To do away with electric lamps

The United Nations is urging the world to get rid of incandescent lamps. It has set itself the task to root out the invention of the Russian scientist Alexander Ladygin as ineffective by the year 2016, despite the fact that it has been used for more than a century and has proved good. The UN experts say that it is one of the reasons for global warming.

One year ago Russia got involved in the project en.lighten: which provides for a gradual transition to more modern and “green” illumination technologies which are using more than 20 per cent of world electricity. The UN Environment Programme and also that of the Global Environment Fund (GEF) offers to twice reduce spending at the minimum. If mankind gives up electric lamps by 2020, there will be a chance to avoid global warming.

In the course of a year all lamps with the capacity of 100 watts went out of sale in Russia. All the rest, that is, all electric lamps to which the former Russian leader Vladimir Lenin gave the green light to at the beginning of the last century as part of his plan for the electrification of Russia (GOELRO Plan) are expected to be banned by the year 2014. 100 years ago nobody thought of their efficiency, Head of the Green Peace Russia programme on energy efficiency Igor Podgorny said.

"It was decided that at the first stage it was necessary to get rid of 100-watt bulbs as well as the bulbs with a slightly higher capacity, which have proved to be the most non-economical lamps. In fact, all these are rather heating than lightening devices. Electric lamps convert about 95 per cent of electricity to warmth and only the remaining 5 per cent - to light. At the moment it is impossible to say whether this experiment was a success because one year is a small period. But it will be successful in any case. Simply because energy-saving fluorescent bulbs make it possible to reduce energy consumption 4 to 5 times, which is very good."

Europe stopped using electric lamps 3 years ago.

Meanwhile, scientists continue sending alarming signals. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere from power production generate hundreds of millions of tons of carbonic acid (CO2). Therefore, it is rather doubtful though that a ban on the use of non-effective lamps will be helpful in saving ecology. More radical measures are needed here, Ruslan Sorokin says.

"Electric lamps generate 246 million tons of carbonic acid annually. However, this is not much in relation to the world. Car exhausts generate a lot more poisonous substances."

The United Nations urges mankind to replace electric lamps with fluorescent ones. However, the technologies are developing fast, and soon the latter will be banned too because light-emitting-diodes (LED), which make it possible to save electricity, are coming in place. The majority of office complexes in Moscow are using them.

However, not all countries are ready to get involved in the United Nations project, and weak economies are the reason. The production of effective lamps, which make it possible to reduce the price of electricity, is an expensive pleasure.