Some people go to extraordinary lengths to keep up with the Joneses during the festive period, decorating their houses, lawns, mailboxes, cars and even pets with all sorts of sparkly decorations. Often these involve fairy lights and other electrical devices, resulting in a pretty hefty Christmas energy bill. In fact, the amount of electricity used to power these festive decorations in the U.S. alone is greater than the entire annual consumption of some developing countries.
According to a study by the U.S Energy Departments Energy Information Administration, seasonal lighting over the holiday period in 2008 accounted for a staggering 6.63 billion kilowatt hours of electricity use.
To put this into perspective, the Centerfor Global Development recently published a blog post comparing this energy consumption with that of other nations. For instance, Cambodia uses 3.06 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in an entire year, which is less than half of the amount used to power Americas festive decorations.
Other nations whose annual consumption is less than that used by these decorations include Ethiopia, El Salvador, Tanzaniaand Nepal.
As if that werent enough to think about, these Christmas lights account for just 0.2 percent of Americas total annual electrical energy consumption. So, maybe its time to start toning it down a little when it comes to snazzing up the house during the holiday season.
Read more: www.iflscience.com
