Random Thoughts of Chris Tilley

Ontario is banning incandescent light bulbs by 2012. The scary number is that there are 87 million incandescent light bulbs in Ontario. I crunched the numbers as I did in my previous post even though they gave me the savings in the article, just to compare the results. We both came up with 6 million MWH, Good, I like having my numbers confirmed. On the carbon numbers they say 4 million tonnes I say only 3.5 million. That is mostly likely a difference in our assumptions. The numbers I used are from Environmental Defense and are probably the national average for the US. Ontario would have their own numbers for the province.

They didn't give the savings. I go with that the added life cancels out the extra initial cost of the bulbs. They probably are actually cheaper. The savings per bulb based on 6.5 cents per kWh is $4.11 per year. So for 87 million bulbs you are pumping $358 million dollars in to the economy.

As far as generating that power the 6 million MWh works out to a generating capacity of 684 MW. Thats two of Ontario's smallest power plants:

Atikokan (211 MW coal)
Thunder Bay (303 MW coal) (source wikipedia)

That is assuming that they are running at 100% capacity, 24/7. They never are able to do that. So that reduces demand by two whole plants.

My Related Posts:
Banning Incandescent Light Bulbs