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Unpublished letters: “What is the long run?”

April 21st, 2011 · No Comments

WarrenS has taken on an admirable resolution: to send a letter to the editor (LTE) (or, well, a major politician) every single day, on the critical issues of climate change and energy. This discusses his approach and here is an amusing ‘template’ to for rapid letter writing.

Now, I have always written letters and even had many published — just not one every day. WarrenS inspires me to do better.

Many newspapers state that they will reject letters that have been published elsewhere, thus I have not been blogging letters … perhaps that should change. Thus, on a delay from ‘rejection’ (or lack of publication), here is an installment of the “unpublished letters” series publishing those LTEs that don’t get picked up by the editors.

8 April 2011

To the editor,

Jim Davenport’s 29 March article “S.C. lawmakers take dim view of light bulb law” asserted that a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) costs about $2 more than an incandescent “but supporters of the new technology say the lights last so much longer that they save money in the long run”.

A simple question:

“What is the long run?” 

Most of us, hearing that, likely think in terms of years. Is that the case here?

Let us assume that we have a light on 40 hours per week at an electricity cost of 10 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). That 100 watt incandescent bulb Davenport referenced in his article would use 4 kilowatt hours of electricity at a cost of 40 cents and the 25 watt compact flourescent lightbulb (CFL) would use 1 kilowatt hour at a cost of 10 cents.  After seven weeks, the incandescent cost would reach $3.80 ($1 purchase plus $2.80 of electricity) while the “more expensive” CFL’s costs would total $3.70.  Is seven weeks “long term”?

After a year, the CFL’s total cost would mount to $8.20 while that less expensive incandescent bulb’s bill would hit $22.80.

No reasonable adult would call a less than two month period “long run” on financial matters and all would consider a 60 percent per year savings significant.

A. Siegel

NOTE:  Davenport used a 100 watt incandescent and 25 watt CFL, thus I used those figures in the letter to the editor. The more appropriate number would be a 27 watt CFL to replace the 100 watt incandescent. That, of course, would slightly lengthen the payback periods.

In a related piece, see: Calculating the Financial Benefits of Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFLs): the case of a condo building

Tags: Energy · lighting · unpublished letters · Washington Post

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