General Electric Switches on LED Lighting
The General Electric company have plans to market their brand of ,the latest energy saying innovation, the LED light bulb.
Light Emitting Diodes have already made headways in our lives in the form of traffic lights and signage, now the home is the battle ground and already a few different companies have stated to market their own led bulbs.
For years homes have been light by the incandescent light bulb, these can be cheaply manufactured but have a down side of being very inefficient at converting electricity into light and have a very low lifespan. LED lighting can reduce the energy used by up to 80% and still provide the same quality of lighting. The additional bonus is that these new light bulbs last a long long time.
The GE light uses 9 watts of electricity but produces the equivalent light as a 40 watt incandescent bulb, so that is means changing all your lighting could reduce your electrical consumption by over 75%. Nobody can argue that is quite a large saving. This along with the reliability, you will still have to replace the bulbs and have spares under the sink, but this chore can easily forgotten as the bulbs last up to 25 times longer. In situations where reliability of lighting is important this can be a major factor.
The downside, at the moment, is the cost. GE estimates their bulbs will cost around US$40-US$50 which is quite a massive price hike compared to the cost of incandescent light bulbs and might put a lot of people off the idea.
Before the idea fades away, you might need to take another look. Around the world legislation is being introduce or in place to stop the manufacture and sale of the old inefficient light bulbs. While this may seem like a blow to a person freedom of choice we cannot over look the need for a worldwide reduction on energy use. Going LED would make a small saving but a noticeable one.
Compact Fluorescent Lighting is a viable alternative to LED at the moment but it may be the case that this form of lighting may have a short life and LED becomes the standard for all forms of lighting.
This authoritarian direction on efficient lighting will force innovation and efficiency in the design and manufacture of LED light bulbs. The lighting capacity will improve and probably most important for the consumer is the cost. Even at the moment those who have insight can see the benefits and savings of changing to efficient lighting but having to pay such a large increase in price for a light bulb will be a large hurdle for many people to overcome.
Inage: GE
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