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By Michael A. Covington
Back in 1974, during the “energy crisis,” the university removed half of the fluorescent bulbs from its overhead lights. Many lights have been operating at half capacity ever since.
Recently, in my office and laboratory, we restored a few of the overhead lights to their full glory. The benefit was immediate: rooms look more cheerful, and it is easier to read books and papers. The eyestrain that had nagged me for months suddenly went away. Glare on computer screens is not a problem because we didn’t brighten the lights closest to computers and, anyhow, modern screens have antiglare coatings.
Brighter indoor lighting makes people more productive; they feel more awake and energetic. Ergonomic studies confirmed this back in the 1960s and, anyhow, our ancestors spent all day outdoors in the sun. A lack of light in the winter has been linked to a form of depression known as seasonal affective disorder--SAD--and it may be no coincidence that SAD was discovered soon after American office buildings cut their indoor lighting in the mid-1970s.
I think the university should recognize that the panic of 1974 is over and brighten up its
 indoor lights.
I don’t advocate wasting energy, of course, but we should use electricity wisely to help us do our work. That’s what it’s for.
There are better ways to save electricity, anyhow. We can more than recoup the cost of increased indoor lighting by just turning our computers off when they’re not in use. Contrary to popular belief, a PC does not benefit from being left on overnight. The disk-drive bearings and the CRT have a limited life, so whenever you’re using them, you’re slowly wearing them out.
Another way to save energy is to get rid of the currently fashionable ball-and-stick streetlights that send more light up into the sky than down onto the ground and replace them with efficient outdoor lights like those on the stadium bridge. With ball-and-stick streetlights, we seem to be spending more on lighting the bottoms of passing aircraft than on lighting our classrooms.
Michael A. Covington is associate director of the Artificial Intelligence Center at UGA.
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