A friend of mine just emailed me about LED lights. It's pretty interesting, so I thought I'd repost it here for you all to see. there are links too if you care to follow them.
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LED lights are expensive!
But over the life (even considering present value for those of you who are money types) they are less expensive. That is why you are seeing them in traffic lights and car lighting.They greatly reduce the amount of electricity we consume which reduces the amount of co2 in the air which increases the likelihood that our children (or nieces and nephews) will be able to live a good life.
Why don't we all try and buy one bulb and see what we think? If you are doing new construction, you can implement LED lighting instead of traditional lighting and the cost goes down dramatically. Replacing an incandescent bulb with an LED is expensive because the base of the bulb has to include a power converter (since LED's use such low amounts of electricity). They have replacement bulbs for incandescent, and halogen bulbs.
If any of you early adopters out there tried LED lighting a few years ago, don't worry they've gotten much much better.
The LED is better than the cool florescence because they last much longer, have a better quality of light (no green/blue cast) and they contain no toxic chemicals.
You can buy some here, or do a google search -
http://store.lsgc.com/For the I-want-to-know-more people...
Some LED bulbs are rated at 50,000 hours, many are rated at 100,000.
The cost of the bulbs are going down too. The above link above has a 100 lumen bug light for $15.00
Just so you know - it is difficult to find a replacement bulb that has an output of over 450 lumens (roughly a 40watt bulb)
If you install new lighting (new construction or remodel) it is easy to get the light quality and quantity you want/need. Also GREAT for landscaping!!
For now, if you are buying a replacement bulb you should either use it as accent or reading lights or where you can build the light up with several light bulbs
For example LED's are perfect for Chandelier lights (you can put in several and still not come close to the watt rating on the chandelier).
If you have low watt track lighting, or a bathroom fixture with several lights then LED is a good way to go.
LED replacement bulbs are not good for just about anything other than the primary overhead light bulb.
LED replacement bulbs are not dim-able (new installations are fully dim-able)
Note: this is what one site claims.. It is a bit biased but it uses old data (that has improved in favor of LED's)
The Main Bias here is that it compares a 60 watt incandescent with a 2 watt LED. The bulb that they are talking about with two watts has a lumen output more equivalent to a 25 watt light bulb so you would need a few to get the same amount of lumens. (therefore to get 75 watts you'd end up spending $140.85 over the 60,000 life saving you only $259.35 but getting more light). The cost of that bulb is now less and many other bulbs have higher lumen/watt output. Regardless over the long haul you save money in real terms.
Cree (an LED manufacturer —
http://www.cree.com/products/lightleds.asp) has just announced that they have can produce a 100 lumen/watt LED. which is incredible (incandescent light bulbs output roughly 20-30 lumens/watt) but they do not sell replacement bulbs, only for new installation... (again why if you are doing construction or remodeling you should consider LED's