If you were offered an investment with a guaranteed return of 900% a year or 10,000% over its lifetime, with no tax to pay, and which had a positive impact on the world, you would snap it up, right? Well this is the sort of return you can get by installing low energy lighting inside and outside your home.

Let’s look at some of the figures. Energy saving bulbs now cost from around £1 each. If you replace a bulb that you use for around 3 hours a night, then you save about £9 a year on your annual electricity bill. Because they last much longer, according to the Energy Saving Trust each low energy light bulb can save you up to £100 in electricity bills over its lifetime. If you add up all the light bulbs and fittings in your house, this adds up a surprisingly large saving.

Plus the benefits aren’t only financial. Something as simple as using low energy bulbs can have a big impact on your personal contribution to Climate Change, by reducing the carbon dioxide emissions you are responsible for. Each bulb on its own will save up to half a tonne over its lifetime. If you replace 10 old-style bulbs in your house that you use for 2 hours a day with low energy bulbs, you will save around a quarter tonne of carbon dioxide each year.

Finally, low energy light bulbs save you time and effort. Because they last around 10 times longer than normal bulbs, when you switch to low energy bulbs you won’t have to get the ladder out so often to replace bulbs that have blown.

So why isn’t everyone making the change to low energy bulbs? Sadly too many of us are creatures of habit, and just carry on buying the same bad bulbs we always have. But now with the wide range on offer, and recent developments which have made low energy bulbs perform just as well as old-style bulbs, it makes sense to change all your bulbs straight away.

It does take a little effort to make the switch at first. First you have to go round your house and write down a list of the bulbs you currently use – including wattage (60w, 100w etc.), type of fixture (screw, bayonet etc), size and colour (e.g. are they toned?)

Next you have to work out the wattage for a low energy bulb that matches the wattage of your current bulbs (for example a 20 watt low energy bulb gives off the same light as a 100 watt old-style bulb). You can find simple tables that can help you do this on the Internet at sites like downwithco2.com.

Once you have worked out the bulbs you need to buy, you can then go shopping. There are many retailers of low energy bulbs on the Internet, or now they are commonly available in supermarkets or hardware stores.

Plus you can also save a lot of money by installing more energy efficient lighting outdoors. Just a few outdoor lights left on each night can double your household lighting bill and your greenhouse gas emissions. The best solution is to fit daylight and movement sensors so outdoor lights switch on when they’re needed, but don’t waste electricity. This also improves your home’s security, as you can tell when someone is approaching the house.

For outdoor lights that must stay on for long periods, use energy efficient, compact fluorescent or LED lamps and choose the lowest wattage lamp that gives enough light. In the garden, you can now buy solar powered garden lights that use no mains electricity and so produce no emissions when used. Plus you don’t need to wire up your garden to get lighting.

So now you have seen all the benefits of low energy lighting, it really does make sense to make the switch as soon as you can.

(NewsUSA) – According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), water heating accounts for up to 17 percent of national residential energy consumption, the third largest energy end-use in homes behind heating and cooling units and kitchen appliances. As homeowners install amenities that require increased hot water volume, such as luxury tubs and custom showers, the percentage of energy used to heat water will continue to rise.

In an attempt to address this significant percentage of energy consumption, DOE has developed ENERGY STAR criteria for water heaters, the last major residential appliance that the program has not addressed. According to DOE projections, Americans are expected to save approximately $780 million in utility costs while avoiding 4.2 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions by the end of the fifth year in effect.

Five categories of residential water heaters will be eligible for Energy Star labeling – high-performance gas storage, whole-home gas tankless, advanced drop-in or integrated heat pump, solar and gas condensing. The new Energy Star criteria go into effect in 2009.

“The Energy Star program empowers consumers to make smart energy choices that will save money and energy, and reduce our carbon footprint,” said DOE Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Andy Krassner. “Expansion of the Energy Star program to include water heaters will give Americans yet another way to more efficiently use energy in their homes and, in the interest of increasing energy security and addressing climate change, help further the President’s goal of fundamentally changing the way this nation uses power.”

By leveraging the established value of the Energy Star program, DOE hopes that manufacturers will focus on developing more efficient technologies and that consumers will recognize that Energy Star water heaters will deliver similar or better performance than conventional models while using less energy and saving money. According to an April 2008 report released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Energy Star label favorably influences more than 70 percent of households, up from about 50 percent in 2003.

