Dim and dimmer

With spring almost in the air, the bulbs in the garden are showing signs of life. The same unfortunately cannot be said for some of those in the house. I've adopted a policy of not replacing any blown bulbs until I can find an energy efficient replacement. Now that's been pretty easy for those standard bayonet fitting bulbs but a nightmare when it comes to the spotlight reflectors, globes, candles and halogen bulbs that inhabit the myriad light fittings left as an energy inefficient legacy by the previous owners of this carbon spewing property. There's a growing pile of these sitting on my desk awaiting further research.

It took me days of research to find a low energy replacement for an innocent little MR16 halogen bulb that blew the other week. I finally managed to locate an LED powered replacement that claimed to be equivalent to a 20W MR16 but consuming only 4W of power. Price £16 compared to about £2 for a normal one. Ouch! But they say they last 50 times longer and save you leccy so you'll be quids in after a couple of years use. I wondered if it would be worth the wait but in the interests of science decided to give it a try.

The results were very dissappointing. Sitting in the living room began to feel like camping with a headtorch to read by. This kind of LED technology is developing fast and a bulb like this would be great with a narrow beam for spot features but there's still a way to go before it can do the work of a 50W halogen flood. So for the moment, it looks like I either stick with my £2 bright and beautiful energy guzzling halogens or rip out all the fittings and install something more efficient instead in my living room, bathroom and toilet.

The more I look at our big old house from a carbon consumption perspective, the more bits of it seem like a carbon guzzling legacy from a time when no-one gave a monkeys about energy efficiency. It doesn't seem to matter what aspect of our emissions we focus on there's only so much we can do quickly and easily before we bump up against problems of infrastructure or legacy installations which limit our options. Taking things further then means tougher decisions involving substantial investments of time, money and effort to make the house more climate friendly. And I'm left wondering are we up for it, can we afford and is it worth it? The thing is to make the kind of cuts the experts say we need to make to avoid catastrophic climate change there is not really a 'can't afford it' option. If that's right then sooner or later we're all going to have to face these tough decisions. It's enough to make denial seem an attractive option.