LEDs: Fighting Global Warming, One Bulb at a Time

[infoseeker]

LEDs have a number of advantages, but the first, for those who are interested in preventing global warming, is their efficiency. The authors of a paper entitled "U.S. Competitiveness in Solid State Lighting" were able to conclude that, were the U.S. to move aggressively to LED lights, the nation could save $130 billion in power costs by 2025.

Now that it has cooled off in California, or at least it had until my wife saw our power bill for the month of July, it seems like it might be a good time to talk conservation, and touch on some of the technologies that can be used to reduce our use of fossil fuels as well as keep our power bills from resembling the national debt.

If you want to see how much power you are wasting pick up a little device called the "Watts Up." This gadget measures your power usage and tells you how much an appliance is costing you. It's a very scary device but it can help put you on the road to significant savings and only costs about US$110. There is also a Pro version for $50 more which actually does ROI analysis on new energy efficient appliances. This can be a great tool to help justify that new LCD TV or any new Energy Star appliance.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/H...t-a-Time.xhtml

infoseeker

[James S]

yea, except it's not true.

an LED bulb would blow away a regular old incandescent, but a good CF bulb wipes the floor with them as far as lumens per watt output and that is blown away by a linear tube with an electronic ballasts. Then if you really want to go crazy and need a lot of light you can get metal halide and other arc lamps that put out even more per watt.

LED's are WAY more efficient up to a few watts. I'm sure others will chime in with the specifics. This is why they are SO much better in a flashlight. But when you're talking about a 75 watt output bulb, a CF bulb still will output tons more light for that level of power input.

This is changing though, LED's are getting better all the time. When the latest generation of LED's we're reading about make the transition to full production and the price comes down (and we find that they really last as long as we hope and that they really put out as much as we hope and that thermal issues can be addressed) then they will give tube lights a run for their money. But not this year.