More than 9,000 organizations have joined Energy Star as partners committed to improving the energy efficiency of products, homes and businesses. The Energy Star label now appears on more than 40 kinds of consumer products. A.O. Smith, industry leader for more than 70 years, has engineered a full line of Energy Star water heaters to meet the hot-water needs of households while benefiting budgets and the environment.

We all are constantly aware and alarmed by the fatal consequences of global warming. This has resulted in air and water to become warmer and warmer and faster melting of glaciers by each passing minute. This normally reflects the sunlight back into space which in turn compounds the global warming problem. We knowingly or unknowingly aggravate the ever growing problem. We use electricity, vehicle and plastics everyday which are the main carbon producers that households contribute to global warming.

Global warming is a burning issue globally. Today new car, used cars and trucks equally burn gasoline to get on with their regular work and gasoline burning is a major resource of carbon dioxide emissions everywhere. Carbon Dioxide is thus emitted into the environment. Carbon Dioxide has been scientifically linked to global climate change and warming. Therefore, complete awareness among people is required to combat this disastrous issue. People must be motivated and enthusiastic about reduction of this gas through whatever ways possible to maintain equilibrium in the eco system.

Everyday while driving a car, lighting your residence and office, transporting goods and also using a computer, we use energy and produce greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide that have a major consequence on the climate change. You will inevitably have to pay hugely for your emissions; thus by employing carbon offsets, you can make an equivalent greenhouse gas saving. By taking a few things into consideration too, you can control carbon dioxide emission. You must switch off the light when not in use, must start a habit of walking or cycling which will in turn reduce the use of automobiles.

There are various kinds of project that will help to reduce carbon emissions. The projects include renewable Energy, Hydro Power, solar power, agricultural residues and wind power etc. Each project is very helpful and plays a vital role in reductions of CO2 that would not have happened otherwise. If you are engaged in a business that transmits CO2, you should start by reducing your consumption and your carbon footprint now. Your small steps can make a huge difference. Business carbon offsetting is making a positive and real statement to your employees, customers and shareholders. Just like you they all are also affected by climate change and will be more attracted, and devoted to businesses that are committed towards caring for the environment. Green companies are more efficient and more beneficial than their rivals. Many of the most successful ones are now familiar with the clear business benefits of addressing environmental issues.

In most modern homes, lighting accounts for 10-15% of the electricity bill; an expense we might not often consider when shopping for light bulbs. All too frequently, the temptation is to opt for a cheaper light bulb rather than investing in an energy saving recommended light bulb – and investing really is an apt term in this situation. The cheap, traditional light bulbs are nothing but a quick fix; they will need replacing up to 12 times in the time an energy saving recommended light bulb will continue lighting your home. Once you are aware of this surprising piece of information, the price of the old fashioned light bulb in comparison to energy savers suddenly shoots up, and if you take into consideration the fact that for each traditional light bulb you replace with an energy saving recommended bulb you can reduce your bill by approximately £7 per year, the sensible option becomes clear.

Not only are the energy saving bulbs more efficient, they’re also hardier; although, like the traditional bulbs, energy efficient bulbs can break if handled carelessly, they are actually harder to break than their old-fashioned counterparts. This is due to the fact that they are often coated with plastic as a protective measure, and added to that their smaller diameter results in higher stress limits; consequently breakage rates are said to be less than 1%.

It’s not just your pockets that will benefit if you swap to energy saving recommended light bulb – the planet will also gain. Most of the UK’s energy comes from fossil fuels; this produces carbon dioxide emissions and contributes to climate change. By taking simple steps to reduce the energy we use, we will cut our carbon dioxide emissions and do our bit to help protect the environment.

So next time you’re shopping for new lighting, why not check for the energy saving recommended logo? You’ll be saving the environment whilst saving your pennies. The energy saving recommended logo was developed in order to help you spot the most energy efficient products; products that cost less to run simply because they use less energy to do the same job than more inefficient products. The light bulbs, for example, save energy (and money) because they are much more efficient at changing electricity into light.

You’ll be able to spot the energy saving recommended logo on a range of lighting products and fittings. You can also find the logo on household appliances, as well as heating, glazing and insulation products. It means the goods are amongst the most energy efficient you can buy as they have met strict criteria.

