system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: It isn't important that I turn off the lights when I go.

In the US, we have a habit of turning off the lights when you leave a room or a house. I've heard in Norway people find this behavior odd because electrical power is so cheap and it's almost entirely renewable. 

Those two factors have changed recently. 

I live in a studio. I have about 8 bulbs to my name (all LED). And our power source is nuclear (although there is natural gas cogenerating steam heat). I have a habit of shutting the lights off when I leave for the day and I just realized that not only is it mildly annoying to come home to a dark apartment, but that it's also probably unimportant now. 

People used to turn off lights when they were incandescent. This burned 40-60 W x 8 bulbs x 10 hours per work day. That's about 4000 Wh for the whole apartment. The entry way is 2 at 1000 Wh. Incandescent bulbs also used to burn out every 1000 hours or so. They're cheap now but I imagine when this rabbit started they weren't. 

So at $0.05/kWh the price was $0.02 per day. That's... not a lot to begin with. It's not even a dollar on a monthly bill. Given that LED's are like 6x more power efficient, we're talking about $0.75 per year. I'll pay $0.75 to not come home to a dark room and to potentially ward off a burglar. 

Is turning off the lights an anachronism?

**Edit. Fixed my math. long story short its like $6 a year to light my entryway all day.
gpt
Although the source of your power is nuclear, that doesn't mean it's entirely renewable. It's less, but it still has an impact. 

It's not a big deal for you to leave on the lights. Just like how it's not a big deal for one person to leave the water running while brushing their teeth, or not a big deal for one person to avoid recycling, or not a big deal if one person doesn't vote. 

But it's the collective effort of many that creates the solutions, or issues. If everyone left their lights on, then it would create a noticeable impact in electricity demand which could cause a bigger issue in the future.