Efforts in Energy Efficiency: Advocating the CFL

The energy crisis was brought to the surface by the 1973 Oil Crisis. Out of the crisis, many developments and organizations were formed to improve energy efficiency. The modern CFL was invented by Ed Hammer during this time. In the beginning, people did not think the CFL would work. Since then, CFL has come a long way and its popularity grew as the cost of energy continues to rise. Many organizations have been sponsoring the efforts of energy efficiency in lights and advocating the CFL (Kanellos).
Energy Star is a joint program of the U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the U.S. Department of Energy. The program was created to encourage energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas. Since its beginning in the U.S., many other countries have adopted the program. It created standards for many different kinds of products. Its labels are widely seen on home and office appliances. Only the products that meet the Energy Star standards can earn its label. Because of its popularity and trustworthy name, Energy Star is very effective spreading energy efficient products. In 2007, “Energy Star qualified CFL sales for 2007 nearly double, reaching 20% market share. Also, “it successfully delivered energy and cost savings across the country, saving businesses, organizations, and consumers about $19 billion in 2008 alone” (Energy Star).
Despite of its good name, there is still room for improvements. According to Noah D. Horowitz, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Energy Star has not updated a number of products’ efficiency standards to meet higher conservation levels. For example, the current estimate of average use of hot water per household is 64.3 gallons a day. This meets the standard of two decades ago, “when the composition of households was in many cases much different from today’s” (Becker). Also, according to Michael Siminovitch, Director of the California Lighting Technology Center, Energy Star’s standards are the government’s approach to simply provide limitations for products, and by meeting the standard, products appear to be energy efficient. But this recommends products to only do so much as to fit within the standard; it provides a “worst case possible” instead of encouraging industries to make more energy efficient products (Siminovitch).
Alliance to Save Energy is a none-profit coalition of industrial, technological, and energy corporations. The coalition was created in 1978, with the goal of promoting energy efficiency. It is influential to consumers and government as well. One of its biggest news is the phase-out plan of incandescent lamps. In 2007, the Alliance to Save Energy supported the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (previously known as Clean Air Act of 2007), agreeing on the phase out of incandescent lamps between 2012 and 2014 (Alliance to Save Energy, The Library of Congress).
However, the bill faced much opposition as well, mainly from the oil industry and conservative activists. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that the bill will punish one of the country’s largest industries. Also, the Chamber stated that the new technology is not ready to take the incandescent lamps place; “these emerging technologies are neither developed nor commercially viable enough to replace even a fraction of the energy America receives from hydrocarbon sources” (Josten).
On the side note, Home Depot is a part of the Alliance to Save Energy. According to earth911.org, Home Depot (the closest one being the one at Woodland) performs the recycle services for CFL bulbs. EPA has been looking into drop-off recycle of CFL at local post offices. But its decisions have not been finalized. As of now, 75% of Americans’ homes are within 10 miles of the nearest Home Depot (Rosenbloom).

Work Cited

Kanellos, Michael. "Father of the compact fluorescent bulb looks back." CNET News 16 Aug 2007 Web.21 Apr 2009. http://news.cnet.com/Father-of-the-compact-fluorescent-bulb-looks-back/2100-11392_3-6202996.html.

Energy Star. http://www.energystar.gov/

Becker. Bernie. "Why Obama’s Energy Savings Estimate May Be Skewed ," The New York Times 06 Feb 2009. Web.21 Apr 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/washington/07energy.html.

Siminovitch, Michael. "The Roots of Energy Efficiency." UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center. Tsakopoulos Library Galleria, Sacramento. 17 Apr 2009. Performance.

Alliance to Save Energy. http://ase.org/

United States. The Library of Congress. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. 2007. Web. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00006:@@@L&summ2=m&.

Josten, Bruce. "H.R. 6, The Clean Energy Act of 2007." U.S. Chamber of Commerce 17 Jan 2007 Web.21 Apr 2009. http://www.uschamber.com/issues/letters/2007/070117_clean_energy_act.htm.

Rosenbloom. Stephanie. " Home Depot Offers Recycling for Compact Fluorescent Bulbs," The New York Times 24 Jan 2008. Web.21 Apr 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/business/24recycling.html?_r=1&em&ex=1214625600&en=8ddbcb7023c75243&ei=5087%0A.