We are experiencing right now what unbridled greed can do to a hardworking country. The effects of Wall Street’s fraud are becoming very painful for the working stiff, who have no choice but to entrust the results of their life’s toils to our country’s banks. These same banks have become the most profitable sector of the US economy.

Right now, these banks have stopped extending credit to large and small enterprises, to customers who have been paying dearly for borrowing working capital for decades.

The effects will be felt throughout the US economy and will lead to hardships for millions of bank customers, will accelerate an ongoing recession, and may force our country into a depression.

An equally profitable economic sector of the US economy, the oil and energy industry, is following policies that may drive our country into an even more disastrous situation that will be more difficult to correct, and will deadlock our economy not for years but for decades, if not corrected in time.

Indigenous and foreign petroleum reserves are being depleted across the world and will not last much longer than 50 years. Continuing petroleum combustion will increase atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by another 25%. Increasing carbon dioxide emissions from coal and natural gas combustion will increase atmospheric concentrations even higher than 600 ppm before 2050. A concentration of 600 ppm is the absolute maximum that can be endured by our planet and its inhabitants.

The most immediate and economically most damaging consequences of our continuing profligate use of petroleum products will be the steady increase of gasoline and diesel fuel prices at the pump. These price increases will eventually have effects similar to the presently developing credit crunch.

US Congress has found the will to legislate measures that hopefully have a chance of easing credit and of allowing our economy to resume its normal activities, eventually.

There are is no similar oversight for assuring that the US oil industry is developing actionable plans for replacing petroleum with renewable petroleum substitutes, which do not emit greenhouse gases. US coal and natural gas industries have not found it necessary to prepare for a future, in which all fossil fuel combustion must be outlawed. These same industries are still not held liable for the irreversible ecological damages they inflict on our Earth.

Any person with rational abilities and a basic understanding of a few scientific facts must conclude that the world’s economies will run into an abyss, if we cannot change our ways of using energy. We especially cannot tolerate the continuing increases of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, which are leading irreversibly to global overheating and destructive climate changes.

On the other hand, we cannot dare letting scarce petroleum make our transportation systems unaffordable for the average consumer, we cannot suffer the consequences of a sudden stop of all our transportation systems at the instance we run out of petroleum, and our Armed Forces cannot defend our country without plentiful fuels.

If the supply of gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuels for automobiles, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes ever breaks down, we will experience a crisis that will be far more severe and much more damaging than the 2008 financial crisis.

Because we cannot let these ruinous events happen, we must demand from US Congress and our administrations that they begin to conceive plans and install controls that will make a future breakdown of the energy system impossible.

Such controls must assure that the energy industry will convert its energy supplies during the coming couple of decades from fossil fuel based energy forms to renewable energies. These new energy supplies must also assure that we can continue to use our huge, irreplaceable investments into our transportation infrastructures consisting of automobiles, trucks, trains, ships, airplanes, airports, automotive manufacturing plants, and maintenance facilities.

Replacing major portions of our existing transportation system would consume trillions upon trillions of dollars. Instead, we must preserve precious capital for the most important future investments; the construction of novel energy conversion plants. We must invest in building a sufficient number of energy plants that produce plenty of petroleum substitutes and are able of replacing all fossil fuels.

We must invest in factories that build equipment for converting sun energy, wind power, marine power, and geothermal power into electricity. Most importantly we must install facilities that can convert plentiful and inexhaustible sun energy into biomass.

We know that we can convert sunlight into diesel fuel. Now we must learn very fast how to convert biomass into petroleum substitutes. Preliminary evaluations show that the US can replace its entire, annual petroleum consumption by growing biomass on an area of less than 10,000 square miles. The lower 48 states of the US have an area of close to 3 million square miles. A small fraction, well below one percent, is sufficient to provide the entire US with emission free, affordable, and secure petroleum substitutes. These substitutes can be converted in existing oil refineries into the fuels we need; gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuels.

We must force the US energy industry to use its exorbitant profits for developing new energy sources and for making the US independent of foreign imports.

A future energy crisis will be much more severe than any past financial crises. It will take decades to fix the looming scarcity of transportation fuels. The US and the world must prevent a worldwide energy crisis that will threaten all countries with economic collapse.

