By Gabriel Lagarde
From the article:
Christmas lights have something of a unique charm—in some ways serving as luminous symbols of good cheer during the winter solstice, shining brightly and happily during the darkest times of the year.
Americans have a special affinity for these vines of light, garlanded around homes and fashioned into jaw-dropping installations—in fact, it's been reported ad nauseum that the U.S. channels more volts into Christmas bulbs than many developing nations use electricity in a given year.
That's about 6.63 billion kilowatt hours per the Center for Global Development in 2015.
It's enough to put the holiday season power consumption of states like Illinois, Texas and New York on an even playing field with the total year-long power consumption of nations like Austria, Indonesia and Vietnam respectively.
That's supersized holiday cheer for a culture that's never been shy about it's fondness for things that tip the scales, one way or another. But, while people's love for lights is unlikely to dim in the foreseeable future, there may be a lot of motivation to dial down power consumption associated with these multi-colored bulbs—whether it's concerns for the environment, or possibly fire safety, but primarily for the sake of wallets and checkbooks.
Read the full article here.