My Fantastic Light Bulb Adventure

(For my DES116 assignment, I had to document buying a CFL bulb...)
I walked to Ace at Davis on Wednesday afternoon, planning to buy a compact florescent light bulb for the storage closet in my apartment. It’s been almost half a year since that light went out, so I thought it’d be a great idea to hit two birds with one stone (assignment and finally getting to see what's in that closet).

First lesson learned. Light bulbs are in Hardware, not Houseware...

Walking into the store, I realized a couple of posters urging people to make environmental friendly choices. Even though they were not necessarily the coolest illustrations, I give Ace props for doing the world a favor.

His nose is huge. I would be intimidated if I saw him in real life.

All the incandescent light bulbs were deeper in the aisle. Their packaging always bothered me; wrapping the fragile glass bulbs in simple cardboard never made sense to me. The CFLs seem to have made the packaging a little safer; I saw actual boxes and plastics. Perhaps this was because they cost more problems when they break.

Haha, losers.

After buying the bulb, I told a staff member I was documenting my experience for a design project. She was very enthusiastic and told me her theory on why CFLs are not as popular as they can be. She thought the main problem was the disposal process, and how regular people did not know where and how to dispose them. She said that a while back, Ace used to collect CFLs and recycle them for the customers. But more recently, the government had cut back funding on the matter. Therefore, Ace was not able to carry out the service anymore. She then handed me an informational flyer on how and where to dispose the dead CFLs. These flyers are great, but this is the first time in my life I’ve ever seen the disposal information on paper. Turns out, there was a Yolo County Planning and Public Works Department I was not aware of. They collect household hazardous waste such as acids, batteries, paints, and CFLs every month. This is a great service, but I believe there should be more places and more days we can drop off wastes. This is incredibly inconvenient. Why do we not have trash bins in every household (or at least every neighborhood) for hazardous wastes just like recycling bins?

Also, there is a problem on the packaging of the CFLs. The most eye catching information is on money saving. CFLs are no longer noticeably more expensive than incandescent light bulbs. I don’t think saving money is the main issue, at least not around here. I could not find information on method of disposal within 10 seconds. In the end, I noticed a couple line of words behind the box, reading:

Design fail. This is like food expiration dates, I can't find them!

Honestly, if it was not for the assignment, I will not know where to dispose my CFL. And I don’t think I would go on the website to find out more if I was busy; it was one step too many. When I got home, I asked my housemate whether or not he knew how to dispose CFLs. He said no, and he usually throws it away in the trash. There is a big problem when college students do not know how and where to dispose CFLs.

Problems:
1. Not enough people know the why’s, when’s, how’s, and where’s of CFL disposal.
2. Information is not as accessible as it should be.
3. Lack of services and places for hazardous waste management.
4. Wrong visual hierarchy for packaging; method of waste disposal should be a lot clearer.
5. Much more…


Well, that's all. In the end, I changed the bulb in the storage closet. So small mission complete, big mission is far from being complete.

This is my metaphor for the future.
Bright it up and save us all by buying CFL and disposing them correctly!

Make Captain Planet proud, save the Earth.
-Kevin Han-Chia Chen

OMGWTFBBQ

It's been a while world.
Today, a friend told me my blog was great. It made me feel important, so I'm going to blog about something, anything.

Let's begin with my new quarter?
Yes, it's been busy, but that doesn't mean I didn't have fun.
Just last week, my friends and I went to the fashion show at SF State. For more information, visit The Imaginary Zebra's blog.

But that was not all. A day earlier was the epic BBQ.

Joey's face says it all.

So here's a question: How many UCD students does it take to start a fire?
Answer: 12.5 students and around 2 hours. We're all ashamed.

But that was not the point. ANYWAY.

I was so excited about the fire, I teared (BTW, I'm just kidding).

That's a lot of meat. Mmmm...

We were all happy, especially Joey (How the heck does he do all these faces!?)

I was too full, as usual.

Amazing.

That's it, my camera ran out of power after that.
We played lava monster until 11 pm, super fun stuff.

Happy burning.

Hamtato

My favorite.

She eats and sleeps all the time...