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TechnoratiLEDs Emerge to Fight Fluorescents
The light bulb, the symbol of bright ideas, doesn't look like such a great idea anymore, as lawmakers in the U.S. and abroad are talking about banning the century-old technology because of its contribution to global warming.
But what comes next? Compact fluorescent bulbs are the only real alternative right now, but "bulbs" that use light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are quickly emerging as a challenger.
LEDs, which are small chips usually encased in a glass dome the size of a matchstick head, have been in use in electronics for decades to indicate, for example, whether a VCR is on or off.
Those LEDs were usually red or green, but a scientific breakthrough in the 1990s paved the way for the production of LEDs that produce white light. Because they use less power than standard incandescent bulbs, white LEDs have become common in flashlights.
Established players in the lighting industry and a host of startups are now grooming LEDs to take on the reigning champion of residential lighting, the familiar pear-shaped incandescent light bulb.
The light bulb has been running out of friends recently. California and Canada have decided to ban the sale of incandescent bulbs by 2012. Australia is banning them in 2010. The European Union is looking at banning production of the bulbs. A U.S. Senate committee is working on a proposal that would phase out the light bulb in 10 years.
And in New Jersey, where the first practical incandescent bulb emerged from Thomas Edison's laboratory in 1879, a bill has been introduced to ban their use in government buildings.
Governments are gunning for the light bulb because it's much less efficient than fluorescents, using about five times more energy to produce the same amount of light.
Lighting consumes 22 percent of electricity produced in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy, and widespread use of LED lighting could cut consumption in half. By 2027, LED lighting could cut annual energy use by the equivalent of 500 million barrels of oil, with the attendant reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas believed to be responsible for global warming.
Much of that reduction would be possible with today's technology, using compact fluorescents, or CFLs. But consumers haven't warmed to them. The light quality hasn't been satisfactory, most take time to turn on and aren't dimmable.
The LED has advantages over the CFL in most of those areas, and judging by this week's Lightfair trade show in New York, it could be a serious challenge to the CFL in a few years. What holds it back is chiefly price, but LEDs are already an economic alternative for niche uses.
In the last two years, the diodes have doubled in energy efficiency and brightness, according to Greg Merritt, director of marketing for Durham, N.C.-based LED-manufacturer Cree Inc. In particular, LEDs that produce a yellowish or "warm" light similar to incandescents have improved.
Dallas-based Lighting Science Group Corp. showed an LED "bulb" that screws into a standard medium-sized socket and produces a warm light equivalent to that of a 25-watt incandescent bulb, but consumes just 5.8 watts. It costs $50, hardly palatable to consumers who can buy a standard bulb for less than a dollar.
Polybrite International, a startup in Naperville, Ill., announced that lighting giant Osram Sylvania, a subsidiary of Germany's Siemens AG, will distribute its LED "bulbs." The intended market is mainly commercial clients, who can afford to pay $15 to $85 per unit, according to Osram Sylvania marketing manager Constance Pineault.
The energy efficiency is no doubt a draw for commercial clients like hotels, but LEDs have another big advantage: they last up to 50,000 hours, according to manufacturers. That compares to about 10,000 hours for fluorescents and 1,000 hours for incandescents. Not having to send out janitors to replace burned-out bulbs means big savings in maintenance costs.
"Right now the applications that make sense are either high maintenance or high power consumption, like parking garages, where the lights are on all the time," said Cree's Merritt.
LEDs already beat fluorescents for energy efficiency in some niche uses. For instance, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is putting LED lighting in its in-store refrigerators, where the cold dims fluorescents and incandescents produce too much heat. LEDs also starting to replace flat fluorescent backlights in liquid-crystal displays, or LCDs, where they produce better colors.
LEDs don't contain toxic mercury, which CFLs do, though the amount is very small. (Recent stories circulating on the Web about calling a hazmat team if a CFL breaks are exaggerated. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends sweeping up, not vacuuming, the fragments, then checking out local recycling options.)
The cost of LED lighting should be coming down quickly. Polybrite founder Carl Scianna said the cost of individual white-light diodes, several of which go into an LED bulb and make up much of the cost, have come down in price from about $8 to $1.50 in a year.
"They're going to keep going down," Scianna said. "By the middle of next year, they'll be priced for consumers."
Nadarajah Narendran, director of lighting research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., cautions that there are still technical issues to work out with LEDs.
While single LEDs can demonstrate very high energy efficiency in the lab, when they're combined into fixtures, their efficiency is considerably lower. In part that's a heat issue: the diodes produce less heat than incandescents, but they keep that heat in the fixture rather than radiating it, and the hotter the diodes get, the less efficient they are.
He sees screwing LED bulbs into standard sockets "as a waste of talent" that doesn't utilize the inherent properties of LEDs, like their small size and longevity.
"You could build them in as part of the furniture, part of the cabinetry," Narendran said.
Because of their high prices, he doesn't believe LEDs will be ready to replace incandescents in all their uses for the next five to 10 years, but "LEDs, good or bad, will be growing very rapidly."
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.