Modern economies are unthinkable without plentiful and affordable energy supplies. The double threat of global warming and climate change makes it mandatory to look for new, non-polluting energy sources. When searching for future energy supplies we must be very much aware of the critical role that energy plays in modern economies. It is imperative that we keep in mind the immense investments and the priceless inventories that were made by previous generations when building existing energy supply infrastructures.

Electricity has become the predominant energy form used by industry, commerce, and consumers alike. Transportation is a close second with industry, commerce, and individuals virtually incapable to maintain economic activity without immediate access to affordable liquid fuels for cars, trucks, ships, trains, and airplanes.

Continuing use of fossil fuels will result in unacceptable levels of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. We have learned that this accumulation is responsible for global warming and that it is the root cause of climate change and its many incarnations. The world does not have a choice any longer. We must completely halt carbon dioxide emissions before the year 2050 or the world will have to deal with escalating and uncontrollable climate changes.

The costs of dealing with climate change can potentially overpower world economies, can inflict extreme suffering on most of the world’s peoples, and can eventually lead to a worldwide economic collapse. Such a collapse will be the precursor of the disappearance of our civilizations.

Changing over from polluting fossil fuels to clean, new energy sources will be expensive. Trying to replace well performing industry segments would not only be foolish; it could be suicidal. We cannot dare to slow the world’s economies. Economies must be highly productive when we attempt to halt all fossil fuel combustion and begin instead to use only clean, renewable energy sources. The changeover will create much additional economic activity, which can result in an overall positive effect on world economies during the next two generations.

In our efforts to change to new energy sources we must try to modify rather than replace existing energy consuming, energy converting, and energy distributing systems. We are well advised to continue the use of existing electricity generating plants, electricity transmission grids, petroleum refining plants, gasoline and diesel fuel distribution systems, inventories of cars, trucks, ships, trains, railways, airplanes, and airports. We must continue to use our manufacturing plants to produce these valuable and life supporting devices and the service systems with their trained personnel to keep them running.

Replacing even a part of this infrastructure would last generations and would cost trillions upon trillions of dollars. Replacement costs will be out of reach for even the most wealthy, most industrialized, and most technologically advanced countries. We must find solutions that keep much of the existing energy infrastructures in place. We must develop new technologies, which will not overburden our economies and which will not risk economic slowdowns, recessions, or total economical collapse.

The puzzle we have to solve is very complex. There will be more than one solution. To put our task into sharp focus let us state the problem this way: How can we best preserve as much of our infrastructure as possible, stop burning fossil fuels, and replace fossil fuels by only consuming renewable and alternative energies? Most importantly, how can we stimulate and maintain economic growth concurrently?

One such practical and actionable solution is based on the complete cessation of all fossil fuel burning. There is absolutely no way that we can prevent carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere by sequestering carbon dioxide for more than a few decades. Therefore, we will have to convert all our energy sources entirely to the exclusive use of solar energy, wind energy, marine energy, geothermal energy, and nuclear energy.

Fortunately, there is enough solar energy to last us forever. Nuclear fission energy will last for centuries. Geothermal energy resources are huge but will be expensive to exploit in most locations.

Continuing shortsightedness and greed are still keeping us on the march into certain disaster. This is tragic and unacceptable. We must force our governments to accept change. New technologies are available that can give us the means and the tools to not only avoid disaster but make this world a better place to live in. All we have to do is to act with foresight. Most importantly, we must subordinate the interests of the few to the wellbeing of the many. What must we do?

We must continue to use the existing inventory of energy consuming machinery and appliances. We must preserve our marvelous transportation systems that deliver unerringly the goods, foods, and all necessities for us to live and for everybody to pursue business and pleasure. We must keep the electric transmission nets and grids that cover the world. We must keep the distribution systems that deliver motor fuels to neighborhoods and to the farthest corners of the world. We must keep the power plants, our manufacturing plants, and the refineries that convert crude energy into motor fuels. We must save our buildings and our homes.

We must concentrate our intellectual efforts and our financial resources on the development of a selected, few technologies. It appears entirely feasible to develop and demonstrate these few key technologies in less than two decades. Above all, we must act very, very soon or we will leave to future generations a very hot and barren world.