FAQs

1. How much of my donation to LiveCooler goes to energy-efficient lightbulbs?

The LiveCooler Carbon Reduction program is designed to have very low overhead. 81% of every donation goes directly to CFL bulbs. 19% covers fundraising costs, credit card fees, program audits and staff costs.

2. What is a CFL?

A CFL is a compact fluorescent light bulb. CFLs are designed to fit in the same sockets as regular old incandescent bulbs. The CFL advantage is their ability to create the same amount of light as an incandescent while only using 26% of the electricity. They are manufactured by many of the same manufacturers that have been making lightbulbs for us for decades. They are sometimes called mini-twists or spirals due to their distinctive shape.

3. How do you know that the CFL bulbs really get screwed in and used?

The CFLs we donate on your behalf get installed in 2 ways. 1) By a non-profit housing organization that is responsible for home maintenance. In this case, staff of the non-profit housing organization install the bulbs themselves. 2) In cases where the non-profit housing group does not do home maintenance, they offer the CFLs to their low-income constituents as a swap. The low-income family unscrews an incandescent bulb and swaps it for a CFL. In either case, CFL distribution information is provided back to LiveCooler and our auditors do spot checks to validate that the bulbs are installed as claimed.

4. How do you define “low-income families”?

The US Government has a very strict and frankly unreasonable definition of low-income which we do not use as our guideline. We seek out low-income families by contacting the non-profit organizations that serve them. These non-profit organizations cannot afford to assist middle-class families due to the large numbers of families in need. We use the term families in a generic sense of the word. Our beneficiaries include elderly widowers, single parents, or even just single adults as well as the traditional family unit.

5. Don't CFLs contain mercury which is bad for the environment?

Yes. As we distribute CFLs we always provide information on the need to recycle the bulbs when they burn out. Yet in spite of the fact that CFLs contain mercury and should not be thrown in the trash, CFLs reduce the amount mercury in the environment even if they are not recycled. The reason is that the mercury we are adding to the environment each day comes from burning coal to generate electricity. Since CFLs use 70% less electricity, they generate 70% less mercury. The mercury reduction far exceeds the amount of mercury in the CFLs themselves.

6. What if the families don't like the CFLs and unscrew them?

Industry surveys of programs where homeowners are given CFLs to reduce their electricity bills show that the bulbs do get unscrewed by some families over time. In our calculation of how much CO2 is reduced by our CFLs, we assume that 5% of the bulbs will get de-installed each year.

7. I have heard that CFLs are not as bright as incandescent bulbs and that their light is an unattractive color.

CFLs have improved since their introduction. Their color, brightness and performance are very comparable to incandescent bulbs with 1 exception: they take roughly a minute to get to full brightness. On the other hand, they last for up to 10 years compared with an incandescent bulb which burns out in 9 months of average use.

8. How much does LiveCooler pay for the CFL lightbulbs?

LiveCooler buys the CFLs that we install from a wholesaler. We buy 15 watt, 20 watt and 25 watt bulbs that are equivalent to 60 watt, 75 watt and 100 watt incandescent bulbs. We pay $2.10, $2.35 and $2.85 each.

9. Is LiveCooler a non-profit organization?

Yes. The LiveCooler Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit corporation with formal 501(c)3 tax exempt status from the IRS.

10. Are LiveCooler Carbon Reduction purchases tax deductible?

Yes, a LiveCooler Carbon Reduction purchase is tax deductible.

11. Are LiveCooler Carbon Reductions verified using an independent carbon offset standard?

Most of the carbon offset certification standards are designed for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects that are in a single location. For example, several wind turbines on a hill or a large factory that is having it's heating system updated. LiveCooler's program consists of CFLs spread distributed among thousands of families. So, auditing each family's lighting fixtures and electricity bills is not cost effective. We are hiring a 3rd party auditing firm to audit our financial records, our CFL installation records and do spot checks on bulb installations to ensure quality.

12. Do I have to live in the US to make a carbon reduction purchase?

No. The only requirement is a Mastercard, Visa, Discover, American Express or Paypal account.

13. How soon after my donation does the carbon reduction begin?

Our commitment is to have CFLs installed on your behalf within 60 days of your donation.

14. Are the carbon reductions permanent?

Yes. The CFLs are not permanent, of course, but the reductions achieved are permanent. The permanence question is usually relevant when talking about carbon sequestration projects where the carbon gets absorbed by newly planted trees. In that case, there are occasions when the carbon reduction is not permanent because of a forest fire.

15. Where are the low-income families that are receiving the free CFLs?

Our first two locations are in Massachusetts and Washington DC. The list of locations will be expanded as we grow but we will be concentrating on US states whose electricity causes the most CO2 emissions.

16. How do you calculate the carbon dioxide reduced by LiveCooler offsets?

The CO2 emissions reduction comes from swapping out an incandescent bulb with it's equivalent CFL. Here are our key assumptions:
Bulb Usage. The bulbs (incandescent and the CFL it replaces) are being used an average of 2.7 hours per day. This figure is based on interviews with home electricity efficiency experts and data gathered by electric utilities. Here is one online example of the data gathered: http://publicservice.vermont.gov/pub/other/marivtfinalresultsmemodelivered.doc
CFL Efficiency. The CFL bulbs use 25% of the electricity of the incandescent bulbs.
CFL Persistence. We assume that during the first year 98% of the CFL bulbs are still at work, year 2, 94%, year 3, 89%, year 4, 84% and year 5, 75% of the CFLs are still being used.
Carbon dioxide per megawatt hour. So far, our bulbs are being installed in New England and in the Washington DC area. For New England electricity, we assume 1,107 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour. This figure is ISO-NE's marginal CO2 emissions rate. In Washington DC we assume 1,960 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour. The 1,960 figure is an average of the CO2 intensity of DC, DE, VA, WV and NC.
Replacing a 100 watt bulb with a 25 watt CFL that is used 2.7 hours per day, saves 74 kilowatt hours per year. In New England that translates to 81.8 pounds of CO2 per year reduced. In Washington DC that translates to 145 pounds of CO2 reduced.
CFL Lifetime. The CFLs we install are rated at 10,000 hours which is roughly 10 years. To be conservative, we only count the beneficial effect of the first 5 years.

17. How many bulbs does each family get? Can they use the new CFL bulbs in their closets where the bulbs get used much less frequently?

Each family can receive up to 8 bulbs and the bulbs are installed in the most used fixtures in the home.