“T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring…” but wait a minute what’s that? Light Emitting Diodes you say! Kyoto your bed and spring to window, this may just be another savior born of Christmas. Could LED lighting be the answer to all of our energy woes? Well if half of what I am hearing is partly true it just might be.
Lighting accounts for twenty percent of all energy use in the US. All this light, however, comes at a cost; producing the electricity creates pollution from power plants and greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing energy needs from lighting even just by half could save billions of dollars and help wean us off our dependence on oil. Many now see light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, as the potential solution to the problem. Our current system of light is tremendously inefficient; incandescent bulbs waste 95 percent of the energy flowing through them as heat. Fluorescent bulbs are more efficient, but their harsh color has prevented them from fully penetrating the lighting market. LEDs are long-lasting, extremely rugged – one scientist tells a tale of dropping one from three stories and then plugging it into a socket – and promise to be ten times more energy efficient than current incandescent lights. In addition, they remain at room temperature, which can cut down energy use even further by reducing air-conditioning that today offsets heat from lights.
…excerpt from Living on Earth with Steve Curwood, a weekly environmental news and information program distributed by National Public Radio.