Re: Anyone moved to LED Lighting?

["Robert Green" <robert_green1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"JeffVolp" <xtbjeff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:7d0Hm.95514$Ca6.4620@en-

<stuff snipped>

> I replaced all the 20W halogens with the 5W Feit CFLs.  There have been a
> few early failures with one lot (2 right out of the package), but they
have
> been very good with the warranty service.

They ought to be with a failure rate like that!  I think it's just a matter
of time before CFL's join 8 tracks tape players, hydrogen filled zeppelins
and biofuels in the "Museum of Things that Seemed like a Good Idea at the
Time."  There are some obvious reasons.

First, the fabrication costs.  As the failure rate you've experienced shows,
CFLs are complicated to manufacture compared to other light sources, and
they still aren't getting it quite right.  LED lamps are still in their
infancy, especially high-enough powered ones to replace incandescent bulbs.
Eventually, when LED technology matures, it's always going to be cheaper to
manufacture a solid state device with very few parts than a CFL.  Why?
CFL's have intricately curved delicate glass tubes that need to be filled
with gas, phospor coatings and a teensy little bit of poison.  Then it all
gets shoe-horned into a package that's *still* not small enough to fit a lot
of fixtures, particularly higher wattage ones.  LEDs are well-positioned to
come out way ahead of CFLs, cost-wise.

Second, since LED light is "colder" than CFL's, it should work in places
where excess heat generation is a problem.  They should help in places where
the bulbs mount base up and the electronics bay of the lamp gets cooked by
the heat rising from the glass tube.  LED lamps are much smaller and will
fit in places where CFL bulbs give people fits.

Third, their performance should be better at low temperatures than CFLs.
Tube darkening and flickering should pretty much disappear with LEDs.  They
will probably not suffer from the dimming problems that afflict CFLs either.
The last time I checked, even the nVision bulbs that work so well with X-10
seem to lose a considerable amount of brightness once they've been running
for a while.

Fourth, LEDs don't contain any mercury and that's going to become a much
more significant issue in the future because mercury contamination levels
are on the rise.  The sad fact is that Americans are notoriously bad
recyclers.  While I'm sure you recycle properly, Jeff, as I imagine most
people here do, the rest of the country doesn't have a very good track
record when it comes to recycling.  Part of the problem is that not too many
people know there's mercury in these bulbs or what its effects are.  Not
many people know that the term " "mad as a hatter" has to do with mercury
poisoning:

http://orf.od.nih.gov/Environmental+Protection/Mercury+Free/

and that mercury levels found in humans is increasing at alarming rates.
The National Research Council (NRC) issued a report that estimates that as
many as 60,000 newborns babies a year  are now at risk for adverse
neurodevelopmental effects from dietary mercury in the US.  Source:
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309071402/html/.

> The CFLs are a better match for my application, especially because of the
wide
> beamwidth.  Only time will tell whether they are more cost effective than
the LEDs.

One of the problems with testing and price comparing LEDs is that they are
such a fast-moving target.  By the time you're able to compare lifespans,
LEDs will probably have taken another quantum leap in efficiency and
affordability.  While CFL's are a relatively mature technology, LEDs are
still taking off.  When the economies of scale in manufacturing kick in,
LEDs will in all likelihood seriously undercut CFL's price-wise.  Even now,
significant price drops in LED lights are becoming commonplace and I expect
that trend to continue until they become much cheaper than CFLs.

It's also hard to make a fair price comparision at this point because power
companies have been "underwriting" (taking money from all their customers
and handing it over to light bulb makers) the cost of many CFL bulbs.
There's a movement afoot in some states (that still have viable, unco-opted
public service commissions) to stop that particular involuntary
redistribution of wealth:

    "C.F.L.s subsidized by California ratepayers are "being resold on eBay
all over the
    country and even in Canada," said Mindy Spatt, spokesperson for the
Utility Reform
    Network. "The utility companies need to do more to provide real, on the
ground savings
    to consumers, not just dump a few thousand light bulbs imported from
China at Home
    Depot.  Source:

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/as-cfl-sales-fall-more-incentives-urged/

Even if most of the factors above didn't exist, the mercury in each bulb is
the final nail in the coffin.  Yes, I know the mercury in CFLs is *supposed*
to be counter-balanced by mercury NOT going up the stack of coal-fired
plants.  But there are two major fallacies in that argument.

