrated by replacing twenty-some-odd bulbs in my dank basement dwelling. Energy savings aside, I really like them better.

[geckooooo]

Rocket75377: Thanks--I've credited you as a participant. You've put us within a hair's reach of the 25% milestone.

Here are the current stats:

http://crispyneurons.com/wiki/Project_Swirl_Status

MikeVDS and AntiM: How many?

Anyone else?

Thanks to all,
Gecko

[AntiM]

Eighteen, but three rooms in the house came with florescent fixtures installed in/on the ceilings. When I get around to the bathroom, that would be six more.

There's five hall/stairwell lights to be converted, but I have to find bulbs to fit under the vintage glass globes. Those lights are rarely left on for more than a few minutes, which is why they're last to be replaced. I didn't count the garage, I think that's all shoplights anyway.

Correction: nineteen. I forgot my lamp with the base full of Steiff animals.

[geckooooo]

Cool--we're past the 25% milestone! Let me know when you get the rest, and thanks for being a part of the project.

G

[Dork]

Are you only counting new replacements? I switched almost completely to CFLs years ago. About 10 in my house now, and full size flourescents in my shop and basement. About half of those have been upgraded to newer electronic balasts.

I've had bad luck with Ikea cheapies. The ones at Costco, GE I think, are silent fast acting and none have burned out in 2 years.

The two remaining incandescents I have are on a dimmer switch in my livingroom. Come to think of it, I hate that annoying loud dimmer anyway. Put me down for 2 more this weekend Now the only old fashioned lights will be the ones in my car.

[geckooooo]

I really encourage switching to new CFLs right now, but I'm counting bulbs that were already replaced too. The longer ago the switch, the greater the benefit. That's what this is all about.

Thanks for helping. I'm thrilled with the response so far but we can still use a whole lot more switching!

Cheers,
Gecko

[Toolmaker]

Been in the new place for a few weeks now. Forgot to take the CFLs from the ol place so tomorrow we have to pickup at least 24 of them now that we are in a house. I think I left about 16 in the old place for the new tenants.

[geckooooo]

Toolmaker -- 40 bulbs replaced? That's the most anyone has managed. Very nice.

Gecko

[geckooooo]

Okay people... we are *six* bulbs away from the 50% milestone. There are over 13,000 people here... if just one out of a thousand of you could switch a single bulb, we'd cross the milestone today. I'd really appreciate your help.

Thanks,
Gecko

[AntiM]

I found one more! Downstairs guest bedroom closet, I'd forgotten there was even a light in there.

[geckooooo]

I'm happy to announce that we've now got 501 bulbs replaced! We're past the 50% milestone! So it's all downhill from here.

All current stats are here: http://crispyneurons.com/wiki/Project_Swirl_Status

Check this out too: We're preventing 51,335 lbs. of CO2 from being emitted annually! Not bad!

Thanks to all participants. If we keep up this momentum, we can meet the 1000-bulb goal before the burn.

G

[geckooooo]

We did it--we passed the 100% milestone today! Current stats:

- Bulbs replaced: 1,069
- Number of participants: 82
- Amount of CO2 offset annually: approx. 110,792 lbs.
- Amount of money saved by participants annually: approx. $10,961

Thanks to all who participated. If you want to participate, it's not too late... I'd be happy to see the project blow way past the goal :)

Gecko

[chrispburn]

I did some experimentation with the CFLs available at Home Depot.


Look for a package line - (sorry, I can't see any "brand" name on the package. The packages are Green, Red and Blue. The icons that go with each are:

Green - "Soft White" with a candle icon -- Those were the BEST as far as color quality of the light.

Red - "Bright White" with a starburst icon - Light was gettting that weird blue green cast to it

Blue - "Day light" with a sun icon -- Crock of shit - that felt like I was in some weird basement rec room in the 70s on an acid trip. Only use these if your goal is to make people ill at ease.

I know this sounds like the complete opposite of what you would think - but I was very meticulous with the experiment.

Additionally, I found a DIM-ABLE bulb in the product line - sort of a candle shaped bulb. Look on the package for details.

PLEASE NOTE - the downside of CFLs is that they contain mercury. When they do eventually burn out -
DON'T THROW THEM IN THE TRASH!

Check with your local town to see who is recycling compact and regular fluorescent bulbs. It's now the law in California - cant' throw away CFLs, alkali batteries, Computer monitors, etc.

Great project - congrats for promoting this idea.

[skibear]

The Power company here,PEPCO, gave CFL's way Free to customers here
about 15 years ago. The LOA 27 W ones were not bad and had replaceable
lamps. We got about 15 lamps.

The bulbs were available for $5.00 for 5-10 years. Then came hard to find
and costing $15. (more than garbage quality new ones from China)

Now I'm annoyed the bulbs are unavailable.

If you want normal brightness get the 30W circular or 35W CFL lights.
27W ones are just passable.

The really dim ones, 5W to 15W make good front door/yard lights.

[Joe]

Replacing old bulbs is a great Idea. However, I have found that these expensive bulbs can burn out quite fast.

Has anyone else had this experience?

Mailing in the bulb to the manufactuer for a replacement costs more than the bulb is worth.

We need a law which makes it manditory for stores to accept defective light bulb returns, and some way of easily identifying what year the bulb was produced, and what the brand is on the bulb!

If the bulb burns out before the waranty period, you should be allowed to return it without a reciept!

Probably a lame idea, but It makes me mad when these new bulbs don't last as long as they are supposed to.