Light Emitting Diode Facts:

 

What is LED? LED light bulbs give off directional light, so the light goes where you aim it. LED bulbs are closer to the color of daylight — which new studies suggest is good for staying alert. Our LED light bulbs can be used to replace your standard fluorescent, halogen light bulbs or incandescent. The bright, white LED light produced by our LED Light Bulbs works especially well for all of your lighting needs. LEDs not only produce light more efficiently, they also have a tiny mirror that reflects light in one direction. A more directed light means less wasted light.

 

Why will one bulb change the world?

The world is in an energy crisis. There are governmental measures and laws going up to reduce the current rate of energy consumption all over the world. If we don’t all work to conserve and find alternative supplies of energy, soon there will be nothing left for our children.

MSNBC Video: How LED Bulbs Can Save You $$$

 

Learn about LED:

 

save LED Energy Efficiency
2 Advantages of LED Bulbs
2 The Dangers of Those So-Called 'Energy-Saving Light Bulbs'
2 How to Properly Dispose of Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs (pdf)
 

* CFL Disposal — Closing the loop: CFLs contain a small amount of mercury and should be disposed of properly, ideally recycled. More information regarding mercury in CFLs, including proper disposal options and what to do if a bulb breaks, can be found in this fact sheet.
How to Properly Dispose of Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs *data from Energy Star.gov
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

LED Energy Efficiency:

If every US household replaced just one standard 60 watt bulb with an LED bulb, we could save 24,184,400,000 watts or 24,184.4 megawatts per day. One of the largest power plants in the US could be eliminated as a result of each US household replacing just one standard 60 watt bulb with a LED light bulb.

 

Here's how LED light bulbs compare to ordinary bulbs: A regular 40 Watt incandescent bulb burns through a lot more energy than it needs to produce the light you see. Remember those toy ovens that used an incandescent light bulb to bake brownies? A large percentage of the energy that goes into a 40 Watt bulb is wasted as heat - great for baking brownies, not so great for conserving electricity and saving money. LED light bulbs, on the other hand, generate very little heat as they glow, instead transferring most of their energy directly into light.

The latest LED light bulbs now produce about the same amount of light per watt as compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL). However, unlike incandescent bulbs and CFLs, which splash light in all directions, LED bulbs are directional. They drive their light in one direction, so that you have light exactly where you want it. This directional lighting equals savings in yet another fashion. LEDs don't waste light (energy) on areas you don't need illuminated, which is also why they're perfect task lights.

 

Prior to the introduction of LED light bulbs, if you wanted to use a low watt (less than 4 watts) bulb for ambient lighting, you had to settle for a hard-to-find, expensive, incandescent light or an unsightly florescent. Current LED bulbs are designed to fit standard bases, range from 0.85 to 7.3 watts, and are made for low light situations. In addition to low wattage, you get the bonus of long life and energy efficiency, which all adds up to a 90% savings over standard bulbs

Advantages of LED Bulbs:

    • LEDs produce more light per watt than incandescent bulbs; this is useful in battery powered or energy-saving devices.
  • LEDs can emit light of an intended color without the use of color filters that traditional lighting methods require. This is more efficient and can lower initial costs.
  • The solid package of the LED can be designed to focus its light. Incandescent and fluorescent sources often require an external reflector to collect light and direct it in a usable manner.
  • When used in applications where dimming is required, LEDs do not change their color tint as the current passing through them is lowered, unlike incandescent lamps, which turn yellow.
  • LEDs are ideal for use in applications that are subject to frequent on-off cycling, unlike fluorescent lamps that burn out more quickly when cycled frequently, or HID lamps that require a long time before restarting.
  • LEDs, being solid state components, are difficult to damage with external shock. Fluorescent and incandescent bulbs are easily broken if dropped on the ground.
  • LEDs can have a relatively long useful life. One report estimates 35,000 to 50,000 hours of useful life, though time to complete failure may be longer. Fluorescent tubes typically are rated at about 30,000 hours, and incandescent light bulbs at 1,000–2,000 hours.
  • LEDs mostly fail by dimming over time, rather than the abrupt burn-out of incandescent bulbs.
  • LEDs light up very quickly. A typical red indicator LED will achieve full brightness in microseconds; Philips Lumileds technical datasheet DS23 for the Luxeon Star states "less than 100ns." LEDs used in communications devices can have even faster response times.
  • LEDs can be very small and are easily populated onto printed circuit boards.
  • LEDs do not contain mercury, unlike compact fluorescent lamps.

 

The Dangers of Those So-Called 'Energy-Saving Light Bulbs'

By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
10/8/2007 4:08:07 PM

     It’s listed as the top thing you can do by Al Gore’s Web site on climate change to reduce your carbon impact at home – replacing a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL).

 

     But Gore doesn’t warn you about what could happen if you improperly dispose of them or even accidentally break one. The Washington Post’s Eco Wise columnist Eviana Hartman reminded readers, “they contain a small amount of mercury, a potent neurotoxin.”

 

     “If you toss the bulbs in the trash, they're likely to break, potentially exposing workers to mercury or releasing it into groundwater and soil from landfills,” Hartman wrote in the October 7 Washington Post.

 

     Hartman reported each CFL contains 5 mg of mercury. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but consider what happened to Brandy Bridges of Prospect, Maine when a CFL broke in her daughter’s bedroom.

 

     “One broke,” Joseph Farah wrote in an April 16 WorldNetDaily story. “A month later, her daughter's bedroom remains sealed off with plastic like the site of a hazardous materials accident, while Bridges works on a way to pay off a $2,000 estimate by a company specializing in environmentally sound cleanups of the mercury inside the bulb.”

 

     Hartman encouraged readers to recycle their dead CFLs or call for a “hazardous waste pickup.” She also gave tips for cleaning up CFLs if they break. However, the April 2 Waste News, a trade publication that focuses on issues pertaining to waste products and the environment, reported there has been little discussion about the environmental hazards because of the hype surrounding global warming hysteria:

 

“But warning consumers that they have to dispose of compact fluorescents with care may not be in the best interest of those trying to sell them, she [Ann Moore, recycling coordinator for Burlington County, NJ] said. Along with the additional expense and performance concerns, having to deal with disposing of the bulbs could give consumers another excuse not to buy them, she said.

 

‘You probably don’t want to do that because you’d hate to wreck the momentum,’ Moore said. ‘And that could kill the movement.’”

 

      Another story about the dangers of CFLs and the lack of warning provided by the manufacturers was reported in the April 14 issue of The (Nashville) Tennessean.

    

     “Everybody is throwing all this mercury into the garbage. No one knows this. This should be in bold print on the packaging,” Elizabeth Doermann said to The Tennessean after she broke a CFL and vacuumed it up, spreading the mercury contaminants throughout her home.

     “She held a new package of the lights from which she had learned about the mercury, only after putting on glasses to read the little print. This was after the vacuuming incident,” Anne Paine of The Tennessean wrote. “A square, dwarfed by the bar code, contained the phrases ‘Mercury’ and ‘Manage in accordance with Disposal Laws,’ a phone number and a Web address. It did not say that used bulbs should be treated as household hazardous waste.”