Calculator: Cost comparison of Incandescent vs CFL vs LED globes

Thanks to Chris from MapaWatt.com and Mitra Ardron for extending the analysis by taking inflation into account – I have modified the calculator for South African (Cape Town) conditions: price of electricity, the price of the globes, and the inflation rate of power costs.


LED (Light Emitting Diode) globe, CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamps), and the bad old fashioned incandescent globe

To quote Mitra:
”
The spreadsheet tracks the cost curves for Incandescent, CFL and LED globes so you can see at what point you would break even. 
“

HTT has changed the figures for South Africans: electricity cost per kWh, and prices for the different types of bulbs
Based on a set of assumptions (that I got from Mapawatt), it shows (at 4 hours/day usage):
* CFL's are better than all of them from year 1, it takes 17 years for LED's to beat CFL's but then need replacing after year 35. 
* LED's beat Incandescent globes after 3-and-a-bit years.


To quote Mitra again:
”
Obviously this depends on assumptions about inflation in electricity prices, so I've added a second tab, where I assume electricity inflates at 7% more than general inflation.
”
HTT has changed the inflation figures for South Africans: electricity is due to go up 25% for the next 3 years (and probably beyond that too).

Don’t give up on the LED globes - in the near future, I’m sure that their prices will drop drastically and will replace CFLs.

Here are the screen shots of the charts showing the results: no inflation, and with inflation (note: horizontal axis have different scales)
 
       

Is it just me, or do you also think that the power guzzling little incandescent globes should be banned!

To see the actual formulae and data download the calculator here:  HTT_Calculator_Lighting_cost_analysis_SouthAfricaAug2011.xls

The electricity rates for Cape Town for 2011 are here:  http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/electricity/tariffs/Pages/default.aspx

Amazing new water purification system – you have to see this “magic”

If your business is water purification or treatment then you need to see this new technology that turns dirty water into crystal clear water before your eyes. This new machine is about to arrive in South Africa for a show-and-tell road trip and will then go into production in South Africa for delivery to all corners of the world.

From the AquaMag Africa home page:
“
The patented MagSep Magnetic Separator is a revolutionary water clarification system designed to efficiently remove fine pollutant particles from water.

It can be added to an existing water treatment system to enhance performance or be installed as a new system to meet tight discharge limits at the lowest cost.

The MagSep is compact and usually meets the tightest space limitations. For example, a unit measuring 1.4 metres by 1.5 metres can process over 1,300 litres per minute.
”

Benefits:

• Low cost
• Small size
• High water quality
• Low energy use
• Low waste
• Reliable
• Easy to operate
• Operates by gravity
• No pumps
• 3 small motors

See the video on YouTube (below [2MB]) to see the water go from muddy to crystal clear before your eyes!:

Aquamag Magsep Water clarification system

Printing only some pages from Microsoft Outlook is not possible... until now

I have often wanted to print only the first page of an email, but the MS Outlook program only allows you to print odd or even pages (whatever for, I ask!), and multiple copies.
Even Outlook 2007 has this problem....

A workaround that I use is: first print the (full) email to a pdf file (using the free PDFcreator [17MB] then use Adobe Reader [41MB] to print the pages that I need.

Hope this helps in saving that precious paper!