LED a Safe Solution At Last?
August 1, 2008 at 11:20 am | Filed under: Green Living, Recycling NewsThe well know problem with incandescent lamp is it’s inefficiency. More than 80% of the power running through it is lost in heat. Generations ago institutions and businesses turned to long skinny fluorescent tubes to provide a cheaper alternative. Compact fluorescent tube (or CFL) lamps are now common in homes as well as most of the LCD panels used in laptops, flat screen monitors, and HDTVs. The downside is flourescent tubes use mercury which is damaging to the environment when disposed of improperly.
The computer, electromics, and television industries are transitioning to LED backlights. LED (which stands for Light Emitting Diode) lamps are usually very small and efficient. They are the tiny blinking lights that indicate that you computer is on or accessing the hard drive. Until recently they could not be used in larger applications but now they are finding their way to electronics like cell phones or small laptop displays that benefit from the power and size savings. Manufacturers are working to pit them into bigger screens to eliminate mercury and because LED lamps emit a truer white light that leads to more accurate colors.
There are even manufacturers like, LED*Wave, which create LED replacement lamps for both tubes and CFLs. While more expensive than incandescent or fluorescent lamps, LED lamps last up to 80,000 hours or 27 years of normal use! Combine that with labor saved in replacements and a better quality light and the draw for businesses becomes apparent. Although I may be waiting a while until the prices come down before I start replacing the lamps at home.
