Tuesday, June 2, 2009

LEDs will light the way

Good article about LEDs in the NYT.

Starts off, for some reason, with an account of all the new lighting at Buckingham Palace:

...the palace has installed the lighting in chandeliers and on the exterior, where illuminating the entire facade uses less electricity than running an electric teakettle.

On LED lighting's advantages:

Studies suggest that a complete conversion to the lights could decrease carbon dioxide emissions from electric power use for lighting by up to 50 percent in just over 20 years; in the United States, lighting accounts for about 6 percent of all energy use. A recent report by McKinsey & Company cited conversion to LED lighting as potentially the most cost effective of a number of simple approaches to tackling global warming using existing technology.

LEDs are more than twice as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs, currently the standard for greener lighting. Unlike compact fluorescents, LEDs turn on quickly and are compatible with dimmer switches. And while fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, which requires special disposal, LED bulbs contain no toxic elements, and last so long that disposal is not much of an issue.

And under the heading of 'Ain't life a bitch?':

Mr. Byrne recognizes that Buckingham Palace is not the average home. “They need high-quality light — they have a lot of gold,” he said, “and gold tends to look silver if you light it poorly.”

Not my problem, dammit!

Go read the rest of the article if you are interested in this subject, but I'm definitely sold on LED lighting and I'll give ya a coupla small examples why from my own experience.

Here's an example of how little current they draw. I have to go with what I know, so this involves Triumph motorcycles. Lucas Electric, whose motto is 'get home before dark', makes a battery eliminator for 12-volt positive ground systems for riders who don't like batteries. I'm one of them. All it is is an electrolytic capacitor that provides a load for the charging system and a little discharge to provide a consistent spark at all engine RPM. Enough technical shit.

Just as an aside, my friend Dave once explained the function of the 2MC capacitor to our friend Sluggo thusly: "Ya gotta fool the bike inta thinkin' it's got a battery", to which Sluggo replied, "Well how ya gonna fool it now? Ya said it right in front of the bike!". Heh.

Here's the point about current draw: an incandescent brakelight bulb draws enough to keep the engine from starting. I once kicked and kicked and kicked a Triumph with one of those capacitors and it just wouldn't start. Lucky for me, Mrs. G was sitting there. After a while, she spoke up,"How come the taillight tries to come on when you kick it?". Hand, meet forehead. The brakelight switch was misadjusted a little. I adjusted it correctly and the engine started right up. Which was no surprise as it was damn near warmed up from all the kicking.

Dave, who dismantles negative ground LED taillight bulbs and rewires them to work in positive ground systems to avoid the high cost of specialty positive ground LED taillight bulbs, and whom I consider pretty expert on the subject, says the bike would have started just fine with an LED bulb since they draw such miniscule current.

Even in something as small and inconsequential as a taillight bulb, LEDs can make a difference. Imagine the difference to a power plant with regard to fuel (coal) burned and emissions if LEDs replaced incandescent, fluorescent, and curly bulbs for our lighting.

I live in a dark neighborhood with no street lights and I use flashlights all the time. I'm transitioning to LED flashlights. I used to recharge my AA alkaline batteries about once a week but I've been using a $2.50 LED flashlight for a year now and haven't had to recharge the batteries yet. I'm also going to go to LED lanterns for use during power outages (he writes, as a series of thunderboomers start up outside. Please, wall socket, hold on for five more minutes!). The longer the batteries last, the slower they get used up. I dispose of mine properly, but too many of them are probably still ending up in landfills. A small point, but one part of the whole.

There's no one thing that's going to make a huge difference in carbon emissions and other environmental concerns. Instead, there are hundreds of small things that will, and LED lighting is one of them.

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