By Amory B. Lovins
Rocky Mountain Institute, 2002 Summer Newsletter
A sidebar from Least Cost Security - As the United States awaits another terror episode, RMI offers a few thoughts on security

Building real security can be as simple and as grassroots-based as a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL). A typical CFL costs $3–12, saves four-fifths of the electricity used by an incandescent bulb, lasts 8–13 times longer, looks similar, fits the same fixtures and, over the course of its life, will save $30–80 more than it costs. In fact, it's generally cheaper to give away CFLs than it is to run fossil-fueled power plants needed to power incandescent bulbs.

One such CFL, over its life, will avoid putting in the air from a typical coal-fired power plant one ton of carbon dioxide, eight kilograms of sulfur oxides, and four kilograms of nitrogen oxides. In terms of electricity generated by oil, it saves the burning of a barrel of oil and all the attendant emissions. Or, if we're talking about a nuclear power plant, one CFL, over the course of its life, will avoid making two-fifths of a ton TNT-equivalent of plutonium plus half a curie (which is a lot) of strontium-90 and cesium-137.

If widely deployed, CFLs could by one-fifth cut the evening peak load that crashes the grid in Bombay. They could raise a North Carolina chicken grower's profits by one-fourth, and they could raise a Haitian family's disposable income by as much as one-third because so much of the sparse cash economy goes for electricity.

A widely unrecognized advantage of such ways of saving electricity is that making them takes on the order of a thousand times less capital than expanding the electricity supply. When you invest in CFLs you also get your money back about ten times faster—so it can be quickly invested again. If we do the cheapest things first, the power sector, which currently gobbles up about a quarter of global development capital, could become a net exporter of capital to fund other development needs.

Such lamps are also the key to affordable solar power that lets girls learn to read, advancing the role of women and reducing population pressure. Currently half a billion CFLs are manufactured annually; the largest maker is China. They can be bought at the local supermarket, and the average person can service it herself. Most of us would never guess such a simple thing could have such an impact globally. But clearly, if we so choose, we can make the world more prosperous, better educated, less polluted and, of course, safer through shared prosperity and justice—one light bulb at a time.

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