Sale this weekend - LED bulbs

This Saturday Aldi (in Australia) are having an amazing sale on LED lights - which are super efficient. How efficient? Their conversion chart shows just how much less power these bulbs use to give the same light. Huge savings.

So much do these amazing pieces of technology cost? Not much.

LED bulbs are $2.99 (to replace a standard bulb)

Dimmable LED bulbs are a bit more - $6.99.

LEDs downlights to replace halogens are just $4.99.

If you're wondering how that compares to the energy the old bulbs are using, check out my Super Easy Energy Calculator.

A 60W bulb for 4 hours a night costs $24 per year in power - just for that one light. It's a great deal to slash that cost for just a few dollars. And the planet wins too.

Is there any reason not to change?

Aldi's sale starts Saturday while stocks last - so be quick.

Super Easy Energy Cost Calculator

How much energy does a light bulb use? Is it worth replacing? Those kind of answers can be found with this easy guide.

Find the light bulb wattage on the left hand side. Across the top find the hours per day it is used. Where that row and column meet is the cost of powering that light bulb for one year.

An old 75 Watt bulb running 5 hours a night costs $37 a year. Definitely worth changing to a more efficient option.

It also works for other items - if you know their power usage. A stereo that uses 10 Watts in standby mode all day will cost $24 a year even without playing any music (might be worth turning off at the wall). A laptop computer that uses 20 Watts and is used for 4 hours per day will cost just $8 to run.

For this calculator I've assumed 27 cents per unit of electricity. If your price is different then the estimates may vary.

Also, if the exact wattage isn't in the table, use one that is close to it as an estimate. Or if you've got a calculator you can do the exact calculations yourself. Here's the formula:

Cost = Watts x hours/day x 0.365 x price($/kWh)

Quiz: Are you a climate champ?

Take this quiz to find out how you score on your climate change knowledge.

It's been all over the news, but how much information has sunk in?

I aced it with 10 from 10 - but it is multiple choice so that makes it a bit easier.

Should I get solar?

It's a question that many people have asked. Australian consumer affairs TV show The Checkout took a look at at practically every solar question people ask.

Quirkiness is the trademark of the show, but the information is good.



Here's the link to the solar calculator they mention.

In case you missed it, here is the information on payback periods.

How to save 88% on power

Check out the blue and red boxes on this energy sticker (for our washing machine).

Those numbers (55 and 464) represent the energy needed for cold and hot washes. Quick maths shows the blue number is 88% less than the red number.

To put that another way, the hot wash uses more than 8 times as much energy. Surely this is a no-brainer.

For cold washes that's a yearly total of $14.85 in electricity. If we used hot water, that number would surge to $125.28. Woah, that's a big difference.

The cold wash button is a real saver.

Choosing the right lights

Often there's a mental barrier to getting energy-saving lights. They cost money.

Is it worth it?

Yes. Even if you're renting. For your main lights, most upgrades make their money back in less than a year.

The Checkout did the maths for a light that's on 5 hours per night at a price of 30 cents/kWh.

A six dollar bulb can save you around $20 every year! That's an amazing return on your money.

Plus they also last longer. So in the long run you save even more by not having to replace them as often.



The video also mentions the Light Bulb Saver app. It's handy for calculating the saving for your particular situation and is available on Google Play and iTunes.

5% off power thanks to renewables

Powershop, the energy retailer that loves renewable energy, has just announced a 5% price-cut "all thanks to renewable energy".

CEO Ed McManus says it's because they've managed to get really good price deals with new wind and solar farms.

“The price that we get the energy from these new wind and solar farms is cheaper than the energy we can get from the normal wholesale market day to day.”

See the video for more information or read more details of the power stations.

Today a price drop for all our customers in VIC thanks to our investments in renewable energy. NSW/QLD stay tuned. Got Qs, go here: https://t.co/H75pUXAGx4🌱💫

— Powershop Australia (@PowershopAus) February 28, 2018

At the moment this price-cut is for Victorian customers only, with NSW and Queensland customers to expect a lower price around mid-year.

An unprecedented 5 years

The last 5 years (2013-2017) is officially the hottest period on record. More details are in the Climate Council's report "2017: Record-breaking Year for Heat and Extreme Weather".

This heat graph really tells the story.

There's a bit of variation from year to year. Often are El Nino years are a bit hotter and La Nina years not so much. This next graph colours the El Nino and La Nina years differently. We can see that even La Nina years (blue) are getting hotter, as are the El Nino years and neutral years. Which ever way we look at it we are entering uncharted territory.

