The Economy-Changing Power of the LED Bulb

Per-capita electricity use peaked in the U.S. in 2007. With the exception of a post-recession rebound in 2010, it has declined every year since. I already wrote a column about this epochal shift last month, but the chart that went with it is so remarkable that I'm going to recycle it here.

What caused the decline? I offered several possible explanations. One of them was increased efficiency of electrical appliances. Several readers wrote in to suggest that perhaps it was the lightbulb that did it. Thomas Edison's incandescent bulbs are being pushed aside by energy-efficient light-emitting diodes, aka LEDs, and that had to have had an impact on electricity use.