Real LED light bulbs are now available....

Today's post: Wednesday, 12-22-2010

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just a bit over 3 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post: Real LED light bulbs are now available

It’s nice to have some good news to report.

There are literally huge numbers of homes where lighting fixtures and various kinds of lamps are already there in these homes and designed to take incandescent light bulbs.

1. Incandescent light bulbs are still in a majority of those lighting fixtures and lamps.

2. More recently, compact fluorescent bulbs have become available. But with them, there is good news and bad news and some very bad news.

The good news is that they produce the same light as incandescent bulbs but use only a quarter of the watts of electricity to do so. That means that what was a 60 watt bulb or a 57 watt bulb can be replaced by an incandescent bulb of 14 or 15 watts but will deliver the same amount of light.

The bad news is that they cost about 14 times as much but although they do last longer, it’s only about four or five times longer with the bulbs I’ve had. And they burn slightly hotter and are slightly bigger than incandescent light bulbs. So you can’t put them in all the fixtures and lamps.

The very bad news is that they are a hazardous materials risk to have in your home and even more so when they wind up in the landfill along with regular trash. They contain mercury and release it into the air and nearby surfaces when they break.

Even worse, many if not most people who have installed compact fluorescent bulbs have no clue this is so and wind up with exposure to mercury when one breaks.

So, while compact fluorescent bulbs have been justified to some degree because they save so much energy, compact fluorescent bulbs get a very mixed review.

3. LED light bulbs have the by far the superior technology. They are almost twice as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs. And, they last as much as 20 times longer than compact fluorescent bulbs which is 80 to over 100 times as much as incandescent bulbs.

For some time now, LED lights have been going into stop lights and overhead street lights and commercial Christmas light displays for both their energy savings and dramatic savings on the labor to install new bulbs that LED light bulbs eliminate.

But LED light bulbs have not been available that would work in most lighting fixtures and lamps in homes.

Not any more! Real LED light bulbs are now available.

Their distributor, so far as I know now, only sells to building contractors and lighting stores and other commercial accounts. And, they don’t disclose the company that manufactures the bulbs they sell.

I recently asked at a local lighting products store if they as yet had any LED light bulbs that would fit our lamps and fixtures.

They then showed me the two sizes they had. One produced the same light as a 75 watt incandescent bulb but only used 9 watts! That’s also about half the watts it would take to run a compact fluorescent bulb that produced that much light.

The LED light bulbs I bought turned out to be just a bit too long to fit all our lamps and fixtures. But it was close even there. Better, unlike compact fluorescents, it looks more like an incandescent bulb.

The downside is I didn’t have enough money to buy all the LED bulbs that would fit.

They were $57 for one and $107 for two. We need about 12 to 14. But I was able to afford the first two. They work great!

And, even though I hope the cost drops by at least 5 to one soon, on a lifetime basis they aren’t that bad. Each LED bulb will replace about 80 to 100 incandescent bulbs -- which would otherwise cost at least $60 to $75 per light over that time. That’s actually a bit better than the compact fluorescents we’ve had as well.

So, to help cut our electricity use without cutting back on your light at home, please consider doing two things.:

A. Buy as many LED bulbs as you can afford now.

B. And, write the person who is the main executive or director for your State’s Utilities commission and urge them to give permission and to have all the utility companies in your state buy all the LED lights that each home needs and then allow the homeowner or renter to pay back the cost over 20 years or even 10 years.

For example, the 7 pairs of LED light bulbs we initially needed would be $399 or a bit less. If we paid back the utility $480 over 10 years that would be $4 a month and our cost for the electricity saved would likely be that much or more! Plus even if someone lost all the LED light bulbs to a house fire, virtually everyone can afford $4 a month.

The utility would be spared the cost of building a new generating plant or two by doing this, so it would be a win for them too!

It’s early yet. But this is very promising news indeed now. And, it will get better soon!