A Christmas fairy lights story
Glad tidings from The Reengineer!
In late 1882, a newspaper reporter walked into the parlour of a big house in New York City and saw something that would, eventually, change Christmas forever: a tree swathed in strings of colourful electric lights. This Christmas tree belonged to the inventor Edward H. Johnson, who worked for the Edison Illuminating Company.
“One can hardly imagine anything prettier,” wrote the visiting reporter, when he described Johnson’s electrically illuminated Christmas tree, thought to be the first in the world, in an article for the Detroit Post and Tribune. Thomas Edison had filed the first patent for his revolutionary electric light bulb only a few years earlier.
Not only was Johnson’s tree colourfully lit, it was placed on a revolving base, which had a special purpose. According to Guinness World Records, a live wire within the base made intermittent contact with conductors for different sets of coloured lights on the tree as it revolved, enabling the system to continually switch between the (somewhat jingoistic) colours of red, white and blue.
Despite fascination with this display at the time, and the potentially life-saving benefits of electric lights over traditional candle-based tree illuminations, which often caused fires, it took four or five decades before electric holiday lighting began to gain significant popularity.
And then it boomed. So much so that, by the early 2000s, this form of decoration was becoming embarrassing. A much-quoted paper from the US Department of Energy estimated that, in 2007, decorative holiday lights in the US were guzzling 6.63 billion kilowatt hours annually. At the time, that was more than some entire countries’ yearly electricity consumption.
The future’s bright
LED penetration in 2007’s decorative lighting market was a mere 5.2%, though, according to the paper. Adoption of LEDs has certainly grown a lot since then. For what it’s worth, in 2021, energy firm Arcadia used a different methodology to estimate that the electricity consumption of decorative lighting in the US amounted to 3.5 billion kilowatt hours for the month of December.
These days, moderating one’s use of Christmas lights is a strategy often mentioned in discussions about how to make the festive season more sustainable. And, because of rising energy prices, some homeowners have decided to switch off many of their festive lights. The UK’s Money Saving Expert website even has a Christmas lights calculator, to help people work out how much their decorations could be costing them.
Look at that arc. From a one-off, fantastical invention to a practically ubiquitous consumer product that we must now weigh up in terms of sustainability and cost – despite improvements in efficiency. The same story could be told about so many different technologies and appliances.
And yet there’s always another way to do things. To reengineer. Consider the English villagers who made a makeshift, energy-generating waterwheel out of spare bicycle parts. For the past seven years, this contraption has powered 3,000 LED lights strung on outdoor trees in Bradwell, in the Peak District.
“We are all quite green in our outlook,” local parish councillor Andy Nash told the media recently. “So we got temporary permission for us to power the lights in the dark hours. […] In the day, the waterwheel stores energy from the brook and holds it for the night-time illuminations.”
Last year, the so-called Bradwell Hydro Project benefitted from a shiny new metal wheel installed by a local engineering company. It helps reduce the frequency with which locals must jump into the brook to adjust or repair the system, in order to keep the festive lights shining.
The innovative spirit of Edward H. Johnson lives on, it seems – though tuned to the whims and requirements of a very different era, an era when we need creative thinking and energy efficiency more than ever.
That’s my kind of Christmas decoration.
Thank you, readers
As the year draws to a close, I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported and subscribed to The Reengineer since it launched on 14 November. Although the newsletter is still less than six weeks old, I have been thrilled by how quickly its audience has grown. I love writing this newsletter and I have some really fun stuff planned for next year. I can’t wait to share it with you!
Between now and the New Year, paid subscribers will receive The Reengineer Monitor (a handy digest of energy, engineering and resilience stories) in their inboxes but otherwise, that’s it from me for 2024. The first story of the New Year will be published on 9 January.
If you are enjoying The Reengineer, please do consider sharing it with friends and colleagues. Being such a young publication, this can have a huge impact. I know Christmas is only two days away but there’s still time to send someone a paid subscription if you are struggling for last minute gift ideas.
Well, the only thing left to say is this: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I shall see you all in 2025.