Holy Hot Damn
No matter what one thinks about global warming and the politics of the green movement (the environmental one, not the legalize-marijuana one), there are some aspects of environmentally friendly technology that just make good financial sense.
There’s an article being distributed by the Associated Press today that say Detroit, Michigan is going to replace all of their downtown street lights with LEDs (light-emitting diodes), which use less than half the energy of regular light bulbs, and last five-times longer.
The end result? The bulbs will pay for themselves in four years, giving the community back a net $600,000 (as they will be saving about $100,000 per year).
There are two main problems with LEDs and similar technologies at the moment. The first is the relatively large initial cost. It is dirt cheap to go to the grocery store, pick up a 4-pack of light bulbs, and plug those suckers in, whereas picking up a pack of LEDs is a bit more time consuming (you’ll likely have to go to a hardware store or someplace more specialized to find them) and costly (a regular LED bulb costs about $15, compared to a traditional light bulb, which can be found for under $1).
The long-term benefits, though, far outweigh the initial costs (download the Excel spreadsheet via the link at the bottom of the page). Because of the energy saved every month on the electric bill, and the much longer lifespan of the LED bulbs, well-over $700 is saved over the life span of each and every bulb.
That’s a lot of gas money (sigh…but that’s a whole different story).
