LED light bulbs have gotten to the point where they're bright enough to be used in many applications in your home. They're not as "blue" as they used to be and now come in a cool and warm white too.

They give off mostly directional light so they can't replace EVERY bulb in your home. However for directional applications like task, accent, wall-wash lighting they're excellent.

Main benefits of LED Bulbs:

1. Lasts 50,000 hours - (That's 17 years at 8 hours usage a day!) 50x longer than an incandescent and 12x longer than a halogen means fewer bulbs dumped in landfills as well as less pollution from the manufacture, purchase and disposal of these bulbs.

2. Uses 80% less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs. A 10W LED bulb will give you about the same amount of light as a 50W incandescent flood bulb. 

2. Doesn't contain Mercury - Unlike CFL's that contain mercury (that is a neuro-toxin) and require a complicated clean-up process (http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/)

3. Runs cool - so safer around children and reduces your air conditioning costs. I've been told by both energy engineers as well at energy efficiency classes that a good rule of thumb is for every Watt of energy you save in electricity by using LED lighting, you also reduce your A/C costs by 0.2W. E.g. saving 100kWh in lighting lets you reduce your A/C by an additional 20kWh since it gets less hot.

Payback periods vary from 2-4 years depending on usage. 

Here's a website that sells them:

http://www.eternaleds.com/LED_Floodlights_s/30.htm

as well as an independent review of them from another site:

http://www.greendealsdaily.com/blog/eternaleds-led-light-bulbs-go-beyond-cfls-but-are-they-ready-for-prime-time/

reference link: http://www.eternaleds.com

4 Comments

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argam says:

Led's are the next step in our evolution of light sources.  Just like cassettes went to CDs then went to Mp3s, LEDs are the next step.

posted 06/20/08 at 12:49 PM

 

thecitizen says:

thanks for the update Jeff.  I think those nuggets of info should be included in the body of this solution...would you be so kind as to make the edits? 

posted 06/09/08 at 07:18 PM

 

jeff says:

Hi Wolf - The LEDs themselves should be separated from the bulb and treated as electronic waste, since they are simply semi-conductors similar to a computer chip. The rest of the bulb is made from aluminum or copper and can be recycled for scrap metal.

I've asked around at scrap metal yards and the quantity at the moment is too small. They are not willing to recycle a single bulb at the moment. We're currently exploring the option of a program to collect bulbs that reach the end of their life and send them to scrap metal in larger quantities.

posted 05/28/08 at 02:52 AM

 

thecitizen says:

Like CFLs, is there a method to recycle LEDs?  Are they safe in a landfill if recycling isn't possible or practicable?

 

posted 05/17/08 at 02:55 PM

 

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