The report also found that

• 2017 was the third hottest year ever recorded, and the hottest year in which temperatures have not been boosted by an El Niño event.
  
• The world’s 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998 and 17 of the 18 hottest years on record have occurred this century.
  
• 2017 was Australia’s third hottest year on record.
  
• Seven of the ten hottest years on record in Australia have happened since 2005. Five of the seven have occurred the past five years.
  
• 2017 broke records for hot, dry conditions with more than 260 heat and low rainfall records broken throughout winter.
  
• The increasing global heat, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, exacerbated extreme weather events around the globe and in Australia in 2017.

Here's an infographic of the effects in Australia in 2017 alone.

How hot will it get in my lifetime?

Want something scary? Type your year of birth (or your child's) into this website.

It's summer in Australia right now and that means heatwave forecasts on a regular basis. Sometimes it's scary to think how much hotter it will get.

Sydney hit 47.3°C (117 F) recently. That's not the kind of temperature you want to add more degrees to.

The day I got into a racecar

This is the TeamArrow solar racecar. TeamArrow are based here in Brisbane and compete in the World Solar Challenge (2017 Challenge starts 8 October). They finished 8th in 2015 and I got to climb inside their racecar.

The car is 220 kg, cruises at around 85 kph and has a top speed of 126 kph. Surprisingly, it does all this on the same amount of power as your average toaster. Phenomenal.

Part of the reason is aerodynamics. After all, this is a racecar. Even the wheels are covered in an aerodynamic fin and the height of the car is quite low. I've had to squat down to be at the same height as a driver.

Of course I couldn't let the day go by without taking the opportunity to sit inside an actual racecar. After this photo was taken they put the aerodynamic lid on (you can see it in the first photo). It wasn't exactly spacious in there, but that's part of racing I guess.

On the day they were talking about their new car for this year's World Solar Challenge.

It will be in the "Cruiser" category, meaning it's a 2-person car and looks less like a racecar and more like something you might drive on the streets.

They hope to have them available for sale to the public soon after the race.

See Al Gore's new movie for free

Hard to believe it's more than 10 years since Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth hit cinemas.

Now his new movie An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is showing.

See the trailer:



Intrepid travel is offering free tickets - at least in Australia.

There are some conditions, and technically it's a ticket reimbursement, and the offer closes on 10 September.

But still it's a very generous offer for what's sure to be a powerful movie.

Earth Overshoot Day - How did you do?

We're using up resources faster than Earth can replenish them. And we're creating waste faster than Earth can deal with.

With our current habits, we'd need 1.7 Earths (which we don't have).

In other words, we used up Earth's 2017 capacity by today, 2 August.

Some nations are even more wasteful. This graphic shows what the Overshoot Day would be if everyone lived like people from that country.

Australia is the third most wasteful in the world, using up a year's resources by 12 March.

You can find out your own personal footprint. How many Earths would we need if everyone lived like you?

If you'd like to reduce it, consider taking one of the pledges.

True Colours

Remember the series Years of Living Dangerously? (If not, see my earlier posts about the series and the episode on the disbelieving pastor).

I recently found it at my local library. It's also available to watch on youtube and vimeo (if you're in the USA) or purchase on itunes.

Today I saw the episode 5 True Colours - following two US state governors.

It was stunning what a difference party politics makes to their ability to serve their people.

One moves his state forward on renewable energy and the jobs of the future. The other, despite his state being terribly hit by Hurricane Sandy, ignores climate change science. The science says this area will be increasingly hit by extreme weather events as climate change worsens. But because of his party's stance he continues to pour billions of dollars into rebuilding in the same disaster-prone area.

PS. The cover photo for the series is from this episode. That's actually the damage to someone's house after Hurricane Sandy.

Get money back from a vending machine

In 2018 my home state of Queensland will get container refunds. We will get money for the used bottles and cans we return for recycling.

Right now there's a trial 'Reverse Vending Machine' operating at 400 George Street Brisbane in the food court.

It's called reverse vending because it's the opposite of a normal machine. Instead of paying for an item, you return a used item and it pays you.

Here's video of me giving it a go.



At the moment the payment is replaced by a donation to a charity. So I donated my refunds to Clean Up Australia.

When the program starts in July 2018, the refund can be in the form of vouchers or deposit to your bank account.

May the cup be with you

KeepCups are great. You can get a takeaway coffee without having to add wore waste to landfill.

It's even greater now that they have a Star Wars range.

It might be too late to save Alderaan, but it's not too late to save Earth.