Hacker News Reader

Comment by Feeble | Hacker News Reader

I guess we should ban christmas lights in the US too then. They also use more energy than whole countries - https://phys.org/news/2015-12-christmas-energy-entire-countr...

View on HN

The study linked in your sourced article uses data from 2008. It's becoming exceedingly difficult to find incandescent Christmas lights these days. A quick check on two of my local big box store websites shows that non-LED Christmas lights are not even available for sale. LED lights use an order of magnitude less energy, so the current energy consumption is going to be quite different.

That’s a good idea; if you write that up as a blog post and submit it to HN, I’d read it!

Do they also suffer from high exponential growth in energy usage?

No, but they are definitely an excessive use of incandescent bulbs in the United States. It’s too bad they haven’t figured out how to make cheap LED strands that are more diffuse and in warm colors, as this is a significant energy burden for both homeowners and the country’s electrical grid.

Your point that their usage doesn’t accelerate over time is valid, but as the link notes, this is still a significant energy burden on the country and should be addressed over time. It can be worked on in parallel to efforts to curb the growth of crypto coin energy waste, so there’s no harm in encouraging reductions to both.

>It’s too bad they haven’t figured out how to make cheap LED strands that are more diffuse and in warm colors, as this is a significant energy burden for both homeowners and the country’s electrical grid.

They have figured it out. It's becoming exceedingly difficult to find incandescent Christmas lights these days. A quick check on two of my local big box store websites shows that non-LED Christmas lights are not even available for sale. LED lights use an order of magnitude less energy, so the current energy consumption is going to be quite different.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com