Big Energy Savings from LED Lighting
2GreenEnergy mega-supporter Gary Tulie sent me this interesting report on the potential energy savings associated with a complete switch (pardon the pun) to LED lighting.
I’m reminded of a story that ex-governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell (pictured) told at a conference a few years ago about the bitter hostility that the Republicans and the Democrats were having on the subject of lighting, where the latter group proposed a bill that would phase out incandescent lights and, after a period of time, make their sale illegal, in favor of CFLs and LEDs. The GOP fought the bill for years on end—fiercely opposing it whenever it arose. Rendell said, “The Republicans hate this with a passion, even though its only real effect is to save energy. Why on Earth would anyone fight to use more energy? Do they have an enormous hidden warehouse of incandescent lights somewhere, waiting to hit the market?”
I can remember reading articles about this very subject while this was going on and more importantly the comments people would leave at the bottom. I could sum it up by saying there are some really stupid people out there. Their biggest “fear”, which is what seems to drive this type of people, was mercury release when a CFL was broken. The things these people could think up would make your head explode. I had 3 step kids living with me until they went out on their own and I was a kid and I can honestly say I don’t think I saw 3 bulbs of any kind broken in my entire life. These people made it sound like bulbs got broken a couple of times a week which made me wonder more about their competence than the potential mercury released. Of course no mention was made about the additional mercury released by the additional coal burned to make the additional electricity for the incandescent bulbs over the CFLs.
I do find that reading the comments after an article is a far better indicator about the opposition to these things in general than the article itself. There are some real wild ideas out there about what kind of “damage” green energy and energy efficiency will do.
Wanna be scare out of your wits? Read the comments.
I strongly believe in replacing incandescent lights with CFLs or LEDs where they make sense. However, there are places where only incandescent lights make sense. Therefore, they should remain available.
Many of us have closets which are illuminated. Closet lights are rarely on for more than a minute at a time and usually are not on more than a few times a day. Thus, the amount of energy that could be saved by replacing incandescent lights in closets with either CFLs or LEDs is trivial. Moreover, in closets, an incandescent light will probably outlast a CFL. The rated life of a CFL is based on assumptions on how many times it is turned on and off because everytime it is turned on, a significant amount of its life is lost. When a CFL is turned on and off only once a day it will probably significantly outlast its rated life. On the other hand, if it is turned on and off frequently, its life will probably be much shorter than the life of an incandescent lamp.
The life of LEDs is probably not affected by frequently turning them on and off. However, it still does not generally make sense to use them instead of incandescent lamps where the hours used is very little.
What the purveyors of CFLs do not tell the public is that, where it is practical to do so, it is better to use classical fluorescent tubes since they are somewhat more efficient. Also, classical fluorescent tubes contain no electronics; rather, the electronics are in the fixture and therefore do not need to be replaced everytime the tube is replaced. Having to replace the electronics of CFLs every time the light needs to be replaced is wasteful, uneconomical, and not environmentally friendly.