One is that old plants *are* being forced to scrub mercury at the stack,
thus changing the equation.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-10-29-mercury-cover_N.htm

Once we clean up the dirty smokestacks, the mercury in CFLs won't be
"offset" anymore, it will just be a brand new vector of mercury poisoning.
Not everything new is good or better by default.  Take, for instance,
aluminum wiring in the home.  When first introduced, it promised to be a
great money saver.  When analyzed over the long run, it had to basically be
banned in homes because it caused a serious uptick in house fires.

And how about that miracle substance asbestos?  Oops.  Turns out to cause
really nasty cancers.  Yet before anyone knew, it was in brakes, insulation,
clothing and even in the Micronite filters of Kent cigarettes!!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7757969

Thousands of people died every year for decades before the truth got out.
It's disasters like these that should make us think before we spread a
potent neurotoxin like mercury to hell and back in a product found in every
home in America.  I grow especially nervous when I hear CFL's touted as the
same sort of "miracle" product.  I guess since we're involved in another
Vietnam-like brush war and on the brink of another world-wide Great
Depression the plain truth is we rarely learn from our mistakes, even those
as serious as asbestos, meaningless wars and financial collapse.

Which brings us to the second fallacy, the indirect v. the direct approach.
Indirect approaches often have some serious blowback.  Politicians assured
us deregulating electricity pricing was going to result in lower prices for
everyone as an indirect result of increased competition.  Anyone out there
notice any serious reductions in their rate per kilowatt hour?  I haven't.
My rates have just about tripled in 5 years.  And in California, where the
power companies learned how to take generators off line (for alleged
"maintenance") to limit supply, the effects were even worse.

Credit default swaps were *supposed* protect against losses investors might
face when buying collateralized debt obligations.  I leave it to the reader
to figure out how well that indirect approach to limiting risk worked out
for the average citizen.  There's a reason why Rube Goldberg contraptions
are so funny.  We *know* that humans have a general tendency to
over-complicate solutions.  Anyone who doubts that just has to look at how
the government is "fixing" the mortgage crisis by giving boxcar loads of
money to the people who caused it in the first place.  That's derangedly
direct.  And woefully wrong.  As wrong as the plan to reduce mercury by
*adding* it to disposable items found in every home and business in the
country and hoping some magical tradeoff occurs.  The proper course of
action is to force power plants to clean up their emissions.

And there's worse to come with the carbon trading systems.  Just like mixing
prime and subprime mortgages, the result will be to mix up polluters and
non-polluters in a system so complex, so confusing and so corrupt that it
will make the banking debacle look like a rounding error.  Yeah, I want to
let Charles "you mean everybody doesn't get interest free jumbo mortgages
like me?" Rangel decide which firms get big exemptions right out of the
starting gate.

On the plus side, though, a lot more people have become aware of the "deal
with the devil" tradeoff of CFLs.  Hardly a green site on the web lavishes
the praise they once did on CFLs and amny now admit that adding mercury to
commonplace household goods is NOT the solution.  Many are casting a more
hopeful eye towards LEDs.

What troubles me the most are the folks that insist that every little
milliwatt we save of electricity is a good thing, but ignore every little
bit of mercury that gets into the environment as nothing to worry about.  If
"a little is a lot" in one case, why not the other?

I suspect by the time the "mandate" forcing consumers to switch off
incandescent bulbs arrives, Congress will have little choice but to extend
the deadline or repeal the law altogether as more and more people realize
the dangers involved.  The mercury content issue will give them the "cover"
they need to back down from the mandate.

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/as-cfl-sales-fall-more-incentives-urged/

has this to say about the surprisingly low penetration of CFLs in the US
marketplace:

    " . . . in regions where C.F.L. campaigns have been heaviest, 75 percent
of screw-
    based sockets still contain incandescents. Nationally, about 90 percent
of residential
    sockets are still occupied by incandescents, D.O.E. has reported."

--
Bobby G.