9 Comments so far
Show AllIf you want to learn more about LEDs, and how their environmental impact compares to CFLs and incandescents, I'd recommend checking out this website:
http://weloveleds.com/
It seems that LEDs are really the clear winner when it comes to environmental issues, and judging by that website, the prices are finally starting to come down too...
The CFB lamps are in wide use in Latin America, at least where I spend a lot of time in Mexico. I see them in use around the world actually, but they are cheaply produced, and render poor color quality.
I have been an electrical contractor for the past 27 years. As such, I connect people to thousands of amps of potential use every year. I am always conscious of lighting loads, efficient lighting types, etc. Problem is that lighting is not so much where the waste is. We waste far more power in heat generating appliances, or in refrigeration than we do with lighting. The largest use in a typical residence is the water heater, followed by the refrigerator. Clothes dryers, air conditioners and electric heat are huge consumers.
Alternate types of water heating, such as solar or on demand heaters save a lot of power. An efficient refrigerator saves more than putting in a few compact fluorescents. A small inefficient factory will waste far more power than the same connected load of residences. But none of that gets the press. Lighting seems to get the attention, and so people change out a few light bulbs and get this green feeling all over. They don't think about the huge refrigerator in their kitchen that uses tons of power, and generates heat that needs to be offset by an air conditioner. Or the biggest water heater they can find will let the whole family shower in the morning without running out. An on demand heater never runs out, and turns off entirely the second hot water is not running, thus saving the power it takes to maintain the heat ( and consistent heat loss) of an ordinary water heater.
Save power with lighting by all means. But look at where the power is really going if you want to make a difference. The average house around my house in Mexico has a 30 amp service, the average here is 200.
Warm your body, not the cave. Agreed on the personal warming units... hell, why not make "Love pajamas" for couples and encourage electro-snuggling in the winter? Maybe Mr. Bush and Cheny could test pilot them and see if their hearts warm up.
As for lighting the area, LED headlamps rule. Great for night grilling in the summer! People will need to make these changes sooner or later, the question is how to make the conversion without creating more plastic.
Yes! It's just like they read my comment about CF's yesterday and then wrote an article in response!
I posted yesterday that CF's contain mercury and the light quality isn't as good and I would like to see LED's light our future....VOILA. Today I find this article.
Way to go Common Dreams, you are riding the cutting edge!
Can't wait for the prices to come down. No more light bulbs burning out!!
Actually CFB operate at a much higher frequency than normal fluorescent bulbs. I am quite sensitive to the older ones that oscillate at a low frequency, but find the new ones quite acceptable and with the right color formulation, preferable to incandescent bulbs. Traditional SAD treatment lights have been made with fluorescent bulbs (D50) as incandescent bulbs have too low a color temperature.
In this case I think that CFB are the better option over incandescent and fluorescent bulbs (the long candles).
I would like to see countries in the global South, like Nicaragua, who suffer chronic electricity shortages in trying to keep up with what we impose on them, receive some kind of aid to fund the replacement of incandescent bulbs instead of becoming the garbage cans of the unused and discarded bulbs and the bulb factories of the north.
I would like to ask for a restriction on the export of incandescent bulbs to the global South, all should benefit equally and this should not be another episode of sending our garbage outside our borders.
I would hate to see a ban on all incandescent lamps of all kinds. Fluorescent light pulsing can be irritating to many (bad for epileptics). Some people, especially in Northern winters, find that they need lots of bright incandescent light to prevent "Seasonal Affect Disorder" (SAD), which if you haven't experienced, can be difficult to accept as something real.
I favor green taxes on carbon emmissions from fossil-fuel generated electricity (not for wind or solar). Also, progressive pricing (1st 1000 Kwh/month... $60, 2nd 1000 Kwh/month... $75, 3rd 1000 Kwh/month... $95 and so on, with the excess payments going into a loan pool for sustainable energy production and conservation projects.
Lighting a whole area is a waste of energy. Light source should be carried on the person so that only the area they go to are lighted, or they could wear light amplification glasses so as to function in near darkness as if it is daytime.
Same goes for heating and cooling whole room and buildings. Why heat/cool 99% of the space when we occupy only 1% of it? The devices should be enclosed into something we wear, so only our body gets heated or cooled. Much more energy efficient.
Forget cars, why lug the equiv of our living room everywhere with us? Why we use a 4000lb car so that we could lug our 200lb body around is beyond me. We could get by with just something that is not much larger than the size of our body, which would not have to absorb nearly as much penalty of lugging its own weight around.
Yeah!
Imagine LED arrays applied to your ceiling like wallpaper, providing warm shadowless light in every corner.
You could even turn off every 2nd, 3rd, 4th (etc.) LED to adjust the level. With motion sensors, the house could illuminate only the rooms that are occupied and even follow you as you move around the house or even within a room.
Our grandchildren will only see lamps in antique shops. Their lighting will be built right into the structure (and cost)of the house.
You can make this happen by supporting the technology today. Buy an LED flashlight or table lamp - even if there are cheaper alternatives. (It's like driving a Prius).
Now that I think about it if I hook LEDs in series, I think I can run them on 12 volts DC. It's worth a try; might fry the LEDs but thats the worst that can happen.
I can't find a White LED for 12 volts! I can find red ones.