Turn out the lights
Originally posted Saturday, December 22, 2007
“The new energy bill signed this week makes it official. When 2012 hits, stores can no longer sell the cheap but inefficient incandescent light bulbs that are fixtures in most homes.”
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are the answer. They are nontoxic (no mercury) and last 50,000 hours compared to 1,000 for incandescent bulbs and 6,000 for compact fluorescent lights. Alas, so far they can’t make them give off white light.
New efficient bulb sees the light.
I wonder what it says about halogen, xenon and other types of bulbs besides normal incandescents. I don’t know how efficient they are; halogens get very hot, so they are probably wasteful too.
Wikipedia addresses the ways they make white light from LEDS here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode, then sec. 2.3