When it comes to energy, it often costs money to eventually save money. Compact fluorescent bulbs cost more than incandescent ones. LEDs so far cost more than either. Solar electric panels have high capital costs, but low maintenance costs.
A Royal Oak company, Adopt-a-Watt, deserves praise for helping municipalities move toward conservation by lining up local contributors with local projects.
It did so in its hometown, securing pledges from 100 businesses and individuals for installation of new lighting fixtures in the city's two parking structures.
The 102 fixtures cost about $400 each, installation included. But they have a life expectancy of about a decade. They're inductive fluorescents, which operate by using a coil of wire carrying electricity at radio frequencies to illuminate a bulb filled with gases and phosphors. There are no wires entering the bulb to break or allow gases to enter the bulb, a reason wired fluorescent bulbs fail.
Although the principles of induction lighting are almost as old as incandescent lighting, development has taken off in the last 10 years, to a point where induction lighting increasingly competes with LED lighting, especially for illuminating large spaces.
Each of the participants pledged $500 a year for 10 years toward the project. They're being recognized with signs in the structures. And some are participating in a coupon program: An Adopt-a-Watt web site provides coupons for customers of the businesses to print at home and use for discounted purchase of goods or services.
Founder Tom Wither compares the program to Adopt-a-Highway projects, in which groups of volunteers turn out to collect litter from roadsides they've adopted through state transportation agencies.
The fixtures will save the city an estimated $120,000 in electricity costs over the next 10 years. Wither estimates that the lights will avoid burning 300,000 pounds of coal during the next decade.
That may not sound like much over so long a time. But Wither points out that "little things do make a difference," and he has high hopes for extending he program's reach to power generation as well as conservation.
Both are worthy goals. We support whatever works to reach them.